When in Rome...hey, wait it's raining!

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This trip is getting to be pretty challenging. As our bags become heavier and multiplying our trip is getting more tiresome. We spent a good chunk of the day just going from our nice peaceful Cinque Terre on this tempermental train to ROME. At first it was 25mins late, then in the middle of the road it stopped for about 25 minutes because I'm guessing there was some sort of power issue or obstacle on the road, not sure, this was from my VERY broken Italian with this sweet old Italian couple sitting in our same train compartment. Then the whole way there it at some points it would just kind of crawl. Anyhow enough of the complaining.

After the nice little couple left we got the train compartment *couchette to ourselves and pulled the seats out flat to sleep on it. John slept, I couldn't. That guy can probably sleep on anything anywhere. Sheesh! So.... after 5 or so hours we get to Rome and spend about an hour and half trying to get a place to crash. While at the train terminal some guy came up to us saying he's an 'hotel tourist' dood guy of some sort and helps people get rooms. I declined his help, he said he senses that I'm a little afraid and that he's not going to steal or anything, he just goes and help people get rooms and such, showing me some printed card that says Tourist Information on it. We both declined him once again, I too can print a card like that and put it in a badge holder too! haha.

So we figure, we'll get a phone card and make some calls, no luck, since Rick Steve's books are so popular, practically everyone on this trip had one in Italy, all his reccomendations were booked up. We were going to head to the terminal desk where they book last minute Hotel rooms at last minute prices (eek!) but I remembered my buddy from work said he booked a nice room in Rome when he went recently and it didn't cost too much. I didn't remember the catchy name at first but we headed over to the internet cafe across the street and looked it up. Yay! after spending about 2euros, I was able to book a room that is a 10 minute walk from the Vatican for about 85 euros, Shared bathroom but it's nothing but a thing!

We bought this Rome Pass thing that lets you visit 2 museums free, and all the transit you can do in 3 days for 20 euros per person , so we used that to get to the Vatican and then walked the rest of the way to the bed and breakfast. BUT the thing is when we got to the place, they said my reservation that day i made was CANCELLED!!!! I just booked it online but for some reason the Romeby.com people sent a cancellation to the B&B owner due to my credit card being incorrect or something. But luckily they didn't book up yet and we were still able to get the rooms for tonight and tomorrow night before we fly out. Whew a bit of stress! Anyhow, no pictures today since we didn't really get to go anywhere. But I am able to sit down and make sense of what I type out today since I'm getting free internet at the place I'm staying at (although the computer sounds like it's about to take off, fan needs to be changed). We headed out for dinner since we didn't really eat today and took tons of pictures of these tiny tiny cars! I think I want one of those smart cars when they come to the US of A. boy are they cute.

Anyway, I think I'll go shower and plan out our day tomorrow since it'll be our only day in Rome to run around and then it's off to America. Home Sweet home!!



PS Pizza is a snack food here (not that great), there's cheap gelato everywhere here, and yes it's actually raining here in Rome and I was totally expecting it to be much warmer here than where we were at Cinque Terre.

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Comments

[Kimmi]

Food?!
All I read you eating is pizza and ice cream! Anything else yummy? Like cheez? and authentic Italian food?! Miss you!

[Turtlebutt]

we seriously only ate like breads, pizzas and pastas in Italy. Not much else. We didn't really have salamis or cheeses here, not sure why. more pictures later when I get the chance to organize them more!