Rome and Amsterdam

Hello all,

Sorry we have not uploaded any pictures for a while (and we haven’t done our closing Aus statements yet) but for some reason we are having technical problems. The pictures just don’t want to load onto the page

I (Chris) just got back from Rome and Amsterdam! My first solo journey! And here is my attempt at conveying this trip to everyone!

As with any great trip, the first day was pure horror. I had a 6:30pm flight, with the intention of reaching Rome at 10:00pm. Of course, being that I flew with the cheapest airline I could find, there were some technical difficulties. Upon boarding the plane I was hit with the wonderful news that it was broken and we were unable to fly. There was a part that was not functioning and it needed to be replaced before we flew out! We were told “Luckily, we have the part in stock, and we should be able to install it and fly out of here within an hour.. there is someone bringing it to us now”- Reasuring isn’t it? I got to fly in a plane that was having a speed repair. Anyways, after about an hour and a half, we were underway – and I am pretty sure most of us were a little sqeamish. The plane got there with no further problems.. just that we didn’t land until 11:30 pm. I quickly rushed to a pay phone to call my hotel to make sure they would still be open; however, after spending 10 minutes trying to decipher everything in a foreign language, I was pleased to find out the number the hotel gave me had been disconnected and was not in service.. nice. A little pissed off, I started towards the train station (of course having no idea where my destination actually was). Along the way a man in a suit stopped me and asked if I wanted to taxi into Rome.. it would only cost me 60-70 Euro’s! I kind of laughed at him and said, “No thanks, I’ll train”.

The man was persistant though, he said “We will wait outside and find a few more people, maybe it will only cost you 35 Euro’s.. besides, the last train runs at 11:30.”

“Really? Well I’m going to go down and check anyways,”was my reply. 

With that I walked away and I got to the train station at about 11:45pm and saw a train pulling away. “Oh well, I’ll catch the next one I thought,” so I bought a ticket from the machine to Metropolitan Rome and sat down and waited. About 2 minutes later, all the ticket machines went red and a message came up saying that tickets were no longer for sale. I quickly realized that the trains had stopped running, I was stuck at the airport, and I had just wasted 6 Euro’s on a valueless ticket! The man was right!

In a bit of a frustrated state, I grabbed my bag and started off towards where all the taxis were with a grimace on my face. About halfway there, I ran into the same man in the suit. “25 Euro’s, I found 2 people for you to share the ride with.”

With a sigh of defeat I told him “I guess…”and I began following them.

Everything seemed fine as we headed towards all the taxi’s… until we walked right past them all and into the underground parking lot. As we approached a little hatchback car, my spider senses began to tingle. What kind of shady operation was this?

He opened the trunk and said “put your stuff in, lets go.” I sat back, hesitant.. well, scared for my life (yes I’ve seen all the movies where you get in a strange persons car in a foreign country and you get kidnapped and held ransom). “What? You want a better deal? 25 is as cheap as I can go.”

With a gulp, I looked over at the other passengers, a young couple. “Hmm..”I thought, “I could easily outrun them if somthing goes wrong! Besides, there are about 100 cameras that caught this guys face and us being with him, so I guess there is no real danger.” And with that, we all hopped in and were on our way. It was a safe journey, rather long, it took more than 45 minutes to get to my hotel. The shady driver couldn’t find my hotel and had to call several people for assistance. Luckily, the hotel was even open still! Apparently someone stays up all night watching the door! Can’t argue with that! Being quite tired, I paid for my room and headed up for bed.

The next morning, I woke up rather late.. around 10:00 – just late enough to miss my free breakfast. I got up and showered fast, and was off in no time. I was on my way to the coliseum! As I wandered down the street, I kept looking for somewhere to grab a quick bite to eat – I didn’t have time for a slow meal, there were things to do! Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything the whole walk! (Ok it was only like a 10 minute walk). When I arrived I was shocked.. the line was like 2 hours long – I needed somthing to eat! So I went over and bought some cheesy bread thing from a stand - 5 Euros ! Ouch. And then I bought a 600mL coke – 4 Euros! What a wonderful waste of money! As I munched on my gross bread thing, I went over the line. There were two of them.. one about twice the length of the other. I couldn’t figure out why one was so much longer … was the shorter one some kind of reserved line? Since there was no one around that could speak english to ask.. I kind of sat there confused. Eventually I just got frustrated and left .. I wasn’t in the mood to wait in an hour long line up only to find out I was in the wrong one; and, I wasn’t in the mood to wait in a 2 hour long line-up to find out that I could have just gone into the 1 hour line up. I went and explored all the ruins right behind the coliseum – it was free, and it was fantastic! There was so much to see, I was shocked at the buildings they were able to build with their technology. I sat there for so long trying to rebuild structures with my imagination! I spent about 2 hours looking around them (Sorry there are no pictures, I had no camera!) and then I headed back to the Coliseum. By this time, both lines were about the same length, and the line turned out to be only an hour! I didn’t mind the wait, and before I knew it I was inside. The coliseum was awsome too! (Especially since I just watched Gladiator like 2 weeks before). I spent another 2 hours wandering around there, then I headed back to my hotel. I bought some pizza for dinner and WOW!! It was delicious! I don’t know why their pizza is so much better than ours! It’s not fair.. why can’t we make pizza as good as Italy! mmm….

Anyways, after dinner, I headed out for the museum that was by the coliseum. It was suprisingly huge and I spent almost 3 hours there looking around. I was shocked by how old things were.. They had artifacts up to 4000 years old! My favourite were the giant statues! There were broken into many pieces, but you could tell by the fact that the heads were as big as a pickup truck that the full statues would have been amazing!

After looking around the museum, I headed back to my hotel and hit the hay for the night.

The next day (my last day in Rome! Only a 2 day trip!) I headed out for the Vatican Museum around 10:30. When I got there - trying to train around when no one will speak english is an absolute pain! I won’t even try to describe the hassle – I found the line to be huge.. probably about 1000 people. The line went around the entire museum, then back and fourth 3 times. I hopped in at the end and began my long wait. After about 45 minutes I reached the end of the back and fourth part, and into the home stretch! It was at this time that some 40ish year old man (we shall call him Stan to make the story easier) thought it would be fun to cut in line. I kind of saw him sneak in.. but I wasn’t really sure if he had always been there or not, being that there were so many people. Plus, he was trying to cut in behind me and I hadn’t been looking back a lot. When the guy right behind me (who had been there all 45 minutes – we’ll call him Fred) started moving forward faster to try to stay ahead of Stan, I realized that Stan had in fact cut in! Well.. that just set me off! If there is one thing I cannot stand (okok.. there are many things I can’t stand.. this is just one of them) it is someone who thinks they have the right to skip infront of 500 some odd people – I didn’t even care that he was behind me! I started ripping into him – “Why do you think you are more important than the 500 people behind you? Have you always been an asshole? Do you seriously think we would not notice? Do you think its fair that we have all waited 50 minutes and you havent?”and so on and so fourth.. probably a few comments I shouldn’t post for viewer discretion reasons. I also started talking to Fred about how this guy was a jerk, and we both egged him for about 5 minutes. The whole time we were taking a piece out of Stan, he didn’t say a single thing, until finally, he went off in some kind of language (I think he made it up) as if he didn’t speak english. I looked him straight in the eye, knowing full well he was full of crap, and kindly said to him. “Why are you pretending you don’t speak english?”I pointed at his shirt, “Your shirt says ‘Univercity of Boston: faculty of science’, Do I look stupid to you?” With that, an older lady behind Fred started laughing like crazy and Stans face turned beet red. Frustrated with him being such a jerk, I turned around and talked to Fred for a little while. After about 5 minutes, I looked back again, only to see that Stan had moved back in line about 10 places, but not actually gone to the back like he should of. Exasperated, I pulled out my final bit of ammo. “Look,”I told him, “When we reach the end of this line, I am going to tell the security guards that you cut in.” I pointed at all the people around me. “They are all going to back me up, and you are just going to be sent to the back of the line anyways, so you may as well just go now..” With that I turned back around and continuted my conversation with Fred. When we looked back a few minutes later, Stan was gone! Victory! Anways, it turned out Stans real name was Henrique.. he was from Brasil. He had spent 14 months travelling already, including 6 months in the USA raising money for a 6 month trip to Africa to teach poor children. We ended up hanging out at the Vatican for the whole time.

 The Vatican was AMAZING! In fact.. it was ridiculous. There was so much stuff that you just didn’t appreciate it. When there are 100 marble statues lined up next to each other.. all 2000 years old and carved in a spectacular manner.. they just don’t seem special. You think.. “hey, there are like 100 of those, they aren’t that uncommon” – which is of course completely untrue, it just seems at the time that they are nothing really to behold. In the end I must have spent 4 hours in the museum. My favourite part was the Egyptian exhibit (I should have gone to Egypt!) where I saw a 4000 year old mummy and a clay doll from 5600 BC!! I was so shocked by how old everything was! I felt so ignorant about my sense of ancient before I had left Canada.

After I left the museum, Henrique and I parted ways and I started off for the airport. I got there with plently of time to spare and I was soon on my way back to England. Upon arrival I got the usual 5 minute customs probing on why I was in England, than I was on my way to find a nice bench to sleep on. I arrived in England at about 1am and my flight out was at 6am.. not too fun! Needless to say, I was very tired when I got to Amsterdam!

 Anyways.. Its late and I have go to London tomorrow. Sorry I wrote so much and that I didnt even finish describing my trip! I will do it all when I get back next week! Farewell everyone, and I will be sure to pester Matt to work on getting the photo’s up and doing his farewell Aus post.

 Cheers