Florence!

Following our great Roman adventure we took a train to Florence.
Mikey - you ready to go to Florence?

We stayed in this real cool boutique hotel, however there were members of our group that were convinced that it was haunted and spent the 48 hours in Florence living in fear.
Florence is a beautiful city with gorgeous architecture and it's built for walking. We spent a majority of our two days there walking around and boozing & eating at cafes.

While walking we saw some interesting things, including but not limited to:
A bicycle that didn't get me anywhere (yeah I'm sucking on a Chupa Chup, what of it?):

Some nice art - this is me trying to get head from a head:

And, Kyle Style! Our buddy Kyle enjoyed holding himself up horizontally on street signs. This street sign happened to be perfect b/c the sign is like the opposite of what he's doing:

Kyle did this on a lightpost in Rome and his legs almost got clipped by a bus - so comical and scary all at the same time!
After appertivos and drinks at this awesome spot called Moyo, we had a nice dinner and lots of wine. Then we attempted to go to a club that we had heard a lot about, Central Park. After about an hour of trying to get a cab I decided that I'd have a better go at it on my own - bad call. I wandered the streets for awhile and got some more cocktails before finally getting to the club (about a half hour after the other guys had arrived). The effort was well worth it; this club was SICK!

Somehow Mike, Mike & I managed to get into the VIP room where we hung out with a group of American girls that were studying abroad. We got shitty until the wee hours of the night and then returned to our hotel and called it a night.

Our second day in Florence was spent pretty much the same as the first - lots of walking and drinking with some eats worked in. The food in Florence was by far the best. During the day, at cafes, we ate lots of pizza and Florence did pizza well!

On our second night we went to dinner at a restaurant that came highly recommended by a lot of people (both Americans & Italians), Giostra. It did not disappoint - this was the best meal of the entire trip! The manager said that they are looking into opening one in NY. If they ever do I can assure you that I'll be there for the opening.

Following dinner we decided to go back to Central Park - if it ain't broke don't fix it; besides it was Thursday night so it had to be even better than a Wednesday, right? It was fucking closed!!! Not cool. So we asked the cab driver if there was anything else similar that we could go to. He told us that he had just the spot - after a 5 minute cab ride we roll up to a different club - closed! The cab driver told us that there was one other place but it was about 20 minutes away. We had no other option so we told him to take us and held our breaths that it would be open. Great Call!
We arrived at a place called Flo. Initially the bouncer didn't let us in b/c I was wearing an undershirt (not even kidding), but after all of that effort we were not getting denied. We agreed to get a table and bottle service and all of a sudden my attire was a non-issue...
I liked Central Park better, but Flo was freaking awesome too - we had a ridiculous night, met some cool people, and the manager from Giostra even showed up and chilled with us for awhile.

One of the chicks that I was talking to was French - things were going real well until she told me that she wanted to 'piss on me'. Not kidding, those were her exact words. The pure terror in my face combined with the uncontrollable laughter from Buckley made for an unforgettable experience for all that witnessed it.
In case you're wondering what a golden shower faucet looks like, see below:

They made last call and put on Coolio's Gangsta Paradise - to which we all wiled the fuck out - and just like that our last night in Italy was over.
After some lunch and last minute shopping the following day we all said Ciao to Italy with a heavy heart.

Rome, Sweet, Rome

After an epic weekend in Capri we jumped on a train and headed north for Rome.
Mike are you excited to go to Rome?

I'll take that as a YES!

We arrived on Sunday evening and got right back into our routine - lots of drinks, cuban cigars for me, and an awesome dinner. We found a little cafe where the ridiculously flamboyant gay owner (Giuseppe) told Kyle that he wouldn't even watch him in a gay porno. That was good for a laugh. Kyle was so upset that I had to console him in the gayest way possible to make him feel better.

After dinner we bounced around to some bars - the neighborhood we were in was a lot of fun, it had almost a college town feel to it. At the last bar we visited Jay found someone special and was very upset when it was time to leave:

Our first full day in Rome we took to the streets and walked up the equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Rome (I definitely don't remember the name of the street). It was a really nice walk and we came across my retail store

We also walked through some incredible piazzas & squares and found great elevated viewpoints overlooking the entire city.



Not too far from where we took the above picture we came across the trippiest "park" with crazy art - weird designs, colors, shapes. I thought we had arrived in Amsterdam early. My favorite sculpture by far was Super Queeros (this is Batman laying down and Superman about to mount him):

After walking around all day we stumbled upon the coolest row of bars/clubs on the banks of the Tiber River (which runs right through the city). We chilled at a really cool place with an awesome DJ and we were introduced to Apertivo! Apparently it's common in Italy (and throughout Europe) for bars/cafes to put out huge free buffets from like 6 - 9. It's amazing!

We stayed at the bar until last call and then headed home for the night.

We organized a private tour of ancient Rome - the forum & the coliseum - for Tuesday, our final full day in Italy's capital. We got a great history lesson and our guide was a total smokeshow!

After our tour was over we walked around the Vatican on our own, which was cool, and then found a most interesting mode of transportation that some of the boys took out for a spin.

After a long day of wandering the Roman streets we had an incredible dinner at a restaurant near our hotel and then headed out for one last shit-show in Rome.
No pictures from our last night in Rome but I can assure that we tore it up.

Capri!

We started our European adventure with a weekend in Capri, a small island off the coast of Naples. I can't put into words how beautiful this island is. Our hotel was in the perfect location, right next to the Marina. Vanna, I mean Mikey, why don't you show the nice people what I'm talking about:

Thank you.

Here's another shot of the island & view:

Within about 6 hours of being on the island we were already regulars at a cafe located right on the marina - incredible for beers, people watching and olives! Our waiter, Roberto, was the man and took good care of us (probably b/c we were tipping at 20% when most Europeans don't tip at all...).

On our first night we took a cable car up to the square - an area surrounded by narrow streets of high-end retail shops, restaurants, cafes & bars. At night there was live music, dancing and lots of drinking. I LOVE the square - we owned that bitch!

After an incredible dinner we sat and had a couple more bottles of wine, a few cuban cigars and lots of laughs. We then got a table at the best club in Capri (without knowing it at the time). After lots more drinks and some dancing we decided it was 4:30am and time to go, we had been getting after it straight from the airport about a day and a half earlier.

However, upon leaving the club we came across a packed outdoor cafe and decided to grab another table. A few more Peronis and some croissants later we finally took a cab home. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Waking up for day 2 we knew that our goal was to rent a boat and circle the island while checking out some of the caves & grottos, and most importantly jumping off of cliffs! We found Gennarino, an awesome 80 year old that was from one of the oldest families on Capri, to take us out on his boat. The water level was too high to go into the Blue Grotto so we couldn't go there - that was probably the only disappointment of the whole trip - but we did get to visit some other caves and see incredible views of the island from the sea.

That left just one thing to do before returning to the marina - CLIFF JUMPING!!!
I'm awaiting the video which I'll post under a different heading once I get it from our cameraman (Mike).
Sorry, I stand corrected, Jay had a second thing that he also had to get out of his system before we headed back to shore:

Once we collected our things and got off the boat we went to see our good friend Roberto for a few more beers (and by a few I obviously mean dozens).
After showers and a little down time we headed out for the night. Since the first night was so epic we decided to do it all over again, just with a different restaurant for dinner. This restaurant had an incredible view and the meal was absolutely amazing (and crazy expensive) with the best dish being our lobster spaghetti.

Following dinner we headed back to the square and got our same pimp table, enjoyed drinks, cigars and conversation then headed back to the club with some friends that we made during the day.

While at the club we met another American - Ashley Olsen. We chatted to her for a minute but she was unhappy and shocked that I didn't know who she was. Oh well.

We left the club at around 5am and went to our after hours cafe, where the same waiter gave us the same table and brought out the exact same order from the night before - Peronis & croissants.
After an hour or two I was told that it was time to go home. I didn't feel like leaving yet and expressed my disdain:

We took a cab home as the sun was coming up over the marina. What a beautiful sight...

We had a couple of hours on Sunday before we had to leave for the train station, but we were pretty wiped (and soar from the cliff jumping) so we just laid around and then took the ferry back to the main land to get our train to Rome. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect way to start our trip. Capri is one of the most incredible places that I've ever been and I'll never forget it.

Back in One Piece

We went, we saw, we CONQUERED. Returned to NY last night (just in time for fireworks) with only minor battle wounds; our bank accounts however took some serious damage. It was an incredible trip and if Buckley and I disappear at any point it's probably because we've found an apartment in Rome and moved there immediately.
I apologize for not posting updates while traveling, but since I was on an actual vacation and had internet limitations I wasn't able to write in real time. Once I'm caught up with work, and I get pics & videos from everyone on the trip I'll write a city-by-city recap.

Here's a preview (photo from our first night just before dinner, Capri):