We got up at about 4am because we had an early flight from an airport outside of London. You can get cheaper plane tickets if you're willing to schlep out of the city, so we took a bus from Victoria Station in London to Stansted Airport to catch a cheap-o Ryanair flight. Obviously, this is not the best way to start a day, especially when I'm functioning on no coffee (i.e. not functioning), and we had some trouble at the airport. I went with four other girls and three of us decided to share a suitcase to save money (yeah, they charged you for checked luggage), but the weight limit is really low and we ended up having to carry a lot of it. Then, walking through security, the little beepy thing went off when I walked through the gate. And beeping gives them the right to molest you. So, I got a nice full-body rub down that I definitely could have done without. Also hoped that this wasn't an omen that I'd be sold into the sex trade while abroad and turn into one of those stories they tell the BU London kids before break: "Last summer, a girl got her passport stolen in Prague. And then in the spring, a girl got her body stolen in Rome."
Everything was OK; they didn't find the WMD in my underwear. We boarded the airplane (this high-class airline doesn't have assigned seating, so it's a mad dash for the spot you want) and I slept(ish) most of the way. At one point there was a nice view of the Swiss Alps (which we saw again on the way back), and there were some pretty Italian towns, too.
The hostel was the next scare. Turns out the hostel we booked was in the Chinatown of Rome, and the building was really sketchy and graffitied. The stairwell was dirty and gross, the elevator looked like a mini Tower of Terror, and the check-in guy was creepy. We were silently cracking up, trying to formulate and exit plan, but our room turned out to be really nice. There was even a bidet in the bathroom. The shower was like the kind the have in hospitals, and you had to sit to use it, but that was more funny than annoying.
Then we met up at the Coliseum (two of the five of us were staying in a hotel). There was miscommunication, so the other two girls ended up taking a guided tour while I gave my own tour to the other girls I was with: "That is where the Emperor's daughter played jump-rope; those are the pillars that the Roman girls sold candy from; that empty soda cup on the ground is actually the Soda Cuppy Romana. Very famous."
After a nap, we went back to see it at night before going to a little bar in Campo di Fiori where we got drinks in giant pitchers.
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