Voyage to Italy, Part 1

Hey all, its been a while. I have returned from my 8-day trip through Italy, which I did over Semana Santa. Overall it was a pretty good trip, although I must admit it had its ups and downs. We headed out Friday around mid-day, heading to the airport for our cheap Ryanair flight to Rome. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t exactly thrilled for the trip; the whole robbery thing had put me in an overall negative mood, plus traveling with a semi-couple wasn’t sounding all too appealing. Already feeling cranky and tired overall, Sam and Lloyd showing up late for things didn’t help, and the trip was off to a rocky start. Lloyd (Ryan) managed to calm me down a bit though by being sweet and using my love of music to pull me out of my mood, and then we were on our way. We got in to Rome in the evening, catching a bus from the airport into the city (which was a bit of a pain…Sam had managed not to write down the information for the hostel-she pretty much planned this whole trip as I did all the others, so we spent a while trying to figure out where exactly we needed to go and such, again not helping my already limited patience). After much questioning and some phone calls we managed to figure it out, eventually arriving at a central train/metro station that would provide the necessary transportation to our hostel (which was about half an hour outside of Rome…another strike against Sam). By this time it was dark and we were all hungry, so after stopping in at an internet café so Sam could print out the itinerary for the week (she had been unable to before we left) we settled on a cute looking restaurant not far from the station. It was a bit pricier than we were used to, but after looking around for a while we realized that was pretty much the norm, so we sucked it up and eagerly entered, ready to get a taste of some authentic Italian food. We all ordered various pasta decisions (I went for some spinach/cheese ravioli myself), and relaxed for a bit. When they finally brought out the food, I was unpleasantly surprised. Not only was there only a little bit of ravioli, it didn’t even taste very good! We were all pretty pissed, having paid entirely too much for such crappy food, and we left unhappy and already bitter about the city. Still hungry after our tiny portions, we stopped in at a gelato place, which was very good, although the servers were very rude and unwelcoming. Again, Rome did not seem too promising, but the gelato was good so we didn’t give up hope. We then headed into the station, where we figured out our route and got on the metro that would then take us to the appropriate train. The Rome metro system was surprisingly crappy; very dirty, and overall just kind of sketchy. The train was no better, but we eventually made it to the little city outside of Rome at around midnight. We left the station, cranky and ready to be at the hostel, only to realize that the buses we were planning on taking were no longer running. What’s more, none of our cell phones would work to call the hostel, so we were pretty much screwed in this sketchy little town, with no one around, and in the middle of the night. Luckily, a night bus pulled up, and we ran over to ask for help. He didn’t speak English, but luckily he did speak Spanish (turns out his wife is Mexican), so we were able to communicate with ease (thank God). We explained our situation, his route wouldn’t take us near the hostel, but he was really, really nice and helpful, leaving the bus to walk around and try to figure out how to help. He ended up calling the hostel for us (which was perfect, as the hostel owner only spoke very limited English), and he explained the situation. The owner ended up driving over and picking us up, taking us to the hostel. We of course thanked the bus driver profusely, he was amazingly helpful and friendly, I don’t know what we would have done without him! After a long day, we were ready for bed, so we settled in to our respective rooms, which were pretty nice. I was actually rooming with two girls from Hong Kong, one of which spoke some English (turns out she volunteered at the Olympics, which she said was very cool but VERY hard work). Although the location was far from ideal, the hostel itself was very cool. For one thing, it was extremely cheap (only like 10 euro per night) but had nice clean rooms and bathrooms. It was mainly composed of camp grounds, with some dorms as well for the less adventurous (aka us), plus a cute restaurant, bar, and market. The next morning we woke up pretty early, although Sam and Ryan had trouble getting ready on time and we ended up leaving a lot later than I had hoped (argh). The hostel had a shuttle that ran every half hour to the train station (which only runs until like 11pm), so we took that, and then headed into the center of Rome. First stop was the Vatican, where we walked over to check out the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel. I was feeling a bit anti-social, annoyed with Sam and Ryan for various reasons (mainly the constant lateness and overall inability to plan well), so I did my own thing, getting an audioguide and making my way through the many museums and the chapel on my own. It was very cool, so much to see. In the Egyptian museum they even had real mummies, one of which had been unwrapped, which I thought was very cool. At this point Ryan’s friend Rob from London (who I met in Amsterdam, and then saw again in London) got in to Rome, and we met up with him at the Vatican. I hung with them for a bit, but they were moving pretty slow through all the museums and such, so I decided to head to a nearby café to chill by myself for a bit. It was cool, the hostel had a free book exchange, so I had borrowed a random novel to read. It was really nice, I spent a long time reading in this little café, munching on a yummy sandwich and getting hit on by one of the waiters, haha. After a while the others were ready to meet up, and I joined them feeling refreshed and in high spirits. I accompagnied them to lunch, getting a dessert as I had already had a sandwich (which was delicious, it was a piece of “thousand layers” cake, this flaky pastry kind of thing that everyone enjoyed). Finally, some good Italian food, and the waiters were super nice and friendly, which was great after the negative experience the night before. After a leisurely lunch and a bit of walk we arrived at St. Peter’s, where we joined the really long line and waited to enter. The basilica was absolutely gorgeous, so big and visually stunning, and the four of us had a good time walking around admiring it. After that we decided to try and check out a castle that was within walking distance, but by the time we arrived it was getting ready to closed. Instead, we sat a wall by the river for a while, chatting and eating some gelato before we continued to walk around the city for a bit. We came across a really cool plaza, where some interesting street performances were going on, so we paused and admired those for a bit. After some more wandering we grabbed some yummy sandwiches for dinner, and then began the long walk back towards the metro. We had checked train schedule and knew the last train left at around 9 towards our hostel’s town, so we speed walked across the city, briefly stopping at the Trevi Fountain (which was extremely crowded-I tried to throw in a coin in from afar but failed miserably, oh well). Thanks to my superior map skills, we managed to catch the metro to the train station in time, and we hopped on and settled in for the half hour ride towards our hostel. It was funny, there were three couples clearly from the southern US, which I very much enjoyed. Overall, there were a LOT of Americans in Rome, the most I had encountered in any of the cities I had visited, which was interesting. In any case, we arrived at the station and caught the shuttle to the hostel, where we headed to the bar for some cards and drinks. We had a good time, splitting a pitcher of Sangria between the three of us and getting in a good game of Egyptian Ratscrew (a fast-paced game involving slapping certain cards). After a while, we checked our e-mail on one of the available computers, and then called it a night, vowing to get up early the next morning.
We did in fact manage to get up early, and we took the 8:30 shuttle the train station, then taking the metro in the direction of St. Peter’s so that we could see the Pope do Palm Sunday mass. Rob was supposed to meet us at the metro station, but due to alarm troubles he ended up getting there about an hour later. By that time we had already gone in to try and claim some seats, which we managed to do. It was very intense, there were sooo many people, but we managed to get some seats, plus we had good views of the huge screens they had set up so everyone could watch the mass. After much waiting around the ceremony began, and I got to see the Pope! Although I’m not at all religious, it was still a very cool/interesting experience, it was really neat to actually see such a significant religious figure. We stayed for almost all of the mass, leaving a bit early to avoid crowds, plus I must admit I was getting pretty restless. The ceremony was conducted mainly in Italian, with some French, English, and Spanish spoken at times as well. As I said, it was definitely a neat experience; I find religion in general very fascinating, and being surrounded by some intense Catholics proved to be very interesting. It was funny though, I couldn’t help but be a bit disgusted at how some people were acting during the Communion; many priests walked around performing communion, and people were just being really pushy and ridiculous in there attempt to be served…not very Christian in my opinion. But that’s enough about that; after the mass Sam, Ryan and I decided to find some lunch, heading to the metro and catching the metro to the Colosseum to begin our tour of Ancient Rome.
Alrighty, and now I’m going to have to leave you in suspense again as it is already 2:40am here and I’ve still got some reading to do. Will continue soon,
Brit