Trip to Rome Day 1

Morgan and I’s flight left at 6:30am from Dublin to Rome on a Saturday morning. We had done our last retreat with the NET team all day Friday and were staying at the NET team’s house. The plan was that they would drive us into town to get the 3am bus to the Dublin airport...to arrive by 4:50. So we get up around 2am to head into town only to very quickly realize that we are lost in the town and that we can’t find the bus station and our bus comes in 10 minutes! Lucky because we were driving in a strange fashion (going around the round about twice because we didn’t know where we were going) the Garda started to follow us, probably thinking we were drunk because we had turned down a dead end street. They block us in and come over to the window. Becca is driving us and she roles down her window and whips out her cute American accent and explains that we are lost and trying to get to the bus station. The Garda believes her right away and we follow them this crazy back ally way to the bus station which was super quick! Praise the Lord!! If the Garda hadn’t of thought we were drunk drivers we would have totally missed our bus to the airport! Yey for Becca’s drunken driving skills hahaha!

Flash forward Morgan and I are now on our plane to Rome...flying NOT in style with ryanair.  I had sort of just woken up because it seemed like we were starting to land. Morgan and I are looking out the window at all the cool mountains. I wasn’t really expecting it to be so mountainous around Rome. I had never flown into the Ciampino airport (there are two airports in Rome) but it looked like we were landing in the middle of the countryside. So we land at the airport and it is super tiny. I knew this airport was smaller than the other one but seriously it looked like the Sydney airport. So the captain comes over the intercom and it like welcome to Bologna! Apparently we had made an emergency landing because someone on the plane was sick and they didn’t even tell anyone! Crazy Ryanair! The man was okay and onec we all got off the plane and they refuelled it we were back on our way to Rome. When we landed in Rome this cute Italian lady attempted to ask about our trip to Rome....but because she couldn’t really speak English she ended up asking about our trip by singing the Cindy Lauper song “girls just wanna have fun”. She just kept saying...”you like sien-dee-low-pear” which I believe translates to “ are you girls coming to Rome just for fun?”. I thought she was very clever for making the comparison! J

As soon as we landed (around 12:30) we took a shuttle to the main station in rome (Termini) and we headed on the metro to Vatican city.  So around 2 in the afternoon we arrive in St Peter square! I should mention at this point that Morgan and I only have a little less than two days to see Rome so we will be speed seeing. Okay so back to St. Peter’s square...now I know this is a rather cliché thing to say...but pictures just don’t do it justice. Seriously. Actually pictures didn’t do almost any of our trip justice, which is why we took almost no pictures...to busy seeing I suppose. We go in the line to go inside St Peter’s basilica right away and it was really short so got in in about  5 minutes.

We are here for two reasons.
#1 Morgan wants to see the Pieta
#2 Meaghan wants to see Blessed John the XXIII in his tomb...aka in the flesh...incorrupt!

So the first thing we see when we go inside to the right is the Pieta and Morgan crys! I’ve personally never had any great love for this statue...but then once I saw it up close I realized how wonderful it is...and my disinterest changed. Then we go up the right side of the basilica and Bam right in front is Bl. John XXIII. I cryed. I got to go right up next to the tomb of my hero! Soooooooooo Amazing!

After we had wandered around for a little bit longer we realized we hadn’t eaten since about 5:30 that morning. In God’s providence after wandering the streets for about 20 minutes we found and actually supermarket! Since we were on a super pilgrim budget this was really necessary. So we bought a giant amount of crackers and blocks of cheese and some fresca like orange drink. Oh we also got water haha! So then we walked back into St Peter’s square and sat down for the first time in hours. We sat in the wonderful sun and ate our pilgrim feast. This was possibliy the most beautiful part of our day! The square was clearing out and the sun was going down a little and it was just quiet enough to feel peacefulJ.

Our first day in Rome had finished so then we headed to our mystery hostel, which was called Country Club Castel Fusano, about an hour ride away from Rome?? We thought how can you go wrong for 6Euro...right? haha! We followed the directions to the hostel which involved going on the metro and then taking a train for about 40 minutes to the last train stop “cristophoro columbo” where we were supposed to get off and wait outside for a “shuttle” which goes Country Club Castel Fusano every 30 minutes. So there we are at dusk in a rather abandoned looking train station waiting to get picked up. Eventually a ragged bus like thing pulls up and we ask “Castel Fusano?” and the guy nods after trying to explain that we hadn’t checked in and he agree to let us on and we drive off.  The closer Morgan and I get to this mystery hostel the more we start to laugh. It was actually a really big camping resort off in who knows where; pretty much in the woods. It was a totally fine place to stay, just not exactly what we were expecting. So we checked in and bought our 2.50 synthetic sheets and headed to our room and prompted unpacked and went to sleep.