Roma!

So, I'm in Naples, but I figured I'd take some time to write about the first few days in Rome. I wrote everything down on paper as I went along, so I'll just copy what I have here:

Friday, March 16
So, we're in Rome.

At first, I was a little worried we weren't going to actually make it here. We got to the airport, and we went to the wrong terminal. We were sitting there, trying to figure out why our flight wasn't coming up on the board (since it was an hour before it was to take off) when we finally went into the main area and promptly realized we needed to be in terminal 2.

After a quick sprint, there, we checked in relatively quickly, got our passports stamped (#8) to leave the Czech Republic, got through security, and eventually got on the plane, which was full of what looked like an Italian high school trip. Or, more accurately, it looked somewhat like Hills East would have looked like had it been an Italian high school trip.

We get to Rome, get our luggage, and get on the train to get to the center of the city without any major mishaps. After a minor freakout wher I thought that a) the train was going to take over an hour to get to the city center (it didn't) and b) that we were going to get fined 25 Euro because we hadn't stamped our tickets (even though I was proud of myself for reading the entire sign in Italian) we got to the Termini station without any big problems. We also successfuly navigated the metro. However, when we get to the Garbatella metro stop, we discover that a) Emily has lost the map that that the hostel had sent us, which I had given her to hold, and b) the area of Rome we are currently in isn't even ON the map that the tourist office at Termini had given us.

We wandered a bit, and asked a policemand near the station for directions. I asked in Italian, so I waws proud of myself for being able to do that, but he had to ask someone at the newsstand for directions. Clearly, not a good sign. He proceeds to direct me - in Italian - to make a left, a right, go across the parking lot, up some stairs, etc. It's days like this where I miss the gridlike order of (most of) Manhattan. Even Prague seems less complicated than this.

Three sets of Italian directions later, it is clear that we are a) going in a gigantic circle and b) lost. I'm extremely frustrated, and it's clear Emily isn't happy either. We have no idea where we are.

More directions and one false alarm later, we finally arrive at the hostel. It's alright - nothing terribly nice to speak of, but the crowd is really international, so that's cool. We decide to head back into the center of the city for dinner. We ask the owner of the hostel how to get back to the metro - because there has GOT to be an easier way than what we did - and she directs us to a window, where she proceeds to show us that if we cut across a parking lot, we could be on the metro in a matter of minutes. We quite literally could have thrown a rock and hit the metro station, instead of spending half an hour wanderiing through the streets of Rome's equivalent of Prague's Holesovice or Zlicin neighborhoods.

We went out to dinner near the Coliseum, which is pretty impressive in person. I can't wait to see it in the daylght. I was proud of myself for eating in an Italian restaurant, and my Celiac card made sense to the waiter. Even better. Even better than that, is all the gelato in this city. Worse comes to worse, I can survive on that.

Saturday, March 17

Today was exhausting, but in the best way possible. Emily and I managed to knock off about half of hour to-do list for the entire trip (and almost get our money's worth out of our 11 euro 3 day metro passes.) Needless to say, it's about 10 pm and I'm exhausted, even if it is going to take a lot of Nyquil and some hostel-provided earplugs to drown out the disco next door, which proved to be somewhat difficult to deal with last night.

We woke up this morning and got on our way pretty quickly. The morning was square-themed, and not in the uncool way. Piazzas are a huge part of Italian city culture, and a lot of these were pretty amazing to see. We saw the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and Piazza del Popolo, among others.

After lunch (Risotto again - this city seriously makes me wish I didn't have celiac) we headed to the Coliseum. Taking the guided tour proved to be a smart idea, as we got to skip the queue, and we even got half-price tickets (although that was for being a student. It was pretty amazing to see. I can only imagine what it was like during ancient Roman times.

We hit the Roman Forum, Palantine Hill (the site of the first settled Roman community) and the Pantheon. By this point we're both exhausted, and it's getting late, so after a quick gelato break, we headed back to the hostel before dinner.

One of the most interesting parts of this trip so far is our hostel. It's certainly a different experience when you don't take over the whole thing (Budapest) or have a private room (Vienna.) Because of price restrictions - Rome isn't a cheap city in terms of hostels - we oèpeted to take two beds in a six person dorm and share with complete strangers. Two are from the Canary Islands -they're nice and don't talk much - and one is this Irish guy who is in town for the Ireland-Italy rugby game that happened earlier today. The city is full of Irish rugby fans. I never expected to see so many green jerseys and shamrock hats in the middle of Rome. This guy REALLY likes to share his opinions about everything with any of us who will listen (and, clearly, thos of us who might not want to because we've JUST WOKEN UP) about traveling, rugby, various cities, including New York, which he's apparently never been to, and this is all after stumbling home drunk at 6 am, nonetheless. He did lend us his Rome guide book though, which I'm now loathe to give back, as I've grown quite attacked to it over the past twelve hours. I guess everyone serves some kind of purpose.

Sunday, March 18 and on.

Today was slightly less exhausting than yesterday. We went to the Vatican this morning, which was incredible. St. Peter's was amazing. Every time we head out to see another church, I always think "do I really need to see ANOTHER church?" but they always wind up being pretty incredible, especially this one.

We also saw the tombs of the popes, which was kind of spooky, in a "so this is a room full of dead Catolic leaders" kind of way. It was really interesting to see people praying at the tomb of the pope of their choice, particularly John Paul II, who had quite a few visitors. We also watched a random baptism - apparently all you have to do to get your kid baptized at the Vatican is make a reservation. You think it would be harder than that.

We were going to go to the Sistine Chapel, but it was closed, so we were going to head over yesterday morning (the 19th) before we picked up Graham at the train station, but after hiking all the way up there, we discovered it was closed again. It was a good thing we didn't try to go this morning, because according to one of the girls who was staying in the hostel after the Irish guy and the girls from the Canary Islands left (all of our new roommates were American) there was a four hour line that wrapped all the way around the building and most of the walls around Vatican city this morning. There was no way we were going to get there. Our train was leaving in a little over two hours.

Yesterday we had done some sightseeing repeats with Graham, who just got in yesterday afternoon, and this morning we took to the train down to Naples. Stephanie and Jon were supposed to meet us in Rome and we were all going to take the train together, but they missed their flight from Belgium. Supposedly they'll be arriving in Naples soon.

Naples seems alright so far - we haven't seen too much of the city, but our hostel is really nice. We're going to head to Pompeii and Vesuvius sometime in the next few days, although we might have to scratch Capri due to weather. Something always has to give, right? The weather was great at the beginning of the week, but it's rapidly going downhill.

I'm still alive, I haven't died from the food, but I am getting a bit jealous of the fact that everyone gets to eat pizza besides me. Oh well.

I'll write more once I've seen more of Naples and the surrounding area, probably when I get back to Prague on Friday, and I'm not on the Euro anymore. I'm starting to take how cheap everything is in prague, for granted, apparently.

Pictures are coming soon.