1st Day-Rome

Friday, May 30, 2008

After the hotel dilemma, we decided to walk around and to get our bearings.  We headed out the door and around the corner, but since we had no idea where we were, we just wandered.  We started down this alley towards the direction we thought was the train station, but in actuality was in the completely wrong direction.  While on this journey a man approached Auntie, told her to follow him, and she did!  We followed after her, not really thinking this was a good idea, but didn’t want to let her go it alone.  It is a good thing he was just trying to bring in business to his bus tour.  We checked it out, then decided to wait until the next day to do that.    We headed off down the street again, in search of the train station, you know, to get our bearings and to figure out how long it would take to get there.  We ran across several other tour companies, one of which charged more in the taxes then the tour itself.  We then found the train station, which was only one block away from the hotel-unbelievable!  By now we were starving and went to the closest place with food, which was a nice little café’ right on the end of the street by the hotel.  This was the first food we would have in Roma.  I ordered the pizza with white sauce, which is not really white sauce but no sauce; it was excellent!  Auntie and Ariel ordered pasta while Grandma ordered pizza too.  This is when Ariel began her quest to take a picture of everything she ate and drank, literally.  I’m sure the wait-staff thought she was crazy!   

During the meal we poured over the various tour companies and their offerings and decided to go back to the first one; the one that Auntie followed down the alley.  We bought a two-day ticket, jumped on the next bus, and drove all over the city.  This was actually pretty neat, seeing the entire city before stopping at each “attraction.”  Once we had made it all the way around, we got off, and were pretty wiped out; Grandma and Auntie headed for the hotel to take naps, while Ariel and I headed to Nike, yes, I said Nike.  We found a Nike in Roma!  I was elated and forced Ariel to take a picture of me by the Nike sign.  Yes, rather embarrassing for her, but after all, it was Nike for Pete’s sake!  Yes, I’ll admit, we did purchase a few items, who could pass up such an opportunity, to purchase anything from Nike, Italy!  I cannot begin to tell you the emotions that went into those purchases.  It was awesome, buying something, in a foreign country, a Nike something to be exact.  I could go on, but it’s all good.  We meandered back towards the hotel, stopping to purchase water and fruit.  We learned we wanted water with “no gas”, as in, not carbonated.   Now we’d been flying for two days, walked on the dirty streets of Roma, and took a bus ride, so I really needed a shower in a bad way, and my legs needed a little help too, plus I was exhausted.

  However there is no rest for the weary, especially when traveling with my Mother.  As I was getting ready to take a shower, Ariel decided to go see what Auntie was doing, and she took the room card with her.  Usually that would be the smart thing to do, so you can get back in the room.  Not the case here, you see, they are trying to save energy, so to turn the lights on, TV on, etc. the door key must be in the slot in the wall, and once you take it out, there is only like 5 minutes of electricity until everything shuts off.  So, I’ve striped down, started the water, had the towel hanging over the top, and as I was getting ready to get in the shower the lights went out, the room turned pitch-black; I could not see a thing.  As I slowly made my way to the door, the room was also dark; I had to sit there waiting for Ariel to return with the key so I could have electricity!  She finally returned, and I was a tad pissy to say the least!    I jumped in, or tried to jump in, the shower; OK, let me describe what they call a shower.  The shower head was one of those “rain” ones that hangs directly overhead, that has absolutely no power.  This is no good for anyone with long, thick hair, like me!  I ran the water for more than 30 minutes before it became lukewarm.  Maybe Europeans take cold showers, and if this is the case, I am so not going to be happy!  I was so desperate for a shower, tired, and cranky, I just dealt with it being freezing cold a dn squished.  Squished you ask?  Put it this way, don’t attempt to turn around, as you will most likely get stuck mid-turn.  Don’t try to bend over, there is not enough room, you have to squat down, keeping your back perfectly straight.  I’m trying to figure out how the heck to shave my legs, can’t bend over, no place to lean…hhhmmm…I smashed my back flat against one wall, lifted the first leg as high as I could, grabbing under my thigh to pull it up a little further, and placed my foot flat against the wall; this made my knee go into my chest.  Now I am not a tall person, not small, but definitely not tall, and if you can imagine how it must have looked; back and foot against opposite walls and knee in chest; that is a pretty small space.  Oh yeah, we’re talking about trying to shave, this did not turn out to be a very good thing at all!  It is really hard to shave your legs when in this position; I ended up nicking both legs at some point, and they bleed until the next day!  Let me tell you about switching legs, well, maybe not, you can probably use your imagination for that one.  Just to give you a little more relevance into this situation, Ariel did not even fit in the shower completely, some of her body stuck out, and she had to step out to turn around!   Showers taken, we headed out to see more sights.  We headed towards the town center where one of the fountains is located.  We wandered through the various shops along the way, finding little treasures, and just taking it all in.  We finally arrived at Our Lady of the Angels and Martyrs Basilica and the Diocletian Baths.  The area was designed in a circle with the fountain in the middle, the building on the outside, and traffic lanes between the two.  Be careful, the cars whiz by so fast that you could lose your life in less than a breath.  To get to the fountain, you have to cross 4 lanes of traffic and it is moe than hard o tell if a car is coming or not since the traffic is circular but there are also rods all the way around that lead into the circle.  You have to look not both ways, but like 6 ways!  We eventually got across the lanes, to view the fountain. The fountain was fairly large, with several statues within it, all the way around.  Most of the statues were of females.  We took pictures with each of the females, and then in the front of the main section.  We tried to figure out the meaning of each of the females but were unsuccessful. We continued our journey, looking at some of the buildings, which were not that remarkable.

  Many did not even look anything other than a tenament building, flat, no décor, in need of repair.  Although the colors that they were painted were great, deep, rich yellows, watermelon, oranges,, wedge-water blues, and olive greens.  Of course, the standard pillars were in place around the centre’s buildings.   We were getting use to the time change and the time-frame that Italians use for their daily schedule, meals, and working hours.  They eat dinner very, very late, and it was still a little early, but we were starving.  We tried to find some place that was serving dinner, which was a feat in and of itself, since almost no one was open yet.  We finally tripped upon a little café’ and decided to give it a try.  We were seated at one of the little tables outside, under the awning.  In case we haven’t told you about the quaint little outside café’s, let us tell you now…they just put their tables in the middle of the street, right where cars should be driving.  It is one of those things that appears like they were trying to sneak their way into getting more space, like they put the tables out on the street temporarily and if no one said anything, they tried to push it a little farther.  Then they put up little tents over these tables; nothing happened, so try to push it farther again.  Next is adding little flower boxes around the edges of the tables and tents; nothing happened, push it farther again.  Now they just leave everything out all the time.  And the thing is, no one says anything and everyone is doing it!  So, we sat in the middle of the street, at a small little, checked table cloth table, under the awning, next to a flower box, eating out dinner. Speaking of dinner…