(This is a very long post.)
Several weeks ago, I was
feeling sorry for myself about not going home for Thanksgiving. To make myself feel better, I decided
to take a trip. I browsed cheap
flights, found one that was going to Rome, and booked it. I’m spontaneous (Colin Firth, Mamma
Mia). So I went to Rome this
weekend.
When I booked the
flight, I was in the mindset of maximizing the time in Rome without taking a
day off from work. I booked the
earliest flight on Saturday, which was at 6:00 am from Stansted. I didn’t really consider what time this
would require me to leave my apartment—2:30 am. So that was pretty dumb. But I was committed.
At 2:30, I set out on my journey. My transportation plan, which I successfully
navigated: hop on night bus by my apartment, switch to different night bus,
catch 3:30 Easy Bus to Stansted (with two minutes to spare). If I had been watching this all as a
scene in a movie, this might have been pretty hilarious. I was probably the only sober person on
either of the night buses (surprise!).
On the second night bus, a guy two rows in front of me vom-ed, while a
drunk couple behind me almost came to blows in a heated argument in a language
I could not understand. On the
Easy Bus, our driver announced that it was his last day in this terrible job,
and he proceeded to blast love ballads for the entire
hour-and-forty-five-minute ride.
We got some nice Wind Beneath My Wings, (Everything I Do) I Do It For
You, the real song that the Christmas song from Love Actually is based on, and,
when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Sometimes When We Touch, from that
old Geico commercial. But because
this wasn’t a movie, but rather my real life at 3:30 in the morning, I wasn’t
completely amused by the night bus drunkies or the British version of Delilah
radio. Too bad for me. Share my pain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVf940pO5ME
Easy Bus finally arrived
at Stansted, and I made my flight with time to spare. Take that, British Will. (He doubted me.)
I passed out on the plane, but happened to wake up just as we were
flying over the Alps. I was
pleased with that timing.
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| Climb everyyyy mountainnnnn. |
We landed in Rome and I
took yet another bus into the city.
By 10:30, I had finally arrived and was ready to begin my day (pretend I
hadn’t already done that 8 and a half hours before). Saturday was mainly an exercise in church hopping, running
around Rome like a crazy, and general nerding out over art and
architecture. (Let’s not forget
that I almost double majored in art history.) There was much to see, and I ran around to the things I
figured people wouldn’t want me to drag them to when we return to Rome
together. (I threw a coin in the
Trevi Fountain, so I am guaranteed another visit.) So you all should be grateful—we can do the things you want
to do when we go back.
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| San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. One of my favorite buildings of all timeeeeee. |
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| Sant'Ignazio. The ceiling is a flat fresco. So is the dome. Crazy, right?????? |
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| San Luigi dei Francesi. I went for the... |
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| ...Caravaggio masterpieces!!! FREAK OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTT. I love taking the same pictures that were slides in art history classes. Check out the real light coming from the window versus the light coming in the window in the painting. ON PURPOSE. |
That evening, I took the
train out to a little town called Frascati to meet up with the family I was
staying with for the night. (I
found them through Couch Surfing.
Hey Erin, I didn’t get murdered. :) The family was a
young couple, Marta and Olivier, their 22 month old, Charlotte, their dog
Betty, and their cat Lala. They
were the cutest and they were so, so good to me. Marta had cooked up a storm—sausage-stuffed chicken for the
first course (from Marta’s cousin the butcher), broccoli dish for the second
course, lots of cheese for the third course (Olivier is French), and delicious
apple pie for dessert (and breakfast the next morning). I had my very own room in their
apartment, with a great view out the window. I was absolutely exhausted, and slept for 11 hours (10:00 to
9:00). It was perfect.
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| The view. |
The next morning, after
saying my goodbyes to Marta, Olivier, Charlotte, and Betty (Betty the dog and I
got along really well. She almost
never left me. I did not say
goodbye to Lala the cat. We were
not as good friends.), I went to catch the train back to Rome. However, because of a few unfortunate
circumstances (the station was closed, I couldn’t buy a ticket, I couldn’t
speak Italian, I really hadn’t left enough time to get to the station anyways,
etc), I missed the 10:30 train.
The next one wasn’t for another 2 hours, so I decided to wander around
Frascati for a while (not that I had much other choice) (I could have gone back
to Marta and Olivier, but I was too embarrassed). I popped in a few more churches, caught the end of
Mass. After that, I went into a
little restaurant for some pizza.
The lady at the counter didn’t speak English. Apparently she was also unafraid to blatantly take advantage
of American tourists. My pizza and
drink cost 3.80 euros. I handed
her a 50 note, because that was all I had (the ATM made me take out a minimum
of 50 euros and I really needed cash).
She rolled her eyes, and handed me my change: 36.20. I don’t think she expected me to count
it. I looked at her, shook my
held, held up the change and said, “Sorry, this isn’t enough.” She looked at me with a face that said,
“What are you gonna do about it?”
Large, stubborn Italian woman, I thought, you will not intimidate
me. I felt myself get obnoxious and
do that speak-louder thing Americans do when people don’t understand their
language. “I GAVE YOU A FIFTY,
FIVE ZERO. I NEED TEN MORE EUROS.”
while waving my change. “No, no,
no, no, no,” she said. She took my
change and started counting very loudly and slowly in Italian, as if I were
dumb and the one whose math was mistaken.
Her coworker came to the counter from the kitchen to see the
commotion. When she saw what was
going on, she stood there and laughed.
I wanted to grab a pen and do the subtraction right there for them, but
the first lady had already begun to serve the next customer. I stood there and looked at her with
eyes that said, “Are you really going to rob me of 10 euros right in front of
my face?” She looked back at me
triumphantly with eyes that said, “Yes,” and then went back into the
kitchen. It had been enough of a
scene and I wasn’t going to win, so I left with my 13.80 euro pizza. It was good, but not that good.
With only small
difficulties this time, I made the next train to Rome. I took the Metro to Vatican City and
went to St. Peter’s Basilica. It
is just humungous. After that, I
went back to the area around the Spanish Steps and did my part to help the
Italian economy by doing some Christmas shopping.
By then, it was about
time to head back to the airport.
To flash back briefly to the day I booked my plane tickets, Dillon had
gchatted me, “Claire, don’t go to Italy.”
(The whole Amanda Knox case was in the news at that time.) I told him that I had, in fact, just
booked tickets to Rome, but would try my best not to get implicated in any
murders. This was in the back of
my mind the entire weekend, but I wasn’t really worried about the possibility
of spending a few years in Italian prison until my bus ride back to Ciampino
airport. Simply put, I wanted to
murder the two American girls who sat next to me. They did not shut up once and they were just terrible. I could write a whole blog post,
recording their conversation and how terrible it was. Maybe I will, because this post is already way too
long. I’ll do that at some
point. You’ll enjoy it. And you won’t believe it. Because I could hardly believe it, and
I was sitting right next to them.
Just one more little
story, I promise. The flight back
to the UK was fine, but the line at customs took FOREVER. Luckily I got to go to the not-UK-or-EU
citizens line, which was much shorter.
It still took an hour and a half.
When I was finally towards the front of the line, I noticed this guy at
one of the customs agents’ desks.
Something had clearly gone wrong and he was not being allowed into the
country. He stormed away from the
agent, back towards us, took off his backpack, and flung it (with some serious
force) at the people in line.
Luckily it hit the railing and not people. In America, that dude would have been arrested in a half a
second. But in the UK, he got some
great schoolteacher discipline action.
The customs agent marched over to him and said, “Excuse me, sir, was
that necessary? You will apologize
to those people.” He mumbled an
“I’m sorry.” But the lady was not
satisfied, “YOU WILL TURN AROUND AND FACE THEM AND APOLOGIZE.” So he did. Then she just left him there, sitting in a chair. I was like…is no one going to watch
this unstable man? Then another
airport guy came over and said to him, “You are accused of throwing a
backpack.” The accused started to
talk back to him. “DO NOT SPEAK. DO. NOT. SPEAK. YOU ARE ACCUSED OF THROWING A
BACKPACK. YOU WILL SIT IN THIS
CHAIR UNTIL THIS ENTIRE HALL IS CLEARED.
THEN YOU WILL BE SEEN.”
Which was really unfortunate for that guy, because he had probably
already waited an hour and a half, and the line had gotten even longer. I bet he doesn’t throw his backpack
next time he’s refused entry to a country.
Anyways, I got through
customs just fine, took my three buses back to my apartment, and walked in my
door 48 hours after I had walked out.
I think that was the first and last time I fly in and out of Stansted on
back-to-back days. Too much of an
exhausting hassle. But, the
weekend was great and I’m glad I went.
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| Maureen's new boyfriend. |
