January 18 story and pictures

The trip to Rome began innocently enough. We gathered in the Venice hotel breakfast room at 9 am. With everyone assembled we moved out into the cold damp rainy morning to catch our boat ride back up the Grand Canal to the train station. When we arrived and wrangled all of the luggage up the stairs to enter the station we awaited our EuroStar to Rome. Earlier in the week we had switched departure times in order to upgrade to the newer EuroStar so that we would have “greater” luggage capacity, which we sorely needed. As soon as our train had been assigned a platform we went and forming our suitcase brigades promptly filled two cars luggage capacity. Then we situated ourselves and enjoyed a relaxing ride. After having lived in Florence and Venice, two very different cities, it is nice once again to see a bit of the Italian countryside. We saw some on our bus ride to Siena. As the train whooshes along we see factories and farmland, apartment buildings and churches, a bit of Roman Aqueduct, an old hilltop fortress wall with newer buildings grafted on. The train between Venice and Rome makes five stops, as always we had designated people who would get up and watch over the luggage area (that is by the doors) to make sure our luggage didn’t walk away with someone else. The bathroom situation on an Italian EuroStar is also interesting. Not every car has a lavatory, our car did, but they were not working, instead one in need had to travel up to the car after ours to wait to use the facilities. The working facilities can be very dubious as far as cleanliness. Then there are the entrepreneurs who board the train prior to departure or between stops and entice you to buy some trinket or food item for your journey.
The students read, slept, ate, watched movies, and listened to iPods as we traveled. We arrived at the Rome station on time and rested. Then the fun began. Our large group with our large luggage wound our way through the busy Rome train terminal heading for the cabs lined up just outside the station. Our group had to be broken up into 5-7 cabs, most could hold up to 4 people but only 2 peoples luggage. So we sent some cabs with several people and little luggage and other cabs with little people and much luggage. The cabbies charge by the mile, the people, and the bags. Cab rides averaged 20-30 euro per car. We have just spent a week in a city with NO motorized traffic and have just arrived in a city with massive amounts of traffic. To say most of us were a little overwhelmed would be an understatement. To say that many of us feared for our lives would be only a little exaggeration. My favorite moment, echoed by others as we huddled together and compared “notes”, was the moment when the cabbie (apparently completely in his vehicle code rights) decided to take the middle path on a very busy street using the lane that the Rome trolley cars run on in between the other normal lanes of traffic. I’m sure within the week we are here we will think nothing of it, but it was a bit much today. This evening we dined on pasta with peas, ham, and white sauce, followed by roast pork with oven baked potatoes, and finished with what looked and tasted like flan. The group pictures are of each dinner table (left side) cheerful to be in Rome and (right side) outward expressions of inner feelings during the various cab rides. Ciao.