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Published: August 26th 2007
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Rome part II: Friends Instead of Family
I like to be as frank as possible on this blog because it, as a document, serves two purposes. One of these purposes is to ensure that you guys at home have an idea of what we are doing. The other, and equally important purpose, is to ensure that we have a good document of what we do while we travel. Without this blog, I’m sure we’d forget lots of stuff.
So, with frankness in mind, I have to be honest that I wasn’t completely looking forward to traveling back to Rome. Rome in August is known to be extremely hot, something Kel and I both do everything in our power to avoid. Likewise, we were on our way to meet up with a pretty substantial group of friends from back home. Once we joined the group, who had been traveling through Venice a few days earlier, the total number of people traveling together numbered 9 people. With a group of this size, I figured there would be arguments about where to go to dinner, what sights to see and how to pay for anything that cost money. Needless to
The Guys Wait It Out in the Shade
Left to Right: Brian Schiller, Brian Bures, Mike Willis, Me, Chris Haines
Photo By: Kelley Turner say, it sounded like a bit of a drag.
Boy, was I wrong!!
Meeting Up With Friends and Re-Exploring Rome The friends we were meeting up with were all fraternity brothers of mine from college and their girlfriends or spouses. Chris Haines, Brian Schiller, Brian Starr and Mike Willis were my closest friends in college who I get together with at least once a year to catch up on life. Our faithful readers will remember Brian Schiller from previous blogs in Singapore and Hong Kong, but Mike, Brian Starr and Chris have been in the US since we left in November. Since Schiller and I were abroad for 2007 the rest of the gang decided to mount an international adventure to be able to catch up with us. As I said earlier, these guys and their girlfriends/wives, Sarah, Alexa and Anne, all met in Venice a few days earlier and traveled, via train to Rome. When we arrived at our incredibly centrally located hotel (right by Termini train station) the group had already headed out to see some of Rome.
While the rest of our friends explored the city (we guessed, we hadn’t talked
Colosseum and Columns
Photo By: Kelley Turner to anyone before arriving) we decided to play it cool and stay in the hotel. Not only had we seen much of Rome already and thus were not as concerned about exploring, we were afraid that we’d miss everyone if we went out. Camping out in the hotel lobby, I worked on the Prague blog entry while Kel read a book and kept an eye out for people we knew. After only an hour or so of waiting, people started coming in from the Roman heat.
Slowly but surely each group of two to three people made their way into the lobby and grouped up around our chairs. Despite the fact that everyone else looked like they had taken a long walk through the Sahara desert to see us, we all had some fun catching up before people retired to their rooms for a shower before dinner.
Of the worries that I mentioned above, restaurants were my biggest worry. Being August, which is holiday time for Italians, I figured we’d have a nearly impossible time finding a place to eat. Many restaurants are closed for the whole month of August and those that aren’t must have difficulty accommodating
nine people. Here again I was wrong. Throughout the whole stay we never had to wait more than ten minutes for a table and found tons of good, cheaply priced restaurants ton eat in. Our first night, Chris asked the front desk and found us a place only a few blocks away that accommodated us right away. Awesome!
Roman Ruins and Rest Our first full day in Rome was centered around the desire to see Palatine Hill. Sarah Willis, Mike’s wife, is working towards a masters or a PhD in Classics, meaning Greek and Latin. She, obviously, is a huge fan of Roman antiquity and was much of the driving force behind our Palatine Hill morning. With Sarah as our leader, we all set out after breakfast into the rising Roman heat to see what Palatine Hill had to offer.
Between breaks in the shade and times for people to stop and read various guide books, we ended up spending close to two hours on Palatine Hill before decided that lunch was in order. Kel and I led the group to a place in the area that we had enjoyed during our previous trip here
in June (
The Musee d’Orsay and Our First Day in Rome ). Unfortunately, as I had worried, it was closed for holiday so we stumbled to another place around the corner and had a nice lunch.
With lunch behind us, we decided to split up until dinner. Since many people had different desires for the afternoon, it seemed like the best way to accomplish those tasks efficiently. Kel and I proceeded to return to the hotel for an afternoon of computer work and rest. It was so hot outside that we figured that rest was the best way to go.
For dinner that night we headed close to the Spanish Steps to search out food prior to doing a night walk through some of Rome’s prettier monuments. We lucked out and found a pizzeria half way between the Spanish Steps and Fontana di Trevi that had immediately seating for 9. The food was great, so great that we returned here to eat dinner on our last night in town.
After dinner it was sight seeing time. We proceeded to follow a path that Kel and I had taken during a day of sight seeing back in June (
Ancient Rome and the Sistine Chapel ). The path went from Trevi Fountain all the
Sweating on Palatine HIll
Left to Right: Chris, Sarah, Anne, Mike , and Me walk to Piazza Navona. Me, armed with my tripod, and the rest of the guys proceeded to take tons of pictures while the women humored us. We all had a great time until it was time to get home.
Not realizing that a Taxi ride back would have been pretty cheap we decided to hoof it back to our hotel since the metro was closed to the night. Schiller, a great person with maps, proceeded to wind us through Rome’s darkened streets until we reached our hotel about an hour later. All of us, who were so cheery earlier, ended the evening feeling much more tired and sweaty than we were only a few hours before. I was less than happy but managed to do a decent job of keeping my mouth shut. A shower and some cool downtime later and I was in bed attempting to get some rest. The plan was to hit Pompeii, about 2.5 hours south of Rome, the next day so we all needed to get some sleep.
Overall I’ve been very proud of the group because of how they’ve handled international travel thus far. While what we’ve accomplished isn’t adventure travel, it
Ancient Tile Work
Photo By: Kelley Turner is tough for people who have never been out of the US at all, which is a category that a few of this group falls into. They managed big group restaurant bills by taking turns paying, got used to people being on top of them in lines, managed to navigate through the Italian train system and have been calm and cool about all of it. I’m proud of these guys…they have rocked and rolled Italy like few novice travelers can.
Hope everyone back home is doing great! We miss you and look forward to seeing you in less than three months. YAY!
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Haines
non-member comment
Roman Delight
I think we all had a great time in Italy. I'm glad we're were all able to meet up as we traditionally do. Thank you TeamTurner for making a 2nd trip to Rome to spend 4 days with us.