Day 4: Meeting up with the group and touring Ostia Antica

Today I said goodbye to central Rome and hello to Ostia.

My three days of roaming Rome by myself are now over.  I said goodbye to Stefano and thanked him for all he’s done and how much help he has been in the past few days.  I asked if there was anything from the United States he wanted or something that I could do for him, and his only request was that I write him a review of his B&B.  It is the very least I can do.  Five stars, across the board for his hospitality and kindness, I know that if I am ever visiting Rome again I will be going back to My Guest Roma to stay.  Maybe the Panini shop workers will remember my face.

I took the bus to Termini, Rome’s central train station.  From here trains go everywhere and to all the big transit centers, like Fiumicino Airport, which made it real easy for me to get there.  What wasn’t easy was finding the train.  I wrote down in my phone what the electronic signs said regarding the airport, but in the end it was a stroke of luck that put me on the right train.  I was walking down the right side of the rails (there is about five rows to walk down) trying to find a match to the numbers I had took down from the signs, when a train passed that read “Fiumicino Aeroporto.”  I asked someone who was about to board if this train went to the airport, just to be sure, and he said that it was.  How lucky that was, especially as I felt the pressure of time beginning to set it with an hour till 11:00 AM, the time I aimed to be waiting outside baggage claim for my class.

Now, it was my understanding that a metrebus roma ticket was good for 1 metro/train trip, even says those exact words on the back of the ticket.  I was told to board a train at Termini by Stefano, but not told that I needed to buy a train ticket as apparently the airport is OUTSIDE of Rome.  As the ticket checker came around the train I asked the man across from me if this was what I needed, and he nodded and said it was.  My worries were lifted and I let out a sigh of relief.  So when I confidently handed my ticket to the ticket checker, I felt like a straight dumbass from the look he gave me.  Apparently my ticket wouldn’t work on that train, since it travels out of Rome, which I was completely unaware of.  I thought Rome encompassed the airport but apparently not.  So today I am €64,00 poorer (roughly $90.00).  Such bullshit.  Funny thing, I didn’t feel the gravity of the cost until I made the conversion to USD, and then I was aggravated.  Makes sense I guess, not being used to this form of currency.  Lessons learned the hard way.

Anyways, that wasn’t the end of my stresses though.  I arrived at the airport to realize I had no idea what terminal to wait at.  And there were six terminals.  With haste I ripped my laptop out of my bad and waited impatiently for it to boot up so I could check the excel spreadsheet with everyone’s flights on it.  But it told me nothing of real use.  The best I got was that Dr. Murphy was flying out of New York, as denoted by NYC, but I had no idea what CLT stood for.  And even more frustratingly, the wifi at the airport, the one labeled “Fiumicino free,” wouldn’t connect to anything for shit.  Pardon the profanity, but remembering my frustration makes me relive the stress and frustration I had.  By now it was 10:30 AM and the flights were close to landing or had already landed.  From the sign just off the train, the one of five that was for arrivals, I saw that New York flights were arriving at terminal 3.  So with a somewhat doubtful decision I headed that way.

And then it took me a while to figure out that arrivals were on the first floor.  I was on the second.  But when the elevator doors opened I found myself in the same place I arrived at.  So I walked to the boards over there, saw that New York flights had landed, and hoped that they would come out of this terminal.  I was stressing hard, as I was unsure if I had the right terminal.  It was 11:00 AM by now.

But then I saw a familiar face!  Katherine-Ann was waiting nearby for the same reason, and at that moment my stress dissipated away, knowing now I was in the right spot.  And after 10-15 minutes of chitchatting, professor Trice walks right on by, along with 10 other familiar faces.  The relief I felt was enormous, finally finding my group.  After another 30-45 minutes Dr. Murphy joined us with the rest of the group and we got on our bus and headed to the Ostia hotel.

Ostia is much different than central Rome.

Not nearly as many people and the lines on the road are still visible.  I liked Rome better, I liked all the people, the buildings, the city aspects.  I could walk around forever there and be surprised at something new.  Here it is less developed and there are less people, but it is still Italy and I still love it.  I just like Rome more.

After a lovely lunch of pasta, salad, fruit and sparkling water we boarded the bus and headed into the ruins of Ostia Antica.  It was comical how many people didn’t know what the ticket was for when Dr. Murphy handed it to them, some people even came to me to ask how this whole thing works.  Silly Americans, hahaha.  Oh wait…  Anyways the ruins were interesting and we had the opportunity to walk around and in them.  It would have been better with an audio tour I think though, so that one could differentiate between the buildings and what their intended purpose was way back in the day.  I got a lot of photos, but it wasn’t really a photogenic site for the most part.  I will have to rely on my panoramas and photo editing skills to make these work.  It was just really nice to have American company and people to talk with as we perused around.  We stayed for about two hours before heading back to the hotel.

Dinner at the hotel was nice as well.  The servers started us with a sort of vegetable soup, but not with a tomato-based broth like I am used to.  Afterwards the servers brought around ketchup and mayonnaise packets to the tables.  We couldn’t imagine what they would be for.  On the mayo packets were a picture of french fries with mayo on them, which was a bit bizarre.  Shouldn’t they have been on the ketchup packets?  And what again were these for?  Turned out to be french fries, served as a side with turkey in some sort of sauce.  It was comical, to get french fries with our dinners way out here in Italy.  That can’t be a typical Italian side.  And for desert we had a delicious tiramisu served in fine glass dishes with tiny little spoons to go along with it.  Now that was truly something delicious.

The rest of the time was spent hanging out and around with everyone.  A few of us trying to take advantage of the scant trace of a wifi signal which seemed to only exist in the lobby watched this crazy game show that looked like an Italian version of Deal or No Deal.  We couldn’t understand what was going on or what was being said, but if we had it probably wouldn’t have seemed so random and crazy.  There was dancing, singing, a phone which rung randomly and seemed to dictate the future of the contestant, an aquarium with fake fish, and instead of suitcases there were boxes with certain euro amounts.  The show concluded fairly anticlimactically, which just added to the randomness of it, but we all had a lot of fun trying to figure out what was going on and laughing at the sheer randomness of it all.  Did I mention it was really random?

I didn’t get a chance to work on photos today, but perhaps I will have some time tomorrow.  I took 500 more today so expect maybe 50-75 out of that.  Wifi is barely passable and I don’t know how it will look in the coming weeks so bear with me on blog posts and flickr updates.

As always these are wonderful and adventurous days, and now will be even better with people to talk to and share work with.  Still loving Rome, even if I am €64,00 poorer.

Buonanotte a tutti!