Giorno 93, 9 April: Rome-Roaming + Naples, City of Rats

Hotel Mancini, Naples, Italy, Giorno 93. Rome-Roaming + Naples, City of Rats

     

Biking down Corso, a main street in Rome, the last members of my travel group, Caitlin and Devon, are fading from view in the colossal crowds walking through the street the Monday after Easter Sunday. No, no, I can’t see them, people in the way. Oh well. I have the map Elsie gave me. Biking through, all the way down to the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele we visited this morning. Stuck. The map must have fallen out of my pocket. My phone’s credit has been gone for a week and a half now. I’m lost.

      I’ll ask someone directions to the train station. That guy! He has a map. Dove es la stazione de tren? That is probably wrong, but it’s enough to understand…the guy doesn’t understand Italian. I say it in English. ‘Where is the train station?’ Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. It’s…that way.

      Here, found the train station. Roma Termina. Don’t remember where our hostel was the night before, though. There’s an internet café—facebooking them the streets I’m on…’Via Giovanni Amendola and Via Daniele Manin across the street from the train station.’ I call Vito, no answer. Back to waiting.

      I know it’s on the other side of the train station. I know it. Going now. I remember the store with the tree icon. I keep going. I try my pocket once again. Yes! I actually have a short map of the hostel. I didn’t realize it. Good, following that street, I’ll keep going—Rome is not that hard to manoeuver through…there, there it is! Locking bike, walking over…

      I saw Joe’s face in the window and knew I was no longer lost. Phew. I roamed through Rome in the middle of the day without a way to contact my friends directly, and yet I wasn’t panicked. My thoughts were concentrated, though I was annoyed with myself for getting myself apart from the group.

      Backtracking, I want to mention a few things that transpired before getting lost. After the crisis of Vito losing his wallet was resolved, my group rented bikes in the morning, but with my injured palm, it took a while to get used to gripping the handle. It still felt great to ride through another city, just like we did in Amsterdam, quickly but without paying for bus upon bus or taxi after taxi. 

Part of the Bike Ride

      We wandered around the Vittorio Emanuele memorial, the greatness in the Grecian-Roman statues, in which I joined Joe in a walk around the place, ending up with an epic view of the city of Rome. 

      Then I went off to the Pantheon alone to meet up with Elsie from Florence and Chris Sylva, a dear friend of mine also from high school. The three of us found a place near the Piazza di Novella and then Chris’s Notre Dame friend Maggie joined us and we all sat down to a great lunch of Italian pizza and pasta. Chris is doing well, maybe a little tanner but that’s just the way he always looks to me. We went to gelato afterwards and then I took self-photos with Chris and Elsie and really felt a moment of the silliness that we had last summer with our high school group back home. I miss those days, working out with Greg, going to Joel’s, jamming or hearing Will play guitar, seeing the rest of the gang. Good summer days. 

      Now back to the un-lost part: the six of us (Joseph, Vinnie, Vito, me, Caitlin, and Devon) headed off to the Roma Termina and managed to get a €10.50 train ride to Naples.

      The ride there was loud—the cheapness of the tickets spoke for themselves. Once we arrived, the city was in its evening hours, the place not elegant or proper but edgy and dangerous. Caitlin pulled out the Lonely Planet’s guide to Europe and the first line on Naples was the following: ‘A raucous hell-broth of a city, Naples is loud and anarchist and dirty and edgy.’ That was definitely not expected.

      Vinnie was yelled at by kids in the street to give them their soccer ball back, but there was no real danger except for the cars that flew by us as we ran across streets. The hostel had a lone sign and an odd entrance. Joseph pressed the button and we were buzzed up to a hostel that became (at least psychologically) a protective island against the city’s dark elements.

      After a food run, Joseph, Vinnie and I witness rats clawing at garbage bags in the street and just as quickly escaping from view, squeaking faintly. Once back at the hostel, I bit into meat that tasted like fish. Vinnie’s ‘Maccars’ (McDonald’s) was better than my sandwich and that is saying something.

      We have entered a city of rats and dirt.