[Preface: The following journal writing of a Tuesday to Friday in mid-May 2019, in Rome Italy is presented here written from my Eighth journal book. It is [16 and a half] hand written pages.
Disclaimer: This is the very first travel journal written piece that I have ever edited down. Normally I do not edit any of the written pieces for The Wanderlust Writings. They are typically typed up and posted completely, and taken directly as hand written from my journal books. For some certain personal reasons that I do not wish to go into detail about, the Part One: An Intro/Set-up has been edited down in this publishing, leaving out one page worth of text. The original full text in my Eighth journal book is 16 and a half pages, so what is published here is 15 and a half pages.]
Part One: An Intro/Set-up
Right now it is mid-May 2019, about seven months ago - back sometime in October 2018 an old friend of mine Shane, in the states, sent me an e-mail letting me know that he and his girlfriend were planning a one week trip to Italy in May. He wanted me and my wife to try to make it down to Italy so we could all meet up. We set the plan in motion to meet in Rome. So, yea the original plan was for my wife to come with me. I had even booked both of our plane tickets. Unfortunately, as some months passed and the new year of 2019 began, life took a pretty drastic downturn for some bad times.
So, with all of this bit of chaos going on in life, my wife unfortunately could not make the trip. I went alone.
Tuesday the 14th of May I took the 7:15 P.M. train from Skövde to Stockholm. It was a three and a half hour train ride. I tried to sleep a bit on the train but didn't really. On the train - I started to write this story, listened to The Nine Club podcast, and stared out the window. When I got to Stockholm central station it was 10:45 P.M. I bought a bus transfer ticket to go from the central station out to Arlanda airport not realizing that after 10 P.M. there were no buses or trains running out to the airport. The next - first bus to the airport was at 3:30 A.M. I was stuck - stranded at Stockholm central station for about four and a half hours. I sat on a bench on the bus terminal side of the station writing - working on this story. Around 12:15 A.M. a security guard came through the station kicking people out, saying the station was closed. I went across the street to another part of the central station and lurked out, sitting on the floor with other tired, weary travelers like myself, and homeless folks. About two hours later - around 2:20 A.M. two other security guards came through the station kicking everyone out. Now I had about an hour to lurk outside the station in the chilly Spring night air. It felt like hours until 3:15 A.M. when the station opened again. It was a forty minute bus ride out to the airport. Again, I tried to sleep a bit on the bus. I got to Arlanda airport at 4:10 A.M. My flight to Rome was at 7:25 A.M. that Wednesday morning - the 15th of May. A three hour flight. Once again I tried to sleep on the plane with not so much success due to some screaming and crying kids and babies on the flight.
I landed in Italy at 10:35 A.M. and from the airport I took the 11:25 A.M. train into Rome central station - Roma Termini - a thirty minute train ride. So, it was basically 12 P.M. noon when I got into Rome. The hostel I had booked a room at was just a few blocks away from the central station. By this point, I had pretty much been awake for thirty hours. Sometime around 1 P.M. I finally fell asleep and was able to get about four or five hours sleep. Sometime between 5 P.M. and 6 P.M. I woke back up. I don't remember exactly - it's hazey, I was still exhausted, my head was pounding with a bad headache, and I was hungry. The plan was to possibly meet up with Shane and his girlfriend for dinner that Wednesday night. I knew they had about a four hour train ride from Florence to Rome, and that they were suppose to be in Rome around 7 P.M. I went downstairs to the hostel bar and got a beer, a small bag of potato chips, and sent a text message to Shane. Around 7 P.M. Shane sent a text message back saying that he and Angela were exhausted and they just wanted to get to their hotel which was another hour bus ride from Roma Termini - the central station. I understood this - and kind of figured meeting for dinner that night may not happen. It was still pouring rain outside, I walked a couple blocks to a restaurant and got a pizza and red wine for dinner. Back at the hostel, I sat in the bar drinking red wine, then beer, and ate french fries while writing - working on this story. It was sometime between 11 P.M. and 11:30 P.M. when I went up to my dorm room and passed out - falling asleep.
Thursday the 16th of May - I woke up around 8 A.M. from a phone call from my wife. About a half hour later I headed out to go to the Colosseum. I walked around the Colosseum shooting photos, but I didn't stick around there as long as I wanted to because I started to get hassled by too many "street hustlers" which made me feel sketched and bugged out. I walked around some city blocks, roaming Rome, shooting photos. I found myself back at my hostel around 10:45 A.M., got a cup of espresso and text messages from Shane. The plan was for us to meet up at Roma Termini at 11:15 A.M. This did not happen. I was at the station waiting for them, and then at 11:30 A.M. I got more text messages from him saying it probably would be better for me to take the metro - subway to the Ottaviano station and meet them there. (The Ottaviano station is the stop for the Vatican City. We had pre-paid - pre-booked tickets for 1 P.M. for the Vatican museums, galleries, and the Sistine Chapel.) The clock was ticking. It was getting close to 12 P.M. noon, I had to buy the metro ticket and I asked how long the subway took from Rome Termini to Ottaviano - about twenty minutes. I got down to the platform and there was a train there, but it was over packed with people, there was no way I could get on that train. And even the platform was crowded with people - so crowded that I thought I wouldn't even be able to take the next incoming train. Then the police showed up and cleared the train - made everyone get off. I have no clue at all as to why the police were there and cleared out the train. So now the platform was even more over packed with people. The empty train still sat at the station for some minutes before pulling out. I was losing time. I needed to be on the next train. Somehow I pulled it off, I got myself packed in on that next train when it came. But then that train just sat there, at the station, with the doors open, for about ten minutes. It finally pulled out of the station but when we got to the next station, we got stuck again for about five minutes or so with the doors opening and closing over and over again. When I finally made it to the Ottaviano station and met up with Shane and Angela it was 12:40 P.M. Luckily the Vatican was only a couple of blocks away. We were at the Vatican for five hours. From 1 P.M. until 6 P.M. when it closed. We knew we probably wouldn't be able to see everything but we wanted to see as much as we could. We walked around the museums and galleries of artifacts, statues, sculptures, and paintings. Two of the main things we wanted to see - and we did - were the Raphael exhibit and the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel was incredible, just so amazingly beautiful. I do not believe I have the right words to write, to describe how amazing the Sistine Chapel is. Photography and video filming is not allowed - prohibited inside the chapel, so unfortunately I have no photos to show how beautiful it is. The way Michaelangelo painted it - his technique - his use of lighting, shadows and shading, and detail, the murals look 3D - for real - like it's painted onto carved and sculpted architecture of the chapel ceiling. The colours are so bright and vibrant as well. I was amazed by this - how after centuries, the colours withstood time and held so vibrant. It was quite an experience being inside the Sistine Chapel. While there, a priest also came into the chapel and welcomed all the visitors and said a prayer - in Italian of course. Late in the afternoon we ate lunch and drank beer and red wine at an outdoor patio cafe in the garden courtyard of the Vatican. At 6 P.M. when the Vatican was closing and we had to leave, we ended up just hanging out - sitting on the stairs outside the walls of Vatican City for about an hour or so. We bought beer and wine from a street vendor, and talked about life. We walked a few blocks and found a restaurant for dinner - sitting outside - sidewalk patio - in the Italian Spring night. Two bottles of red wine were drank with dinner, with more great conversations about life. It was good times...we lost track of time. It was around 10 P.M., Shane and Angela had to take the metro back to Battistini and then from the Battistini station it was a bus out to their hotel. Shane said the last bus of the night was at 10:30 P.M. So we left the restaurant and made our way back to the Ottaviano station. There we said our goodbyes and gave hugs. They were off to Battistini and I was headed in the direction of Anagnina to Roma Termini. It was sometime between 11 P.M. and 11:30 P.M. when I got back to my hostel. I had the thought of spending my last night in Italy sitting in the hostel bar drinking red wine and writing - working more on this story. I really wanted to. But I realized I was already quite lit, and I did need to be up by 7:30 A.M. at the latest that Friday morning, so I just went up to my dorm room and went to sleep. My flight back to Stockholm was scheduled for 11:30 A.M.
Friday the 17th of May - I woke up at 7 A.M. - thirty minutes early before my alarm went off. I had a missed text message from Shane from just a few minutes before midnight - he and Angela ended up missing that last 10:30 P.M. bus from Battistini station out to their hotel, and had to take a taxi. I checked out of the hostel and walked the few blocks to Roma Termini. I took the 8:05 A.M. Leonardo Express train for the thirty minute ride back to the airport. My breakfast at the airport was a slice of pizza, a small bag of potato chips, and a small bottle of lemon Grappa - I got lit off that Grappa. (Shane had told me about the Grappa - he said it was kind of gnarly and he was right. It's pretty strong.) O.K., so my flight was scheduled for 11:30 A.M., and my ticket showed the boarding time was suppose to be at 10:45 A.M., well at 10:50 A.M. an announcement came over the P.A./intercom system that there was a gate change for my flight. Luckily it wasn't far - just a few other gates away. I ran to the gate thinking my flight has started boarding only to find out that the boarding time had also changed to 10:55 A.M. - which it was [10:55 A.M.] when I got to the [new] gate. But the flight was still not boarding. My flight got delayed thirty minutes. I tried to sleep on the three hour flight back to Sweden. I was scheduled to land in Stockholm at 2:40 P.M. - it was 3:10 P.M. when we landed. I had to buy my bus ticket from Arlanda airport back into the city to Stockholm central station. I found out the next bus was going in a few minutes - under five minutes. I got my ticket and ran, just making the bus in time. I also had a couple of missed calls and text messages from my wife - at home she had already been online checking the train tickets - times and prices for Stockholm back to Skövde. Pretty much all the trains were sold out - no available tickets. It was looking like I may get stuck overnight in Stockholm yet again. The bus ride from Arlanda into the city took an hour so I had a good bit of time to go online on my phone to try to find a train ticket. I got lucky but it cost me. I booked a ticket for the [two hour] fast train, it was a first class seat, and it cost me 1,185 Kroners - (compared to the 255 Kroners I paid for my train ticket from Skövde to Stockholm that previous Tuesday.) And the other downside - the train was at 7:30 P.M. It was 4:30 P.M. when I got to Stockholm central station, so I had three hours to lurk there. The train was ten minutes late. O.K., so this is a bit strange to me - it was the fast train - two hours - so, from Stockholm at 7:30 P.M. and into Skövde at 9:30 P.M. Now the train was ten minutes late, so that should be 9:40 P.M. in at Skövde, but it was 9:50 P.M. when I got to Skövde station. Somehow I ended up getting in twenty minutes late. At Skövde centrum station I had about ten minutes to wait for the number six bus to Södra-Ryd to the Myggdansen stop. Another thirty minute bus ride, then from the Myggdansen bus stop it was a five minute walk through the neighborhood, in the pouring rain. When I got home it was 10:40 P.M.
