Roma Part II: Thanks to Volcano Eyjafjallajokull!

So Sunday was the day we were supposed to fly and clearly that wasn’t going to happen. Our flight had been cancelled the night before and we had now rebooked for Tuesday. Fabulous. Now what? We had done everything we had wanted to do, the big stuff anyways, so now we could do the things that we hadn’t had time for! We got some breakfast at the hostel and waited in line to extend our stay. We were at this point, quite familiar with the front desk: aka Hossain. He knew us all by name, however he usually got myself and Jessica (pronounced Hessica) mixed up. No worries. We spent a good chunk of time on the computers in the morning researching the damn volcano, and finally, we needed some fuel. A tiny Chinese food place around the corner caught our eye and it was perfect. We decided that since we were stranded in Rome, we needed wine. Of course right? What a fabulously brilliant idea. So we headed to the grocery store and that’s where we met Betty. No, not a person, but our 5L beautiful glass bottle of red wine. We were like proud parents walking her back home to the hostel. We broke her open earlier than expected and as such, we met a bunch of people in our hostel. Some British guys were in the room next door, and even some Americans. However, all Canadians that I met were from BC. I don’t know what it is, but honestly, it was the same convo every time: “Where are you from?”, “Canada”, “Oh my god me too – where from?” “BC, you?” “Of COURSE you are from BC.” Honestly though, every time. It was nuts.

Great ice-breaker though: Hi, we’re (introduce ourselves) and this is Betty. She was a keeper. We easily went through half of that baby, and ended up saving her for the next day. Like I said, we just stayed on the internet for a majority trying to research ways out of the country. People were in a panic and it was clearly visible. Chaos had taken place. However, our highlight of the walk home from Termini station had become Cristiano Ronaldo. Holy crap, he had some ads up with Megan Fox and wow, I’m pretty sure all of us drooled everyday walking by that damn poster. But like I had said, he quickly became the highlight of our trapped days. How did we celebrate being in Rome another night: Baffettos for the third time. Fabulous. We knew the insides and out. Thus far I had had a margherita pizza, four cheese and this time I would do margherita with green peppers. I have to say, it was sensational. Duh? Of course it was.

The next morning we slept in, because let’s be honest, we could. We went straight to the train station to wait in line to see if there were any trains leaving the country and as soon as possible. Petey and I had our flight booked for the next day, Tuesday, but honestly, the possibility of flying was looking grim. There were signs everywhere saying that there were no trains left: all had been booked solidly until Wednesday. Super. I was still going to Brussels and the hotel I had booked had been reserved since Monday. Wonderful. Nothing like flushing money down the toilet. But more about that later. I was just anxious to see what trains were available. We waited in line for three hours to talk to someone. Everyone back home kept saying “Oh, you’re trapped in Rome, boo hoo”, but honestly, this was not the luxurious part of the vacation. We were trapped. Idiots. It’s the same everywhere, we couldn’t spend all day roaming around because we were too busy trying to get out of the country. The earliest flight that Jess and Jewels had seen was Saturday! An entire week; that’s insane. A lot of money spent in staying another week and everyone around you is stressed. It’s not exactly lying on the beach.

So we get up and Petey and I ended up booking a 15 hour train ride back to Lille. Not even back to Lille: the woman could not book us further than past Switzerland and that was a risk we would have to take: to fight for a ticket in Switzerland to get back to Lille. Should we do it? What other option did we have. Booking a third flight is very costly, and this train was a guaranteed start to a trek home. Okay, we booked it. The train was as such: (1) Rome to Milan (2) Milan to Basel and once in Basel, Switzerland we could then fight to get home to France. Right. Exciting alright.

We ended up eating fresh pizza at the hostel which was fine by us, since we were all debating how the hell we would get back to our homes. I was determined to get back to Lille ASAP. I needed to head to Brussels and Petey had a final exam Friday: yeah, final exam. We were screwed. So our train was booked for Wednesday, from Rome to Basel Switzerland. Ha right? I had it in my head just getting to Basel and everything being sold out. I would pull the Diabetic card for sure. You see, it wouldn’t be a lie: I WAS running out of pump supplies, and I really did need to get home ASAP, but I would be fine for another couple days. Jewels and Jess had taken a pass booking a train, but after dinner we ended up going back and they waited in line again. Petey and I sat in a café nearby and I read the book that I had bought for while waiting in line earlier. Great read. I would literally laugh out-loud and immediately want to tell Petey why. Also, coke zero overload was happening to our bodies. Smart marketing on their part, but the Coke Zero crew was out in heavy grouping handing out mini cans to everyone who was stuck stranded in the train station. We probably had 8 that day. It was insane. Jewels and Jess ended up booking something, and once we got back to the hostel we busted out Betty part 2. It was going to be Jess’ 21st birthday at midnight, and we needed to celebrate. Sure, being stranded in Rome wasn’t the dream 21st, but it sure as hell was a good story. One to tell the grandkids, eh eh? Absolutely. 3-2-1 – HAPPY BIRTHDAY HESSICA! We had some drinks, some laughs and brought her into her birthday the best we knew how in the hostel: wine.

It was now Tuesday, and we were officially titled the longest girls to ever stay in the hostel: it was night 8. Ridiculous. The longest group to ever have stayed there, we thought we should get a t-shirt to celebrate. We asked our buddy Hossain and he sent us around the corner to his friend. Petey and Jess lead the way and automatically turned around, looked at me, and told me to ask. Why? “Cause he’ll like you”. Weird but sure, why not? I walk around the corner and turns out it was one of the guys that worked there. One of those people you always smile at, and they always smile back. No biggie. Well in this case, smiles paid off because we provided us with practically a gift basket of the hostel merchandise: a t-shirt, a table cover and a pen. FABULOUS. We were thrilled.

Since we had everything booked to the best of our abilities we took the day to do some last minute sight-seeing. We headed back to the wedding cake and decided to climb as much as we could. We found a fabulous view: gorgeous. The whole city really. Rome really was one of the prettiest places we had ever been; hands down. We took advantage and did a little shopping too down the famous streets. Of course, one was an Gucci, D&G, etc and we basically window shopped. You saw people walking down the street with 5 bags and you just wondered how the hell they managed to get to that place in their lives. We all made a wish to someday join them. I even got my palm read; which is something I have always wanted to do, but when you know? No time like the present in Rome. It sure was an interesting experience, but I liked what he said and I like to think it will all come true.

But where to head for the birthday girl’s lunch: Claudio Pepi’s. We had gone one of our first couple days in Rome and he was fabulous! Claudio Pepi said that his wife made all of the pasta herself and he would give us a free bottle of wine. Done deal; he knew the way to our hearts already. We had a blast: he sang to us, and we all got a lovely kiss when we left. We said we would marry his sons if we could eat that well everyday. I had had the seafood spaghetti: wow. Sensational really. So we knew exactly where we wanted to go for her birthday. Best decision ever: we had some wine, to die for pasta, he sang as expected and he even gave Jess a dance. An all around fabulous time. You felt Italian: laughing, drinking and eating all at the same time. Who knew multi-tasking could be so much fun?

We figured we could do the Holy Steps later that day, but we went back to the hostel to check into our new room for the last night. We were splitting a four person room. Easy breezy. Well once checked in we decided to take a little nap, just a little one. Yeah, well we ended up sleeping right through the Holy Steps. Crap! We’re idiots, but damn we were tired apparently. It was Jess’ birthday and we had wanted to do something cool for dinner. She had made the request for some good food, wine and chocolate cake. Jewels and I took it upon ourselves to go ask the front desk where we could find the following three things nearby.

Turns out a place right around the corner did, so we took a little walk. The most chocolate-stuffed cake I had ever seen made me want to hurl so I knew Jess would love it. Jewels and I booked a reservation and headed back to the hostel. We told Jess that we had been given a card for a place around the corner, not sure if it had chocolate cake but we would get a 10% discount and we all loved saving money anywhere possible the past couple days. Brilliant. So we got dolled up and ventured. Jess had no idea. We got our table outside (as we had been told) and we were thrilled. Dinner was delicious, and the white wine hit just perfectly. He even brought over a complimentary bottle of champagne. Hells yes. We loved it. Then the grand finale as requested: he brought her the cake with some candles. Love love. She was thrilled: the birthday had been a success!

This was going to be our last night in Rome: we couldn’t believe it. Well ours anyways: Petey and I were off at 6am the next morning and would start the longest train ride of our lives. Jewels and Jess still had some more days to stay but they would be staying with Jewel’s dads friend so that was brilliant. Hossain: our buddy. We knew we had to take a picture with him. He jumped on that in seconds, and was thrilled to ask one of the guys in the bar to take his picture with us. He was so nice and so damn excited all at the same time: he added us all to facebook instantly after and we were now “official friends” as he would say. We did a little bit of past minute packing and before we knew it, it was bed. We had been in Rome for 8 days; 8! We had the time of our lives and experienced a hell of a lot more than expected; but hey; it would be a great story in 2050. Absolutely. And we all joked we would get a tattoo of that Volcano Eyjafjallajokull on our ass. So there Volcano.