when in rome...

Well, so much for internet - it's not working here tonight which is probably just as well sice it saves us like $12 and we'll be home day after tomorrow anyway and you'll get the rest of the photos then. Sorry, by the way, for all the typos in these blackberry entries; it's not so easy to type this much on a phone, especially when tired. But anyway, here we are in Rome! This morning I fought with the vaporetto ticket man who really didn't want to give me change of a 20 (7 euros) and kept asking if I had 3 euros even though I told him I didn't have the change. I seriously thought he was going to make me come back when I had change but finally he gave in and gave me the change. Sorta set the tone for the day...
...Anyway we took the vaporetto (which by the way we took 4 of these and no one checked tickets on any of them) back to the train station where we took a nice high speed train to rome where we finally got a private set of 2 seats by the window by themselves so we didn't have to worry about sitting with strangers. Very pleasing. It was a very nice train and we even got to sit down and eat a formal (overpriced) lunch in the dining car which was very salty and in my opinion, made by chef boyardee. But it was still a fun experience sitting in this fancy car eating a meal watching italy fly by outside the window.
After our nice ride we reached Rome and saw a totally different part of the rome train station. I have no idea where we were the first time we came here - but this time we saw the real train station which at least made a little more sense than what we saw last time. Armed with my Rick Steves book I knew all about shady cab drivers and scams. But we were at the official cab stand and the cab had an official Taxi sign and a number, so it was a real cab and we got in. But real cabs can scam too. I saw that the meter wasn't running and told him so. He said "no meter. 20 euros.". I knew we were getting screwed here, but we were already in the cab. I looked for the list of rates and the phone number like Rick Steves said to do but didn't see either and got the sinking feeling that we had somehow fallen into a trap. Rick, if you're out there somewhere... What do you do in that situation? Anyway 20 euros later we made it to our hotel, which was in a great area, but we had a few problems. As I'm checking in the guy took his time and was futzinmg over what kind of room I had booked. I saw him change my room number on the card holder and wondered what that was about. And he wouldn't tell me the room number or hand us the key; instead he gave it directly to his "colleague" the bellman to take us there. Fine. Whatever. We get to our "room" whuch I out on quotes because it's literally a long narrow hallway with 2 single beds, one behind the other. On top of the bed situation it was weird and creepy and bad feng shui and I called and complained that my confirmation said a queen bed, which it did - and they moved us to the old room that we should have had to begin with - clearly they thought they could get away with giving us a crappy room assumong we were singles in case someone else (a "couple") came in or something. Anwyay we were able to switch and had to wait forever for the bellman to come back and move us to the right room. All a bit unnerving but in the end it was all straightened out and we got a perfectly fine room, and we set out to explore Rome. We're only here one full day so we wanted to maximize the extra night we had, and we did. I was totally overwhelmed at first. It is a huge city, rivalling new york, so many people, a little scary, insane drivers, intimidating, stunning, everything all at once, hard to take in, breathtaking... I can't believe Lindsey lived here for a semester! Braver than country mouse me! Anyway we got our bearings, dodged maniac taxis and went first to the Pantheon which we had time to hit before it closed. Very pretty. Lots of people. Then from there we walked to the piazza navona (sp?) which was almost like a carnival around bernini fountains. Booths with games and food and trinkets. We bought some little witches from this italian girl who explained the whole tradition to us (she's like santa claus; comes down the chimney between jan 5th and 6th and brings candy to the kids.) We listened to a very good street musician play Springsteen ("river," for those who care), dire straits, and other classic rock, and while we were there we ate at a rick steves approved restaurant with the famous chocolate tartufo - and finally got good gelato! After a good meal we headed for the trevi fountain. Very beautifuk and great to see at night. Still tons of people- and it was nice to be in a place that doesn't shut down at night. I can only imagine it is wall to wall poeople during the day.a little scary but fun. Back in the room, and ready for the vatican tomorrow!