Day 11: Venice to Rome

Wednesday, June 19

Despite an ample amount of sleep in an actual, real bed, waking up was hard this morning. Probably because we were coming from an ample amount of sleep in an actual, real bed. But we did it, got our things together, and headed downstairs to check out.

Before the hotel opened.

There was nobody at the front desk, the lights were all off, and the front door was locked from both sides. So here we are, trapped in the hotel, with our train leaving in half an hour.

Yesterday, when we had arrived at the hotel, it was like this, but there's a doorbell on the outside to summon somebody to help. We could find no such thing on the inside. I'd have popped out and rung the bell, but, you know, door locked. Needs the key to go either way.

So we set down our baggage and started hunting around the hotel lobby in the near-darkness. I was trying to find some kind of a bell, Amanda ventured off deeper into the building for i don't know what. She went back upstairs. As she was coming back down, the night security guy just happened to be coming out of the breakfast room, the door to which had been closed. So, mini-adventure over, we made for the train station.

It smelled more like fireworks and baked goods this morning than urine, like it had yesterday. Much more pleasant. Too bad this was not the day we were to be wandering those Venice streets for hours without much to do. There was only the ten-minute walk to the train station. If the morning smells those two days had been switched, maybe Amanda wouldn't be so convinced that, in years to come, all she's going to remember of Venice is that it smells like pee.

We slept for much of the train ride down to Rome, and then i actually did some of the work i'd brought with me for doing on train rides. Writing these logs has really taken up much more time than i'd anticipated, probably because i'm wordier than i need to be, and thus i've only read half a chapter of the novel i brought and done no work, although i did read most of the Kerrang! magazine i picked up in London (no CD this time). They named Simon Neil of Biffy Clyro the rock frontman of the year, which is nice, but Chad Kroeger and Fred Durst also made the list, so make of that what you will.

Rome is also hot, but not nearly as humid as Venice, and therefore much more bearable. Stepping off the train, i didn't immediately feel like i was dying, nor did i even consider bellyflopping into the nearest body of water, no matter how dark and full of garbage it might be. Oh yeah, the famous Venice canals? Full of rubbish.

Maybe you can tell we weren't overly impressed by Venice.

But Rome...Rome totally made up for it. Awesome city.

First thing we did was make for the hostel, located 850 meters from the train station by foot, although we'd find out later that the train station has a subway running under it which would have spit us out less than a block from the hostel. Not that it matters, we didn't have our subway passes yet anyway.

We first stopped into the Ivanhoe Hotel, at Via Urbana 49, thinking it was the right place, but they couldn't find our reservation. When i pulled out the confirmation, they informed us that we were not at the right place. The Ivanhoe Hostel is directly across the street, at Via Urbana 50. Seriously? You put a hotel and a hostel with the same name across the street from one another?

As long as we're on the subject, the street addresses in Rome make no sense. For one thing, they have gone straight down one side of the street numbering every building sequentially, and then back up the other. What i mean is, let's say there are 150 buildings on Main Street. 1 Main Street and 150 Main Street would be across the street from each other, as would 75 Main Street and 76 Main street. When you're moving in one direction, the addresses on one side of the street are going up, while on the other side they are going down. For some reason, there is a weird exception where the Ivanhoes are located: when we first walked up to Via Urbana 49, it was a music school. The Ivanhoe Hotel is across the street, with the address Via Urbana 49, nestled between to other numbers which follow the original convention, not sure what they were exactly but let's say 200 and 201. So on one side of the street, the addresses go 200, 49, 201, and thus there are two Via Urbana 49s.

The hostel was technically closed when we arrived, as it was about noon, and they kick out all the tenants so they can clean between 11 and 4, but we were allowed to check in and stow our bags in the kitchen. However, our host was unable to find our reservation. I pulled out the confirmation, and found that we had mistakenly booked for the 15^th instead of the 19^th. Fortunately for us, there were still beds available for the night, and he charged us the same as we'd have paid had we shown up on the correct date. This was surprisingly generous of him, since, according to the terms we accepted when we made the online booking, we should have been charged the full price for the night we were supposed to be there, and then also for this night, and lost the deposit we put down. But he migrated our original deposit toward tonight's stay, and charged us the same price we'd have paid previously, even though he was giving us a better room. So it all worked out.

We were informed that, starting at 9:30, there would be free cocktails and a disco party in the common area, which happens to be the very wide hallway between the rooms. Seemed like a good time, so i thought i'd attend whether Amanda did or not. It's not like i'd have to drive home.

I asked him about the Roma Pass, which he had a poster for hanging above his desk, figuring this must be equivalent to the London or Venice Pass, but he didn't have the information. He said he'd just put that poster up yesterday and they hadn't received them yet, so he directed us to a small convenience store the next street over.

The Roma Pass included free admission to the first two museums or archaeological sites you visited, and half price admissions after that. Also, free public transportation, including the buses, subways, and overground railways within the city, and some other benefits we didn't think we'd use. It came in a nice little package with a city map and mass transit map, a booklet outlining everything we could do with it, and a download code for an iPhone app.

With that in hand, we stopped in to a small restaurant for lunch, Amanda having some red pepper pasta and myself having pork cuts with green salsa. It was delectable, as all food in Italy seems to be. The restaurant itself was decorated in portraits of musicians, like Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Bono from U2, and Lady Gaga. Many were made from old vinyl records. Next to my head throughout the meal was a framed guitar fashioned from two 45s and some wire. Neat place.

We thought we'd get the coliseum out of the way, since it was pretty near to our hostel and the restaurant. We walked literally a block, turned left, and there it was, looming between the buildings just down the road a bit.

Walking up to it, Amanda said to me, “I bet you regret not bringing sunglasses now.”

“No, but i do wish i had a hat with a brim, to keep the sun off my face.”

One minute later, a pushy street vendor sold me two fedoras. I regret nothing.

The coliseum was pretty great. There's just a feeling you get, being in a building that is almost two thousand years old. You could tell it was trying to fall over, but people over the years had kept bracing it in an attempt to keep it together. One wall was held in place by a giant belt.

After the coliseum itself, we crossed the street to the old Roman forum, which was part of the same archaeological site. The ruins just kept going on and on forever. I feel like we probably saw every piece of ancient Rome, strewn out about a field in more or less some kind of order.

We had not expected to spend five hours in the coliseum area, but that's how it ended up. By the time we were out of there, most of the other sites that our passes were good for were closed, and the rest would be by the time we could get to them. It was starting to look like our Rome passes were going to end up not being worth what we paid for them, but then we started riding the subways. We got around the city just to see some things, and pick up a new power converter, because apparently ours pooped out on us last night. It had stopped charging Amanda's camera battery overnight before it was finished, and wouldn't charge my computer on the train.

We had dinner outdoors at another small pasta place. I had penne with salmon, Amanda had ravioli, and we each had a fresh fruit milkshake. As we ate, pigeons kept wandering around by our feet, and Amanda actually touched one. I may have mentioned before – these birds in Europe are fearless. They love people.

One particular pigeon kept hobbling around our table. It was missing all but one toe on each foot. Amanda took pity on this poor, disabled pigeon, and actually decided to hand it some crumbs from our flatbreads (we had those too). I gave it the first one, and it stopped and looked at us strangely, like it hadn't expected to get food directly from a human. It was probably also not used to getting the food as it's dropped, as the stronger pigeons kept chasing it away. But it stuck near us after that, and Amanda slipped it another crumb later. She kept a bigger chunk that she'd intended to give it once we were off of the restaurant's patio, as she didn't think we should be encouraging the wildlife to seek nourishment in a human dining area, but by the time we exited, it had flown away.

As the sun was going down, we made our way back to the coliseum, to see it lit up at night. I grabbed us some ice cream cones, and we enjoyed the nightfall over one of the most recognizable landmarks in the world. Except for the street vendors that came up to us about every minute, trying to sell us more of their bullshit. One even had bouquets of flowers.

Once it was fully dark, we got up and walked around the coliseum, taking pictures of it all lit up at night. Disappointingly, they use one side of it to project ads on nowadays. Seems a little disrespectful of history in general.

After that we went back to the hostel to turn in for the night, figuring that if we wanted to get through a decent chunk of Vatican City tomorrow, we'd better get up early. Our train to Bari leaves at 14:50, and it is imperative that we make that one, since it's the only train going that direction all day, and our boat leaves a scant 48 minutes after we're scheduled to arrive in the city. That train had better not be late.

We did not end up attending the free cocktail disco party, for a couple reasons. As stated, we wanted to get up early, so we should get to bed sooner, and we both needed showers. Also, we're at a youth hostel. We're the weird older people in the facility, just barely within the age limits allowed (must be younger than 30). I think every other tenant in the Ivanhoe Hostel that night was between 18 and maybe 24. Possibly even younger. Very few of them were speaking English when we came in, and when you consider that we're the type of people who tend to sit in corners and talk amongst ourselves at the parties of people who we are already acquainted with, because we're socially awkward, it didn't really seem like much of a good time. Also, all the chips and punch were already gone.

Instead i got on the internets for a while. Even though we'd purchased a new power adaptor (not a converter – only a plug adaptor. This is an important distinction to make, as US outlets are 110 volts and European outlets are 220 volts. You have to make sure your device is compatible. Fortunately, Apple makes their products so they only have to sell one model worldwide – the MacBook can handle either voltage. Pro Tip), i wanted to give our old one another shot. Unexpectedly, it worked, and i was able to charge my devices off of it. I had intended to write this log entry and post it, but i didn't. Instead i read Cracked articles and Facebook.