Imagine waking up at 7am on a Tuesday, attending classes before catching a train at 10:30pm, going through airport security at 2am, and then boarding a flight to Rome at 7am on Wednesday. You have an hour's respite during the train ride and another two during the flight, so you feel decent by the time you arrive in Rome that morning and thus decide to wander around the coast while waiting to meet a stranger arriving on another flight ten hours later. That was my journey to Rome.
By 9pm, when I had met my travel companion (a rather quiet girl), I was physically tired and mentally exhausted, so is it entirely out of the ordinary that I didn't bat an eye when the taxi driver told us that it would cost 80 euros to get to our hotel? Of course it's out of the ordinary! It's absolutely ridiculous! I had just been thinking an hour before about how my plane ticket was 70 euros, so why didn't my brain, no matter how addled, pick up on this!? Furthermore, why didn't it clue in when the cab driver charged us 90 euros upon reaching our destination!? For that matter, why didn't my companion notice? At least she'd had enough sleep that day! Either way, we emptied our wallets for this skinner. Even if I had identified the scam, what does one do in that situation? Do you try to negotiate with an unreasonable man? Do you shout him down and denounce him in the street? Do you kick him in his manhood so that he doesn't spawn any more odious fleecers into the world? I don't know. All I know is that once the realization hit me thirty minutes later, I'd wished that I'd taken the third option. My temper flared even higher when we discovered that our travel agency had TARFU (military slang for "Totally And Royally Fucked Up") our hotel reservation. These guys had booked us for the wrong MONTH! I had booked us for October 23rd through the 26th and these guys stuck us in November. If you are traveling, I would not advise "Travel Republic." The clerk behind the desk said that they had one room open for 84 euros, but after the taxi driver, I was in no mood to spend that much again.
With that in mind, I booked an emergency reservation at a B & B a mile down the road and ran to ensure that we had a place to stay. I ran through Rome at 10pm in a button down shirt, dress pants, and nice shoes. I had to stop and ask for directions, but after dodging traffic, grinding my soles into the pavement, and apologizing to pedestrians, I reached the place. Breathless, I rang their doorbell.
Nothing.
I rang again.
Nothing.
I stood there for at least twenty minutes ringing their bell and shouting "Please open the door" in Italian. Their website said that they would accept check-ins until 10:30pm, so when 10:40 rolled around with no response, I turned and left. I tried one of the nearby youth hostels that I'd noticed online with the same result and, defeated, began to walk back to the hotel where I had left my companion. Then the anger crept back. I wanted to break something, or punch one of the sketchy guys walking toward me down the sidewalk. At that point of sleeplessness, I was demented enough that I might have done it. Then I saw another hotel sign. I sprinted across the street and asked if they had any openings. "One opening. 95 euros for the night." I thanked them and left. I tried another place. "Sí. 105 euros for the night." Another place "90 euros." Everywhere I went, the prices were extraordinary and most didn't even include breakfast. I ran around until about 11:45 at night, my frustration driving my legs forward and down, as if I were kicking the earth and pulverizing it for the misfortune that it had dealt us that night. In the end, viciousness spent and thus resigned, I returned to the first hotel and checked in. I spent another two hours booking a hostel for the next few nights and awoke fatigued and embittered.
That day, we walked around the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and the other ruins in that area, both too drowsy to really appreciate it. I still enjoyed it, but, between you and me, trying to speak with my companion was often like talking to a brick. Aside from that wet blanket, I could not help but notice that Rome was stunning in the sunshine. I won't go into details about the location, as any of you could just look for photos online or, I don't know, read a Dan Brown book to gain some sense of the experience. I will mention, however, that the entire place was littered with people dressed in ridiculous outfits and passing themselves off as street performers whilst they milled around. One of the dozens of men dressed as roman soldiers there beckoned to us. "Do you two want a picture?" My friend and I looked at each other, shrugged, and nodded to him. He made a series of grim and some funny posses with us involved. All of the while, we were each keeping close track of his hands, making sure that they didn't wander toward our pockets. When it ended without a theft, I was in a rather good mood and thanked him. Just as we were turning to leave, though, he put his hand on my shoulder and held out his other palm, showing a twenty euro note. "Five euros per photo."
I gave him my best "You've got to be joking" look. "Uh, no." I said and tried to walk off. He tightened his grip on my shoulder and began to insist. I twisted away and said "Look, I don't even have five euros!" I pulled out my wallet and hid my cash behind a traveler's check, showing only about eighty cents. He pointed to the check and I said as loudly and slowly as possible "That's not money! It doesn't work until I sign it! You can't use it!" Just to shut him up, I gave him fifty cents before walking off. The day only really improved at lunch, where I had one of the best spaghetti carbonaras that I have ever eaten (chewy pasta is superior to what us non-Italians cook), yet the day was still dampened by our drained state and the fact that we were surrounded by con artists. In my opinion, it took until that night, when we arrived at the hostel, to find our first honest roman.
Our host was not the owner, but a manager and was quite hospitable, as was the rest of the motley staff (his pregnant English girlfriend, another Italian, and a Pakistani). That night, while my travel buddy was in the lobby/kitchen/sitting room and was I shaving down the hall, two girls burst in asking in accented English if there was anywhere that they could stay for the night. There was room for one of them, according to the manager, but the other was out of luck. Both seemed rather distressed and the older of the two kept asking for somewhere to use the internet so that they could find somewhere else for her friend. The manager directed her to a pay per minute place downstairs. I popped my shaving cream-covered face into the hall and said "You could just use my laptop." Both of the girls jumped at the sight and stammered a thank you. Wouldn't you know it though, my computer had locked, so I walked out into the hall and into the kitchen/sitting room place... thing to open it. "Excuse me, shaving cream-covered guy coming through. Watch your feet and hair." That got a few laughs and the girls began to relax a bit as I walked away and left them with my female companion. Once I'd cleaned myself up I returned to find all three chatting. It turns out that the two of them had only met the day before when they both arrived to stay with this couchsurfing host (couchsurfing is a travelers' networking site where you can ask to stay for free with a local host wherever you're traveling, so long as you're willing to spend time with them and maybe cook them a meal or something). These two soon discovered, however, that their host was a creep, as he made advances on the older one during the day and wanted to sleep in the same bed as the younger one at night. Thus the hasty evacuation and desperate need for a place to stay. The elder of the two (25 year old Lithuanian) turned out to be teaching primary school students near Liverpool while the younger (18 year old German) was doing something of a work-study in Italy and was en-route to Milan. We sorted the younger one out, chatted with the both of them for quite some time, and agreed to meet the younger in Venice three days hence. The next day, we went to the Vatican before meeting the elder again and wandered around Rome for some time, sealing the night by each buying a bottle of wine, some brie cheese, a banana, and some crackers. The uncorking was a battle for me (two of the corks had expanded below the bottles' necks, expanded, and jammed) while the others dished out the food. With a mighty heave, each cork came out followed by a thin, white fog of pressurized wine vapor. The crackers were a strange tomato infused creation while the red wine that I had bought for myself was clearly not what I remembered having back at home. To our unaccustomed palates, the stuff was vile. Rather than sip it, I just downed the stuff in shots and asked for sips of my friends' white wine once. I gave a small glass of my poison to another tenant who didn't even down what I gave him (so I did) and we all had a great time being tipsy before throwing out the empty bottles at the end and crashing. How my companion woke with a headache and I didn't remains a mystery to me.
Wow, that went on for longer than I had anticipated. I shall tell you tomorrow of my brief time in Venice, the night we spent homeless, and my reunion with the upset German girl. Until then, ciao!
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