Day 7 - Swapping accommodations

No sleep again. I must cut down on the coffee. I'm up at the crack of dawn and end up tossing and turning for hours before finally dragging my ass out of bed. Then theres a good 20mins of wrestling the shower trying not to flood the place. I end up doing a pretty good job of it. The floor was relatively dry! That is until Moishii got in and completely flooded the bathroom until water started leaking into the hallway. So much for my efforts.

We grab our essentials (For me, my camera) and headed back to our local bar for some morning coffee. The same coffee guy is there to greet us and make our orgasmic coffee (Plus he's cute!). As we munched on our cornetti and sipped our coffee, local guy started chatting with us. (OMG! We're mingling with the locals!) We somehow had a feeling that this was going to be an incident, and should drag out the conversation for as long as we could. (Even though the cashier stormed over and demanded that we pay before we had even finished) So I did what a normal person would do. I ordered another coffee. The only problem was, I was getting headspins from the caffiene! Like serious headspins! Like I had to hold onto the bench from toppling over headspins! Why I kept drinking the coffee is beyond me. Wait, it was delicious. And we managed to get a photo with him!




By the time I walked out of the bar, it feels like I've been out drinking all night! We get back to the apartment and it was final checks before we leave. Through our broken Italian, apparently the home owners couldn't come to pick up the key as we checked out because she had to take the kids to school or something. The only problem is, you cannot lock the door without a key. The door will not close unless you use a key, which we're supposed to leave on the dining room table. Now we weren't about to call them up and try to explain that, it'll just be too painful. Instead, we became reverse criminals. You know how people use a credit card to unlock a door? We'll, we used the same method to LOCK the door. Except we used a butter knife to jimmy the door so it'll lock. I'm sure the owners will be wondering why there is a butter knife on their door mat.

So once we got all our suitcases out of the apartment, we decided we should trek to the metro station that is further from us as its all downhill. The closer metro meant we had to wind through cars and pavements etc. This was a great move on our end since Moishii had two suitcases! 15mins later, we finally get to the metro where we proceeded to lug the suitcases down the escalator until a cleaner stopped us and pointed us towards two MASSIVE elevators. Yes...very observant of us.

When we arrive at Flaminio, we started our slow hike to the other train station with our massive suitcases. Luckily a lady jumped in to help me lug the suitcases up a short flight of steps. And luckily, the train to Euclide wasn't going to leave for a good 5-10mins so we could slowly load all our suitcases on. We quickly devised a plan on how to best get the luggage off without the train running us over. We shuffled all our suitcases and bags to the door. Once the train doors opened, I threw myself off onto the platform when Moishii started throwing the bags at me. Within 15seconds, we had all our luggage off the train. Then it was time for a 5min break before the 100+ steps we were going to have to battle. Its a good thing there were a few landings on the steps for us to take a rest otherwise I would've passed out and let the suitcase fall the 100steps back down.

When we finally do make it to the hotel, we're ready to drop dead. Luckily, the tour director was there to greet us and we managed to get all the paperwork done within minutes before we're shown our room. We were staying at the Ritz Hotel and the furnishing was actually quite luxurious. Well, I mean, compared to the apartment. So out comes the cameras and we're busy taking photos when suddenly there was a knock at the door. We open the door and the mini bar guy comes storming in saying he needs to check the minibar. He takes a quick look and quickly dashes out to grab more supplies. At some point, we figured something was going to happen and we needed to film this. The video camera was on and placed onto the bedside table when he comes storming back in. Next thing you know, we're chatting about how he has a brother who is also in Sydney, and he would like to give us a gift and asked us to pass it on to him. Like WTF? Who asks a complete stranger to pass a gift onto someone else? For all we know, it could be drugs! OMG! He's asking us to smuggle drugs for him! He told us he'll try and drop by tomorrow and give us the gift. Our plan was to take it, open it, then shove it into the minibar as well. No way are we going to be taking anything for him to Sydney! Lets see if he really does come back...


After lugging all the suitcases half way across town, we grab a quick shower before we duck across the road to a bar for some lunch. Spotting the big tray of pasta, we ordered a take away plate each and grabbed an ice tea to eat across the street on the steps of an old church. This cost us about 10euros for the both of us instead of the 25euros we paid for those pitiful sandwiches! AND it was delicious!


After our satisfying meal, we decided to head back to our local guy for more coffee. Yes, we're obsessed with him. So 2 trains later, we finally pull into the bar where he greets us once again. And the more we chatted, the more we became obsessed. I don't know why. Its not like he's weird or anything, but maybe its the fact that we're getting to know "the locals". And he make awesome coffee!


Anyway, like all bars, this one is filled with alcohol. I couldn't have another coffee without headspins, so we decided to order alcohol instead, except we didn't know what was good and what wasn't. So we asked him to explain the various types of alcohol to us, and he even let us taste test a few. We settled on Disarrono. I asked him whether we're supposed to take it like a shot of alcohol or not and he starts screaming at me "NO NO!! NO FAST!! SLOW!! SLOWWWWWW!". Then I knew why. The Disarrono was served in a tall glass. No ice, no soda. Just alcohol. If I had knocked that whole glass back in one shot, I would be passed out on the floor within minutes.

Am I supposed to take that as a shot?

10mins later, I had downed the entire glass and we stumbled out of there drunk as a skunk. Great. As we walked back towards the metro, suddenly a swarm of tourists stumble out of a nearby restaurant. As we squeezed through the crowd, one of them practically burped in our face. Wait, it wasn't a burp, it was a loud satisfying BELCH. This got us into a big laughing fit right in the guys face as we quickly make a get away.

We laughed all the way to the metro station where we headed back to the hotel (After a 14y.o. kid barked at us). We got some directions from the train guy, and then we walked for about 10mins to find a supermarket. This is where we stocked up on supplies. (Supplies being 10L of water and 2 bottles of wine).

Fresh Veggies

Fresh Pasta

Fresh bread

Antipasto

Deli - shaved to order

ZOMG! ALCOHOL!!

Instead of lugging everything by hand back to the hotel, we decided to grab a trolley and wheel it back. Usually this is ok, I mean alot of people were wheeling their groceries to the car. However, we were wheeling the trolley about 5 blocks from the supermarket and making a hella of alot of noise! After attracting too much attention, we decided to hand carry everything back the last 2 blocks.


We grabbed a quick shower before rushing downstairs to the lobby for the welcoming drinks the tour organises. We walked in to a room full of people. We quickly walked up to Elena (who we will now call "Cabbage Patch") to grab our name and luggage tags before I spotted a table where there were only 2 people sitting and a massive plate of chips. I quickly plant myself down with a glass of wine in hand and attack the huge pile of chips, and this is when we met Ron and Good old. Within 10secs of our conversation, we knew something was not right. Good old screamed at us whilst we were having a pleasant chat that we can keep talking all day, because they love listening to our accent. Alrighty then....We were telling them how we got ripped off at a cafe for sitting down when Good Old blurted out that they paid 20euros for a diet coke and a sprite. 20euros?? Thats $40AUD!! For 2 soft drinks!!! Ok, we're not that bad then.....

Suddenly, Cabbage Patch stands up and starts telling us about the tour. How things are going to work, how we have a 5:45am wakeup call tomorrow (SHIT!), customs in Italy and things to be aware of. The itinerary for tomorrow would be to see the Vatican and the Colosseum. This is when Ron and Good Old piped up and told us how the day before, they were at the Colosseum and paid the Gladiator 40euros for 5 photos taken on their digital camera! $80AUD for 5 Photos!! LIKE OH MY GOD!!! WHO PAYS $80AUD FOR 5 PHOTOS!!! And they found it hilarious and kept telling people that story. Cabbage Patch was so stunned that someone was stupid enough to pay $80AUD for 5 photos, she looked like someone had bitchslapped her in the face with a pair of dirty undies!

When Cabbage Patch finally recovered from the shock, she decided to announce that at 10pm tonight, the hotel will have no electricity. Because the council was undertaking work around the hotel, all power will be cut off by 10pm, and might not be restored until the morning. This brough on a panic attack with half the people screaming if theres no power, is there going to be breakfast?? Like hello? I think there are more important things to be worried about? Like how are you going to pee if theres no light in the toilet??? Some people...

By the time the welcoming drinks were over, we were significantly tanked. And the stories Good Old and Ron were telling us isn't helping either. There was an optional pizza and pasta dinner as well as a night time drive around Rome, but since they're charging about $60-80 for each "excursion", we decided to do our own thing instead. We walked around the block a few times trying to find a cheap restaurant or something where we can get take away. This is when we find that we're on a new freak street on Planet of the Apes:



We decided on grabbing some pizza to take back to the hotel room. Instead of doing the smart thing and just ordering slices of premade pizza (Which is alot cheaper), we decided to order fresh made pizzas take away. As we waited, we noticed this woman sitting the in the restaurant:

She was literally just sitting there, flicking the tv channels with the remote. She wasn't a customer since she didn't have any food or drinks and she was there before us. She wasn't exactly working either. She seemed like she wanted to turn the restaurant into her livingroom. We suspect she seriously comes to the restaurant to watch tv. o_O


We walked back to the hotel with our piping hot pizzas and dashed through the lobby and straight to our room. When we opened the pizza box, this is what we got:

Mushroom pizza...I think...

Aracini

Potato Pizza

Our wine

Somehow, Moishii managed to slide all the topping off the pizza. I guess him holding the pizza vertically could do that hey? Not to worry, we managed to find some cutlery and slap everything back onto the pizza somehow. Next obstacle, opening the wine we bought. LUCKILY, I am always prepared and happened to have a bottle opener in my luggage (It was part of a swiss army knife thing). Except this bottle opener only had the screwy bit, and not the leverage bit that helps you pull the cork out easily. So we thought cooperation is best. With me grabbing onto the bottle with both hands, and Moishii grabbing onto the cork screw with both hands, we tugged and tugged at the bottle until I went flying backwards and almost tipping the entire bottle all over our beds. Opening a bottle Oishii and Moishii style....

The pizza was delicious, once we managed to get the topping back on. The potato pizza was amazing! No tomato base, just potatoes and cheese. The potato was cooked until it was just soft. Kind of like the centre of a really nice potato scallop! MmMmm Pizza....the wine, however, was a bit of disappointment. Hey, it did only cost us $5 for the wine! We couldn't complain too much. After getting shitfaced, we somehow had the biggest laughing fit over 5 photos for 40euros! I know, we're easily amused. Half way through our laughing fit, all power got cut. Well that certainly cut our night short. However, despite all electricity being cut, the powerful street light RIGHT infront of my window was going fullblast! CRAP! Oh wells, I still had to get some shut eye even though I was pumped full of caffiene and couldn't sleep!! We had a 5:45am wakeup call.......