All it took was 20 minutes to spoil the day!

What a day!

We were up around 7:40am to be sure we were down to the train station for 9am in hopes of catching one of the trains to take us to La Spezia before 10am so we could get our 10:06am train to Rome, arriving after 2pm. Well, the first train was 20 minutes late (twenty!!) so we missed the next, which meant we fretted about getting a refund at the station and then having the next train cost more, etc. It was painful. We got to the station but rather than pay an extra €23 to take the next train, we would take the longer journey (now over-paying by about €8...urgh). We're not sure if it was worth it. We waited from 10:30am-11:19pm to get a train to Pisa. Then we trained to Pisa before having to wait from 12:45-1:45pm to get the train from Pisa to Rome. The train ride to Rome took four hours. We arrived about 5:50pm.

The only saving grace was being able to sit in McDonalds and people watch between our trains. A young kid asked us if we could help him open his mayo package for his fries (like you need mayo on McD's fries!) and with a little ingenuity (as it was hard!) we helped him by breaking into it with one of our plastic forks, lol. I think he was a little interested in us and our backpacks as he spoke to us a few times.

Our ride to Rome was uneventful, I read the majority of the way and Jeff listened to his music.

We found our hostel pretty easily, (we were only one street off at first) and checked in. We are staying across from the main building in an apartment that has three rooms and a shared kitchen and bathroom. It's nice to know we're only sharing with a few people instead of the entire hostel.

The guy at the desk had lots of helpful information and showed us to our room. We then headed off to find a bank to get more cash and then to a supermarket. We found both places and they both worked (well, the second bank machine did) so now we're set for a day or two.

Our hostel has free pizza and wine on Mondays and Thursdays from 7-9pm across the road so we headed over and had something to eat. Jeff made pasta when we got back too as he was hungry. We met a couple of young girls staying next to us who are really sweet - both from the U.S. and studying in Greece.

We still have to figure out how we're going to see everything in Rome we want to see and then do it :)

Nearly bedtime though, it's been another long travel day.

Amanda