The Train from Ancona to Roma

ooooh, the bunks on the boat weren't half bad. johnny says he slept like a rock, i wasn't so fortunate, but not bad. i got up probably about 7:30 and wandered around the ship a bit barefoot, i thought i had left my flip-flops at fotis' house in athens and was not happy about that...

i went downstairs to the lounge area and was quiet on account of all the people sleeping in random places. i wasn't prepared for the number of people who were simply foot passengers and were sleeping on benches, chairs, or the floor since they hadn't bought air seats or couchettes (bunks). if i was traveling alone i'd probably do the same, but since we had the eurail pass and the bunks were free (only having to pay 7 euros each for port taxes) it made sense to go ahead and get bunks! :o)

i sat in the corner of the lounge with all my gadgets plugged in and charging while i fiddled about on the internet for a little while longer. johnny eventually got up and wandered down to meet me and we sat and for a bit longer before going to get breakfast. we had an assortment of things, he had mostly eggs and bacon (ham) and potatoes while i had yoghurt, fruit, and bread. we shared two slices of melon and then put the rest of the fruit in my bag for later that day. we've gotten into the habit of hoarding food in the form of fruits and crackers, dried fruits, and other assorted things we find to snack on throughout the day. we buy big bottles of water and just share them then refill them a few times before tossing the bottle for a new one.

so - after breakfast i left johnny with the computer and ran around taking pictures as we neared our port of ancona. for a good ways the italian coastline as visible before we actually got to the port, but it was crappy picture-taking conditions cause of a mist in the air.

at some point i went back to the bunks and was looking though my locker when the other guy that was in the bunk above me the night before popped up and introduced himself... he was utterly trashy american tourist and if i had found his passport i would have thrown it overboard in the hopes he would have followed suit.... ugh.

all he could talk about was girls' anatomy (using choice language) and how many girls there were in milan, where he was going, and how many more girls there were in spain. he loved traveling but hated it as soon as he left home, wanted to know why everyone didn't speak english, complained about said language barrier continually, and bitched about the lack of toilet paper in public bathrooms in greece and said they were still living in 5000 BC. He was so ethnocentric and disgustingly superior about the whole thing that i really couldn't stand it when he continued to follow me around the boat and talk to me about all the girls in this place or that place and blah blah blah.... i literally went up and down between three decks and back and forth from the back of the boat to the front three times and still couldn't loose him. omg.

finally, when he followed me to the front of the boat as i was taking pictures and he asked what i did i told him a bartender in a gay bar and that if he wanted to talk about girls anymore he should find my cousin. lol ha ha ha ha -- johnny didn't want anything to do with him either cause before he met me he had talked to johnny earlier that morning in the bathroom and johnny said something about how fake he was .... ha ha ha ha. he shut up about most everything after that comment but still managed to find us once or twice before we got off the boat and chatted to us a bit more, not about girls' anatomy though. :op

as we pulled closer tot he port the crew came over the loudspeaker and asked us all to gather our things and be ready for disembarkation. johnny and i went to get our things from our locker and this was one of the times when the aggravating guy found us and followed us downstairs as we were waiting for the boat to pull up to the port. we put our stuff down briefly, took a picture, and then declared that we were going elsewhere and said goodbye and ran off to get pictures from the front of the boat.

as johnny and i stood on the bow and watched the back end of the boat near the docks he pointed out the pilot boat that the harbour pilot had gotten onto our ship from. that was cool, and so was the view of the city from the boat deck. wow - amazingly beautiful. i had always heard about the italian countryside, but i knew it was going to be a nice ride from ancona to rome when i saw the coast.

it didn't take long at all for the boat to dock and we were soon heading down the escalator to the dock. when we got down guess who was there to meet us .... yeah. he looked confused and was relying on us to get him out of the port. ha ha, i found the sign for the exit for foot traffic and we followed the fence to the exit point where he promptly dropped us like a hot potato. we went inside the port and asked where to catch the bus tot eh train station and the man said we had to go to the new harbour to get there. he showed us where the free shuttle was *supposed* to pick us up and left us at the stop. we waited. we waited. we waited some more. the women that were there took a taxi. a couple vans came by and stopped briefly, only to take off again and leave us hoping the next one would be the shuttle.... no shuttle.... *sigh*

we decided to walk over there - it couldn't be THAT far, and besides, we had hiked all of athens it seemed two days before. so we set out walking along the little coastal town and made out way coast cafes and a tram station, past where the cars were exiting the port from the ferry, and along a marina area with boats. we eventually found the new harbour building and made our way inside where we asked one of the women at a counter where we could catch the bus from. she directed us to outside and we sat some more... :o/ i got water for us and we chatted with some other americans who were backpacking their way to athens, returning on the ferry that we had just gotten off of. well, funny thing -- we saw a bus zoom by and it had the name of the train station for its destination, but we assumed that it zoomed by cause it was out of service. oh well. we waited another 20 minutes or so ... another one comes and is getting ready to zoom by but there's another bus in front of it - i jump out and flag it down and the guy looks and pulls over! there were at least 30-40 people sitting at the bus stop under an overhang on some benches and i know there was no way to know if we were waiting for him or the other bus! he was just going to zoom by again! cheeky bastard! lol.

eh, we got on the bus, paid our 1.30 euro fare and sat down. the bus took us aaaaaalll over the harbour and then ran parallel to the tracks for a while and then deposited us at the station after driving on the highway for a bit too. when we went into the station we could see the schedule board and no trains to rome yet, but by the time we made it to the ticket window there was one coming at 2 PM. yay! we gathered our things and walked to the platform... then we noticed it was the wrong platform... lol - so we switched. then we noticed it was the wrong platform again - lol, so we switched again. we also noticed that we could have walked from the ferry terminal to the station which was not even a block away and over the railroad tracks (over a pedestrianized area) ha ha, oh well.

anyhoo - we got on the train, put our stuff away, and made ourselves comfortable for the 4 hour journey to rome. soon enough the train took off and we started to see the most beautiful countryside i think i've ever seen. i really did look like it came out of a movie! little huts with terra-cotta roofs, olive orchards, farm land, rolling hills, green everywhere - we loved it. the conductor came around for our tickets at some point and we gave them, then soon after we both dozed off for a bit and slept a little. i walked up and down the train for kicks once or twice and johnny just took pictures most of the time. i don't think he liked the space between cards and having to open and close the doors and all. he told me he didn't like the tunnels either and how they snuck up on you and all of a sudden you're in darkness. :o)

at some point the conductor got off and switched with another, who then came around and checked our tickets again and informed us that first class was up a few cars if we wanted, but i had already been there and the only difference was that the seats were covered in a little different fabric and there was slightly more leg room. not much of a difference on the local trains - it's only the highspeed trains that make a real difference.

we enjoyed the ride into rome and as we pulled into the station we saw our first ruin - a big watch-tower-looking structure. we walked out onto the platform and into the station and it was HUGE. i've been to some train stations before, but none this big. it was absolutely massive.

the only problem we had was that i hadn't written down the reservation information from the computer about the bed and breakfast we were staying at! ack! to complicate things, i let johnny use the computer and we didn't charge it so the battery was really low. :o( after chatting with a sales woman trying to sell internet downstairs (in my crappy spanish/portuguese mix) we ran upstairs looking for an internet cafe. we asked one person about wifi.. we asked two people about wifi ... we asked three people about wifi .... no wifi.... no internet cafe.... :o( they told me i had to go out of the station and look for one...

we went out and turned down the street net to the station and began walking. see, the great thing about europe is that currency conversion stands and internet cafes are never very far. :o) we popped into the first one we saw and although it was out of order, they pointed across the street and we went to that one. whew! 50 cents for 15 minutes and we got on and had our reservation in no time. not only that, but we had a map of where we needed to go and armed with those two things we found the place in no time! it was actually just a half a block away by the train station itself. a woman who was going into the building let us in the first and second doors, then we went up an itty bity elevator to the fourth floor and knocked on the door.... and knocked.. and knocked... no answer. :o)

i finally sent a text message to the cell phone contact number but didn't get a response still so i got my phone out and made the international call to the contact number. i'm so glad my phone works here! the woman said the contact was coming and we waited about another 20 minutes for her and her son to show up and let us in. she was friendly and showed us around while her son, who was very young, went in the bathroom to do his business. lol.

we put our stuff down and unpacked a few things - WOW - we were in rome!!!

after we got settled and figured out the locks and such we ventured back out to wander the streets a bit. we went back into the station looking for a notebook for johnny and an atm for me.... what we found was a whole labyrinth of shops and stuff under the train station! we even found part of the old city wall which they had preserved in the underground portion of the station, so cool. we went to one place and asked for a "libro sin palavras" or book without words.... then i used the english word journal --- "aaaghh,,, non giornali!" no journals - went to a few more places and did the same thing, nothing to be had.

we went out of the station and walked around a few of the piazzas nearby, past the santa maria maggiori church, down a few more streets, and then turned around when we hadn't found anything we liked to eat and it was getting darker. we decided to go back to the grocery store named the drug store on our way back.

by this time we had given up on the search for a notebook and had looked at too many postcards already. the "drug store" - quotations because there was everything in there except a pharmacy, had itty bitty roller baskets and we walked around grabbing snacks and such. when we went to the check out he told us we couldn't buy half our fruit cause we hadn't weighed and ticketed it at the fruit counter though. :o( poo. we put back most of that stuff and then were going back to the room when we stopped in the basement of the first place we went into and asked again - i took out my book for an example --- "ooooh, yes, right over there" and he pointed tot he wall of journals, ha ha ha ha --- we had gone all over and i forgot that, like other romance languages, the english word "journal" is a false cognate - it looks like a word in most romance languages (e.g. giornali) but it actually means newspaper! i had been asking for a news paper in all these book stores, no wonder they thought we were nuts.

we picked one up and then went back to the room to scarf down our pizza and put some groceries away (we had gotten yoghurt) we were so tired, omg. we both had showers and then decided it was going to be an "early" night - by this time it was probably at least 23:00 or so, maybe midnight. we put our stuff up, unpacked some things, and then went straight to bed, nothing else to do.

"*whew, long day*

---

---