Roma- tourist hades (April 7th)

Ahhh, Roma! I awoke at about 8:00 AM and spent a few hours in the outside of the compartment in looking at the view. There wasn't much of one, but it was more breezy and light than the top bunk in which I was somehow forced into by shotgun rules. I suggested coin flip, but who wants that when they've already won with with a boastful proclamation? To avoid travel buddy hostility, I accepted my uncomfortable fate. I suppose this is my destiny for shot-gunning so many car rides.

After the conductor came by with our passports/rail passes (whew, we found out later they do this every time), we were good to go. We left the train station and managed to find our way rather painlessly to the place of our stay, Hotel Rex. Once there, we were informed that our room wouldn't be ready until much much later: 3:00. This is quite unfortunate as we hadn't even had the time to get a shower in, since there wasn't one on the night train. In the mean time, we decided to check some stuff on the wifi (2E/Hour), like Ted's credit card status.

Since yesterday, Ted has been moneyless due to some shenanigans in the french credit card system. They probably went on strike. As a result, I have become the temporary soul benefactor of this trip.

After a series of errands in the world wide web, we had a stroke of luck where our room was ready much earlier than stated (10am!). The room we received was very very nice. A huge bedroom area with a gigantic bathroom (complete with a "bidet" to clean that lovely area in which food leaves the human digestive system). After an hour or so of waiting, at last we were finally able to set out! Hooray!

two toilets? no.. just a bidet

One of the first things I noticed when we came into the city, was that you had to literally hurl yourself into traffic or else no one would stop for you. Even then, the motorcyclists navigated through the pedestrians to get through as fast as humanly possible. The streets were literally flooded with people (Ted compared it to Paris). There were also food stands everywhere, for delicious panini (grilled sandwiches) that were cheap as can be. I was a big fan. I could probably eat these for five meals a day. Of course, what's a big city without tourist trap stands, with "authentic" folexes, purses, and belts.

Old rome the place to be in one during the reign of one of the coolest/greatest empires of all time. Colosseum... go! Of course, instead of viewing plays of war where men battle with nets & tridents against exotic beasts, it was just a bunch of tourists like us wielding cameras instead of swords... so many in fact, that we were forced to wait in a line for an excruciating amount of time.

At last.. the coliseum.. in 45 min..

Upon exiting this ancient theatre of blood, sweat and tears we happened to run into a couple of Ted's friends who also happened to be touring in Europe. The four of us explored the rest of the ruins in the area but then we soon parted ways since our brisk pace was far too much for them to keep up with.

Rome is now ruined, but it still has cool ruins

As we found it was going to be raining tomorrow, we decided to do a grand blitz of Rome. This involved us dashing throughout the city in a whirlwind being sure to see every important fountain, ruin, monument and statue. This was probably one of the most tiring days for me, but I suppose all trips have one of those.

The "pantheon", now only home to 1 god since he sucks at keeping friends.


A miscreant we encountered at the famous fountain..This guy is a prick, he wanted his picture taken with us, and then wanted 5 euro. I laughed and gave him 1, even though he didn't deserve the gravel we walked on. What is he supposed to be anyways? Note: Rome is full of cheats.

So, we decided to stop at a dine in restaurant. I ordered some Salmon pasta, which wasn't bad, but the portion was dreadfully small. The service was horrible, I think they marked us as "north american scum" (or cheapskates, cause I didn't want any wine.. learn to serve beer please). We asked for the bill several times, which they pretended to acknowledge, and then proceeded to serve everyone else while we waited an endless amount of time. Finally, we got our bill, but it was added with an additional 15% tip that was completely unmentioned in the menu. To top it off, the pretentious french/italian guy behind Ted kept making arrogant faces at me, lovely.

Eventually we managed to make our way back to the apartment, once again by donning my navigator helmet. At last, I am able to lie down for some sweet sweet sleep..