Probably the best decision I made with my recent trip to Italy was to fly in earlier than the rest of the choir to conquer Rome Veni, Vidi, Vici style. Getting there was a stressful/fun/random adventure though. Our original flight plan was to take an evening flight to Rome with a layover in Amsterdam on Delta. Wrong. We checked in and found out that the flight was overbooked so only 1 of us was able to go on. Me and my other roomie were pushed to a late night Air France flight with a layover in Paris.
Not cool? Having no phones or idea of where to reunite at the Rome airport.
Cool? Delta wrote us $800 checks on the spot for screwing up.
The beautiful architecture in the CDG airport terminal.
Fast forward through an unconditioned Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, getting hit on by French airport security guys (so stereotypical but they were cute, hooray), and finding that our luggage was indeed en route to Roma Fiumicino, we found our roomie waiting in baggage claim. We were so relieved to find her! We swapped flight stories and it turned out they switched up our baggage so she picked up my traveling companion's bag and vice versa when our flight's luggage hit baggage claim.
We were in Rome and ready to go but we had no clue how we were getting into the city. Oops? We went outside to find a way to get to our hotel. Cabs=too expensive. Train=where was it? Shuttle bus for 6 Euro? Ok sure. The 3 of us and maybe 4 others boarded a bus after an intense inquisition of where the bus would drop off/would it be near our hotel etc. We were told the bus would take us to the Piramide station where we could catch the 271 bus to Castel Sant'Angelo. Wrong again, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The bus ride was going great. Sure there was some traffic but we were moving toward the city. Then it happened- our bus rear-ended a car. I could see it coming a mile away. (Italian drivers are crazy. CRAZY. They speed and swerve and tailgate...) The light just turned yellow and the driver decided to not go through the intersection. Our bus driver wanted to go. Boom! The guy's entire back window shattered onto the road. No one was hurt and the bus only suffered a small dent and busted headlight.
Bus driver (with man purse) arguing with the driver on the side of the road.
Cue the onslaught of Italian curse words and gestures. It was absolutely hilarious. We spent a half hour on the side of the road while our driver (who had a man purse btw) exchanged info with the guy he hit. We eventually made it to the Piramide station which had the sketchiest crowd of youth and homeless-looking old guys. Not good. The 271 bus that we were supposed to connect with wasn't there and even then the ticket machine was broken. Feeling somewhat defeated, we walked toward the depot building. All of a sudden, a car pulled up to us and the hot girl on our bus (she looked like a model) asked us if we needed help -- it was like divine intervention.
Her boyfriend got out of the driver seat and looked at the map. Between my limited Italian and his broken English, we figured out a game plan to get to the hotel. Piramide was a stop along the Rome Metro! He pointed us in the direction of the entrance and we hauled our luggage a few hundred yards and hopped a train to San Pietro via transfer at Termini. It was very late when we emerged from the Metro and we hoofed it a good 25 minutes to our hotel near the Castel Sant'Angelo.
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Proscuitto pizza? Yes, please.
We celebrated our journey by dining along the Tiber and listening to 2 Canadian guys sing karaoke.
Ciao Roma!
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