Friday
Today, I managed to pick up the hotel
money, which was a huge relief. I also revisited the Pantheon. Why?
It was raining!
See, the pantheon has this great big
hole in the middle, that keeps the dome from being so heavy it
collapses. It also has a drain in the floor, and the floor slopes to
the drain. The rain itself looks more like it's snowing than it does
rain!
I want to see what is looks like when
it snows there, one time. It'd be interesting.
Also, I know I mentioned this earlier,
but apparently Mary Magdalene's foot is a silver colored relic. And
yes, I did in fact see her foot. I'd estimate it as a size thirteen.
There was a nearby church that had a museum basically dedicated to
relics. The curator will stay with you the entire visit. It was
odd, but nice.
I ended up visiting the Pantheon area
again, since I had forgotten my camera before, and it was raining, so
I didn't want to go to the gardens I had planned on seeing. I had
gotten off at the wrong stop, and decided I'd explore the
museum/church while I waited on the next one. There were probably
about twenty relics there.
I got to see Bernini's elephant, a
medieval stone cat, another foot, this one giant and randomly placed,
and the insides of several more churches. One of those churches had
a very vibrantly blue ceiling, with saints and the like on it, four
to a square. Not that you could really make out the saint, but they
were up there.
I didn't actually do much on Friday! I
revisited the Spanish steps somehow, and walked up the Tiber river
for a bit. It was a nice peaceful day. (Finally.)
Saturday
I checked out of the hotel almost
penniless (or so I thought). Why? Rome charges two euro a night for
tourists. There went my food money and then some. I had 35 euro
cent left, to my knowledge, and the ticket to the airport cost 14
euro. The guidebook insisted it cost 5.50. This was my luck.
On my way to the station, I ended up
back in the forum area, for one last look at the Colosseum and the
ruins. Here, standing on a small column to see over the edge of the
safety fence, I managed to fall, my ankle giving out. This is
important. It gave me a limp the rest of the day, if a mild one at
first.
So I'm at the train station, no money,
no way to get to the airport, nearly in tears, when an ex pat and I
get to talking and he offers me an old ticket. He said it should get
me to the airport just fine, and not to worry. Just pass the favor
on.
I take the train, nervous as all get
out, but the ticket puncher doesn't react as he punches my ticket and
goes on. The most I would have gotten was a fine, to be paid later.
Still, I made it to the airport, and got to my flight sans problems.
Okay. We can do this. I ended up finding just enough Euro for a box
of ritz crackers, and promptly bought the very popular treat,
wondering where the euro in my previously euro free purse came from.
Still, it was a very lucky break.
The plan landed okay, always surprising
with Alitalia, considering there was, again, rust on the wings, And I
made my way into the airport where I would wait two hours for my dad
to come, having been warned he'd be late.
We head down below to the train
station...and I'm limping the entire time. In fact, I ended up cut
off while limping, and couldn't keep up, so we missed our first
train. And then, since I was separated and they had, in fact, gotten
on, assuming I would too, we missed three more as they tried to
reconnect with me. We got back to the train station close to us
at...well, nearly midnight.
Then our ride home got lost coming to
the train station to pick us up. Still, by one in the morning, I was
home, thank goodness. This had been quite the week.
One Final Byte: The next train plus a limp don't mix.
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