Rome Part Due

So, when we last left our heroes they were in Rome. They had spent the day at the Vatican and had been fortunate enough to have clear weather their first full day in the city.

You with me?

Good.

Well, we decided we were going to try for pasta again...

I honestly can't remember what I ordered and if I liked it. It must have been alright because I don't have a complaint, but it must have not been very memorable. Sadness.

Anyway, that's not the part of dinner I wanted to tell you about.

One: I saw a napkin dispenser that reminded me of my sister, Alicia. She collects Coca-Cola memorabilia. When she saw the picture, she said I should have taken it and left some money for it. 'Cause that would have gone over well with the Romans.

Two: Dan got taken by a vendor again.

While we were eating dinner a man selling roses came up to our table. Dan, the romantic that he is, asked how much for a rose. The man told him one euro and laid three roses in front of Elise and three in front of me.

Now I'm sure you can see the awkwardness of Dan buying a woman who is not his girlfriend roses while in Rome. Because of the weirdness of the situation, I handed my three back to the vendor and told him that Dan wasn't buying me roses. He wasn't happy about it and said that both the women needed roses. At the same time, Dan was trying to tell him that he only wanted one. What did the guy do? He laid one in front of Elise and one in front of Vicky.

I shrugged and put my flower with Elise's because it wasn't for me. Dan handed the guy a bill. Now we come to the lesson, folks. Don't be surprised if a street vendor, who's been haggling with you, doesn't give you the correct change. Oh! And Dan was upset that both roses were pink instead of the red ones that we had earlier.


The next day, after sleeping in our much larger and better suited room, we needed to make up for lost time. We had a lot on our agenda and the first was seeing the Trevi Fountain.

I was told that if you throw three coins over your right shoulder with your right hand and return to Rome, whatever love wish you made will come true. I just went online to see if it's true, and there happens to be different variations of this. Some say right hand over left shoulder, and some say that it just insures you a trip back to Rome. Another says that it's one coin for luck, two for love, and three for marriage. Let's see what the outcome for Vicky will be, shall we?

While at the fountain, I finally found a bag that I liked. It has Audrey Hepburn on it. A bag with Audrey Hepburn at the Trevi Fountain. It's Roman Holiday, folks! It was fate.

So after the fountain we went to the Colosseum. I got pictures and video.

Me at the Arch of Constantine near the Colosseum.

Since we were so close and our Roma Passes allowed us entry into another museum or historical site, we chose the Ruins.

I didn't think I would like the Roman Forum as much as I did. It was more than broken structures and rocks and rubble. I could feel the history beneath my feet. There's no real way to describe feeling the aura, the presence, of a place so old and pivotal to mankind. 

Temple of Saturn

Inside the Forum, there were some sculptures like this, and some of the original paintings that hung there.

I feel lucky that I was able to see and experience it, and it's something I hope to do again one day.

I know that I mentioned in my last post about everything falling apart in Rome. With the exception of the first night, everything looked and was wonderful...

And then the walls came tumbling down. We had a morning flight. The scheduled time didn't matter. What did matter was that we were a little late leaving, had to walk back to the hotel, got lost on the way to the bus stop, waited for a bus that was 20 minutes late, and was forced to take a taxi that could have passed an Indy 500 contestant. Oh, and it was raining.

We did make it to the airport on time. The only problem was the gate and the ticket desk were on opposite sides of the airport and we had to huff it to our gate. Not hoof, huff. And when I say "huff," I mean literally. I had an asthma attack making it to the gate. We were there on time. The plane was there, but they had shut the door and refused to let us board. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

They told us we had to make new reservations, so we went all the way back to the ticket counter. They told us the next flight wouldn't leave until the next day and that it would cost €100 for a flight to London and another €100 from London to Glasgow. Then they told us we should try another airline. Three and a half hours we spent in lines trying to find a way back home. Since it was the end of our trip, it's not like we had bookoos of money to throw around. The woman at the British Air counter told us it would be over €600 just to fly into London that day. €600!

It broke me, ladies and gentlemen. I sat against a vacant ticket counter and cried. I cried like a little baby and called my mom. Felt bad about waking her at two-something in the morning, but because she's awesome and loves me, she talked me down. She told me everything would be fine and to go to the restroom to wash my pretty face. I love my parents.

And she was right!

Dan found an airline that sold us tickets for €144 for that afternoon. But the hassle from missing our flight doesn't end there. It only took us to London. From there we had to find a way back to Stirling.

We took a sleeper train. I didn't think we'd even get on that. First ticket counter told us to go to another station. We took the metro then walked there in the rain. (Sidenote: Our original plans were to spend the day in London. Notice the drastic difference.) The second counter at a new station told us it was too late to buy tickets from him and that they needed to be reserved.

We ended up walking down to the platform and begging the conductor to let us on. He eventually caved and we were on our way back to Stirling. We arrived at 5 a.m. Monday morning. If you think I went to class that day, you're hilarious.

So that was Rome.

It's almost midnight, which means MIDNIGHT QUESADILLAS!!! Don't worry you'll hear all about it in my next post. Until then, mwauh!