Posts Tagged ‘Rome’

We survived Rome Terminal and have our luggage to prove it!

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

One would think that traveling on the train though Europe would be exciting and quite pleasant since we Americans always hear about how easy it is.  We have survived to tell you, “Never go to the Rome terminal”.

We were very excited to take a train and see the countryside.  What we didn’t know was that our travel agent booked us in First class… yeah… but on the economy train line.  How lovely it was to walk into the terminal and immediately hold tight to all of our belongings.  It was like we had walked into the worst part of Baltimore in the middle of the night or for the Philly locals, it makes the R5 train look like the Ritz of trains.  We couldn’t understand any of the signs and were getting hungry so Matt thought it would be wise to feed Jeni… She’s much happier with a full belly…. So Matt had Jeni stand outside of McDonalds with ALL of the bags while he waited in line to buy food. During this time, Jeni panicked and guarded everything. Once Matt arrived, Jeni relaxed and they both started to eat.  Within 3 minutes, a man tried to pick pocket Matt (he didn’t even noticed until Jeni said something) and then we had a Gypsy beg for food, flash her bra, and hand me her baby…. I guess she wanted to swap her baby for my nine-piece nugget… Then after saying no repeatedly she thought she would try to grab our bag. (more…)

The Power of Christ Compels You

Thursday, July 16th, 2009
part of the line for the Vatican.

part of the line for the Vatican.

Too start a trip to Rome off on the right foot Jeni and I thought visiting the Vatican would be lovely. Despite being around 37 Celsius (about 97 F) at 9am, getting lost, and not having breakfast/coffee (cough cough Jeni…), the Vatican was absolutely breath taking.

The line sucked but I don’t think there was anyway around that, other than the locals who said they would walk you right up to the front. “2 hour wait from hear, come with me No Security, No Wait and it’s Free”. No a bad pitch right? I’ve learned a few things quickly in Rome, everyone says it’s free but nothing is… I guess that’s true for life… Anyways, so we chose to wait in the ridiculously long line, however I’m not going to lie at this point it was about 100 degrees, I’m wearing long pants and sweating like no other and a “Free skip to the front of the line” sounded pretty good.

After our 30 minute wait (not 2 hours), we did almost hit a snag that sent us to the back of the line. Jeni was wearing a dress the hung to mid-knee and the two guard that inspected our attire one said we can go and the other said for us to stop. So of course we went the American route heard the answer we wanted to here and continued walking in. I guess the guards didn’t think it was that much of an issue, since they didn’t chase after us…. I guess the rule is women must have there shoulder and knees covered. For future reference mid knee cuts it close. (more…)