This is a really long post, so brace yourselves...
Went on a trip to Rome July 21-25 (should have been until the 24th....more about that later...) with Vance, Tommy, Ed, Charles (intern from Luxembourg), Richard and Bernard. Now, most of these guys are crazy photo-intense tourists (we're talking over 500MB each for one weekend), so I didn't take many pictures and decided to just get theirs when I got home. So stay tuned for pictures later in the week.
We stayed at a really cool hostel, as long as you don't care about having room to move around or showers where touching the wall isn't unthinkable. Haha, ya, it was a bit cramped I suppose, but we got free dinner (salad and pasta) every night, as well as free beer (!!!) and wine. Plus, the crowded conditions made socializing inevitable, so we ended up meeting lots of other travelers.
Our first night there was did a tour that our hostel offered that ended in a pub crawl. For about an hour we were shown some sights including the Trevy fountain (no, I didn't throw a coin in) and the Spanish Steps. Then we went to 4 different bars with drink specials and stuff....fun night, somehow ended up back at the hostel at the end of it all.
On Friday we woke up bright and early to take a tour of the Vatican. We walked along the Bridge of Angels, went to St. Peter's Basilica and visited the Vatican museum (where the Sistine Chapel is). It was really great having a guide, because he knew all the stories behind the art and buildings that made me appreciate it so much more. Plus, there was humerous stories and corny jokes that always make for an entertaining day. Being in Rome made me really want to read Angles and Demons again...man, I really have to find some time to read all the books I have lined up: Prey, Angles and Demons (for Rome), the Da Vinci Code (for Paris), the new Harry Potter (!!! How have I not read it yet?!?!)
Anyways, back to the trip...after the tour we headed back to the hostel for naps and dinner and free drinks. We decided that the pub crawl was so much fun that we would do it again (without the tour this time), haha, so we spent the night at all the same bars, but with a different group of people. Another fun night, another drunken stumble home.
Saturday morning we split up into those who wanted to shop (they guys wanted authentic Italian shirts) and those who wanted to see some sights (Vance, Richard and Tommy went to the Bone Church...it's all decorated with skulls and bones, sounded pretty cool). I opted for shopping, though I didn't buy anything, and then we got some pizza lunch. Mmm, Italian pizza, I could eat it forever...
In the afternoon we did the third and final tour offered by our hostel: A walking tour of Rome. We saw Circus Maximus (where there used to be a giant stadium where chariot races were held), Palatine Hill (where Rome was founded, and many of the emperor's have lived), the Jewish Ghetto, The Pantheon (amazing architecture, it's got this giant dome that they poured from concrete with a hole in the center that doubles as a sunclock, and is the best preserved building from Ancient Rome), the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and lots of other things. The tour included lots of Roman history, from when Rome was founded and all the way through the expansion of the Roman Empire. It was really interesting, though it was too much information for me to remember all of. The tour also included a gelatto break, where we got a special deal of 5 flavors...yum....
After the tour it was dinner time, so we went back to the hostel to eat and drink and decide what to do with our night. We found out about a different pub crawl that lots of people from the hostel were doing, and decided to try it out. This pub crawl was wayyyyyy bigger (imagine 140 people all walking through the streets of Rome at night) and we got free t-shirts (yay, free stuff!). We went to 4 bars and it was a really fun night since we got to meet so many different people. Lesson of the night: Red Bull and Vodka is great, but too easy to drink...
Sunday we rolled out of bed pretty late and checked out of the hostel. We went back to the Colosseum since the tour didn't include going inside, and found a way to skip the massive ticket line (yay!). We bought tickets over at Palatine Hill instead (everyone minus Vance and Richard who we lost and they did their own sightseeing), and wandered around there for awhile. It was really peaceful, basically a huge park with ancient ruins. The tickets also got us into the Colosseum without having to wait in line, so we went in there and looked around. It was really cool, but different that I expected...I thought there would be steps and seats everywhere, but I guess they are gone now. It would have been so crazy to watch a gladiator fight there, watching all the exotic animals they bring in (to apparently show off the expanse of the Roman Empire) and see people fight to the death.
We got some pizza for lunch, and then decided that we had time to quickly hit the beach before meeting back at the hostel to go to the airport. Apparently we miscalculated, because the journey to the beach was pretty far (about an hour), so we arrived and spent 10 minutes in the water and then left....and were still an hour late for meeting the rest of the group (oops, at least we planned to give ourselves plenty of time). Totally worth it though, the beach was really nice, it would have been fun to spend a whole day there.
We left the hostel around 6:15pm on Sunday (this is where we start keeping track of times, to document the long journey home) rushed to the airport, and ended up waiting over a hour for the bus....why was the bus so late?!? In a panic to catch our flight, we tried to get a cab but the cab driver told us that nobody could go to the airport because there was a bomb threat and the airport was closed down (it was actually on a plane scheduled to go to the main Rome Airport, but it was detoured to Ciampino airport since it's smaller). We were a little alarmed at this point, but realized there was nothing we could do except to get to the airport (once they had eliminated the threat and re-opened the airport) and see what the deal with our flight was. We never found out if there actually was a bomb.
Lesson learned from today: EasyJet is really cheap for a reason. Basically, our flight was cancelled and they left one young frightened employee who didn't know anything to deal with angry mob of questions. We found out that they were putting people on different flights, so we joined the mob at bottom of some steps and attempted to hand in our confirmation papers so that we could get our flights rescheduled. This was such a slow and disorganized system that eventually they said that everyone had to wait, and they gave us a phone number to call tomorrow to find out about what flight we were on. Basically, the earliest next flight was monday at 5:20, and chances are we would have ended up on a later one on tuesday. After much weighing of the options and cursing EasyJet, we decided to abandon flying and look into trains and rental cars.
That decision was easy, since it was already 11pm and the rental car place was closed. We were planning on sleeping at the airport, but were shocked to find out that they were kicking us out at midnight since the airport was closing! Apparently drastic circumstances don't matter in Italian airports...we discovered that earlier while trying to eat dinner too, since there were horribly disorganized lines for buying food, and they kept running out of things.
We took some night bus back to the main train station where there was finally some good luck: there was a train leaving for Milan at 12:47, only 15 minutes away! We quickly bought tickets (resorting to credit cards since the machines were broken and wouldn't take our cash cards). We ran to the platform to find the train, and there was nothing there! No trains, no people...we asked a police officer and he informed us that the train we wanted left from the other train station...nooooooo.......
There was another train to Milan at 2:08, so we found the bus to the other train station and aimed for that one. We got another nice bit of luck: the 12:47 train was really delayed and we were able to get on that at 1:30. Hooray, now to find seats for the 8 hour journey....
Nope, there were no seats anywhere. People had tied ropes around the doors to the compartments to lock out other people so that they could lay out over lots of seats undisturbed. Grrr....we were stuck in the hallway on tiny, uncomfortable seats that pulled out of the wall. After a few hours though, the ticket checkers came around and realized that we were not getting seats, so they started yelling in Italian to the people in the compartments. They yelled back, etc etc, after some intense arguing we got to sit in the compartments with some pissed off Italians...yay?
The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful, I didn't sleep much but had my ipod to keep me occupied (yay!). Here's something interesting: when the Italians from our compartment left, they pulled out a screwdriver and expertly stole the curtains from the train! Is there high demand for shabby, smelly train curtains on the black market? We quickly double checked our valuables, and were pleased to find that nobody had been robbed.
Our train got to Milan at about 10:00am, and we wandered around in confusion for a bit before finally finding the international ticket office. We bought tickets to Lugano (just across the Swiss boarder...at this point all we wanted was to be back in nice, safe, reliable Switzerland), had some sandwiches, and then took the 11:25 train to Switzerland.
1:00pm, in Lugano, celebrated being back in Switzerland by having some ice cream. Realized that there was no way we were making it to work, so some people called their bosses. I didn't have my work phone number (and my boss is gone this week), so there was nothing to be done. Took the 2:00 train to Zurich (Richard and Bernard decided to stick around in Lugano until after 7pm so they could use their after-7 pass and ride for free)
4:45pm, arrive in Zurich...take the 5:06 train home to Baden (the same train I take home from work sometimes). 5:30 in Baden, jump on the bus to go home...say good-bye to everyone. Walked to my apartment in the pouring rain and realized that I didn't bring my keys, since I figured I would be returning home with my roommates. Waited outside the door until 6:15 when my other roommate Henry got home from work....home at last!
So, for those keeping track, it took us 24 hours to get home. It cost me about $50 in train costs, but some of the others without passes had to pay about $130. We found out that we at least get refunds from EasyJet for our plane tickets. So ya, that was the exciting, extended weekend in Rome, and our adventures through Italy.
back row: Charles, Richard, Vance
Everyone on the pub crawl on Friday
