I almost didn't make it to Roma. I'd spent countless hours planning out the itinerary for my whirlwind 2 week trip through Europe with my sister and her
BFF, Trisha. Ridiculous amounts of euros had been wasted on researching the best hostels and sending excessive emails to my sister to ensure this vacation met up to
everyone's expectations. I think it was thanks to all this planning that I figured it might possibly be
ok to skip out on the vacation myself. They had the hostel reservation numbers and a modified list of Rick
Steves do's and
don'ts in Europe. Did they really need their tour guide?
Thankfully my common sense (and my fear of the wrath of my parents for leaving my sister and Trisha to fend for themselves in Europe) got the best of me. I shelled out more euros than I'd like to admit on a taxi that whisked me away from the paradise of coastal
Positano and into the dirty chaos of the Naples train station. Within two hours I had arrived at Rome's Termini Station and was all set to wait for my sister's arrival. Afterwhat seemed like much longer than thirty minutes I finally spotted the two recent college graduates making their way towards me up the platform. After being away from Seattle for nearly three months I expected to be greeted with "I missed you!" "You look fabulous!" "You are the best sister EVER for planning this trip!" Instead, the first words out of my sister's mouth were, "
What is on your teeth!?" Some things never change. Sometimes I think my sister is training for motherhood by taking me on as her practice child; she is always quick to point out smeared eye makeup and wouldn't think twice about spitting on her hand and publicly rubbing off a barely noticeable mark from my cheek. Assuming this to be one of her typical overreactions, I launched into my own enthusiastic onslaught of how much I'd missed her and how excited I was for the adventure ahead. However, I barely got a few words out before she interjected, "I'm sorry, but
WHAT did you eat!?" I begrudgingly pulled a mirror out of my purse to check this out for myself and was horrified to discover that this was not one of my sister's
OCD comments, it really did appear that I had brushed my teeth with swamp sludge that morning. My God,
what had I eaten!? After racking my brain I finally settled on the only possible cause. After pulling an all
nighter filled with celebratory drinking I'd decided to pop a couple
pepto bismol tablets to avoid any unnecessary stomachaches during my morning of travel. Perhaps there had been some sort of oxidizing effect turning the bright pink tablets into the black goo that now lined my teeth? I quickly realized that this meant I had been traveling through Italy all morning, my usually smiley self (probably even more than usual as I tend to smile even more in unfamiliar situations), showcasing my horrific teeth to everyone I encountered. My only hope was that I had been mistaken (and quickly forgiven for my horrible smile) as being British and on holiday in Italy.
As soon as we'd located our hostel I headed to the bathroom to restore my teeth. Then it was off to explore Roma. However thanks to
Steph and Trisha's jet lag and my own sleep deprivation, we didn't make it much farther than a two block radius outside of Termini Train Station before we returned to our hostel for a siesta. Day one as the tour guide and I was already being a terrible role model breaking rule #1 of traveling:: no naps for jet lag! You must fight exhaustion and stay awake to get your body to adjust. I didn't fully realize how big of a mistake I'd made until I awoke at 6pm, refreshed and ready to go and tried to awake
Steph and Trisha, who were now happily snoozing in REM zone. No talk of
gelato, pizza or photos at the
Trevi Fountain was going to rouse these two, at least not very quickly. It wasn't until an hour later that these two begrudgingly followed me out made it out the door and into the bustle of the evening in Rome.
A quick note about our hostel. Inappropriately named Hostel Beautiful (2), we spent our stay there brainstorming new names that our accommodations actually warranted. Among the replacements we tossed around were "Hostel Sketchy," "Hostel Ghetto" and "Hostel of Terror." Now, in truth, the actual rooms of our hostel really weren't so bad, but we'd only located the establishment thanks to the help we received from the owner of the local laundromat/internet cafe who quickly realized we were lost tourists when we wandered by his business twice within five minutes. He graciously led us to Hostel Beautiful (2), where we encountered the first less-than-beautiful part of the hostel, the giant metal cage-like tower in the center of the building containing the elevator. This elevator was fairly similar to many I'd encountered (and survived) in Spain, but something about the dark, cold stone stairwell made it seem that much scarier. Add to it that it was Steph and Trisha's first time stepping in to such a cage, made me think twice about trusting such an antique contraption. Indeed, I am still not sure how such an elevator functions in a youth hostel where drunk, oblivious travelers are likely to forget to shut the cage door, rendering it useless and unable to travel to any other floors. As much as we could we opted for the stairs during our stay at Hostel Beautiful (2).
After an introduction to the metro system in Rome (which we quickly learned lived up to its reputation of being dirty, sketchy and crowded) we arrived at the Spanish Steps. I was disappointed to discover this landmark to be more beautiful and impressive in photos. After our own necessary snapshots of the steps and surrounding fountains, we were off to locate Piazza
Navona, home of Bernini's
Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of Four Rivers). This turned out to be the perfect location for enjoying Italian pizza and people watching. Before making our way to the
Trevi Fountain, we stopped at a to-die-for
gelateria where Trisha quickly made friends with the guy behind the counter who was eager to try out his limited English vocab on us and trade generous servings of
gelato samples in exchange for a chance to try on Trisha's aviator glasses.
Probably the coolest part about Rome is that you are completely surrounded by history and can easily stumble across infinitely important landmarks. Such a thing happened on our first night when we came across a massive, important (and very old) looking building. Thankfully I had Rick
Steves in tow and we quickly learned that oh, it is just the Pantheon.
Just the Pantheon? Wow. This is epic! After accidentally encountering a few other important landmarks we finally arrived at the overcrowded, yet breathtakingly beautiful,
Trevi fountain. In truth, it did feel a little reminiscent of
Caesar's Palace in Vegas, but I kept reminding myself that this was the real thing and joined in on the tourists snapping photos and tossing coins over their shoulders for good luck.
Day #2 took us to Vatican City. First stop was the Vatican Museum, which we found to be surprisingly empty. We later learned that this was the case because all of the really wise tourists had procured tickets to see the pope speak that morning. Strike two for the tour guide. We hurried past important statues, books and paintings in search of the Sistine Chapel, all while Trisha expressed her disappointment that they did not have a shortcut to this highlight of the museum. Around 92 rooms later we finally arrived and craned our necks to see
Michaelangelo's masterpiece. Now this was the kind of thing you need to see in person!
Then it was back out in the scorching 90 degree heat where we learned we'd missed the pope and had to wait 20 minutes until the reopened St. Peter's Basilica. We almost skipped it altogether since we were dressed entirely appropriately for the church, knees and shoulders covered, and not at all for baking in the sun. Just as we were about to head towards the metro they reopened the gates and we were on our way (that is, after all the overly enthusiastic
Asian tourists rushed past us, ignoring all rules of line etiquette. You would've thought they'd heard the pope was giving an encore performance, right in the cathedral). We admired the high ceilings and impressive frescoes, scoffed at the excessive gold and grew squeamish at the sight of the former pope's corpses on display. Then it was time to head back to the hostel for an afternoon siesta, but not before Stephanie elegantly fell off of one of the high curbs, narrowly dodged a speeding Roman motorist and began worrying that she'd sprained her ankle.
Our final night in Rome we joined other hostel guests at the complimentary wine party (I had heard them say "Hawaiian" and was utterly disappointed to arrive and see an absence of leis and grass skirts). We made a new friend from the states who my sister and Trisha desperately tried to get me interested in (after only two days they'd already grown tired of my blubbering about
Positano). I was more interested in the free wine than this guy and after several cups we decided around 11pm that it was time to get some dinner. One traditional and delicious Italian meal (including more wine) later we discovered that Tuesday night in Rome was not the night for dancing so we snagged some cheap, but delicious wine from the grocery store and headed back to the hostel for a classy game of King's cup, Italian style. Despite my afternoon siesta, I did not last long and decided to curl up in my bed while everyone else played. My attempt to rest up for our long day of travel ahead of us was not
kosher with everyone else and I wound up doused in water and pushed onto the floor. Needless to say, we woke up the next morning with wine stained sheets, half a deck of playing cards and suitcases that had exploded throughout the room. We had exactly one hour to push pass our exhaustion and headaches to reassemble our bags and make our way to the train station bound for
Cinque Terre and the adventures that awaited.