daycation in Rome, 28/1/2011

As you can see from the picture above, today’s class/tour of Piazza Novona and the Pantheon was cancelled due to an unfortunate event with our tour guide, Margaret Brucia. So with our check-in’s bumped to an earlier time, the group was able to get an early start to enjoying our Friday. As some went and spent the weekend out of town, a group of us decided to go exploring and see what else Rome had to offer instead of Campo’s food and the rest of Rome’s breath taking historic sights.

During check-in’s we were advised to take advantage of the Roman subway system and see neighborhoods outside of the city center. With that and making sure everyone went to the backroom, we were on our way. We started at Termini where we took the B line, which runs north and south, to Marconi. The subway station seemed like any other station back home in the states, one difference I did notice though was the amount of people that would pack into these things. Maybe I haven’t been on enough subways but the first train was full, there was a guy that had his leg closed on when the doors were closing, he managed to get it in though. We decided to take the next train.

Once we got to Marconi, it was like coming to Rome for the first time. None of us knew where we were going, didn’t really know the language, and we were hungry. We did end up finding our way to the main strip and was told that Marconi had a lot of shopping and even an outdoor market, but another thing we ran into was the Italian siesta, which I refer to as “nap-time.” During nap-time, most businesses close around lunch time and don’t reopen till late afternoon.  Realizing that the stores weren’t going to be open for awhile we went looking for food, this also turned into an adventure of it’s own as even restaurants were closed for nap-time and didn’t open till dinner. Continuing to walk, we walked passed a number of bars that offered the usual, panini’s, tramezzions, and pastries. But we were on a journey for something more to fill our stomachs. After coming across a nice bakery that had what Americans would know as a deli, we found our destination. Here we were able to practice our ordering in Italian that we recently learned in language class and got some good food.

All in all, today was a good day. It was nice to stay in Rome for the weekend, as most of us are planning on doing weekend trips in the upcoming weekends. But at the same time it was something different then just checking out the same sights that have been here for decades, or even centuries. Having the opportunity to see some surrounding neighborhoods gave me a homely feeling here in Italy and Marconi won’t be the last neighbor we check out.