Italian planes, trains and automoblies

Europe Day 1

We left our home away from home on June 30th with rest and relaxation and less stress in mind.After spending the last month packing and planning we all needed a little less stress. That lasted until we landed in Rome or rather, when we tried to get out of the airport. Even that was not that bad. The part where I almost lost it was when we stood in line for 20 minutes to buy a train ticket and just when we were going to run to the train, Miranda said the words you really don't want to hear when you are in a hurry. "I have to go to the bathroom". Well where in the world is the bathroom? You could tell from the way she was crossing her legs that she wasn't kidding. So I took a quick glance around to find one that was close. Well things were looking up. So off we ran while Dean and Colton watched the bags. Down the stairs and there it was…. Oh no, we had to pay to get in. Well lucky for us Dean had given me some change before to try to use the phone and so I had something resembling money in my pocket. Try as we did, we had a really hard time figuring out how this thing was supposed to work . Finally we saw a change maker on the far wall and I got the correct change to get us in. Fhew, that was close.
We ran back up to the guys and took off to find the train among the many gates. There it was! We ran to the train, jumped on to find that it was packed. Totally packed, right to the doors. With just enough room for us. From experience we knew to ask the first person who looked friendly if we were on the right train. We asked a lady that we were standing next to and she looked at the place we wanted to go and the ticket and said "no, we were NOT on the right train" Ahhh! So we asked someone else (because you can't necessarily trust the first person), and no everyone around looked and said we were on the wrong train. We quickly got off as the train was ready to take off. So there we were, again standing on the platform waiting, not knowing where to go, again. We looked around for a info desk or something to get some kind of information on what to do. Nothing. We asked many a passing person for help. Nothing. We asked a police officer if he could point us in the direction of a info desk, and that was the most interesting. He said in perfect English "I don't speak English". So I said in my perfect imitation Italian accent, " Oh, information desk?". He looked me right in the face and said in a very condescending voice, "I don't speak English" and rolled his eyes. I said to Dean that he was a bit of a rude Italian B****** and then got crap from Colton for swearing. Yes, my best look under stress. So I apologized to Colton and we got back on our way for the search for the way to get out of this awful, busy city. This was the point that I remembered hearing about a girl who wanted to go to Europe after high school by her self and backpack around. She got to Europe and turned right around and came home. At this moment, I wanted to turn around and go home. I got tears in my eyes as I thought of all the hours we had been traveling that day and I thought of the hostel that we booked cancelling our reservation because we were late. I thought of a nice warm bed and food. We hadn't eaten anything but airplane food all day and night. It was already 6pm and we needed to get to our hostel and we couldn't figure it out. I was so frustrated. Because I had booked this stupid hostel I felt to blame that we couldn't find it. But Dean, ever so calmly said we would go back to the ticket booth (which was a far walk away and we still had to carry all our backpacks) and get new tickets. So we followed him back there as I wiped my tears of frustration away. The ticket guys was oh so sorry and issued us new tickets to the right town. So we ran back to the area to find the train to the right town. It was supposed to leave at 6:24 which came and gone, then at 7pm. As we ran back looking around for a schedule and gate number a man saw our frustration and helped us to call the hostel from a pay phone and tell them we were on our way. They told him they would be at the station waiting for us. That took away some stress knowing they at least knew we would be there that night. Dean went to read the time board again as we realized they had changed the train at the last moment and everyone ran for the new train gate and jumped on the train that was getting ready to leave. It was packed. Standing room only, with our packs we found a spot along a hallway and stairs and people kept jumping on and squishing in and soon we just huddled there together in the heat and again we asked the people around us who for a country that supposedly all speak English didn't understand us. Other than one young guy. Who in his broken English said we were on the right train as he was going to the same town. Yeah!!! So there we stood, without a window to look out of without knowing where we were going really, but at least we were going somewhere. I was not going to take my eye off the guy.
We rode the train for an hour till the guy said this is our stop and we all pulled our way out from the crowd into the fresh air. We followed the crowd of people walking to the station and there we found the hostel people waiting for us with their car. Oh thank God we were here. He helped us in and took us up the hill a bit and 5 min. later we were putting our pack down and sitting in our room. Ahhh, it was all good. The hostel is great, we are out of the city and in a small town where it is quiet and slow. They ordered us pizza from a great little shop and Dean went with them to pick it up. We sat down to a thin crust authentic Italian pizza at 9pm and went to bed. Day 1 over.