From Greece to Italy (recap of Rome)

Wow. It has been an incredibly long time since I’ve been online. It pains me, actually, to be away this long. I spend several hours yesterday trying to find a wifi spot, and in Santorini as well. But nope. They seem to understand the concept of securing wifi networks here in Greece. Sigh. I decided to lighten my bank account and pay six euros for a brief dose of internet on the ferry.

Unfortunately, it is very, very slow, so I cannot inundate you with pictures and videos from my trip. Grrrrr. I’ll pick a few pictures and upload those, and do a big dump the next time I have something fast. I have 4 posts written, so I’ll release a new one every twelve hours until they are all up. In the mean time, it’s getting close to my favorite holiday, so start thinking of some halloween costumes for me. I’m only going to have one day to put it together so keep that in mind, but what I wear is up to you! Leave ideas in the comments.

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What was the first thing I did in Rome? Check into my hostel, of course. Were you expecting something exciting? Yeah? Me too. But it’s true. True like one of my biggest pet peeves - waiting for people. And, foolishly, I agreed to walk around with people as they tried to find a place to stay. There is a certainly a balance between being nice, and well, being an asshole. I often lean towards being an asshole. Ha ha, just kidding. I actually think I’m a pretty nice guy. [insert narcissism here… oh wait, I just did].

I arrived in Rome with the two Calgarians, and they didn’t have a place to stay. My hostel was full, and so was nearly every other hostel in Rome. But randomly one of the hostels we checked out mentioned that there was a new hostel that just opened and they were invited to stay there… for a fee. 30 Euros to be precise. But considering everything else was booked, it worked out for them. And they managed to bargain the price down to 29. That was certainly worth the 45 minutes they spent haggling them. Or as Boris would say - NOT!

That night we decided to go to the Colosseum. It was actually a pretty spectacular sight. We ate gelato, had a good dinner. I had a meat lasagna and it was terribly delicious. We spent the evening walking around Rome and snapped a few pictures. It was quite a good night, actually.

The next day we tried to find the Free Walking Tour. Unfortunately, there is no website and they do not advertise in any of the hostels we walked through. I asked the guy working at the counter and he told me to ask another girl, and that girl told me to talk to another guy, and that guy referred me to the first one. I wish I had one of those flexible mallet things you use to knock people out. SMACK!

“Yeah. I think they meet at the Basilica.” So we were there, and the tour was not. But we got to see the colonnade in front of Saint Peter’s basilica. These irritating tour promoters kept waling around trying to get us to hop on their tour, for 25 euros in addition to the entry, but we said no. Multiple times.

Our group consisted of the mighty five - GI Joe, two calgarians, the HD, and me - and we saw the sights. GI Joe (a captain form the US ARMY in love with his “offical” passport) suggested we make a meeting space incase we got separated - military style. Of course we said no, and of course we got separated. So our group shrunk down to four. The basilica was pretty spectacular. When I create a religion, I have a lot to compete with. Moving on.

There is this dome thing there that Micalengo created, but I wasn’t about to pay 9 to go see it. So we hopped over the line and saw the crypts instead. The crypts full of dead popes. I think you actually have to pay to go see that, but we didn’t.

We left and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city. It turns out GI Joe made it to see the Sistine Chapel and the idiot bitch (one of the tour promoters) who told us we wouldn’t get in was lying. We drank on the Spanish steps, saw more touristy things, blah blah blah.

The next day was a write off because we didn’t actually do anything. Except eat, but sometimes days like that are good. And we needed one.

I forgot to mention anything about Gypsies. Rome is plagued by them. Gypsy here, Gypsy there… Gypsies stole my underwear.

Here’s a summary of that evening and the next day.

8:00 PM - check Lonely Planet for opening time. 8:45 AM. Check.

the next day

6:00 AM wake up and pack
6:30 - take Metro to the Vatican Museum
6:55 - arrive in line
6:56 - look at sign, realize Lonely Planet was wrong. it opens at 10! Not 8:45. I literally ripped the vatican page out of the book and ate it. Well, the chunk of it that said the times. Apparently ink is toxic.
7:00 - there are only 11 people ahead of us
7:30 - there are about 200 people behind us
8:00 - there are about 16 people ahead of us
9:00 - there are about 20 people ahead of us
10:00 - there are about 30 people ahead of us, and 1000 people behind us.

To the thirty people who weaseled their way infront of me: I want to stone each and every one of you. Cutting line to get to a church? GREED IS A SIN! May Gypsies steal your feet.

But we made it in. Student Jeremy paid 8 instead of 13, we saw the roof, took pictures like we wern’t supposed to, took a metro back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, and made it to the train station at 11:30. Our train left at 11:38.

Perfect Timing.

It was suggested that I head to Budapest and Prague… and I’m pretty sure I can squeeze them in as well. What do you think?

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