Our wake-up call came at 5 o'clock, because we wanted to get the heck out of Dodge before the other cruisers (those who were heading off the ship for good) started packing the hallways. We had gotten our new sea passes the night before and we were told we could leave the ship at 5:45.
When we awoke at 5, we noticed our voice message light was flashing. I checked the message and it was from the front desk, frantically telling us that the sea passes we had gotten the night before were no good, and that our stateroom attendant would give us new passes. Our attendant, Michael, dutifully gave us new passes when he arrived at 6 o'clock.
We caught the shuttle that took us from the ship to the entrance to the port, and then set off on foot for the 10 minute walk to the train station. Bill got our round-trip tickets, proudly using his Italian (“due biglietti termini e returno”) and the ticket agent said, in perfect English, “Here's your two round-trip tickets and you're on track 3.” Oh well. Usually they don't speak English.
The train ride took about an hour, and we got off at the Auralia station. Our plan was to take the 247 bus down Auralia Street in Rome until we got to the little restaurant where we enjoyed so many espressos, ciambellei (sugar donuts) and evening meals. We tried to buy bus tickets from the ticket seller at the Auralia Station, but he informed us that unless we had the right change, he couldn't sell us a ticket. I'm talking two tickets would be one euro each (2 euros), and Bill wanted to give him a 5 euro note. Nope. No can do. I simply will never understand why Italians hate – I mean HATE – to make change. So, as a result, we got on the bus without purchasing ANY tickets and kept our fingers crossed. We made it without a hitch. So they really showed us.
After eating our ciambelli, cappuccino, and machiato, we walked the few blocks to the metro station and took the metro train into central Rome. We walked around a couple of churches, and stopped into the big book store that sells English language books. They have a nice selection of English language books with Italian themes, so I bought a couple.
It was drizzling all day, and we, of course, had no umbrellas. So we purchased a couple of cheap umbrellas from a small store run by an Asian man. Before he gave us the umbrellas, he carefully showed us how to open them. Apparently he not only recognized that we weren't Italian, but thought we were from Mars and didn't know how an umbrella worked.
We then took the metro back to the Spanish Steps where we met Bill's nephew, Father David. You remember David who showed us Rome as only one who was very familiar with the Eternal City could show us. We had wonderful pizza and a liter of delicious vino rosso.
It was a quick visit, but we will meet him again at the end of our trip. In the meantime, we needed to begin our journey back to the ship. We retraced our steps – an hour on the train, a 10 minute walk to port entrance, and the shuttle back. We made it just in time before they closed the doors to the ship.
So, we walked up to the security gates, they ran our new and improved sea passes through the machine, and the picture that came up from our passes was neither one of us! They couldn't let us in because we might be terrorists. We were very tired and very wet. And if you think we weren't happy, let me just say all of the people behind us who had to wait as they ran the passes through again and again (with the same result) were also not happy.
They finally agreed to keep our passports and let us go up to the customer service desk to get new sea passes (this makes number 3).
Well, it's the first day of a cruise, and there are 10 million people everywhere, and twice that many at the customer service desk. To make matters worse, they had to send us the long way because someone had fallen down the stairs and they were taking him/her out on a stretcher. I tried to make myself feel better by reminding myself that I was having a better day than that person.
We finally reached a customer service person, they gave us new sea passes, and we made our way back to the security gate to retrieve our passports. On the way back, someone else fell down the steps. By this time I'm thinking, “What in the heck is going on here? We sailed across the Atlantic and didn't see one person fall down the steps. People here are dropping like flies and we haven't even set sail!” Bill and I held on to the railings on the stairs because we were beginning to suspect they had greased the steps as a practical joke.
We got our passports, made it to dinner, which was good. We're at a table for 10, and only one other couple showed up. They were nice, but they weren't like our last table. Sigh. Perhaps they'll all grow on me (after they finally show up anyway).
Finally, we decide to go to the show, despite being so tired. Alas, the entertainment was a unicyclist whose claim to fame was holding the world record for riding the smallest unicycle. He brought out a unicycle with a wheel the size of a quarter, and Bill and I got up and left.
1 comment:
Maybe the people who fell down the steps were trying to walk and make change at the same time???
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