When in Rome...or about an hour outside of it

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I didn’t have a lot of time to spend in Rome because the fates seemed against me. Apparently I really had to earn my chance to see the Coliseum. The ship docked in Civataveccia three times while I was on board. That’s also about how long it took me to learn how to pronounce the name (like chi-va-ta-vek-ia). It’s about an hour train ride away from Rome.

So the first time we were there I didn’t really have a lot of time to go far away and I didn’t know of anyone else going and wasn’t feeling adventurous enough yet to attempt a solo foreign train ride. So I just wandered a bit around locally. There’s not much to see in Civataveccia. A few stores, a McDonald’s, a free internet zone, and a waterfront. So I walked around for an hour or so on my own and then headed back to the ship.

The second time we docked there I had planned on making the trek to Rome, but that plan got sidetracked by our first code red. When the ship goes into Code Red it means that more than 1% of the people on board have some sort of gastrointestinal illness. It means that access becomes a lot more restricted for communal things, like the buffet line. So they ask for crew members to volunteer in their off time to serve food up on Lido Deck and in this case they tried to extort said volunteer time by telling us that no one could get off the ship until the shifts were covered. Well when those shifts were covered they also neglected to tell us that we were suddenly allowed to get off the ship. I found out at 5:30pm that evening as I showed up to work that I spent the whole day being bored out of my mind in my cabin and could’ve gotten off the ship all along and gotten to Rome. It was a ridiculous day to say the least.

So I had one last chance to get to Rome while the ship was still in Europe, and then my supervisor went and scheduled a rehearsal for 10am-12pm, and then I had another rehearsal at 6pm. So if I went I wouldn’t have a lot of time and I’d have to be really aware of the train schedules and the time I spent there. I decided to go for it, because I would’ve felt robbed if I’d gotten that close to Rome and not at least seen the Coliseum.

I rushed out to the train station, caught the first train I could, got off in Rome, took the subway to the Coliseum stop (yes, it was that easy). You’d be surprised how easy it is to figure out a subway system despite being in an entirely different language. As soon as you walk out of the subway station, you see the Coliseum. It’s just there, and it’s gigantic. I just wanted to take a billion pictures of it because everytime I looked at it I was struck with how ancient and amazing it was. Every step I took away from it, I kept looking back to take in the awesomeness. I wish there hadn’t been so many people around.

From the Coliseum I walked to Treva fountain, where there were about as many people as ounces of water. I made the obligatory wish at the fountain and got my picture doing it, and that was about all the time I had. I rushed back to the subway station, took it to the train station and found the quickest train back to Civataveccia.

I wish I could’ve seen more, but at least I got to see something. And the Coliseum alone was worth the hour train ride.

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Comments

[Lindsey]

Why is it that your ship seems to be getting a lot of passengers with diseases? lol

[Sallad Refinnej]

because they're old and have weak digestive systems and then they go to foreign countries and eat weird foods or they eat way too much food on board and they can't handle it. And then they get sick and don't stay in their rooms and just spread their bacteria because apparently they don't know how to wash their hands effectively either. That is how a code red happens.

[Holly]

Wow!
Your pics of the Coliseum are amazing!