I'll be Rome for Christmas

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(December 24th - 26th) Ah Rome! The “History” of our three-city tour of Italy. Rome holds some of my most cherished, most secret, and most embarrassing memories with my dearest friend Cheryl. Rome is also the site of the pubcrawl on which I met Rob whom we stayed with in Dublin, Ireland and Rik whom we stayed with in Leiden, Holland. So before I get into my “Roman Holiday” with Brian, let me begin with my favorite story from the last time I was in Rome:

“The Tale of the Neverending Night”

Cheryl and I arrived in Rome after parting ways from my Mom in Florence and having no clue what was in store for us or if our brief week of Italian lessons would pay off. On our second day there we went to the Colosseum (1PM) where we met some cool people from Australia and Germany, and we decided to meet them at a pubcrawl later on that night. Cheryl and I walked about 2 miles to get to the meeting place for the pubcrawl where we found three guys standing around in front of a church with two cases of beer and two bottles of wine (8PM). (Note: the crawl promised free wine and beer before we went to bars . . . we didn't know what to expect). We met our tour guides, but no one besides them had arrived. Cher and I were about to take off and go home (considering we were drinking cheap wine and beer in the middle of the street in front of a church) when our friend from Australia showed up. We decided to stick it out and soon met up with The Scream Pubcrawl (we were Homer’s Pubcrawl) and Cher and I met Rob from Dublin who was leading that pack. Cher I spent the night drinking, dancing, and meeting friends from all over the world (including Rik from Holland.) At one point Cheryl ended up dancing on the bar (I joined her of course), and at another point someone stepped on my toe in high heels and the toenail on my big toe came off (12PM). Cher tried explaining to the bartender as best she could in Italian that we needed a bandaid before she gave up trying and propped my bloody toe up on the bar counter for him to see what we were getting at. At the end of the night, Cher went home before the last bar (1:30AM), and I stayed out with some of our newfound friends before trying to find our way home. We walked about for a good few hours searching for any of the major landmarks we knew, and in our wanderings I found a fruit vendor (3AM). I asked him directions to the Pantheon or Piazza Navona in Italian, Spanish, and then English receiving only a shrug and a headshake at each request. A group of soccer players who were eating watermelon at 3 in the morning overheard me and stared giving me directions to Piazza Navona before asking, "You want a ride" . . . I figured I had nothing to lose at this point in the night. So we hopped into this Italian mini with two of the soccer guys while the other five guys crammed into the other car. We drove like mad around the streets of Rome singing Eminem's new song at the top of our lungs out the windows. I couldn't stop smiling. At Piazza Navona they let us out and we proceeded to get lost again. We watched a group of older men play chess in the middle of the Piazza at 4AM before attempting once more to find our way. I think I finally found the hotel at about 4:30 in the morning. For one night I remembered how much fun it was to be alive and free of worry in a state of complete independence! To this day, I’ve maintained friendships with the people I met that night. I felt safe in the company of strangers in a foreign city and I let myself trust, be free, and just enjoy life!

Whenever friends of mine have been down on life or depressed in any way, I’ve told them to “Go to Rome.” In my mind Rome cures all, and not just because of my neverending night. Walking the streets knowing that the culture long away used to be so dedicated to entertainment and a more relaxed way of life, knowing the brilliance that occurred in one of the greatest cities in history, and knowing how many people of different cultures and races have been brought together in this city, it truly is astounding.

We arrived on Christmas Eve after a quick train ride from Florence to discover that our pension was a stone’s throw from the Pantheon. If you’ve never seen the Pantheon, it’s a truly humbling experience. It is absolutely massive. We decided to go out for a quick bite at the McDonald’s right in front of the Pantheon (ah McDonald’s, taking over the world one historical site at a time) before exploring a bit of Rome. Brian still had to find a Christmas Market for my “perfect present” he’d been hunting for, so we spent some time at Piazza Navona before continuing on to a café for dinner. That night, I proved that somehow my mind does better in foreign cities with directions than the cities I live in. I was able to lead Brian to the Trevi Fountain as a surprise before we walked to Vatican City for midnight mass. Although Brian doubted my directional skills several times on the walk, I was able to lead him to the massively impressive fountain which was lit up beautifully for Christmas Eve. The walk to Vatican City was longer than I remembered, but it really was a sensational event seeing as the closer we approached Vatican City, the more people there were walking with us. There is something incredibly powerful being among thousands of people who all are in the same place to experience something magical. A moment of great faith perhaps, or just a moment greater than themselves. We witnessed fathers and sons arm in arm, mothers crying in front of their children, lovers embracing, and friends holding each other tight as the midnight hour drew closer. The love and happiness lit up Vatican City, and even though we only saw the Pope on the “Pope-tron” television, it was still a memorable Christmas night.

Getting back to the pension, Brian deemed it to be Christmas as he could no longer wait another second to open presents. I revealed the Manchester United scarf I bought him back when my Mom and Chrissy were visiting (and let me tell you, hiding it from him for the past two months was no picnic cuz he is sneaky and extremely curious,) and Brian unveiled a door plaque engraved with “The Mexicos,” our original family name (longer story . . . someday I’ll blog the story of Brian and I and then all will be understood.) For a last surprise I told Brian we were going to the Manchester United game in England on the 29th of December with boy Cory and DangerBob, so we both fell asleep exhausted from our long walk home from Midnight Mass and dreaming of the excitement to come.

Christmas day was hi-lighted by a full exploration of the rest of the city including the Roman Forum, the grounds of the chariot races, and the Colosseum. At the Roman forum we searched for the steps where Caesar was last seen before he was taken inside and murdered. At the chariot race grounds, which was nothing but grass and dirt at this point in history, we stood in awe and imagined all of the events that had taken place where we were standing. And at the Colosseum we witnessed one of the funniest events I’ve ever seen that shall now be titled, “The running of the vendors.” In front of the Colosseum, similar to every other tourist and historical landmark throughout Europe, there are massive amounts of vendors selling their wares. From postcards to miniature statues, from umbrellas, to handbags, you can get it all. Well in Italy, apparently there is quite a problem with people buying and selling knockoffs of artwork, sunglasses, and handbags especially, so it is highly illegal to be caught buying or selling these goods. So as Brian and I walked around the Colosseum, we noticed about twenty or so vendors sprinting at full speed toward us and around the corner lugging their wares in each arm. Brian and I guessed that the police must have pulled up, but we couldn’t help but find this event extremely amusing.

Christmas night we ate our first official Italian dinner. We had an anti-pasti of bruschettas, a gorgonzola pasta, steaks for dinner, gelato and brandy for dessert, along with a full liter of red wine with our meal. It was fantastic. We sat at an outdoor café for hours watching all sorts of people walk by and were comforted to be next to our cozy fire-lamp when it started to drizzle. After being full to the brim and practically rolling home, we lay in bed and watched one of my family’s favorite Christmas movies, “Mixed Nuts.” If you haven’t seen it, give it a whirl, its uplifting in all the wrong ways but its absolutely hilarious. We spent the 26th watching the Manchester United game in our new favorite Roman pub until we began our long and arduous journey to London.

Now, sorry to backtrack a minute, but I intentionally left out this part of the story until the end. So back on Christmas Eve when we first arrived in Rome, Brian and I did what we’ve done after every train ride on this trip. When we come to a new city, we make our reservations for the next city as soon as we arrive in the train station. Being that it was Christmas Eve, the train station was packed to the rafters, so Brian set up camp with our luggage as I patiently waited in line to get our tickets. After an hour waiting because two cashiers decided to go on break, and trying desperately not to scream at the man who was standing so close to me I could feel his breath on my ear, I made it to the front of the line. To my dismay, no tickets. No tickets leaving Italy from now until the 2nd of January. Apparently we could move about the country as much as we liked, but if we wanted to leave, all the tickets were already sold out. I sadly walked over to Brian to convey the news, and we decided to hunt for a solution after getting to the pension. With the help of Cheryl on standby computer, we explored our options. Being that all the internet cafes were closed, we wandered around until we discovered an English pub with free Wifi that was going to be open until 3AM. Not wanting to miss Midnight Mass with the Pope, we quickly got to work. We soon discovered that flying would cost 700 euro (before they weighed our luggage which was a definite to be an additional fee), driving would only get us to Paris and would cost 800 euro because of the one-way drop off crossing international lines, and there were definitely no trains at all with seats left. So we found a ferry that would leave from Civitavecchia a little north of Rome that would take us to Toulon in the south of France. From there we could hope there were trains going to Paris and still tickets crossing the Chunnel into London (After all we had friends and a Manchester United game to catch).

So we left Rome a day early (since the ferries only ran every other third day), and we began our journey to London. It took a cab ride and a train ride (that we almost missed because of a cab driver trying to swindle us telling us the trains were cancelled for some Italian holiday . . .on the 26th of December? Puh-lease) and another cab ride just to get to Civitavecchia. We then waited behind a group of boisterous Italians who took up both tickets windows and almost strung up Brian for having our luggage in front of the previously closed one when it opened. I’ve never been on a ferry ride longer than the Larkspur/San Francisco ferry, so stepping onto a cruise ship was a whole new world for me. I’m a Taurus . . . I like the ground. Water for long periods of time . . . not so much. But the cruise ship had a casino and restaurants, and we had our own cabin with beds, a shower, and a place to plug in the Christmas tree (yes I brought the Christmas tree with me! I was not about to leave it behind after Brian had gone to such immense lengths to acquire it.) We ate dinner served by a man from Oakland, California, and after a few games of gin rummy we decided to turn in . . . and that’s when it started. The waves began to rock the boat which kept sending me into dizzy spells and kept my fear of tipping very much alive (of course the last story Brian told me before we got on the boat was of all the ferries that tip between Italy and Greece because of the harsh weather, but he assured me we would have smooth sailing on our journey.) Not only did the boat rock fiercely all night, but because of the tumultuous water, our thirteen hour boat ride turned into a nineteen hour boat ride which blew any shot of getting into London that evening and left both Brian and I with a rocking feeling for days.

Thankfully we made a few friends waiting who offered to give us a ride from the dock to the train station, otherwise we would’ve been stranded once again seeing as we were in La Seine, not Toulon, and there was no sign of cabs or buses anywhere (ah memories of Croatia all over again.) At the train station, the ticket lady informed us that we could make it to Paris, but that there were no seats on the trains crossing the Chunnel. Our fear was being realized. At this point, Brian and I made a decision, we sent a text to boy Cory and DangerBob who were the first of our friends we were meeting, and told them to come get us in Paris. Knowing that this option was quite faulty seeing as Cory only recently received a passport and driving on the left side of the road always proves quite tricky, we discussed another viable option, we would jump on the train and pay whatever fee when they came around asking for tickets. So with our two brilliant ideas ready to go we hopped on a train for Marseille and from there to Paris.

Getting into Paris at Gare de Lyon and needing to be at Gare de Nord we walked our way down to the underground once again to make one last leg of the journey for the night. When we got there, it didn’t appear the same as before. We had trouble reading the signs and it didn’t seem as if any lines were running. I asked a nearby couple for help and they told us they would let us know when our line came through. After waiting about ten minutes, they told us they would take us an easier way. Now at this point, Brian and I had been traveling for 28 hours and exhaustion was setting in, so we were thrilled to have any kind of assistance in the second to last leg of the journey. Not only did this couple take us to the other line station, but they gave us new tickets since we had to exit and enter again, they came with us all the way to the train station, and they helped translate with the ticket lady to find out about tickets to London. And then, they did the most extraordinary of things, they said, “happy to help,” and they walked away. They didn’t ask for a single thing in return for their help. I tried giving them the Christmas tree, but they just smiled and said they were just glad to help us out. Two complete strangers took an hour out of their Saturday night to help just because. I know from now on I’ll be much more available when it comes to helping people who ask it of me.

After our new heroes departed, we discovered that there were in fact tickets to cross the Chunnel, but the last train had left fifteen minutes before our arrival, and the tickets at the last minute price would cost us 247 euro a piece. So, at this point, knowing our friends were already waiting in London and we’d come this far, we sucked it up, bought the tickets, and headed for a hotel room across the way where we were able to take warm baths and sleep in a bed that didn’t rock like the ocean all night awaiting our morning journey to London.

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Comments

[Cher]

Ah Rome
Good story!! Glad you made it safely to London, er almost. And I see you can't travel anywhere without a little pukie puke haha =)