Back for Round Two: TAPIF: Rome

Our trip back from Rome to Grenoble was without a doubt the pinnacle of our insanity. I suppose that it was only appropriate that our most terrifying day fell on Halloween. Even before the trip I had something of a panic attack just looking at our return trip, I didn't think we would make all our connections from one place to another (there were a lot). At best I knew we'd come out of our "vacation" somewhere between exhausted and dead.

We woke up at 3:30 am to catch a shuttle to the airport, had some coffee, and flew to Milan. Chelsea had had some problems printing out her train ticket that we needed to get back to Grenoble, so we took a metro to the Milan SNCF office to get that, then we took another metro to the middle of nowhere to catch an 8.5 hour bus from Milan to Lyon. By that time we were very, very tired, after not only that early morning but also two weeks of little sleep and lots of travel. I had a little notebook where I made quick notes of where we had been and what we had done, and I wrote "we are the kind of exhausted that makes you wonder if maybe you accidentally inhaled too much of that pot you just walked by. What the hell were we thinking?"

We had a few hours to kill so we went in search of something to get for lunch and dinner for later, but we couldn't find anything. We wandered for a good half hour before we saw a sign that said "centro," assuming it mean the center of town we walked there which took another half hour-ish. I found a little corner store and got way too many apples because I was too tired to count, and then we finally found a little kebab/pizza place.

You have to imagine us, two girls with three big bags, five if you count the huge ones under our eyes, on the verge of collapsing right there, struggling to order food from a man who spoke no English. Chelsea ordered pizza. I pointed at what looked to be a calzone and got him to tell me what was in it, realized I didn't care, weakly pointed to it and said I would take one. Then remembering dinner I pathetically looked up at him "falafel?" "Ah, si," and pointed to another plate. Okay, I'll take that too. He looked at me, confused "so this one, and not that one?"
"No no, this one AND that one." More confused looks. He could clearly see we were half dead.

I swear at this point he must have thought we were some poor foreign hobos, I could literally feel the pity he was emitting. We stood awkwardly for a while, until he told us to put our bags down and sit. He tried to make a few jokes but we were too tired to do anything more than weakly smile. In the end when we were paying he totally undercharged us, "it's okay, it's okay." Once we left the place we just started laughing at how incredibly pathetic we must have looked to the nice old man. We still had some time so we walked to a park where I became a fully-fledged hobo and took a nap on a bench. Yup, dignity has a funny way of dying at moments like that. The last thing I wrote in my notebook: "Lord please just get our idiot selves back home safe."

We got up and started walking back, expecting it to take us an hour, but after walking five minutes we were back at the station. Our poor brains were very confused and we spend a few minutes just staring at each other and turning our heads "but how... what?" So we magically had another hour to kill which we used to drink more coffee.

We finally got on the bus, struggled through 8.5 hours of sleepless sitting, and were dropped off in Lyon. In case you didn't already think we were idiots, let me try to convince you. When we were buying tickets we figured we could get off in Lyon and hop right onto the train, so the half hour between when we were dropped off and when the train left seemed perfect. We failed to realize that there are two train stations in Lyon, and we were being dropped off in the wrong one. We realized this about a week before we left, so we planned on calling a taxi and praying and crossing fingers and toes and everything else that we got there on time. Thank God we did, because it was literally the last train from Lyon to Grenoble, otherwise we would have had to sleep in the station or something. That would have taken me to a whole new level of hobo, and I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet.

We got to Grenoble, the lovely family I live with came to pick us up because the trams stopped running, and I got home around 1:00 am. It was so, so, so nice having my bed back, being in a place with good wifi. And it was really nice to come home and have someone to give you a hug and be happy you made it back alive.

So the trip back was nuts. We got back about a week ago, and looking back, yes, I think it would have been smart to cut the number of places we saw in half. But sleeplessness aside, it was a privilege and a blessing to be able to see so many places and meet so many amazing people. :)

Rome: Where I saw very old things, took way too many pictures, climbed a tree, and fell in love with a church

Aaah, Rome. It most definitely lived up to it's reputation. Rome was no question one of my favorites, despite the number of people who tried to force me to buy selfie sticks or roses or cheap bracelets and how difficult it was to find anything to eat. I wish we had been there for more than a day and a half, but even in that short time we saw quite a bit.

We had our fourth and last covoiturage trip from Florence to Rome, which was... interesting. We got to our meetup point hours too early and we ended up hanging out outside of an opera house, listening to birds, talking about music and just relaxing. And of course getting coffee, which served as our best friend and primary source of energy throughout the whole trip.

Our driver was a well-dressed guy, probably in his late twenties, driving a really swanky car. He spoke barely any English, sp there was quite a bit of Google translate involved. He stopped three times for coffee, with each trip his eyes seemed to get wider and wider. After the last one he got back in the car, hit the steering wheel a few times and shouted "let's go, go, go!!"

"How much coffee do you usually drink?" I asked, stunned by his sudden burst of enthusiasm.
"Like...five"
Five pure shots a day? Geez.

Speaking of coffee... I don't think I've commented on Italian coffee yet, have I? It seems like everywhere I go the coffee shrinks. In the US we have nice big cups of relatively weak coffee which I miss dearly. In France I get coffees which are about the size of two shots, they make me sad. And then we get to Italy, where you need a microscope to see the tiny espressos they serve, way too strong. The last few days of the trip I gave up and started ordering cafe lattes (here's a tip: don't order a "latte" in Italy, for them it just means steamed milk) which were really, really good. Okay, coffee note over.

We started talking about our stay in Rome and he asked us where our hostel was. When we told him he looked at us with big eyes that said "oooh....that's not a good place." He typed something into his phone to translate, turned it around and it said, I kid you not: "beware of rapists."

"WHAT?!"

I spent the rest of the trip terrified, quietly staring out the window.

When we finally got to our hostel we saw that it wasn't bad at all, I don't know what that guy was talking about. It was a strange hostel though, a hostel/hostel hybrid, where some rooms were regular hotel rooms, and some were shared. We had a long room with four beds in it. Not as homey as our Budapest hostel, but better than our Florence place, and a palace compared to our box in Venice.

We got there, locked our stuff, and headed out to see Rome at night.

And then I fell in love with it a little bit, it was beautiful. We quickly lost our way and then spent four hours wandering around, until about midnight, maybe later. The city is gorgeous at night, after most of the tourists have gone to sleep and everything is lit up. The sites were closer than we had thought they were going to be; one moment we were at the Pantheon, the next we were right next to the Colosseum. Good news, since we only had one full day there.

They say that the best museum in Rome is the city itself, and I completely agree. Most of the walk was us swiveling our heads around saying "ooh, that's a cool-looking thing with a dead guy's statue on it, let's got there."

The best part was that we both finally had fun. Throughout the trip when one of us was "awake" (a relative term), the other had a tendency to be half dead, but that night in Rome we were both energized. At one point we stopped in Piazza Navona and stared at the Fountain of Four rivers while sitting in the middle of a walkway next to the entrance of a restaurant we could never afford. We talked about nonsense, took endless selfies, and discovered that Chelsea can't open her eyes very wide which, in the state we were in, seemed to be the funniest thing in the world.

Afterwords we walked to the Spanish Steps then climbed up and wandered off onto a quiet road where we got an amazing view of the city. I wish my camera took better photos at night, it was beautiful.

On our way back we passed by the Roman forum and the Colosseum, took more photos, and then we walked home through a park, I climbed a tree, all was good.

Bottom of the Spanish Steps

I wish my camera was better, it looked so much better than this photo

The Pantheon, one of the best-preserved Roman ruins built in the 2nd century. There were bats in there!

Fountain of the Four Rivers. Google it, my pictures suck.

Roman Forum, there were many sections like this, I suggest YouTubing it: "It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections; the venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches; and the nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history" Wikipedia

Colosseum

Finally both awake and ready to wander!

The next day was our only full day in Rome. We started off by going into the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Colosseum which was great. I mean, we were walking through the remains of 2,000 year old buildings and palaces. Definitely worth 12 euros.

After that there was lunch and more wandering. At one point we actually ran into two other assistants who had also decided to go to Rome, it was crazy.

We ended our day in the Vatican. We didn't get to go into the Vatican Museum to see the Sistine Chapel, since that itself takes a full day, but we did go into St. Peter's Basilica which blew me away. It. Was. Stunning. Hands down the most gorgeous church I have ever been to. It was gigantic and the ceilings and walls were amazing and there were Michelangelo art pieces... it was like a museum but better. And it was free. Even the square around the church was amazing, which made waiting in line to get through the security check (yes, they screen you before going in) a pleasure. Honestly, do me a favor and google "St. Peter's Basilica," because my photos just fail to capture how gorgeous it was.

We went back to the hostel relatively early since we had a very early morning and a very long day ahead of us. Like I said, I loved Rome and if I ever have the chance I'm going to go back to see the rest of it.