Roma Inn-- the phantom menace

so, i should point out that I'm in budapest right now-- This entry is going to sound like I'm in rome. I'm behind quite a bit. We'll get to Budapest (and the rest of rome, and florence). So, pretend that I'm in Rome. Are you pretending? Good.

Arriving in Rome was interesting, to say the least. Descea and I were operating on, at most, 2 or 3 hours of sleep in the past 24. And not the good kind of sleep- the awkward, unsatisfying, neck hurting plane kind of sleep. Which made for some very delirious travelers. Just like in Dublin, the rome airport just kind of glanced at our passports, and we strolled into the country. While finding our bus (and learning a new word- uscita for exit! yay vocabulary) was easy due to english signs and helpful men in orange vests directing traffic, getting in touch with Leslie, the third part of our lovely travelling triad, was not so easy. Leslie has been in Athens the past semester, and had travelled to Rome several days earlier to stay with her friend Liz. Our phones were having some serious issues- Leslie could call us, but we couldn't call her. Oh well, no big deal. She'll figure it out when we don't bother to call her.

While waiting for Les to call back, we consider this tidbit of info she had given us: When she and Liz called our hostel earlier, the man on the phone said it was closed. Interesting. But, we had a reservation, so we assumed it was a translation error. Arriving at the hostel, Descea and I waited outside the Roma Inn with our bags, enjoying the night air while waiting for Leslie. The reservation was in her name, so we were waiting to go inside. After about ten minutes of us looking like vagrants standing around with all our bags, a man stuck his head out of the window across the street and had a little chat with us. Turns out, closed was not a translation error. Our hostel was closed. As in, shut down a few months ago closed. As in, shut down before they took our deposit and yet still took our money closed. So, trying not to panic, we waited on Leslie and then, when she arrived, headed into the hostel across the street, Ivanhoe. 

There is a simple way to describe Ivanhoe: beer, beaded door curtains, and bangin techno. The place was insane, complete with skeezy guys and red lights. So, it wasn't the worst thing in the world that they said they had no rooms available (they had been taking in all the bookings from the phantom roma Inn). Window man got on the phone and found us a place at Happy Days Hostel. oh happy day.

Turns out happy days was all the way across town near vatican city. Oh boy. Adventure, HO! So, 2 trains and a decent walk later, we finally arrived, got beds, and collapsed like the living dead.