We woke up looking forward to another day of travelling on the train. Oh wait, we woke up bummed out we’d have another day of travelling on the train. We packed up, missed breakfast, and wheeled our bags over to the train station. I (Matt) was able to pick up train tickets at the self-service terminal that were leaving in just 10 minutes, which was excellent, since we wouldn’t have to wait around.
Walking to the platform, we saw the train was already there. We noticed there was only 2 minutes left till the scheduled departure, so we started hurrying. An enterprising individual at the station noticed this, and helped us run our bags down to the “appropriate” car, then turned and waited for money. He didn’t like the 3 Euros I had on hand, so I gave him 5. He didn’t give me back the 3, but I figured without his help, we wouldn’t have made the train, and would have had to buy new tickets.
I was wrong. The train didn’t leave for another 10 minutes. Looking back, I should have known this. The asterisk to the left of the train hadn’t shown up blinking yet, so there was time. Oops, we’re still learning. Then, we noticed we were not only in the wrong seats, we were 6 cars away from the appropriate one. We thought, if he looked at our tickets and stuck us here anyway, maybe it’s OK. Again, we were wrong.
So here we are, in the wrong seats, wrong car, our gigantic bags blocking the narrow hall, and we’re not sure what to do. So we stayed put. We were fine…for about half the trip. Then a quick succession of unfortunate events transpired. First, an old Italian couple got on the train, and we were in their seats. So we got up and moved to the hallway. We didn’t really want to drag those huge bags through 6 cars, so we just stayed nearby. Next, the conductor showed up and said we were in the wrong place, but didn’t really seem to care, so we stayed there. He also didn’t speak much English, so we didn’t know what to do anyway. Then the food cart showed up and couldn’t get around the big bags. So I dragged them out of the way so he could get through. This happened twice, and I got a little speech in Italian both times, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about. Then the little girl from the compartment we had started in kept coming out in the hallway, picking her nose and staring at us. To stay the least, we had both had it with children. And the train. I was really stressed out, and Andrea says she regressed blissfully into the puffy clouds in her head. Every time somebody stuck their head out of their compartment and looked at me or the bags in the hall and shook their head, I felt just a little bit more self-conscious and anxious. By the time we got near Roma Termini, I was definitely ready to get off the train.
As we approached the terminal, the train stopped. It stopped short of the terminal, and Andrea and I noticed there was this whistle repeatedly blowing, that may indicate a problem. Further, that whistle seemed to be coming from really close by. Two train attendants and the conductor appeared, looking around with stern faces. I am incredibly happy to report we did nothing wrong. Evidently a guy tripped an emergency switch when he was getting his bag down from a compartment nearby. So somebody got more head shakes and disapproval than us, and we left the train a little more comfortable.
Hotel Oceania is about 500 meters (as the crow flies) from the station, so we walked our bags. Rome was extremely hot and muggy, and it took us a little longer to reach the hotel because we didn’t know the streets. Actually, first it took us a couple blocks to figure out how the streets were marked (marble signs up on the building corners, not on street posts). We finally arrived at the hotel, overheated and tired. Hotel Oceania is on the third floor. We found a small old elevator and took it up separately, since it wouldn’t hold us and the bags. The room is small, charming, and excellent. After we checked in, we wanted to get some food. We’d felt like lost tourists all day long, so we decided to go for something familiar; there was a McDonald’s down the street and for once, it was open. 🙂
After we ate we took a short walk just to look around (and in the process walked past several interesting monuments, including Barbarini fountain), we headed back to the hotel for a short siesta. Afterwards we took the SLR and wandered northeast, in the general direction of the Spanish steps.
Rome is wonderfully ridiculous. When you turn any given corner, you can find yourself looking at a building from the 16th century, or a fountain that’s even older. We decided we can’t walk anywhere without a camera. We made our way to the Scalinata di Trinita dei Monti (Spanish steps), off the Piazza di Spagna. The steps were covered with people, which evidently they always are (except, helpfully from 2-6 AM according to one book).
We wandered a few blocks away and stopped into a restaurant named “Sicilia…ndo.” We had a bottle of Planeta Santa Cecilia 2005 (red) which was excellent. Andrea had short, dense, spiral pasta with peanuts, saffron, and a very light white sauce. I had pasta with Mazzara shrimp and Porchino tomatoes, stuffed with fish (turned out to be ravioli form, lucky me). 🙂 Everything was fantastic; it may very be the best ravioli I’ve ever had. And it was definitely the nicest dinner we’ve had so far, giving us time to sit together and enjoy being in such a beautiful, timeless city.
matt & andrea 