When in Rome... buy your bus tickets.

Welcome to Rome!

Besides the minor mishaps and lack of sleep, I am so happy to be back in Rome. The plane rides were fine. I sat next to a young John Lennon look-a-like on the way to Rome. He was on his way for a 3 week long wine tasting class for credits at Georgia University… tell me again why WSU doesn’t offer that!

I arrived at the airport in Rome and said good-bye to John Lennon, got my luggage and went to find the train station. Once there, someone asked me how to buy the tickets… I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing, so I pointed to the ticket guy so as not to reveal my American roots. (HAHA! Tricked you!)

Jessie told me that the train was supposed to run every half hour…so I tried to make it to the train before 10:00 so I could get on that one. Well that never showed up, neither did the 10:30, or the 11:00. Finally, I got on the 11:30 train. I booked it toward the Nike store to look for Jessie. J I found her!!! She helped me with my luggage and we got on a bus to get closer to our hostel.

 “Jessie, should we buy tickets?”  Her response: No, no one checks for them, it’s fine.

Sweet! Free bus ride, right?  WRONG. We got busted and 50 euro later we get off the bus. WELCOME TO ROME!

So at this point I have been awake for a really long time. I got into Rome at the train station at 10 in the morning on Sunday, but it was really 2 in the morning on Sunday at home. I didn’t really sleep on the plane (so like 2 hours of sleep on sat/sun) and Friday night I slept for five hours. So on Sunday in Rome I was running on 7 hours of sleep for 3 days.

Once I showered and ate lunch in Rome, we headed to see the monuments and went to church at the Vatican. Although I didn’t know what they were saying, I did admire the way the speakers were painted in such a way that they matched the marble.

Jessie wanted to do a monument wine tour, but after 3 bottles of wine split between 7 girls, I wanted to go to bed. So instead we had gelato, and went to the Trevi fountain. I was up until 11 on Sunday night and was ready to crash.

Today we are planning to relax in Roman gardens and get more gelato and pizza is on the menu.

(I am sitting in a garden outside our hostel- the international house of women- right now to get internet and some man is taking away all the tables and chairs… mine are the last!)

Cheers!

-Vin

P.s. we slept with the window open last night, the birds at night sound like crying children. (or if you knew my cat back in the day when she used to whine, it was like that)