August 11, 2006
Our final day in Rome was just a simple day of doing our laundry and wandering around Rome. After we finished our laundry, we found that we were locked out of our hostel despite the manager saying he'd be around to let us in (our hostel had a 12-4pm lockout policy). Undaunted, we made our way to a small pizzaria we had lunch at the day before, which sold thick slices by the gram. Sipping on sodas and eating our lunch, we watched a number of cats lounging on some excavated ruins in central Rome. The ruins, which were below street level, were now part of a cat sanctuary, where stray cats were fed and given medical care and just waited to be adopted. It didn't seem like a a very hard life for the cats (though there was a sign stating that one cat was missing since last Christmas after being abducted by some homeless men using a rope as a snare trap.)
Later on, we met up with Bryan again for some dinner, this time going to a restaurant recommended by some fellow travellers. Dodo's, as the restaurant was named, had some excellent pizza and pasta (probably the best we had). Afterwards we had some more beers at a small cafe near our hostel and bade farewell to each other. Bryan would head off to Napoli to catch a flight back to the states, while Hiro and I would move on to Venice.