Day 27 - Hola Roma

June 27 – Ciao Roma

We all met at the internet café around 10:15am. Some of us had already checked in the night before and everyone else checked-in there. Shannon and I bought Roma passes which will give us discounts and stuff when we get to Rome. We had no idea what was ahead of us.

We intended to catch the 12noon bus for Málaga. We had talked about purchasing our tickets beforehand but Courtney insisted that we don’t and that we would be fine if we just got it on the day we leave. Honestly, I had planned on buying it anyway but then I guess I forgot about it what with exams and all. Anyway, it was a Friday so it was no surprise that the 12noon bus was full. Málaga was 1.45hrs by bus and our flight was at 3:30pm. We had no choice but to catch the 1:00 bus which meant that we’ll get there at 2:45 if we’re on time, then we need to make it to the airport in the next 30 minutes. The gates close 15 minutes prior to takeoff.

I’ve never been so anxious and tense in my life. Seriously. We were like little ducklings sitting there in the bus station waiting for our 1pm bus. It didn’t help our morale that the 12noon bus left 20 minutes late. I was emotionally freaking out. LOL. So, 1pm finally comes and we all pile in the bus. We were all seated towards the front of the bus which was good. I had suggested that we split up into two groups so when we get off in Málaga, that we’ll all just grab taxis by our groups. It was painfully excruciating to be in the bus and seeing if we were on time or not. Miraculously, the bus was on the dot. We had a divine intervention no doubt. As soon as the bus came to a halt, all 7 of us leapt out of the bus and dashed out of the bus station and grabbed a taxi. I swear we did all that in a matter of 20 seconds. We were all freaking out. By this time it was about 2:50pm. We were freaking out like crazies. Luckily, our taxi driver was calm and told us to calm down and that we will make it. He’ll make sure of it. It was the weekend, so of course there was traffic like no other. But he took other ways and made turns and stuff and avoided the heavy traffic. 3:10pm. We stop in front of the airport. We paid him 20 euros for the 12 euro charge. We couldn’t risk waiting for change and plus had he not known what he was doing and not known how to avoid traffic, we would have definitely missed our flight. So, we all dash inside the airport and read the huge screen like crazies. We find our gates and ran like our life depended on it. We fall in line for security. After security, we ran the last leg like we were competing for the final foot race in Amazing Race. 3:18pm. We finally made it to the gate. It was a miracle. The past 2.5 hours were hell. That whole time I thought it was near impossible for us to make our flight but we made it. It was crazy. Crazyyy. We settled into the plane and were on our way to Italia around 3:45pm.

A cool thing about travelling between Schengen countries is that you travel like you would between US states. They don’t check for passports and visas. Just like travelling between US states, they don’t have border control. Or at least that’s what it seemed to me. The only time my passport was checked was when I boarded the plane in Spain. Anyway, we landed in Fiumicino Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport around 6pm. We got a shuttle and paid 13 euros each to take us to the hostel. Getting on the train would have cost us 11 euros so paying 2 more was worthwhile.

We stayed at Ivanhoe Hostel in a 12-bed mixed bedroom. There were 6 bunkbeds. The hostel was ok. There were 3 computers for internet. The bathrooms weren’t that clean but what can you expect of a hostel anyway. For me, it was good enough. It was literally a 5-minute walk away from the Colosseum, and the main station, Stazione Termini.

After looking for this one place to eat at the other side of town for 1.5 hours, we finally got to eat. We met there with Liz and Court’s friends. Anyway, that was a pain to have walked and search for “Tony’s” for a long ass time and we didn’t even know if that was really Tony’s that we ate at. Anywayyyy, we went back to the hostel and slept. :)