| Erin's Rome Journals 4-21-02 The journey to Rome began as we caught the 7:30 am train from Florence after a rushed breakfast. The ride was only a few hours, but we planned to be studious and work on our journals. Glenn did a couple and I did one...then we worked on besting each others' scores in our travel Yahtzee game, now an obsession! We arrived in Rome, after many stops, around 2:30pm. We found many information agents standing around in the train station, and I saw at least 2 teams of thieves sending each other signals about the passing travelers as we walked to get a map. I maintained my 'don't mess with me' look and marched by with no troubles. We had seen ads for the M&J hostel at the Archi Rossi in Florence, and had been able to reserve spaces both for ourselves and our friends, Andres & Sylvia, who planned to meet us there. It wasn't far from the station, which placed it in the seedier area of town. We checked in and left our stuff in the baggage room for the day, then went out to see our first glimpses of Rome and find some late lunch. The first place we saw was the Piazza Republica, which is the site of the ancient Roman public baths. It was once a huge complex of rooms, some with hot, some with cold water. They were widely used by all, high and low born, until the barbarian invasions and glorious remodeling plans of later emporers allowed them to fall into disrepair. Now all that remains are a few of the converted rooms, some wall fragments, and a small garden full of gravestone fragments (one of the remodelings was a church). Finding no food, we checked out our free map from the train station and saw an ad for one of the map sponsors, the Hard Rock cafe. I suddenly craved hamburgers, and begged for some non-Italian food. We went there and ordered me a huge BBQ bacon cheeseburger with fries! I savored every bite, as well as the good music videos! Afterward, we headed back to a bookstore we'd passed that had books in English, as I had finished the 2nd book that I had brought with me and was dying for reading material - those long train rides go pretty quickly if I'm reading! I picked out three, but compromised and got Glenn a book of mutual interest, about traveling in Africa. Books are currency here, so when I finish these, I can trade them for more! Last stop was the internet cafe chain we'd purchased hours for in Florence. Since it is a chain, we were able to use what hours we had left from the previous city and refresh the same cards once we had used the old ones up. We spent the next 4 hours updating our Florence journals and downloading photos. By the time we left, it was dark and time for dinner, so we walked back to the hostel to see if our friends had arrived. Sure enough, Andres and Sylvia were at the hostel, so they waited for us to get our things put in our room before having a grand time relating all our travel stories since parting in Florence a week earlier. The hostel that night was not so good. Both Sylvia and I were repulsed by the level of uncleanliness and disrepair, especially of the bathrooms, and Glenn and I were in a room that reeked of body odor from some previous traveler, but if we left the window open the traffic was too loud to sleep through! So that was an uncomfortable night. We vowed to search for a new place the next morning. |
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| Erin in front of the Foro Romano |