Italy

The fact that everyone on the bus survived the trip to Rome is a miracle. There were injuries and breakdowns and…well, I’m getting ahead of myself.
We started the day at 7am and headed down with the rest of the drones to the theatre to meet for our respective tours and excursions. I should have known the day was going to go south when I couldn’t have tea and the coffee was foul. How can this boat go to places with such astoundingly great coffee and serve absolute swill on board? We left Civitavechia and headed for Rome. It was about a 2 hour ride and our guide was great. He told us great little secrets like how to get a ticket to the Coloseum without waiting in line and how not to get ripped off at every turn. We went to St Peter’s Square and into the basilica. It was totally overwhelming. It’s so huge and built with so much marble that it’s a wonder it doesn’t just sink into the ground from all the weight of it. We had a great little Panini near the square and grabbed a cab to the Coloseum, took a look at that area and walked back stopping at the Pantheon and a few other spots. We filled our water bottle all day with the water that flows out of the spigots all over the city. When we met up for the bus ride back we ran into some trouble. To get to the bus you had to go up two escalators. One of the “up” escalators was broken and we had a woman on the tour that was unable to do more than a few stairs. We ended up sitting in Rome traffic in an intense thunderstorm for 30 minutes to circle back around to stop again to collect her. Once we got on the highway it was smooth sailing until the bus broke down and we had to sit on the side of the highway for an hour and wait for another bus. To transfer from the broken bus to the working one we had to walk in the dark and rain on a ledge about 2 to 2 1/2 feet wide overlooking a 3 foot deep and 5 foot wide cement ditch. Of course an old woman fell in the ditch and we watched it happen. She said she was fine afterward but I don’t know how she was. It was a really big fall and it was traumatic to her and everyone watching.
Italy in general is completely amazing. I live in Boston and Americans consider my city rich with history. One of our tour guides lives in a house that is older than Boston. Seeing structures that have been around for 2,000 years really puts things in perspective. Pompei was so much bigger than I thought. Things are so well preserved that it’s eerie to be in there looking around. To think that it was a thriving town 2,000 years ago is surreal.
It is very interesting and entertaining to be in Europe for our presidential election. Every person we have spoken to from Spain to Italy has been holding their breath hoping for an Obama win. What’s happening in the US right now affects the entire world and we have spoken to dozens of Europeans that are elated that Obama won. One of the tour guides was so happy about the win he actually kissed an American girl on the tour!! It’s really something to see. I’m glad we were here for it!