Prepared to Fight, vol. 2

Aboard the plane to Italy, we slept and slept. Hunger set in, but we had nothing. Jet lag set in, but we had to push on. We got off the plane, drew papers from our crotch and upon approval, ventured into Rome. We figured one of us had printed out the location of the hostel. We figured one of us had read up on where the airport was in relation to Rome. We figured one of us knew if we should take a taxi, train, another plane, or just walk. 

As you probably could guess, we had no clue. We didn't even remember the name of the hostel. It was smothered in the clutter of my email inbox. We found our way to a train, and figured we could always start on the train and then guess from there. The only problem was that in order to buy a ticket, you had to first know the location you were heading to. We also didn't want to waste money by buying several fares. So, in typical pork-chop fashion, we guessed. Termini? Sure. Termini sounds...vaguely familiar. I think... 

Buying our tickets, now and on our way, the police (the ubiquitous caribinieri) came over asking for our passports. We quickly threw our hands down our pants, which planted quite a look on the officers' faces. But we were free to go, and so we did. To Rome Termini, we stumbled through the streets looking for Internet. We wearily and hesitantly sat down at a computer and found the necessary information. A hostel worker disguised as a fellow traveler came over and tried to get us to follow him to his hostel. He was quite insistent, and after we told him that we might check his place out a bit later (a good tip to get pushy hostel recruiters out of your hair), he informed us that he would 'like to take us there personally.' So he told us to find him right outside the door to the Internet cafe.

Fortunately, we found the info we needed to know (we thought), and managed to ditch the hostel recruiter out on the busy streets of Rome.

So we're good, right? We have our hostel location, its name, and a renewed sense of confidence in our McGuyver-like ingenuity. Wrong. We went to the spot and found the address conveniently missing from where it was supposed to be. So we ducked into a nearby hotel and asked the kind concierge where the address might be. 'Okay,' he said in broken English. 'You go out the door and go left...or right.' Great. Back to square negative twelve. 

We wandered up and down the street, left and right, until we realized the numbers go up or down differently depending on the side of the street you are on. This was to be our first lesson on Italian urban planning. We found the address, and a nice man let us in.

 We spent several minutes with a sassy Austrian (worth a completely separate blog post), who introduced us to the hostel rules, the city of Rome, and our room with the other two new roommates. We eagerly made our way for bed only to realize we had not eaten in several hours, we had no bathroom supplies, and it was only 7 PM. We needed to stay up if we wanted to beat the jet lag. So we went back out onto the streets. 

Finding a supermarket in the train station, we bought supplies and food. It was nice to have a meal. And we saved money by 'cooking,' which in our case was salad with focaccia bread and some meat and cheese. One surprise was blood orange-juice, recommended by Reinhardt's cousin, Sheela.

Collapsing on our beds, we fell asleep quickly. Our room was dark. Our bodies sank into the freshly made bed. Every thought of the next day's excitement was gone. All reminiscing had faded away. And just as REM started to sink in after 30 or so hours of no sleep, we were awoken by the most terrible, awful, horrifying, outrageous, impossibly thunderous, and awe inspiring snoring we had ever heard in our lives...