Italy Day 13
November 7, 2010
I figured I was getting pretty lucky with my stays in the hostels. I havent had any creeps, or anyone who has made me feel uncomfortable, and I have yet to have a hard time sleeping. I knew it was only a matter of time, and last night it finally came. And it wasnt even all that bad of an experience to be honest. There was a mother and daughter from Japan that moved into the room, and neither spoke any English. When I got back into the room after reading last night, I went to take a shower. I grabbed my towel and headed into the bathroom, where I nearly broke my neck! There had to have been about 1/4 inch of water on the floor, and everything was soaked. The bath mat was soaked through, the sink area had a layer of water, and there was not an ounce of dry room to put my towel. I have no idea what this girl did in there! Once out of the shower and in bed, the one closest to me starts snoring. And not like a typical girl snore, I mean full fledged deep throat and nose snore. And of course the cleaners decided to throw out my ear plugs last night… While she is having a heyday in her sleep- honestly, I dont know how she didnt wake herself up- the other stayed up until god knows when, doing what sounded like crumpling paper, all while keeping every light in the room on. When finally morning came around 6am, the snorer got up and went to go flood the bathroom again by taking a shower. The other got up and continued to crumple her paper, again turning on every light in the room. I gave up on trying to sleep, so I got up to go have some breakfast. But as soon I swung my feet off the bed I noticed they had pushed their bunk bed almost completely against mine so I couldnt get out! I am about fed up with them by this point, so I loudly shove the bed back to let myself out, where then I proceed to trip over one of the girls humongous suitcases that she had open with every possible item she had spread over every ounce of floor and dresser space, including all over my backpack. I was going to lose it, so I quickly put on my sandals and sweatshirt and left the room. Needless to say, I was a little tired today…
Once I had the room to myself I went back, packed up my things and checked out. I headed back to the train station and got back to Naples without a hitch. When I got to Naples I found out that the next train was almost 2 hours away. I found a place to sit and just waited. Within about 5 minutes a younger Italian guy came and sat next to me. He asked me a question in Italian, sounding like he was asking directions somewhere, but I had no idea how to help him. He found out I spoke English, and he has been learning, so he practiced some with me. We ended up talking up until my train left, and I learned probably the most Italian I had all week! It was definitely one of the most fun conversations of the trip.
I got to Rome and went right to my hostel to check in, now at the Alessandro Downtown, which is just on the other side of the termini. It is much bigger than the Alessandro Palace, and immediately I wished it had openings! No free pizza here, and not beer. Bummer! But at least the beds arent on top of each other. I dumped my bag in the room and headed out to meet Kate. She is staying about 5 minutes from me. We went to the Santa Maria Maggiore, and went inside this time. Another amazing church with frescos floor to ceiling. After we wandered around a bit, and it felt weird to be back here. It feels like it was ages ago that I was here on my very first day. We made our way over to the Republica Plaza and sat by the fountain for a while deciding on what to do next. The consensus was to get pizza and wine. We found a good pizza place down the street from her hostel, and she had a free bottle of wine, so we just took the pizza back to her hostel. We decided to try to shake off our laziness and head down to the Colosseum, but as soon as we stepped outside it started to rain, so alternatively we stopped at the super market, grabbed some chocolate and went back to her hostel to have more wine and chocolate as we watched How to Train a Dragon on her laptop. Great movie by the way! We were both exhausted by the time it was over, so I headed back to my place to get some much-needed sleep. I just hope tonight is better!
