Friday-Saturday, July 19-20, 2013
Shawn
and I decided that the airport taxi from my work was way cheaper to get to the
airport than parking the car for 2 weeks – and it was actually quite speedy and
was a good price. I think it was only
40$, which is impressive.
When we got to the airport we
tried to get our boarding passes (we actually went to the airport on Thursday
night to check-In because the computer wouldn’t allow us to do that online!)
and the lovely machine would not let us check in! As we stood in line, an Air Canada rep called
out to all Toronto passengers and told us our flight had been canceled. Fortunately, Shawn brought his phone with him
and we were able to call the 1-800 number that the (very unhelpful) lady gave
us and got on a Calgary flight at 3pm.
We lucked out with that! AND I
remembered my guest passes for the first-class lounge, so during our 3-hour
lay-over in Calgary we hung out in the first-class lounge and had wine, soup,
and cookies! It was a great way to start
the trip!
We arrived in Rome around 5pm on
July 20 and I ran into a girl that I used to lifeguard with at the U of A pool
– small world. Even better than that was
that our one checked bag arrived along with us!
Thank goodness. We took the
Leonardo Express for 12 Euros each straight to downtown Rome Termini train
station. We found a luggage storage
place in the train station and stashed our big suitcase there for a few hours
while we walked around a bit of Rome – mostly just meandered around where the
train station was located. We found a
couple of stores and I bought (yet another) dress and we found drinking
fountains. It was quite pleasant.
Before heading off to find our
hostel, we found this great little pizza place just outside of Santa Maria
Maggiore church. The pizza was amazing
and after convincing our non-Italian waiter that we wouldn’t pay for bottled
water he actually brought us tap water.
And, he brought it in this cool blue glass carafe – that we ended up
buying from the restaurant for 6 Euros!
He also recommended we take our gelato to go, thus reducing its cost by
half – so he received an excellent tip!
Our hostel was easy to get to,
even though it wasn’t right in the centre of Rome. We went back and claimed our bags and found
the metro B-line and managed to get out at the right spot and found the 236 bus
that lead us to Roma Camping. I was
really impressed with how easy the place was to find, actually! And it is a beautiful campsite. The showers have granite countertops and
pumped-in music! I really liked this
chain of hostels when I was in Venice and it didn’t disappoint tonight either!
Off for a great sleep tonight
with lots planned for tomorrow!
-Allison
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