Or, The Could-Have-Been Hitch Hiker's Guide to Europe
No travel blog would be complete without long delays in posts followed by profuse apologies for not updating more often. In order to safeguard the quality of your travel blog experience, I must offer these now. To further ensure you get the full experience, I must follow these apologies with promises to post more often and then proceed to post less often. I’m looking out for you.
On the bright side, you should be glad when posts are few because it means that I am either availing myself of the many adventures that living abroad for a year offers, or I am immersing myself in a sea of economic and financial theory. Currently, I am in the position of transitioning from the former to the latter as spring break comes to an end and exams approach.
Most of you know that I recently took a trip to Rome which was unexpectedly extended due to geothermal activity. Pictures from the trip will come soon, but in the meantime, I thought I would chronicle at least some of the happenings of my prolonged vacation.
The getting there was supposed to be the most difficult part of the journey. Our departure time was 6:50 a.m. from Gatwick airport, some distance from London proper. Getting to the airport involved catching (after finding) a night bus to Victoria station, and then riding the train to the airport. I turned up at Ashley’s place at midnight, wherefrom we set out at around 2 a.m. (if I remember correctly), discovered that our bus stop was closed due to road work, and then waited in the cold and sketchy London night for some 20 minutes at another stop before our bus arrived. I should also mention that Victoria station, like many train stations in Europe, is not completely enclosed and is quite chilly at night.
True to what my father has taught me, we arrived at the airport obnoxiously early. During this downtime we found our respective sources of nutrition and much-needed caffeine. For Ashley it was Costa, an English Starbucks competitor. Me, I was a bit less cultured and went with the Golden Arches. To pass the remaining time, I proceeded to analytically decompose the messages McDonald’s tries to convey through the design of its coffee cups, much to Ashley’s dismay. There’s not much to do at Gatwick airport at 5 in the morning.
Thankfully, the flight itself was smooth and on time. If anything interesting happened during the flight, I missed it: I was asleep.
We found a shuttle from the airport to the hostel at which we were staying. The Happy Days Hostel (Yes, you read that correctly) was, well, a hostel. It was entirely adequate as short term shelter for college students on a budget, but not the kind of place you would tell your parents you stayed at (until, of course, they read about it on your blog). You had a choice of four bathrooms: the one with the working toilet, the one with the working sink, the one with the working shower, and the one with persistent but unexplainable water on the floor. I’m just hoping none of the occupants got creative and tried to multitask.
Fortunately, we did not go to Rome to see hostels. We went to see Kelsey (and Rome), and Kelsey did not disappoint. She was as cheerful as ever and an excellent hostess. Not only did she show us around some of her favorite sites and patiently photograph us as we played tourists, she treated us to gelato, an Italian ice cream-like wonder-substance. The Nutella and banana flavors make an excellent combination, if you ever get the chance.
All in all, the scheduled days of our visit in Rome were quite nice. During the days Ashley and I hit up the tourist sites and museums: the Sistine Chapel (underwhelming), St. Peter’s Basilica (overwhelming), the Coliseum and other nearby Roman sites (pretty nifty), among others. Our nights were spent with Kelsey, who was able to show us to some of her favorite restaurants, all of them top notch. We’re fairly sure the owner of the last restaurant we visited was just joking about his Mafia connections, but one can never be entirely certain. Either way, the risotto with salmon was delicious.
On what was supposed to day before we left Italy, Ashley and I took a train out to Pompeii, where we learned about ancient Roman life and volcanoes. Later that night I would discover just how ironic that was.
