Rome Trip Day One: March 5 2006
Time in Rome is precious, so I'll just put down some random items. I will expand, polish, and spellcheck on them later.
Flight left EWR at 5:35pm. Arrived in Rome at 7:50am. The flight is true to its "redeye" description, since an energetic Max kept all of us awake for except about 2 hours. Fimiucino (?) airport was practically deserted since it's so early in the morning of a Sunday. Passport control was slow but we picked the fastest lane, which felt much better than the reverse scenario. Everything is relative.
At the currency conversion point, R remembered a tip in a tour book: rates will be much better in the banks. So we only converted $100. The rate was 1.293 and we only got Euro $69 instead of 77. We didn't notice until much later. Probably the first mistake was we converted too little money. Later in the city, all the banks were closed on Sundays, and a BestWestern Hotel clerk refused to make the conversion for us - guests only. Gosh, you would think they lose money in these conversions! With a gap of 10% between buy and sell prices!
The second mistake: we didn't take a taxi, since it's not recommended in tour books. Also our apartment is within one block of a metro station. So we took the express train from the airport to Termini-$9 per person. Took metro line A for 2 stops, and happily arrived at Manzoni - not. Why is this station called S. Giovanni?? Isn't it the next stop? Oh right, Stationze Manzoni is closed from Jan 30 to Dec this year. And our hostess failed to update the description, in which this is a big selling point? Oh well. We'll just walk. It's only half a mile. But it started to rain.
We found our apartment easily, but the hostess, who speaks English, is away. Her babysitter greeted us pleasantly, but in Italian only. We managed to communicate to her that we will pay our rent at 10am the next morning. It's 11:30am, we were tired and hungry. I almost fell asleep in the bed, but hunger prevented that. Then we started looking for a place for lunch. Most restaurants are closed on Sundays, half of the rest don't open for lunch. We finally settled for Ai Tre Scalini, a restaurant near Colosseo. Restaurants near archaeological sites have bad reputations, but this is supposed to be "a nice surprise". It is not. The food is tepid, the heating is not on. The service is rude. The price is not cheap. They made a mistake about R's secondi. We left a 10% tip, which is supposed to mean "you suck", but later learned that 10% is the norm.
We walked to the Colosseo. It's huge and impressive. Sadly it's too windy and cold in the large open space. I don't have any energy to go on. We left without going inside. We found a place with a sign "Change", and converted $100 to Euro $80, hoping it would last us till Monday.
On our way back we found that we were walking past the St. Clemente Church. We went in, I lit a candle for Max, as I did in Montreal. This is a tiny tea light for 25 cents. That one was a huge pillar for Can$4. We paid Euro5 each for going down into the old churches. We left the stroller at the ticket office. The underground churches are on two levels and are amazing. I was reminded of the Mummy movies. When we were on the upper level, one hand appeared slowly from behind a grate low near the ground. It waved and disappeared, then came out again. I was spooked. When we went to the lower level, R found the place the guy must have been hiding. It was a flight of stairs leading to a claustrophobic space. What if he turns around and found out the way was blocked? R laughed and said I read too much Dean Koontz.
We walked back to our aparment. After a brief rest, we decided to walk to a restaurant called "Al 34" for dinner. The walk took 40 minutes. The restaurant is in a nice area with lots of big name brand shops. The restaurant itself doesn't open until 7pm, that's too late for us. We settled for a bar next to it called "Shaki". It's also on the tour books (does that mean anything?) The prosciutto panini I had was great. We happened to be sitting next to two couple who are also going to the AS Roma-Inter Milan game. We left at 7pm to catch a bus that goes to Stadio Olimpico, only that we couldn't find a place that sells bus tickets. We blindly ran around, finally found a taxi stop - unlike Chinese majoy cities and NYC, taxis are hard to come by in Rome.
After some confusion about where the "Will Call" place is, finally we got our tickets and entered the stadium at 8:15pm, 15 minutes before the match. We had to collapse the stroller and take it with us. It's really hard to stuff all of our stuff, and Max into the tiny 2 seats we've got. Luckily (for the first time) we were sitting at one end of the row, so R sat on the stairs. Roma fans are very passionate. They chanted and threw loud crackers at the greatly outnumbered Inter Milan fans. When the names of the players were announced, they whistled and shrieked to mask the guest team's names, and yelled "Ole(?)" after each Roma player's name. Poor Inter Milan.
Roma made a goal very early in the game, and kept the advantage for 80 minutes. When there's 3 minutes left, I saw some people leaving early to beat the traffic. I asked R if we should do the same. He said no - what if Inter Milan makes a goal at the last minute? They are good at that. So they did, and the Roma fans were stunned, but they were gracious enough - didn't throw anything.
We left at 10:40pm amid the crowd, planning to talk a long walk to one metro station. Halfway there it started to rain. We decided to take a taxi instead (good judgment call, later we learned that the metro line A stops running at 9:30pm), but couldn't find a taxi stop. Somebody told us to take a bus. There is a bus terminal nearby, but we didn't have bus tickets. They showed us a ticket vending machine. Only it's malfunctioning and we didn't know - somebody wrote "guasto" on it, but how are we supposed to know it meant "bad" in Italian? Now it's 11:30, and the damn machine ate our last $2 coin. The light rain went off and on. We were in despair, and a Chinese woman, sitting on a bus whose driver hasn't showed up yet, came to our rescue. She produced 2 tickets like a magic, and graciously accepted all the small changes we are left with - less than $2. We then boarded a wrong bus, luckily she knew where we were going and got us off it. She then tried calling a taxi for us on her cellphone, but finally our bus- No.70 came. It's the last one. The services stop at midnight. So we got onto it and got off at a stop closest to our aparment - still a 15 minute walk away. An error in map reading made it a 20 minute walk. The suddenly heavy rain at the last 5 minutes made our day ( we only had one umbrella).
We got home, cold, hungry again, and half wet. The only lucky thing was that hot water in our apartment works - after the long day our expectations of Rome dropped really low. There is no bathtub, only a shower. Max is scared of the shower, so he refused to stand on the floor. He spent the whole time in the shower in our arms. Mostly mine. A naked slippery 30lb baby holding on to you so tightly like a monkey, yelling everytime the water hits him directly. I know this will become the sweetest memory, in time, but when is the question.
Exhausted, we went to bed. The mattress wasn't in its best form. I can tell its coil count isn't that high, either. But I was beyond worrying about it. We set the alarm clock to 8am, but we woke up at 11:53am. We had broken the promise to the babysitter.
Flight left EWR at 5:35pm. Arrived in Rome at 7:50am. The flight is true to its "redeye" description, since an energetic Max kept all of us awake for except about 2 hours. Fimiucino (?) airport was practically deserted since it's so early in the morning of a Sunday. Passport control was slow but we picked the fastest lane, which felt much better than the reverse scenario. Everything is relative.
At the currency conversion point, R remembered a tip in a tour book: rates will be much better in the banks. So we only converted $100. The rate was 1.293 and we only got Euro $69 instead of 77. We didn't notice until much later. Probably the first mistake was we converted too little money. Later in the city, all the banks were closed on Sundays, and a BestWestern Hotel clerk refused to make the conversion for us - guests only. Gosh, you would think they lose money in these conversions! With a gap of 10% between buy and sell prices!
The second mistake: we didn't take a taxi, since it's not recommended in tour books. Also our apartment is within one block of a metro station. So we took the express train from the airport to Termini-$9 per person. Took metro line A for 2 stops, and happily arrived at Manzoni - not. Why is this station called S. Giovanni?? Isn't it the next stop? Oh right, Stationze Manzoni is closed from Jan 30 to Dec this year. And our hostess failed to update the description, in which this is a big selling point? Oh well. We'll just walk. It's only half a mile. But it started to rain.
We found our apartment easily, but the hostess, who speaks English, is away. Her babysitter greeted us pleasantly, but in Italian only. We managed to communicate to her that we will pay our rent at 10am the next morning. It's 11:30am, we were tired and hungry. I almost fell asleep in the bed, but hunger prevented that. Then we started looking for a place for lunch. Most restaurants are closed on Sundays, half of the rest don't open for lunch. We finally settled for Ai Tre Scalini, a restaurant near Colosseo. Restaurants near archaeological sites have bad reputations, but this is supposed to be "a nice surprise". It is not. The food is tepid, the heating is not on. The service is rude. The price is not cheap. They made a mistake about R's secondi. We left a 10% tip, which is supposed to mean "you suck", but later learned that 10% is the norm.
We walked to the Colosseo. It's huge and impressive. Sadly it's too windy and cold in the large open space. I don't have any energy to go on. We left without going inside. We found a place with a sign "Change", and converted $100 to Euro $80, hoping it would last us till Monday.
On our way back we found that we were walking past the St. Clemente Church. We went in, I lit a candle for Max, as I did in Montreal. This is a tiny tea light for 25 cents. That one was a huge pillar for Can$4. We paid Euro5 each for going down into the old churches. We left the stroller at the ticket office. The underground churches are on two levels and are amazing. I was reminded of the Mummy movies. When we were on the upper level, one hand appeared slowly from behind a grate low near the ground. It waved and disappeared, then came out again. I was spooked. When we went to the lower level, R found the place the guy must have been hiding. It was a flight of stairs leading to a claustrophobic space. What if he turns around and found out the way was blocked? R laughed and said I read too much Dean Koontz.
We walked back to our aparment. After a brief rest, we decided to walk to a restaurant called "Al 34" for dinner. The walk took 40 minutes. The restaurant is in a nice area with lots of big name brand shops. The restaurant itself doesn't open until 7pm, that's too late for us. We settled for a bar next to it called "Shaki". It's also on the tour books (does that mean anything?) The prosciutto panini I had was great. We happened to be sitting next to two couple who are also going to the AS Roma-Inter Milan game. We left at 7pm to catch a bus that goes to Stadio Olimpico, only that we couldn't find a place that sells bus tickets. We blindly ran around, finally found a taxi stop - unlike Chinese majoy cities and NYC, taxis are hard to come by in Rome.
After some confusion about where the "Will Call" place is, finally we got our tickets and entered the stadium at 8:15pm, 15 minutes before the match. We had to collapse the stroller and take it with us. It's really hard to stuff all of our stuff, and Max into the tiny 2 seats we've got. Luckily (for the first time) we were sitting at one end of the row, so R sat on the stairs. Roma fans are very passionate. They chanted and threw loud crackers at the greatly outnumbered Inter Milan fans. When the names of the players were announced, they whistled and shrieked to mask the guest team's names, and yelled "Ole(?)" after each Roma player's name. Poor Inter Milan.
Roma made a goal very early in the game, and kept the advantage for 80 minutes. When there's 3 minutes left, I saw some people leaving early to beat the traffic. I asked R if we should do the same. He said no - what if Inter Milan makes a goal at the last minute? They are good at that. So they did, and the Roma fans were stunned, but they were gracious enough - didn't throw anything.
We left at 10:40pm amid the crowd, planning to talk a long walk to one metro station. Halfway there it started to rain. We decided to take a taxi instead (good judgment call, later we learned that the metro line A stops running at 9:30pm), but couldn't find a taxi stop. Somebody told us to take a bus. There is a bus terminal nearby, but we didn't have bus tickets. They showed us a ticket vending machine. Only it's malfunctioning and we didn't know - somebody wrote "guasto" on it, but how are we supposed to know it meant "bad" in Italian? Now it's 11:30, and the damn machine ate our last $2 coin. The light rain went off and on. We were in despair, and a Chinese woman, sitting on a bus whose driver hasn't showed up yet, came to our rescue. She produced 2 tickets like a magic, and graciously accepted all the small changes we are left with - less than $2. We then boarded a wrong bus, luckily she knew where we were going and got us off it. She then tried calling a taxi for us on her cellphone, but finally our bus- No.70 came. It's the last one. The services stop at midnight. So we got onto it and got off at a stop closest to our aparment - still a 15 minute walk away. An error in map reading made it a 20 minute walk. The suddenly heavy rain at the last 5 minutes made our day ( we only had one umbrella).
We got home, cold, hungry again, and half wet. The only lucky thing was that hot water in our apartment works - after the long day our expectations of Rome dropped really low. There is no bathtub, only a shower. Max is scared of the shower, so he refused to stand on the floor. He spent the whole time in the shower in our arms. Mostly mine. A naked slippery 30lb baby holding on to you so tightly like a monkey, yelling everytime the water hits him directly. I know this will become the sweetest memory, in time, but when is the question.
Exhausted, we went to bed. The mattress wasn't in its best form. I can tell its coil count isn't that high, either. But I was beyond worrying about it. We set the alarm clock to 8am, but we woke up at 11:53am. We had broken the promise to the babysitter.
posted by moira at 5:19 PM
2 Comments:
Quite an eventful trip, and a nice read at the end of a day's work in a warm and dry place. Still, only one word can describe how I feel: jealous. :)
My mattress is always in its worst form.
I am dreaming about Europe again. But it seems that it will be a dream only...
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