Rome in my squishy boots, Day 1

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Rome, I don’t even know where to start with Rome. It was the most magnificent place I’ve ever been and we made so many memories in the short 3 days that we were there.
I guess I’ll start with Wednesday night or technically, Thursday morning.
Our bus left London at 3:08 am. The group of girls I went with (the same group from Wales) decided to go out to bars, I decided to take a nap at 10:30pm. I woke up at 1:45 and met Sabrina in the lounge at 2. Sabrina and I took a different flight than Jessi, Andrea, Alyse, and Emma because they had booked their trip back in October while entry clearance was still Oct. 30th. Once Sabrina and I found out the entry clearance was once again pushed back to late November, we bought the cheapest tickets we could find on the same days as the other girls. These tickets just happened to be the 6am flights…both ways.
We walked down Oxford Street at 2am which was still filled with people who were still on Wednesday time. We made it to the bus stop 20 minutes later to begin a trend a with buses for the entire weekend. We waited a good 15 minutes at the bus sign that said “National Express” (our bus) until a National Express bus pulled up and told us we were at the wrong stop. 10 minutes before we were supposed to get on the bus, we were hightailing it a couple blocks away to a stop not listed on our tickets. Our bus did come to the stop though so we made the bus to the airport. Once we got there, it took literally 2 seconds to check in. I was starving since I had slept and felt like it was time for breakfast so I headed to the café. Without thinking I bought a bottle of water AND a hot chocolate (the bus did not have heat) and we hadn’t been through security yet. So, Sabrina and I sat down and between laughing fits, attempted to chug the entire bottle. It must have been because we were sleep deprived but we honestly sat there for 30 minutes and laughed at nothing. When we finally decided we could handle going through security, we headed to the gate and continued to annoy all those around with our early morning giggles.
When we sat down on the plane, Sabrina immediately passed out. I didn’t last much longer; however, I had a slicked back Italian man sitting next to me so when my head would begin to droop I would immediately wake up. I saw the sun rise at least!
Landing in Rome, we flew over the Colisseum! At first Sabrina and I were saying it wasn’t because it looked so small but it was! That was cool and it became a joke that we didn’t have to waste the time seeing the Colisseum since we had already seen it from the air.
We were finally in Rome! We were so excited! It took us a couple trips to the bus parking lot to find our bus (the flight attendant said it would be a bright pink bus, it was not, it was white), but we made it and drove into the city. At first, I was not impressed. There was graffitti everywhere! A lot of the neighborhoods we passed were really run down and trash was everywhere. It was not the Italy I had imagined.
The bus dropped us off at the station and I started the second trend of the weekend, I led everyone, everywhere. My map was my best friend.
We stayed at the Alessandro Downtown Hostel which was right near the main train station of Rome, Termini. We attempted to check in but we were there 3 hours early. It was only 11:30. So we decided to change and stash our luggage, aka our backpacks, and have our first genuine Italian food. We decided on this pizzeria joint. Just as we sat down for lunch it started pouring outside including thunder and lightening. Hoping it would pass, we chowed down on pizza…I had a sausage pizza and Sabrina had some sort of fresh mozzarella pizza with greens on top. Mine was delicious.
Leaving the restaurant, we huddled under my umbrella and ran back to the hostel to meet up with the other girls and try and check-in. We waited about 15 minutes before we decided the girls could just meet us somewhere. The hostel was nothing special, literally a room with 4 bunk beds in it and a bare table in the middle. We left a note saying where we thought we were going and headed to the train station.
For some reason, Sabrina and I could never find specific things we were looking for. The signs led us in one direction and once we reached a dead end, we scratch our heads and turned around. The signs lead us towards where we were going, but they didn’t tell us when to turn. We eventually found the information desk and there was a British couple finding information on a hop-on hop-off tour bus. We eavesdropped figured it was the smartest option since we could use it to get around the entire weekend and not worry about the public transport with the added bonus of seeing everything. It sounded like a good idea so we bought 2 day tickets. The lady who worked the information told us, the bus stop was outside and x amount of kilometers down the road, across from the pharmacy. Note, it is still pouring outside and how far is x kilometers? We walked up and down every bus lane, got on and off of random buses, tried to find someone who spoke English so they could tell us what direction to head to the bright green hop on bus. By this point, my boots were completely soaking wet and I could feel the water swish from one one side to the next with each step I took. Giving up on finding it ourselves, we went up to a tourist stand and asked where the bus left from. He literally pointed across the street to the neon bus right in front of us. Genius.
The bus was completely packed and since it was a hop-on hop-off bus, the ceiling was dripping since the doors to the top deck had been opened earlier in the day. The windows were foggy so we couldn’t see outside and there were no seats so we couldn’t plug our headphones in. There was a very loud Italian friend of the bus driver that was screaming at someone on his cell phone, hand motions included. We decided it would be more fun to get off at a random stop and by this point it had stopped raining.
Piazza Barberini was our random hop-off point. We decided we would go to a gelato shop, get some gelato and cappuccinos and figure out where we were. We chose a cute little shop with pink seats. I went straight to the bathroom to ring out my socks and attempt to dump some water out of my boots. When I went back for gelato I got 2 flavors, chocolate chip and tiramisu. It was so delicious. We were going to sit down when one of the waitresses told us we couldn’t, for it was eating only. I asked if cappuccino’s counted and she said that was ok. So we ordered cappuccinos and switched between caffeine and sweets. Once we figured out where we were and had finished our cappuccinos, we asked for the bill only to find its 3 euro per person to sit down. Ridiculous. Apparently in Italy you have to pay to 1. sit down 2. sit down outside (more than inside) and 3. pay a 15% service charge on top of that.
Since it wasn’t raining anymore, we decided to follow one of the walking tours in the book I had bought. We headed to Le Quattro Fontane (the four fountains). These fountains were built into the buildings and looking out from the four corners of a little intersection. From here we continued walking, taking in the scenery and repeating to ourselves that we were actually in Italy. We stumbled upon the most gorgeous view overlooking the city. There were so many domes from cathedrals popping up above the other buildings. The contrasts of the stormy clouds and the brighter colors of the city skyline were gorgeous. It just so happened that we had found the Quirinale. The abbreviated story that I was told was “when the popes were in charge, this was their summer palace, when the popes were kicked out to the Vatican city, the Kings used it, and when the king was kicked out, the President of the Italian republic moved in. It’s not that interesting of a building but the view is amazing.
After taking pictures and studying my map, I realized we were really close to the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi fountain). We asked a couple that spoke English which direction was which and they said, “oh gosh we’ve been there way too many times, we just keep stumbling upon it”. Tourists. Anyway, we headed in the direction we thought we needed to go, turned around, and headed in a different direction. We stopped and asked a doorman through charades and pointing at the map how to get to the fountain. He pointed and we walked. We turned the corner and there it was! We were so excited we kind of ran/walked up to it. It was not how I expected it to be. I didn’t think it would be as large as it was and stuck in the middle of a small random piazza. We took so many pictures! We also tossed a coin over our left shoulder into the fountain and made a wish. I’m not sure why over the left shoulder, though. The fountain was so amazing.
This whole time, my shoes are still squishin. We finally heard from the girls who had come on the later flight and found out they were going to head to the Colisseum. Instead of rushing to meet up with them on the other side of the city, I decided it was time for me to find some different shoes. My feet were beginning to go numb by this point.
We didn’t really know which direction to head to find some new shoes so we figured we’d head back towards the bus stop we’d gotten off at and if we saw a place on the way, we would stop in. What I learned on this adventure is Italian shoes are expensive. We had found no decent affordable shoes on the way to the bus stop.
When our bus came, we got on with the intention of getting off at the Coliseum and meeting the girls for wine. We were finally able to plug in our earpieces and listen to what we were passing even though it was dark by this point. We came across St. Peters and the Vatican and even though both of us could barely feel our feet, we got off to take some night pictures. It was really beautiful lit up and we didn’t know if we’d get the chance to see it at night again. Pictures taken, we headed back to the bus stop after about 15 minutes and ended up catching the same bus we had started out on that day. We asked the guide how much time it would take to get back to the bus station where we had started and she said 1 hour! According to the map we were about half way around the bus loop that the bus follows. We figured, though, not knowing where we were we could just sit and listen to the information and not think about our feet and hopefully an hour would pass quickly. I followed the map at each stop we came across and realized we weren’t following any particular route. At one point the guide got off and went into a drugstore to buy cigarettes and smoked one outside! A little bit later on the ride when we were fairly close to the bus station, the bus turned around and stopped. It was well past an hour we had been on the bus by now. The tour guide got off the bus and hung up a sign on the bus stop sign and got back on. We did this at every single bus stop between this stop and the bus station. We even passed the stop where we had gotten on at the Vatican! We asked the tour guide how long till Termini station and she always told us 10-20 minutes. This went on for about 45 minutes. She finally turned around and told us “next stop after this one is you”. Then a couple got up and asked how long to the Colisseum and the tour guide told them they didn’t stop at the Colisueum anymore. We then went out of the way to get to the Colesseum and then the stupid couple didn’t even get off, they “changed their minds”. So FINALLY, two hours and 10 numb toes later, we got off the bus. Walking was painful. When we got to the hostel, we were so hungry and cold. We stood in the shower holding our feet under the hot water for a good 10 minutes to retain feeling in our toes. The girls had gotten free pasta from the hostel, but Sabrina and I had missed it so we decided to go out and get an authentic Italian meal. We changed our shoes and socks first. Everyone but Andrea decided to come along. We went to this little restaurant just around the corner from the Hostel. The waiters were your typical loud and friendly Italian guys. We ordered wine and I ordered a rigatoni dish with meat and a tomato base sauce. It was so good. It pretty much became a requirement that we would all try each others dishes to experience as much Italian pasta as possible. Dinner was fun and our waiter kept us entertained the entire time. After dinner, we of course had to have our second round of gelato for the day and I believe this time I got the tiniest bowl of mint gelato possible but it was delicious as expected.
After gelato, we returned to the hostel and I stood in front of the bathroom dryer for about an hour attempting to dry my boots off.

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Photos

Gelato and a cappuccino!
rough life....

Quirinale
Getting lost and finding beautiful places