With out a doubt this trip to Rome has been the most spontaneous and interesting trip I have ever been on!
Amongst my European travels I can mark Rome down for one of those that that just turned out well even with my lack of planning. Lets start on the first day. Thursday, I was scheduled to leave the school at 4pm for my 6:50 flight. Normally this gives me plenty of time to get through security and get a snack before boarding the plane. This turned out to be not normal circumstances. We left the school, and immediately saw an accident on the freeway; trying to avoid it we attempted to get on another freeway that would go the same place. But, we saw yet another accident on this freeway. We sat motionless on the onramp. So motionless that we turned off the car. I started thinking of what I needed to do in order to get to Rome; who I needed to talk to, how much this would cost me, and what would be the easiest way to reschedule this leg of my trip.
Luckily after about 20 minutes we got around the second accident to find a stalled car 5 miles down the road, which impeded the right 2 lanes of traffic, needless to say, that I arrived at the airport only an hour before my flight. I did not get Starbucks or snacks. It was ok because I had made my flight just in the nick of time.
2 hours after take off, I landed in Ciampino Rome, caught bus into the city center, took the metro to the area I was staying. I thought to myself this is by far the easiest time finding my accommodations ever. I get off of the metro and head in the direction of my Airbnb. Right where I think my Airbnb is supposed to be a guy asks “are you john?”. I answered “yes” he goes on to ask “are you looking for your Airbnb?”
He takes me in, shows me where my room is, then gives me the keys and vouchers for breakfast at a local shop. I was really impressed, the place looked a lot nicer then what I remembered booking. So nice, that I decided to look up the pictures just to see if they had changed the colors of the sheets or something. I brought up the pictures on my phone and this was NOT the place I had reserved! I had a mini heart attack. I then went on to go on Google maps to see the address of where I was using the GPS. Opening the map I realized that indeed I was in the wrong house!!!! I had taken a left out of the subway when I needed to have taken a right!!
I thought to myself should I just stay here tonight? After all no one would know that I was not supposed to be here, except the poor other John that no longer has a person waiting for him on the street. I had just stolen a couples accommodations for the night.
I decided to leave my stuff in this house and go find where I was supposed to be staying. I left, walked five minutes and found where I was supposed to be staying, checked in with the lady I had actually booked with, took those keys and headed back to where I had left my stuff. Now I had two sets of keys to two different houses!
I entered back into the place that was not mine, being very quite trying not to wake anyone up. I wrote an apology note that went something like this. “I am so sorry, this is not the place I booked for tonight. I hope you find the people that are supposed to stay here. Thank you” They didn’t have my name or contact information so I will never know what happened the next morning.
These first few hours in Rome proved to make one of the most unique experiences I have ever had. The next few days continue an unforgettable experience.
JJ's Adventure 