Wow! I can’t believe I’ve been gone from my blog for so long! It seems like forever ago that I was packing up and leaving Spain for the beautiful Italy. So there you have it- if you didn’t pick up on my oh-so-unsubtle hints last post, I can now reveal that my friends and I spent the last ten days in Italy for our spring break. It was truly an incredible trip, and I have so much to write about! It’ll probably take awhile to record it all, so you’ll have to be patient with me. Here goes…!
The girls and I finished packing Thursday afternoon, then headed to the airport for our trusty dusty EasyJet flight to Rome. Because we were spending ten in Italy, we decided to check two large suitcases between the seven of us- we usually just bring our backpacks as carry-ons. First obstacle of the trip- both suitcases weighed over the allotted 50 pounds, so we had to work to cram extra weight from the suitcases into our carry-ons and onto our bodies. It was definitely a struggle, but we managed to get everything on to the plane- phew! Obstacle #2: Our flight, which was supposed to leave at 4:55, was delayed an hour and a half after two gate changes. Eventually we took off and landed though… journey part one completed. After picking up our bags we called the hostel to warn them that we’d be checking in a little late. The seven of us stumble out into the dark and rainy night in search of our first bus. After asking a few strangers we found the bus to the center of town. We then stopped briefly for a to-go pizza dinner in a tiny joint by the metro station. This is where the fun begins! The directions to our hostel required us to take a bus, an underground metro, an aboveground metro/tram, and a shuttle. Well, not a single one of those buses was easy to find, the metro line we needed was closed due to a strike we were not aware of until after lugging our newly-deemed “Big Mamas Bessie and Bertha” up and down several flights of stairs, strangers had no idea how to help us and sent us on a few wild goose chases, the bus stops were unclear and twice did we stumble off of one with the Mamas only to realize we were wrong and clamber back on… Well, I can’t really describe to you the hilarity and pathetic-ness of the whole situation, but I can tell you that our flight landed at about 8:30 and we didn’t make it to our hostel until 12:45. Our last bus literally dumped us in the seemingly middle of nowhere, on the side of the road in a field, where we had to call the hostel and have one of the employees come pick us up in a van… Well, I guess that’s what we get for booking 11 euro/night “tents” through Hostelworld.com…
Our backpacks were just a little full… Grace is expecting any day now
Bottom line is, we did eventually make it to our hostel- praise Jesus. My roommates and I were not put in a tent after all, but in a pretty normal dorm room. The other four girls were assigned a trailer/mobile home which was pretty darn funny. We can’t complain too much though- we had beds and hot showers, and at that point, that’s about all we needed. After a long day of school and travel, we all collapsed into sleep.
**Okay, so I know that this post doesn’t tell you anything about our trip other than getting there, but telling you about Day 1 in Rome is going to take up some space, so I want to save it for tomorrow. Hint- it’s all about the Vatican!**
On a completely unrelated note, I only have three more days of school, and then finals.. eeek!!
