#nothing big bit i spent like 10 mins trying 2 fix it but gave up

[iknowwhatthatis]

i took a nap and woke up to like 200 more notes and not only am i happy bc i Like Attention but also im v happy bc it seems that everyone ignored the accidentally plot hole in the puppet habit thing

[11degreesofsvijany]

24 hours in the eternal city...

A few weeks ago I was discussing unusual travel ideas with one of my classes and one group of students came up with the idea of ‘7 days, 7 countries, 7 flights’. It intrigued me and after fiddling around with the kiwi app for a bit I realised that by taking the cheapest flight of the day from almost any airport Ryanair fly from you could easily fly for £10-£20 a day max. I set myself this challenge for sometime in 2017 and tweaked it a little. The rules will be that every day has to be a different country and the countries can’t be chosen, I’d have to choose the cheapest available flight for each day from wherever I am. Radka agreed to do it with me. I spent hours choosing different dates and seeing what potential itineraries arose and it was quite fascinating. This quick visit to Rome was a bit of a dry run to see how it would work flying to and from one city in 24 hours and actually seeing something. It was very helpful.

Radka and I teach in different regions which means our half term holidays are different weeks. The reason for that is to ensure the ski areas aren’t too busy. Since I now only teach at the school one day a week that’s the only holiday I get whereas she gets a week! Radka planned a ski trip with cousins etc for her time off and I was quite jealous so she told me to use my day off and go on a trip. I think she had a trip to the zoo or a day trip to a ski slope in mind but I booked a flight to Rome instead.

My flight was about £56 return which wasn’t as cheap as the 7 day trip will be but I booked it late, 14 days ago. The 7 day trip will be booked a few months in advance. I left the flat early on Tuesday morning in order to make my 7:10am flight from Prague to Rome Ciampino airport. A quick breakfast at the airport was ruined a little because I could only chew on the right side of my mouth. Radka cooked some beef on Monday night and it was so tough it sent shooting pain through my mouth and caused the teeth on my left side to be out of use.

I used to hate Ryanair but over the last three years they really have changed for the better. They ended the ‘we don’t care, your flight was cheap’ attitude and put all their efforts into customer service. As usual there was a mile long queue 40 mins before boarding. Why do people do this? Ryanair give allocated seats these days anyway. Completely pointless. I waited until the queue had died down and made my way onto the air bridge to the slow moving queue boarding the plane. That’s when someone farted. These air bridges are quite small spaces and it was bloody awful. I was almost certain I knew who the culprit was but all I could do was grimace and try to look as innocent as possible whilst shaking my head.

I found my seat, put my small cabin bag into the overhead locker and sat down. A young Italian steward called Giuseppe then tapped me on the shoulder, took my bag out of the overhead and asked if I would put it under my seat. He looked like he would have cried if I’d said no so I reluctantly agreed and spent the flight with little to zero leg room. Giuseppe was literally about 4 foot tall and probably has no idea how it feels to be 6 foot tall on a Ryanair flight even without a suitcase shoved into your leg stretching area.

The flight was a little bumpy but after about 70 minutes we were making our descent. I am one of those people who suffer with ear pain as the plane descends, sometimes worse than others followed by half a day being deaf in my left ear. The worst I ever experienced was on a flight to Sydney in 2006. I’d been given a free upgrade to business class so I had one of those bed things but there’s a rule in Sydney where they can’t fly below a certain altitude until 5am. My plane had an expected arrival of 5:05am so at 4:58 the pilot did a huge nosedive. We dropped thousands of feet in seconds.My ears were exploding so badly that I threw a tin of altoids against the wall in front of me and my water bottle completely crushed itself under the pressure. This wasn’t quite as bad as that and I was deaf but nowhere near an altoid throwing level of pain.

One thing that does my head in on planes is that as soon as the wheels touch the tarmac you hear seat belts unbuckling despite frantic calls from the cabin crew not to. Who are these fu**ing morons!? Then came a moment of beauty. The Italian guy sat next to me was one of these morons. He was unbuckled and taking his things from under the seat in front. As we continued down the runway the pilot did one of those harsh brakes and his head smashed into the back of the seat. He didn’t seem in pain but he knew I saw it and was embarrassed so that was enough for me.

I was out of the airport within minutes, one of the beauties of schengen travel. Unfortunately this is where the fun started...

If you’ve ever been to Rome Ciampino airport you probably know the issue I had next. The trip from the airport to the centre of Rome is 17km...no big deal. Unfortunately, actually getting there IS a big deal. There are three options. Take a taxi for a fixed price of 30 euro (pointless as that’s more than half the price of the flight), take a shuttle bus for 5 euro or use public transport for 3 euro. I was in the arrival hall at 9am and was quite relaxed. I walked over to the 2 shuttle bus desks and was quite surprised to see that one of them had ‘next bus 10:30am’ and the other ‘next bus 11:00am’. What the hell was I supposed to do in the arrivals hall for all that time!? I then joined the huge queue for public transport tickets only to spot in the corner of my eye the hundreds of people waiting at the bus stop. Way too many people for a bus. There was no way this was going to end well as the bus came every 40 minutes. Ridiculous! I walked back and forward for about ten minutes hoping for some miracle. Surely there must be an easier way to get to the city!? Mental. I knew the public transport method was a 5 minute bus from the airport to a local train station followed by a train into the city do I thought I’d ask a taxi driver how much for the 3km journey to the station. I didn’t want to spend 8-10 euro on a taxi but needs must. I wasn’t too bothered.

“Taxi?”

“How much to Ciampino train station?”

“Ciampino station? errrrm, twenty five euro”

“Oh, no thanks”

Robbing bastards. I was quite stressed at this point so I thought ‘F**k this!’, grabbed by little case and set off walking out of the airport grounds. I’d read a forum post on trip advisor saying this was possible if ‘you don’t mind a bit of walking’. Well, I didn’t mind a bit of walking and my case wasn’t exactly heavy so I went for it. It was only 3km to the nearest village according to google maps, how bad could it be? Incredibly bad would be the most accurate answer.

The issue was that there were no pavements. I was wearing my nice brown boots and casual blue trousers. I wasn’t dressed for off road hiking. The first part of the walk had me walking into oncoming traffic on a very busy road. There was a thick white line which cars ‘shouldn’t’ cross which gave me some walking space but motorcyclists tended to ignore this so every time I saw one approaching I had to hop up onto the grass verge to escape death.

I felt like such an idiot. I was without doubt the only person attempting this. I was thinking about the author of the forum post through gritted teeth. The road seemed to go on forever. At one point I thought I’d taken the wrong road and it was just going to turn into a motorway. Was I just walking to Milan? Eventually there was an intersection and I knew I had to turn left onto the next road. This one was even worse. Actually, fifty times worse. There was no space to walk on the actual road so the only option was to walk on the grass verge. This grass verge was worse than the previous one as it had some kind of ditch in the middle of it and at times the grass narrowed and the only option was to walk in the ditch. 

I continued my walk down the ditch in my nice, brown, bugatti boots and it only got worse. The grass turned into huge thorn bushes which were unavoidable. I walked through the first one and was instantly pierced by some strange black thorns all over my legs. There were also huge stones which I kept kicking hidden in the grass which was now so long that I couldn’t see the mini ditches and kept losing my footing. I could just imagine the laughs of the people in the constant stream of cars flowing past. I was sure I’d be on an Italian youtube channel later that day. After 3km of pure misery, ruined and soaked shoes and trousers I finally came across a train station. Somewhere called Casabianca.

There was nothing there. No ticket machine, no ticket office. I worked out the schedule and saw that I had about 30 minutes until the train to Rome arrived. I calculated that I’d be at Rome Termini station at 10:56am. A full 4 minutes before the 10:30am airport shuttle bus and I’d only have to pay 1.50 without having to wait in crowds of people. Win! Unfortunately I’d probably have to buy a whole new set of clothes when I got to Rome as I’d only packed 1 extra t shirt and no extra trousers. It was 17 degrees and sunny so I was sweating after that walk and my trousers were soaked. I spent the 30 minute wait assessing the damage, 28 minutes of which were spent picking individual thorns out of my trousers, coat, wrists and suitcase.

An old man turned up, looked at me, said something in Italian and smiled. I assume it was something along the lines of ‘you walked from the airport didn’t you ha ha’. A plane then took off and it was so close I probably could have just left the plane, climbed over a fence and been in exactly the same place. Very frustrating.

I booked a 1.50 online ticket from the treinitalia website, the train came on time and 15 minutes later I arrived in the centre of Rome!

I had a quick look at the prices of clothes in the shops at the train station before deciding that I didn’t want to spend 140 euros on trousers and it’s nothing that a wet cloth at the hostel wouldn’t sort out. I bought a 24 hour transport ticket and went one stop on the underground to my hostel ‘Maikol Guesthouse’ (£9.70 per night in a 4 bed mixed dorm). 

“Hello David, we’ve been waiting for you!”

It was Giuseppe from the Ryanair flight, he must have taken a taxi.

“My name is Miro, nice to meet you”

“Hi, does your brother work for Ryanair?”

“No, I no have brother. Why?”

“I don’t know, doesn’t matter”

Seriously, they were long lost twins. He was the spitting image of Giuseppe. Miro was brilliant. It was a family run place and he must have been the son. He spent a few minutes showing me where everything was on the map before giving me his mobile number in case I got into any trouble. What a guy! My room wasn’t ready so I left my bag, told him I’d come back around 3pm and headed out.

This was a short trip so I knew I couldn’t be the average Rome tourist. I wasn’t going to have any tours or see much. My plan was to have a nice walk and see some sights. I’d planned a coffee and pizza stop in some famous spots so I got the metro to Barberini square and started walking down towards the Trevi Fountain. Walking around the centre of Rome, around the side streets, is a very pleasant experience. The weather was great and everything seemed to go at a very relaxed pace.

After the Trevi fountain I walked towards the Pantheon.

I knew that my special espresso was just round the corner from there so excitement started to build. The pantheon wasn’t as busy as I remember it so I’d say this is a good time to visit Rome. I’d downloaded a podcast on the Pantheon to avoid paying for an audio guide but I switched it off after about 43 seconds. Those stupid iphone earphones don’t stay in my ear. I have to be completely still if I want to listen to something. I can’t even chew chewing gum with them never mind walk. Maybe the strange shape of my ears is connected to my ear pain on planes? I decided it was too touristy for me so I used the panoramic setting on my iphone for the first time, took a photo and left.

I had decided not to bother buying shoes but I felt a bit uncomfortable walking around Rome in my completely scratched boots. I looked so scruffy and to make things worse everyone in Rome dresses perfectly. I walked past a clarks just around the corner from Pantheon and boom, an idea. I went in and asked if they had some polish. He had some kind of neutral colour cream so I bought it (7 bloody euro). As the card transaction went through my heart sank as I realised that the tube of polish probably wasn’t 100ml or less and Ryanair wouldn’t let me take it in my little see through bag. I’d only get about 23 cents of use out of this. I went outside and checked, 120ml. Bollocks. I used it straight away and look at the difference it made! The right shoe is post cream. Spectacular...

I was quite pleased with myself now. It wasn’t perfect but it was better than before. A couple more side streets and I found my espresso place. Sant’Eustachio Il Caffè is an ancient Coffee Shop and Roaster that dates back to the thirties. I loved the place. You pay for your coffee at the till and are given a paper which you take to the bar. That’s where you get your espresso and drink it there and then. People drink and then leave. None of these student twats buying a water in starbucks and using the wifi for 3 hours. It was the best espresso I’ve ever had. Simply perfect.

After leaving the cafe I headed towards the spanish steps which meant walking back past the trevi fountain. One problem in Rome is people constantly trying to cash in on tourists by selling them all kinds of crap. Being on my own I’d largely managed to avoid this. No roses for a start. The only issue I had was being asked if I wanted to buy a selfie stick about fifteen times. I got to the spanish steps and meh...too many tourists. I took a picture and left the area as quickly as possible.

I was then approached by a girl on a segway wearing an AS Roma kit. She tried to sell me a ticket for the evening’s Serie A game vs Fiorentina but I already had one so I asked her where the nearest Roma shop was. I wanted to buy an official scarf for the game. She gave me directions which turned out to be completely wrong. I think she got her left and right confused. I was walking for 25 minutes trying to find the damn place which was in Piazza Colonna. On the way around various side streets I noticed a guinness sign. My eyes lit up. This is exactly what I needed. It was now about 13:30, I’d been on the move since 4am and a nice pint of guinness would hit the spot. I headed over to the bar.

It was closed.

I carried on walking and eventually found the Roma shop and bought my scarf (18 euro).

It was time for a snack. I read about a place online which was apparently a must visit. Bonci Pizzarium. I had to go 5 stops on the metro to ‘Cipro’ and it’s right there.

They say the owner, Gabriele Bonci, makes some of the best pizza in the world. It’s quite a strange place. There are loads of different pizza toppings on show and it’s quite difficult to understand what they are unless you speak Italian but the staff are very friendly and happy to help you out. 

The first one I chose I thought was small pieces of chicken covered in cheese.

“I’ll have this one please”

“Are you sure you want this one?”

“erm”

“It’s stomach”

“What?”

“you know, tripe”

“oh shit no I don’t want that”

He helped me choose another, I still don’t know what it was but it was absolutely amazing and i washed it down with an extra special cascadian dark ale.

If you visit Rome make sure you go there! You pay buy the kg and they slice a piece off they cut it up for you with a pair of scissors. Bizarre. I lost half of my square because of a kid. There was a couple and 2 kids stood at the table next to me outside the place and after my initial sigh the kids did what I expected them to do and started running about. Eye contact with the parents did nothing to resolve this annoyance and then one of the little twats decided to stamp her foot into the floor sending about 6 pigeons flying in my direction and I dropped what I was eating.

My next plan was to one stop on the metro to Vatican city and take a picture in St Peter’s square but my left leg had started hurting, presumably from the trek in grass verges and detours around Rome caused by the segway girl. I’m not into religion and I’ve been there before so I couldn’t be bothered and headed back to the hostel. Shame I didn’t get a picture as it’s a beautiful place but I still have this cracker of Paul from 2005...

I got back to the hostel, Miro introduced me to my new roommate.

“It good news! Russian man and he go to football too”

That was good news as I was a little worried about walking there alone. We got the pleasantries out of the way. His name was Sasha and he was the manager of a dry cleaners in Moscow. His english was broken at best but we got by with a mix of Czech-Russian-English. He poured me a beer, hostel style.

Peroni is quite a popular, and expensive beer in England. In Rome it’s the beer choice of the homeless, much like Branik in the Czech Republic. I finished my cup and left to take a quick picture of Colosseum before preparing for the game.

I love the Colosseum and it’s a place I’d really like a full tour of when I come back for longer than a day!

I went back to the hostel with 2 more beers and had a chat with Sasha. He kept starting sentences in English and then giving up because he didn’t know the words. It really started to grind.

“I know man in Moscow and he...erm...erm...ahhh...no, no...nothing”

“I very like visit erm....no....i don’t know”

In all the excitement I completely forgot about my bad tooth and I let out a squeal as I chewed my chewing gum on the left side. Sasha looked alarmed but I couldn’t be bothered explaining.

We set off to Stadio Olimpico. Not an easy task. Rome is great for coffee and food but the transportation network isn’t great compared to Prague. We took a metro to Ottaviano and had to get a bus from there or walk 3.5km. The bus came and we were like tinned sardines but we finally made it to the stadium. We were seated in different sections so I gave Sasha strict insturctions.

“Meet at this statue after the game. I will wait max 15 minutes because I have to be up early for a flight.”

He seemed to understand and i made my way to the mental security procedures of the Stadio Olimpico. Two different ticket and passport checks, 3 full body pat downs.

I went into the stadium and tried to find my seat. I’d booked online via the main ticket company in Italy. They didn’t let me choose my seat, just the stand, the famous Curva Sud. The ticket cost 30 euro which isn’t bad but isn’t cheap either. My Sparta Prague season ticket costs 40 euro. Anyway, I was a bit surprised when I did get to my seat. I sat down and this is what I could see, nothing else...

A friendly Roma fan then tapped my on the shoulder.

“It normal. You sit anywhere. Stand here at back”

So I stood at the back of the stand. The problem was my leg pain was becoming increasingly unbearable. My iphone told me I had walked 21.6km so far, 28,600 steps. It had clearly taken its toll. The pain was in the lower shin and it was getting worse. I must have aggravated something I did skiing last week. I found an open seat and had a perfect view of the rest of the game. 

An interesting thing about football in Italy. Most fans don’t drink beer. The snack bars in the stadium sell beer but each window also had 4 huge chrome espresso machines connected to each other. There were bald headed rowdy football fans just stood everywhere with tiny cups of espresso. I joined them and it was brilliant.

The match was great. Roma put in their best performance of the season to batter Fiorentina 4-0. The atmosphere in the Curva Sud was also electric. I really enjoyed the game.

Here are a couple of videos I took. First, the amazing anthem ‘Roma Roma Roma’...

The introduction of the legend, Francesco Totti...

Celebrating Edin Dzeko’s goal and the 4th for Roma. I had the camera ready for about 10 minutes to try and get a goal with the announcer saying the scorers name but I missed it because I was looking at a really fat man walking past. Anyway, I got the announcer bit...

After the game I waited 15 minutes for Sasha and nothing so I hobbled the 3.5km to the metro station on my own. The pain in my left leg was now so intense I had a huge limp and I was almost screaming in pain with every step. I thought that Sasha might have left the game early because he wasn’t a huge football fan but he wasn’t there when I got back to the room. There were, however, a couple who looked in their late 40′s. This was weird. Usually in hostels if you have a dorm it’s bunk beds. This ‘4 bed mixed dorm’ was more like a hotel room with 2 single beds and a double. 

Sasha had a single bed and I assumed the double bed would be left empty because 1)it’s weird and 2) there were no pillows on it. 

“HEY! My name’s Julio! Where you from!? This is my wife Olivia”

Handshakes, pleasantries. It was almost midnight I really wasn’t in the mood. I set my alarm for 5:30am. My flight was at 9 but I didn’t want to risk a struggle getting to the airport. I definitely wasn’t going to walk there. It was really weird being with an older couple in the same room. I’ve got nothing against older people using hostels but if you’re a couple you should be getting privates. I’d never take Radka into a dorm room. Luckily they were also ready for bed. I got in bed and started reading my phone trying not to make eye contact with my mexican roommates. The woman started whispering in Spanish. I don’t speak Spanish but I assume it was something along the lines of ‘how do I get changed? Should I ask him to leave while I undress? This is weird. Why are we in a shared dorm Julio you prick!?’

I turned over to give her a chance to undress and I could hear her rapidly changing her clothes. I told Julio I’d be leaving at 5:40 and I’d try not to wake them. No problem. He seemed like a really nice guy. I tried to sleep but I was getting worried about Sasha. Had I just left him to get lost in North east Rome? Had he been jumped by a gang of Lazio fans. I’d arrived back at 11:30pm, it was now 1am and he wasn’t back. If I wake up in the morning and his bed is empty....jesus. I had visions of the Amanda Knox case. The police would blame me for his murder as I was the last to see him. I thought about escaping the country at 9am and never answering my phone to an Italian number, ever.

My fears were allayed when I heard the hostel entrance door slam. He then burst into our room and shook my hand despite the fact I was obviously trying to sleep..

“HEY DAVE! MAN FOOTBALL GREAT YES!?”

“Sasha, shh, people are sleeping there..”

“ok, wow. I stay in olimpic stadium and make pictures”

He then took 2 bottles of beer from the fridge and left. I have no idea where he went but he came in at 4am and woke me up again. Within 12 minutes he was snoring. Probably the worst snoring I’ve EVER heard. It was horrific. There was no chance I was sleeping through that. Julio was tossing and turning. I wasn’t satisfied with my 3 hours sleep. At 4:45am I’d decided I’d had enough. I got up, put my clothes on, grabbed my bag and left. I’d rather roam the streets of Rome at 5am than listen to that. He knew he was a bad snorer because he warned me within 5 minutes of meeting him but I didn’t realise it was possible to be that bad. It’s so selfish. If you have a problem like that you should be in a private room. Don’t get a dorm and stop everyone else from sleeping.

I made my way to Termini and waited for the shuttle bus. There was a family there before me and we had 40 minutes to wait so we decided to form a queue. By 5:55am there were about 15 people behind us. The bus came and everyone ignored the queue and formed a pile around the door. This pissed me off. Italians are friendly enough but they are definitely rude and arrogant. The queue is a very important aspect of British life. We invented it and we know how it works. These bastards have no respect for the queue. It was a mess. I finally got a seat on the bus and had a Czech girl in front of me with her mum who kindly reclined her seat for this mammoth 25 minute journey, crushing my legs in the process. Miserable. I couldn’t wait to get to the airport. When we arrived the recliner girl almost threw up a lung. She must have suffered from motion sickness as she was projectile vomiting into a carrier bag for about 5 minutes. Served her right for reclining her seat with a tall guy sat behind her. Unfortunately the Italian manners continued. Everyone knows that you let people in front of you get out of the seats and off the bus first. The Italians didn’t do this so I was stuck behind the girl trying my best to stop the smell of her vomit entering my nostrils.

I’m still not sold on Italian people but the coffee is amazing. Even the vending machines serve a decent cup.

I decided to wait until the plane for a coffee. Ryanair serve a Lavazza coffee in a special cup which as a built in filter in the lid. I was really looking forward to it. I had some time to kill so I decided to sit in the gate area and people watch. I love watching idiots scramble to their gates and do stupid things. It’s like a drug. I used to love watching ‘airport’ on bbc seeing all the arguments etc One guy turned up after gate closing and missed his flight to Athens. I’ve never missed a flight in my life and unless there’s a huge problem getting to the airport I don’t know how it’s possible. This guy had duty free bags in his hand so it was clearly his fault. He kept telling the woman that the plane was only there and he could go but she was having none of it. I then started looking at the cabin bags of the other passengers on my flight. Ryanair used to be really strict with the sizes but they seemed to have stopped checking. It’s a shame. I used to enjoy guessing if the bag would be turned away or not at the gate. They just let everyone through. Again, there was a panic to get on the plane first. Again, I waited until the end. This time it backfired because their big bags had taken up all the overhead locker space and there was no room for mine. They stuck a sticker on it and put it in the hold for free which meant I would have to wait at the baggage carousel in Prague. Bastards.

The flight was uneventful apart from the coffee I was looking forward to. This happened to me for the second time in the last few months. I was on row 10. There’s a drinks trolley coming from the front and one from the back. They meet, bumping into each other on rows 9 and 11. The cabin crew have a chuckle and then walk away. Completely forgetting to ask row 10 if they want anything. Second time this has happened to me!! I had to unbuckle the seat belt, rearrange and my stuff, walk to the front, interrupt their conversation and ask for a coffee. 

I was back in Prague at 11am! A very quick and mainly enjoyable trip. In conclusion I’d say the trip made me realise that whilst I’m not old I’m not as young as I was in my backpacking days and I think my days in hostel dorm rooms are over. I’ll be using privates only in future. The walking I did was definitely too much. I’m still suffering now. On the 7 day trip I have to plan better and follow the ‘less is more’ attitude in each city.

Aside from the 7 day trip I’d love to go back to Rome with Radka for a few days and explore more amazing food places, do some real tours of the sights and get another Roma match under my belt.

A great city!