Freakishly Happy

We arrived in Rome, tired and a little overwhelmed at the largeness of the train station, and when we were approached by a man telling us about a hotel, we decided just to go along and follow him. 
The during our conversation to the hotel, about 4 blocks, he told us at least 12 times that he was born in London.  We're not really sure why.  Earlier he had showed us a brochure of the hotel, and it looked nice enough, but was a little expensive.
We arrived at the hotel, and it wasn't quite as nice as he'd described. The paint on the walls was cracked, the bedspread was an awful lime green, and the bathroom smelled a little off. He convinced us to take the room, by telling us that there were a lot of Scots in Rome that weekend for the big rugby game, and that other rooms would be hard to come by.  Although it wasn't the best of accomodations, we agreed. 

We stored our stuff in our room and headed out for the nearest Irish pub, as it was of course St. Patty's.  We walked about 3 blocks where we found Druid's Rock, a pub that was set off from the main road, and sat down for a couple of Strongbow Ciders.  Having not eaten since lunch time (it was now 7 or 8), we decided that dinner was a must if we didn't want to make ourselves sick.

We found an italian restaurant, and sat down for some enormous thin crust pizzas. Scarfed those down and then went back to the hotel to relax for a bit. 

After an hour or so, we headed back to Druid's Rock, but unlike two hours before the place was packed.  As I mentioned before, the Scotts were in town for the big final 6 Rugby match the next day and they were out helping their fellow islanders (meaning the Irish) celebrate St. Pat.  
We sat at a table up stairs with some young Italians before a big group of older Scottish people came and asked to share a table.  We shot the breeze a bit, they bought us beers and now we have a place to stay in August when we do a British Isles tour!  The highlight of the whole thing was when a man came in selling jewelry, and grabbed wrist of one of the women and began piling bracelets on her, to which she exclaimed "My God! Eee's got me arm!"

They left suddenly, as the wifies (as they called them) all decided to leave at once, though not due to the traveling jewelry salesman.  This left us alone, with a table of Italians, who didn't seem to keen on going outside the boundaries of their little group.

We wandered back downstairs, but had problems getting through the narrow passage as it was completely crammed with kilted Scotts.  We found a Scottsman who seemed to have a loud mouth and information, and decided to ask him about where we could find tickets for the game.  We met a lot of really interesting people, including an Irish couple who were there on their honeymoon. We got a lot of info on great places to travel from them.  Everyone, was quite shocked when the bonny Irish lass stood up, because she was well over 6 foot tall.  The short Scottsmen all exclaimed and made lude jokes as it seems typical for them to do and fun was had by all. 

The next day, we did what you are supposed to do when in Rome. We went to all kinds of ruins and historical buildings.  It was a bit disappoiting though, as we woke up late and missed seeing a lot of really great things. Many things were also VERY expensive (ie it was 12€ apiece just to go inside the Collasium,) so we decided to save a lot for another trip.  We also went to an interactive learning, multi-media experience called The Time Elevator. We all went into a room, and sat in what looked like theater style seating.  The only difference was that they were on high powered hydrolics...While the movie was going we were slammed foward then back, and then abruptly stopped consistantly throughout the entire movie.  The movie was also constantly moving, the cameras panning back and forth and zooming and unzooming.  I learned my lesson. When told that something is not for those who suffer from motion sickness, get out as soon as humanly possible!

We still got to see a lot, and had great gelato (the spicy dark chocolate with jalopeano peppers) so it wasn't a complete bust, but still wasn't quite what we'd expected. 

That night we went back to our hotel, to a different room. We decided to go a bit cheaper and get a room without a bath (although it had a shower) and had twin beds.  It too was... not that great, but hey we were able to sleep and not get bugs. Always a bonus.