Day 9-Day on my own #4 (ROMA)

I woke up at the butt crack of dawn and got ready to go to Rome via airplane. I also woke up to the surprise that I had an incredibly horrible sore throat. Foreshadowing? Not sure, but I got in our taxi driver's car (his name is Carlo and he doesn't speak much English, which makes for a very quiet car ride). He drops me off and I know that I'm about 90 min. early, which is perfect for flight. What a surprise, the flight is delayed for almost an hour. Not a big deal since I don't have a definite plan yet.

The flight was great. I slept for a bit and the landing was one of the smoothest landings I've ever been a part of. I land and the first thing I look for are maps. 18 EURO?! no thanks. So I get into a cab and tell him "Colosseum, por favore." I might as well had told him pronto, because he was going super fast. A couple of times I almost thought that we are definitely getting into an accident.

We make it to the destination and there are sooooo many people. And its soooo hot. I really don't care what anyone says, but Rome is probably one of the hottest cities on the planet. It may say 90+ degrees on weather. com, but it felt like I was going to die. As I'm walking around, I get approached for a tour, which of course I get sceptic about, but I joined it anyway. It was actually a really good tour that lasted about an hour or so about the history of the Colosseum and such. I learned a lot and I would recommend it if anyone goes there.

At the end of the tour, she says we are free to walk around and the second part of the tour is at 3:00pm. OMG another 2-3 hours to wait in the heat? My mind is finding it hard to fathom sitting out here for that long, but I attempted, because I wanted to get what I could while I was here. I walk around and sit down and put my head between my legs appx. every 10 minutes. After about an hour and a half of doing this while simultaneously taking pictures (I came out with some pretty good ones), I decided I need to exit. I needed water so badly. All I had for the past 6 hours was a mini eclair ball, a biscotti and a mini bottle of water. I got a frozen bottle of water and was doing the same thing of standing up and squatting down. At some point when I was squatting, I smelled something really horrible. I ignored it for a bit, but at some point I was questioning why it smelled so bad. I look to my left and there was actually poop. Must have been a kid or something who did it behind this huge rock I was using for balance. How nice.

Other groups are being called and I'm still waiting. It was getting close to 3 and I don't see anyone from my group. I don't think I can wait any longer, so I begin to just walk around and take more pictures of things and think about what moves I'm going to make. I see a bunch of bus stop signs to signify tours. One of them I actually looked into trying to get on before, but I didn't know where they meet up. A guy that was standing there sold me a ticket and it was very much worth it. Although I did not get off the bus after that, I saw a lot of things. Everything that I wanted to see. I was even able to see Vatican City from this bus and get some side notes at the same time. It was pretty cool. Another thing I would recommend to anyone taking a trip to Rome, use the City Sightseeing Rome bus, its cool looking and stops at the most places.

The last stop was the Romani termini, where I'm thinking about getting a cab back to the Aeroporti de Roma. OR I'm thinking, like there is in one in most American cities, maybe theres a train that goes to the Airport. I also went in to see if I can find something to eat and drink, as well as go to the bathroom. I head to the toilettes and what? .80 Euro to get into the bathroom? Wow, no wonder this place has feces all over...no one wants to pay to get to the bathroom.

I found a mini market right next to it where I got an apple and a Cola Zero. I know you are thinking, "Steph, why didn't you get something bigger for lunch?" Well, I saw a girl eating an apple at the Colosseum and I knew that that was allllllll that I wanted. Yum!

Okay, back to figuring out if I can get to the airport from the train station. I looked around for polizia, which I saw plenty of before hand, I could not find one now. With 15 minutes left for train time, I get desperate and find someone in a uniform, who does not speak good English, but does tell me that I should get on the train. I look to see that its on track 28 and I walk towards it. The tracks that are in front are 1-25 and tracks 26-29 are about a half a mile down the length of the first tracks. Well, this sucks. I start to hustle and then realize I'm not going to make it. I am also not going back to get a ticket from an actual person, when I can get one a machine thats right there. Of course, it is all in Italian, but I took what I learned and applied it. I started to do what I thought was right. All the buttons I was pressing makes sense, but it was coming up that the ticket couldn't be printed. AHHH! Ok, no problem. I can pay on the train.

I get on the train and I'm disgusting. I was sweaty and smelly and exhausted from being in Rome. I really just wanted to get back to Savigliano, to a nice bed, to a nice Timmy, to a nice sleep.

The ticket collector gets to me and I tell her, "How much?" And she has the balls to say, "Oh its an extra 50 EURO, so thats 64 EURO, please." This girl is out of her mind. 64 EURO?! And I thought this was going to save me money. NO ONE do what I did. Always get your tickets. I really regret that now.

I make it to the airport (YAY!) and I kind of wish that I didn't have to hang out with myself for another few hours, since I smelled sooooo bad. Yuck! I'm looking up my Terminal, but I forget exactly what time I should be leaving and there are a few for Torino that I could be taking. I take a chance and go towards Terminal 1. Good thing I got something right...I get my ticket and find something to eat. There wasn't a lot to choose from, but I got a Cheese Sandwich with tomatoes and lettuce that actually was pretty good. After I ate I headed towards my gate.

The gate said I was at B5, so I got a seat and waited. Maybe after an hour of waiting, a whole family (about 10 people) came to the same gate and sat right next to me being so loud that I could barely focus on my brick breaker game (how rude :op) I get up and walked around, checked my gate again (still B5) and sat back down in a different seat. People leave for Amsterdam...and then Milan. Oooh, I'm next :o). Why are the gate attendants leaving? What is happening? I saw that there were a few people waiting, but I wanted to check again the flight status. B17?! Why was no one told. I quickly try to find it and luckily everyone was waiting for a bus to take us to the plane. (Although Rome is technology forward at this airport, you still need a bus to take you to a plane...odd).

All 80 something of us get on this bus, which could have been mistaken for a clown car. No one should fill a bus with that many people. We get to the plane and I'm hoping I don't need to sit next to anyone and subject them to my smell. Luckily, I had a window seat and no one was sitting directly next to me. The guy who was on the aisle seat started talking to me in Italian. "Parli Inglese?" And then in English. It was nice to be able to talk to someone on the flight.

The flight was delayed about a half hour (how shocking) and when we landed, I was too excited. I saw Carlo and got more excited. The car ride, like usual, was quiet, but I didn't care. I was looking forward to showering and to bed time.

I made it back to the hotel :o) Tim was up waiting for me :o) The shower was awesome :o) And the sleep was awesome :o)

Tomorrow, VENICE!!!

*birthday shout-out to Mac Attack! Hope you had a wonderful birthday!