Day 75: No Stress, No Stress

Saturday - July 31, 2010:

Today has been strange.  I feel like I have taken a suppressant because I am not depressingly sad, but I'm not exuberantly happy.  I'm not full of productivity, but I'm not sluggishly lazy... I'm just kind of in the middle of it all -- I'm just content.  I think a mixture of writing this paper, having absolutely nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and knowing that I am going home in 7 days has taken an emotional toll on me!  As in, it has taken all of my emotions -- hence the contentedness.  So I just feel like I bebopped around today on a cloud.  I know it sounds odd -- I wish I could explain it better.  So anyways, today was exactly as yesterday -- the majority of the morning spent cooped up in the Palace.  Well, sort of.  We spent the morning part of the day lounging around in our pajamas, doing work and kind of cleaning up.  That lasted until about 3:00.  Then we made plans, shocking?!  Yes, we made plans for the entire group to go into Rome and all eat dinner at Old Bear (remember me writing about it here)!  We had made reservations for a table of 17 girls (some girls went out-of-town) at 8:00, so everyone was free to do what they wanted until then.

Becca, Emily and myself took the 4:20 train into Rome, so we left the Palace at 4:00 thinking that was plenty of time to get to the train station in Albano.  Well, apparently we were lolly-gagging our way through town and not walking at our usual brisk pace, because when we got half way we realized we had about 6 minutes to make it there.  What?!  So we break into a jog in order to make it to the train on time.  What's a day going to Rome without running to some form of public transportation?  It just wouldn't be complete!  Our jog pays off and we make it there with a minute to spare (though we may have lost some bit of respect because Albano now knows us as the running Americans)!  We get a train cart to ourselves and enjoy what may be our last train ride to Roma.

We get to Rome and hop on the Metro (I cannot wait to have my car backkkk) and take it to the Fontana de Trevi.  We decided today we weren't going to rush around or try to cram a ton of things in or even open a map -- we were just going to wander and enjoy Rome.  So we find our way to the Trevi Fountain, pop in a souvenir shop and get some 4 Euro t-shirts.  Then we wanderrrrr and strollll, stopping wherever we want to along the way, and we end up at possibly my favorite Piazza--Piazza Novana.

I just love the atmosphere of Piazza Novana.  There are tons of artists set up with paintings to sell and there are musicians playing for spare change... it's a really energetic, yet low-key atmosphere.  We wander around here for a while.  I end up buying a painting (really it is a watercolor) from this sweet Italian man.  It is of Positano's waterfront scene and that is probably my favorite place in Italy we went this summer, so I think it's pretty fitting that I take the painting home with me :) We end up running into some of the other girls just before we were about to walk to Old Bear.

Because we had such a big part and we had made reservations ahead of time, they set us at a long table upstairs.  Y'all, I just love Old Bear, I don't know what it is about the place.  It sort of reminds me of a lodge in Colorado or of the Wilderness Lodge at Disney World -- but it is extremely cool inside.  And it has ceiling fans and it serves their drinks with ice and it has tap water -- how could we not be happy campers?!

So we have our meal (Becca and I split the Carbonara pasta and it was absolutely delicious) and enjoy our long meal. We stay so long that I don't even realize it's 10:00 until I look down and check my watch. Oops! Problem? The bus to Albano leaves at 11:15 and it is quite the trek to get there. We frantically ask for our check, collect everyone's portion of the ticket and do our best to get out of the restaurant without causing too much raucous.

We're out of there by 10:25 and start power walking through Rome, trying to make it to the Spanga Metro stop. Well, we pass through the Piazza Novana and by the Pantheon, and it's about the time we're at the Trevi Fountain that we realize we're pushing it for time! So our power walk turns into a jog. Yes, we are jogging through the streets of Rome. We hit Via del Corso and break into a full-out sprint! Down Via del Corso, down Via Condotti and through the Spanish Steps to the Metro. We get our tickets in record time and are waiting for the Metro at 10:48. The Metro takes two minutes to arrive, we pile on, sit down and say "it's all in the hands of public transportation now!"  We try to not panic... 25 minutes... Over 10 Metro stops to go... What can we do? Well, when the Metro is finally at our stop (and it's 11:16) we bolt through the doors of the Metro and up to Bin 2 to try to catch our bus.

So close but no cigar -- it had just left. We barely missed it.  Shucks!! The next bus wasn't until 12:30 and I wasn't too gung-ho on stating at the sketchy bus stop, so we walk to the nearest Taxi Stand and wait. We get two taxis and they gladly take us back to Ariccia!

We make it back to the Chigi safely and could not have been any happier to be in the comfort of our home-away-from-home!