My Italian Adventure: Getting to Rome

My last final was on January 20th. At midnight that night I took a bus into London in order to fly into Rome. I was fed up with studying and ready to start my adventure. The catch? I would be travelling all alone. I was nervous and admittedly did have some nightmares about it, but knew that in the end it would all be worth it. I won't lie. It wasn't easy and there were some times I wished I was with other people. But it is really freeing to be able to do whatever you want. This did lead to skipping a lot of meals in favor of eating nuts instead and getting to see more of Rome because of this. I don't know that anyone else would want to have done this, which is another perk of going at it alone.

But at the same time, it was utterly terrifying to be going alone. If I get lost, there is no one but me to rely on. I've never done this before, I have a terrible sense of direction, and I don't speak the language. Am I really qualified to do this alone? I had to ask Yaren just how to bus to Tesco and didn't even try to do it on my own. What made me think I could do this?

Well hell, I was able to navigate from my landing gate to where Swansea University was picking up students from the London Heathrow airport at the beginning of the year. No one helped me there. I've survived on my own in Wales this long. Surely I can try it all again, but in Rome.

 I got there really early as I was not sure how long check-in and security would take and the other bus option would be cutting it a lot closer. But by the time I arrived, the check-in desk wasn't even open as I was almost 4 hours early. But since I was early and waited patiently for the gate to open, the guy at check-ins thanked me for my patience by upgrading me to a window seat.

Still, I was really early and really tired. Even after checking in, I had to wait for the gate to be posted for my flight before I could do anything else. So for the first time in my life, I fell asleep in an airport. My legs were tightly wrapped around my backpack which held a weeks worth of clothing for Italy. In the breast pocket of my coat, an external phone charger revived my nearly dead phone. Since I have a hard time sleeping when it's light out, I pulled my hood over my eyes and rested for about an hour.

Never did I think I could do than nor that i would if given the opportunity. But there were tons of people in the waiting seat around me, and so I felt some security. I had an alarm set to wake me up at the estimated time of my gate time being posted, but did wake up a little bit beforehand.

From there it was a breeze. It was such a small aircraft that they didn't even bother to have people assigned to boarding times. Just board whenever you arrive and don't be late.

The pamphlets were all in Italian and the safety briefings were in Italian first, and then English. I was really leaving behind all the comforts of home. Before I left wi-fi, I quickly looked up some conversational Italian. Basically, "Parli I'ltaliano?" (Do you speak English?) and "gratzi" (thank you) would take me far with the basic Spanish I remembered from high school. The languages are quite similar.

It felt weird travelling on a plane and not travelling to America from the UK as that has been the extent of my air travel. At least now I wasn't scared and could actually enjoy my window seat view.

 

It was already very confusing when I initially arrived. I was at the airport, now how do I actually get to Rome? I tried following signs that led to the bus, but found they didn't seem to lead to the right location. Finally I just went outside the strange airport (I say strange because they literally drop you off in the airfield and you have to shuttle to the main area which does NOT look like an airport. Unfortunately, the buses filled fast and so I had to get one that wasn't leaving for a half hour. I really wouldn't have any time in Rome today.

Whilst figuring out which bus my ticket was for, I met an old lady in purple and who I assumed was her grand-daughter. It turns out that she was just another traveller and they happened to meet. We got to talking, ans I discovered that this woman too was travelling on her own, but she would be gone for months. This was just her first stop. Throughout her long life, she's travelled all over the world, sometimes alone and sometimes with people. She's lived abroad in multiple countries and is a complete inspiration. Never did she wonder whether or not she should. She just did.

I went on the bus with her and the other girl. This other one was meeting up with friends at her hotel. She had fallen in love with this city and convinced everyone she was travelling with to make this their first stop. I felt quite inexperienced between these two, but the older lady was quite happy for me. They both knew it was scary at first.

Once we got into the city, the older lady and I initially agreed to meet up as she said she would show me the Roman Forum or Colosseum. However, my hostel was located quite far away and the day was reaching it's end. The girl and I did still help her find her hotel as a cab ride would cost 20 Euro and apparently it was quite close. She was fine to do it by herself, but we both knew that all the bags she brought would be too much.

When she did find her hotel, it was very old and sketchy, as opposed to the fancy one she was expecting. Because it was hidden behind a scaffolding working on construction and hard to locate on the map, it probably took us a half hour to find. But we didn't feel comfortable not helping.

Afterwards, the girl went to the metro with me. Each of us needed to use it in order to get to our hostels. Mine was in Vatican City, and so I had a much longer ride. I was very nervous and hyper aware of pickpockets. The girl (from Belarus) kept telling me not to be scared. I was holding my backpack securely between my feet and looking around quite nervously. "You'll be fine," she promised me. But soon her stop came. She gave me a hug and said, "It was nice meeting you, now good-bye."

I was on my own again. It was extremely lucky that I had help, as I wouldn't have quite known how to navigate to and use the metro. The itinerary from STA Travel (the agency I used) included directions from the airport to the hostel, but it was still fairly foreign to use those to navigate for me.

On the metro

 Once I got off, I was told to go to a bus station near McDonald's. I didn't really want to pay for a bus and tried to start walking. Although the sun was setting, it wasn't quite dark. But after walking for five minutes and barely going anywhere on the map, I figured the bus was good. I was quite scared as this was way outside the main city, but I stood my ground. Once the bus came, I got on, paused a bit at the front, and then continued on. There was no way to pay the bus driver. No one else was paying. How do I do this? Well, I just tracked on the map of my phone how to get to the camping village stop, which apparently was right across from a grocery store.

Camping village? It also said I would have a tent to share with two other people. Where the hell did STA put me? I went with it and managed to stop and get off at the right spot. From there I crossed an overhead bridge and made it to the hostel to check in just as it was getting dark. Well, at least I got there.

Check in was easy, and I was informed that I would have it by myself for the first night before being joined by two girls. He gave me the key and all I had to do was walk up the stairs. This was an emotional moment for me. I was filled with fear and self-doubt the entire time getting here, but climbing up those stairs, tears rolled down my eyes and I said aloud to myself, "I fucking did it." Probably the first time I've sworn in a year, but I kept saying it over and over again. I was so proud of myself for actually doing it.

I wasn't in a tent, but a tiny bungalow. It was a camping village as some people were there in motorhomes. Some barking dogs as well, which I was nervous to pet as there were no owners around. Once I made it in my room, I dropped my bags and relaxed on my bed for awhile, simply enjoying the fact that I DID IT.

I figured out how to connect it to data (instead of relying on wi-fi) and messaged my mom. I had barely eaten, and so she insisted that I go out and get some Italian food. The main city was difficult to get to and I didn't want to go out exploring. Since the restaurant looked nice in the hostel, perhaps the food was good too.

Gnocchi is one of my favorite Italian dishes, but not everyone is as big of a fan. But this was my chance to get it smothered in pesto and parmasean. I was really looking forwrd to it.

Unfortunately, although it was alright, it was just hostel food. Nothing great. And there is no free water (you have to pay for a bottle). Oh well. It was enough to fill me up and give me a chance to plan out my day tomorrow. There was a lot to do in Rome, and so I had to figure out just what it was I wanted to see. Jason gave me some reccomendations as he had just been there for his winter break.

After I paid for my meal, I happily went back to my hostel, which was really a tiny hotel room. There was a party next door, but I didn't mind. I was excited for everything the next day had to offer and content to have my own place to stay.