Murphy's Law of Lacey in Italyland Part 3

Is she still talking about this? Yes....

So where were we? Oh yes, I woke up too early to find that Ryan rolled against the suitcases and all the cushions had slipped out from under me.

The next morning we waited for Maxi to come back. The half dozen American girls who had slept in rooms, in comfy beds all night, started filtering out into the kitchen, chattering about their plans to visit the Vatican. Each of them was wearing practically identical dresses with ballerina flats, and all of them I'm sure, regretted not packing warmer clothes. At about 9 o'clock I decided to call Maxi as there was still no sign of him. He assured me he was on his way. When he gets to the hostel almost half an hour later he starts telling us about the great "penthouse" on the beach he has arranged for us. We tell him we dont really want to be on the beach because its outside of Rome but he assures us that there is a metro stop just a few blocks away and its a 20 minute ride into Rome.
We decided to be optimists, thinking it might be nice to be on the ocean and the place sounded nice. We made our way down the elevator with our giant bags and rolled out the door to his waiting van. He pulled open the trunk and told us to pile our things in. The trunk was already partly inhabited by baby toys, a car seat, and random magazines and coats. After a bit of quick geometry we realized there was no way all the bags were going to fit in the trunk so we shoved 3 of the suitcases in, and then piled the other suitcase and bags in the back seat with Jamie and Katie, while Ryan and I got the seat of honor up front. "Now you can say you've had a real Roman adventure" Maxi joked. "Is it always like this?" I asked. He laughed a bit sheepishly.

On the way he explained that the "penthouse" was actually his old apartment up until a month ago. "There will be a big party this weekend at the bars, there's lots of night life," he bragged. This actually soothed my worries a bit because I thought, well gee, he wouldn't live in a shithole would he? The closer we got to the "penthouse" the more sparse the bars, restaurants, grocery stores, and shopping centers got. Doubt started to creep back up, and then we pulled up to the "penthouse." A dingy looking apartment building facing a Guinness bar and....not much else.

Top floor, no elevator. We lugged our stuff up the stairs, Ryan coming back every other flight to carry mine, as my little arms were getting tired. We rolled through the door and.... well...it looked like some guys old apartment. No couch, no tv, no chairs, no nothing. Nothing on the walls, no blinds. A bunch of wires hanging off the wall where things had been plugged in. To our left, against the wall of the main room sat one uncomfortable looking bed. I walked down the hallway and peeked into the bedroom. Nothing. I glanced into the bathroom. No toilet paper, towels, soap. Right next to the bathroom was another bathroom...weird. Same story. I was pissed but managed to repress the urge to ask Maxi who the hell he thought he was. He had told us the day before that the place wasnt ready yet, which is why we had slept on a floor. Now he brings us out here and it still not ready?

He said  the cleaner would need to come and bring the other bed. We asked how soon that could happen. He said noon. It was 10 and as there was only one key we said we would wait until 12. We asked if there was a grocery store near by, as we hadn't had breakfast yet. He drew us a little map of a grocery store a few blocks away. He hurried out and the 4 of us decided to go try our luck with some food. We easily found the grocery store. We could see it from blocks away. We could see the heavy metal shutter doors pulled down over the windows and doorways. We stopped walking and turned around.

Back in the "penthouse" we kicked around the kitchen a bit. Moldy cheese in the stained, smelly fridge (not French moldy cheese mind you, rotting, going bad, dont eat it, moldy cheese). 2 sets of silverware and a pile of dirty plates in the sink. Festive glass pasta jars containing little handfuls of pasta sat next to the olive oil incrusted stove-top. A fine layer of grease coating everything. I pulled out my pistachios and we cracked shells until my tongue started to itch.

Exhausted still, because we had been sleeping on trains, planes and floors for the last 2 days, we all piled into one bed and took a nap. Periodically I would be woken up by the door to the porch being pushed by the wind and then falling back to the doorframe with a loud bang. The door wasn't actually held up on hinges...it was just sitting against the doorframe. I woke up at 1pm. No one had come. I called Maxi and his phone was off. I called again - same. I called him a third time and left him a not very nice message. While trying to control my voice and make coherent statements, I said something along the lines of "Maxi this is Lacey at the "penthouse" (i think he could here the quotes). Its 1pm and the cleaner has not come and frankly I think you should know that I am not at all satisfied with this place. There's one bed, there are no chairs, there is no toilet paper, the kitchen is filthy, and we didn't get breakfast this morning. It's just not acceptable. You told us the place would be ready today and its not, and plus we are out in the middle of nowhere and everything is closed. You need to call me back immediately."

I waited 20 minutes then called back. He picked up. Sounding sheepish as ever he said that the cleaner would be late and that we could leave the key under the mat and we could go into Rome for the day if we wanted. We went to Rome and immediately started looking for another hotel. We found a hotel through the Rick Steve's guide to Rome. The receptionist told Katie on the phone that they had rooms available for us, but the price she gave was well over what we had planned. Katie told the lady it would be too much and was ready to move on to the next hotel on the list when the woman said "well we can actually bring it down to X." Katie ran the number by us and we were still a little put off. Katie mentioned to the woman that we had found the hotel through the Rick Steve's guide (and the book said there would be a discount), presto chango - the price came down a bit more. We decided to take it.

We ran over to the new hotel to collect our keys and check the place out. Tiny little one hall hotel on the 4th floor of a giant building, minutes from the Trevi fountain and the train station, and pretty much just perfect. With that taken care of, all that was left was to collect our luggage from the "penthouse."

We rode the metro back out to the beach, joking the whole time about how we would get there and find either A: the key not under the mat OR B: all our stuff stolen. We didnt have much confidence in Maxi at this point you see. Luckily though when we got there our stuff was where we left it. In fact the apartment was how we left it. One bed, no toilet paper, no lights. We rummaged around in the dark, making sure we had all of our stuff and then sped out of the there as fast as we could, throwing the key back under the mat.

Hours later, back in the new nice hotel I got a call. "Hey it's Maxi, Im at the penthouse, where are you?" I didn't sugar coat it for him. We left, we weren't happy, we found a nice place, later jerk. He asked that we not write a bad review.

From this point things started to look up. We had rooms all to ourselves with nice hot showers, wifi, a breakfast buffet in the morning (composed entirely of desserts, no I'm not kidding) and we started to feel like the vacation was finally starting.

We decided to walk down to the Trevi Fountain to see it lit up at night and find a place to eat. On the way we passed the Triton Fountain and I tried to convince everyone it was the Trevi. Didn't work quite as well as when I told Ryan you could drink from the fountains. It was pretty late at this point and most of the restaurants were closing but one still seemed to be taking customers and the host ushered us into a tiny room packed with tables and candles, complete with a dj blasting old tunes. Perfect. Our first good meal in Italy, the comfort of knowing we could go back to a bed that night, and we could finally relax and enjoy ourselves.

But the story doesn't end there! Other mishaps were to be had. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Murphy's Law of Lacey in Italyland Part 2

So where did we leave off? Oh yeah - we headed out into the city for some dinner - leaving our suitcases in a pile in the kitchen.

We had picked a restaurant and chose the most direct route, then set out. Katie and Jamie came prepared with laminated colorful maps of the city. Ryan and I brought nothing. So we followed along like nonchalant children, enjoying the setting sun against the scattered ruins and statues, snapping pictures, catching up, while Katie and Jamie navigated us to the restaurant. Periodically the head of the line would stop to check a street sign and verify our position on the map. The periodic stops became more frequent and the nonchalant children began to wonder if they should offer to look at the map with the responsible map-bearer. We had missed our turn. Jamie had highlighted the route on the map but I suppose we were all feeling a little nonchalant and or fatigued. We ended up walking towards Firenze (according to the sign) and had to turn around. Then we came upon a huge ruin. This must be the Colosseum! No....I dont remember it looking like this. True its a greyish brown mass of building thats mostly all fallen to rubble but I do remember it being a bit more..... round...and surrounded by tourists. It was not the Colosseum. We walked a bit further and low and behold...the Colosseum! At this point we had given up on the fancy restaurant (I believe we had spent close to two hours walking kinda in a oblong? Am I exaggerating? In any case it felt long and we were already tired) so we decided to jump the metro at the Colosseum and go to the Spanish Steps where there were sure to be restaurants.

The sky an ever darkening blue when we got off the metro, we stumbled out in to the big square next to the Spanish Steps. Jamie had a place marked that we had found on the internet so we wound our way down the small streets towards our destination. I'd like to insert here that this area is IMO one of the prettiest of Rome. We found ourselves in a back alley street covered in ivy vines and romantic yellow street lights and stumbled upon the restaurant we were looking for. It looked perfect. Eclectic. Small intimate tables covered in bright red tablecloths with little white doilies topped with clear blue plates and art posters and mirrors everywehre and a wall made of horseshoes, plus several different cakes sitting up on the bar ready to be whisked out into the dining room to temp the patrons. We walked in and timidly held up 4 fingers. Reservations? Well..no we don't. All booked? Ugh.

We sadly walked back down the romantic alleyway. I had seen a street that looked bustling and foody, so we walked down that way and chose one of the first we came upon (our moral was a bit low at the point as was our energy). The waiter pointed us to a long table at the back of the restaurant and we took our seats and quickly decided on our meals. Then we waited. I was hungry and thus a little impatient but knew from experience that things in European restaurants just dont move that fast compared to American ones. It seems to me that Europeans spend 80 percent of the time talking and socializing and 20 percent of the time actually eating or dealing with the menu or check. Not so back in 'Merica. If I come to a restaurant I want food, and I want it fast.

Our orders we taken by a waiter who seemed a bit stiff and bored and without too much of a wait our food came out. An amazing meal would have lifted our spirits and prepared us for the night in the living room. Instead we got a mediocre tourist dinner (insert a comment made by Ryan about me being a food snob). Jamie's even had a bonus hair in it. We chowed it all in no more than 15 minutes and were ready for the bill. After waiting a bit I prodded Ryan into asking for the bill. Our waiter appeared again, making a bee-line for the kitchen and Ryan waved him down and asked if we could please have the check. The waiter scoffed, turned his head, and kept walking. You will have to ask Ryan for a recreation of this action. I didn't see it as well as he did. Suffice it to say it wasn't very polite or waiterly of him. He then proceeded to make us wait a good while before he brought it around. Grazie.

Walking back to the metro I could already feel the pressure mounting in me. Oh my god - I talked a bunch of my friends into the trip from hell. I was starting to feel pretty anxious and guilty. While I couldn't say that I was responsible for the things that had so far been going wrong - I did kinda feel responsible for the happiness of the group. The trip was my idea to begin with and as I had been living in Europe I was kinda supposed to be our resident "expert" and, regardless if it makes any sense or not, at the moment I feel like Europe is my home. And I'm kinda proud of it. I love it here. And I wanted them to love it. But Italy just wasn't selling it. I hoped things would be smoother for the rest of the trip.

Back at Alice in Wonderland we found a new group of poor tourists in the living room. We learned that they were waiting to be taken somewhere that night. No sign of Maxi. No sign of the beds he had promised. We resigned ourselves to the inevitable. As soon as the group in the living room left we pulled all the cushions off the chairs and couches and threw them on the floor. I pilfered the linen closet for sheets and towels. Ryan took advantage of the bathroom being open and hoped in the shower. Another group showed up of two travelers. Seems they were also staying the night. They pitched camp in the kitchen on small couches we had just derobed. We felt bad a gave some pillows back. As soon as Ryan got out of the shower it was siezed by the lucky group of American girls who DID get rooms. Poor Katie was determined to have her shower and sat up reading for a long long long time until finally she got her turn to take a shower. Exhausted Ryan and I awkwardly curled up on the cushions of the floor while Katie and Jamie shared the slouching couch. At 2 in the morning some American girl was still plugging away at the computer in the next room.

I woke up early the next morning, very briefly, when someone came in. The cushions had all slid out from under me during my sleep. Katie was perched precariously on the very edge of the couch while Jamie had sunk into the depths of the back of the couch. And, as usual, Ryan had rolled as far away from me as possible - which mind you wasn't very far this time as he was already sleeping up against the protective wall of suitcases we had erected the night before.

I couldn't wait to see what surprise "arrangements" Maxi had made for us, but as it was still too early to be up, I pulled some cushions under my sore limbs, scooted closer to Ryan (now he really couldn't get away) and went back to sleep.

Murphy's Law of Lacey in Italyland

This will be a several part series in which I describe the mishaps of my most recent adventure. I would like to preface this tirade by saying I had an awesome time on this trip. Traveling is stressful and requires much patience and planning and even with healthy doses of both, there is so much that can go wrong. I couldn't have picked better travel companions though - they each had their merits. Katie was the optimist of the group, putting a good light on it all. Plus we discovered a shared passion for the lesser-loved veggies - namely beets and brussels, a passion our boyfriends are strongly against sharing. Jamie was on top of all the reservation and booking and shared my opinion that only amazing food should be consumed while on vacation. And Ryan had the (difficult) job of keeping me in line every time I wanted to despair, feel guilty for Europe's downfalls, or crank.

So,on to the tirade. I just got back from Italy a few days ago where I spent a week and a half with my boyfriend and two of our friends, seeing the sights, eating great food, and....running into several ridiculous problems. While I am counting on my pictures to convey the positive aspects of the trip, a few words are required to express the lower points.

As the trip was approaching I started to set about packing. I had decided to send a large suitcase full of books and winter clothes back with Ryan because I was a total idiot and brought 3 large suitcases with me to France, and now that it's almost time to move home, I was starting to regret it. Thus, a large suitcase wass crammed. Getting it up to Paris on my own would be a hassel I knew (because contrary to what you might believe, my giant arm muscels are just for show) but it seemed like it would be worth it when come 6 weeks I only had 2 giant suitcases to wrassel by myself.

Arms acheing and legs bruised from constantly banging my bag against it going up and down strairs (elevators aren't in fashion here yet) I got to the airport in Paris with the bag intact and a duffel bag of clothes to wear in Italy. Surprise! Found out my duffel was too big (according to this airliner) to be a carryon so I had to check it. Well I was only allowed one piece of luggage and only up to 20kg. Both bags combined were 31kg. I" You will have to pay for the overage" the man said in crisp French. ""Ugh.....ok," I said in pitiful scraping the bottom of my bank account English.The man behind the counter gave me a sad little smile as he filled out the form for me to take to another desk. I watched as he wrote on the form in big bold letters 31KG.

Flustered and upset I made my way to the counter he had vaugely pointed out and in usual fashion I walked 10 feet, looked back to make sure he was no longer watching and then asked someone else where I should be going. I guiltily handed my form to the woman behind the counter (once I finally found it) and she started plugging away at her calculator. "Well Miss, you will have to pay per kilo over...so that makes.....620 euros. Will you be paying in cash?"

Yeah I pretty much died. My eyes filled up with tears (I can always count on those little pathetic beads of weakness to pearl up at the smallest sign of confrontation) and insisted that there must be a mistake while in my head I was wildly searching for an escape...could I just go out in the parking lot and burn the damn suitcase? She sighed and picked up the phone to call the man with the sad smile to verify the numbers. Putting down the phone she mumbled to herself , scribbling out the 620 and replacing it with a 220. "Voila." I still wanted to cry. I forked over the money, via bankcard, and dejectedly rolled my obese suitcase back to the man with the sad smile, and watched as it slowly rolled down the conveyor belt.

Fast Forward a bit. I got to Rome and easily found the others and we headed to the hostel. It was located in a seemlingly convenient part of the city and in really cool old building. The wooden door stretched up to the second floor and there was a beautiful hole in the sky courtyard in the middle of the building. The woman had said to take the elevator up to the top floor, the 5th. In front of us loomed the cage of an ancient elevator.

But for some reaons my eys followed the woman who had come in before us, who quickly ducked into a side door and disappeared into a small elevator. Lets follow her shall we? In any case I figured they went to the same place. Katie and I squeezed our bags into the tiny elevator and just managed to squish ourselves in next to it. I pushed the 5 button, remarking that there was also a 6 . She had said 5...but she had also said the top floor. We got off the elevator and waited around for Jamie and Ryan to repeate the same tetris adventure that is the european elevator. 5th floor. No signs for our hostel, cutely named Alice in Wonderland. So we started ringing doorbellls. I had that old childhood itch to run away (my poor neighbors in Gaithersburg) but I staid put and eventually a tiny, stooped Italian woman opened the door. I explained the situation, fighting the urge to speak loudly,. She spoke back to me in perfect (I can only assume) Italian. I realized this was going nowhere. She smiled and shut the door.

Ryan volunteered to run up to the 6th floor and scout. He yelled back down saying there was only one door and he could see a statue through the keyhole. He was convinced we had found it. Statue = Hotel Reception. The rest of us voiced our doubts, sighting for example, that the sign on the buzzer clearly said it was a doctors office, and that the woman had said it was on the 5th floor. Not wanting to disturb another old resident we opted to go back down and try the buzzer again and get the directions again.

Directions had. We tried the more obvious elevator. The one clearly visable when you walk in the big imposing front door, not the one hidden behind a side door. Success! I went up first with my bag to make sure. Stepping off the elevator I noticed the big sign on the door in front of me reading Alice in Wonderland and seconds later the door opened and a woman came out. "You already made a reservation yes?" she asked. "Yup" I repleid. "Do you have the confirmation." "I don't but Katie, who is coming up in the elevator, does." "Oh there are two of you" "No actually there are 4 of us and we reserved two rooms." Her face remained fairly blank through this entire exchange but her voice took on more and more of a stressed high pitched tone. The others arrived, one by one, and we handed over our booked confirmation. She lead us in, telling us to leave our bags in the hallway and wait in the living room. We sat at an empty table in the living room as the couch was already occupied by a bored looking couple. I noticed a pile of luggage heaped in a corner of the room.

My travel companions looked...well like they had been traveling. Rumpled and tired but putting forth an effort. We waited for a while, discussing our strange reception and remarking on the pile of abandoned luggage. Other groups filtered in from somewhere else in the apartment. They asked if we had a place to stay. Ugh....as far as we knew....

We waited some more. Pilfered some blood oranges from a bowl on the table. Waited. Talked with other people coming in and out. Finally Maxi, one of the owners, came to talk to us. Here's the scoop he gave us: hostels.com messed up...and maybe he was a little sloppy too. In short, there are no rooms for us. Nor are there rooms for the 5-6 other groups (that we saw) that also made reservations here.

"But I emailed you personally two days ago and you confirmed the booking" Jamie said. Maxi looked embarrassed. We quickly realized that there was nothing we could do about it. But smooth talking Maxi had it all under control. "I've got this great place I can take you to, but its not ready tonight, it will be ready for tomorrow. So....for tonight you can stay here (meaning the living room), no charge. We will set you up with some beds. and tomorrow I will take you to the other place.

Not ideal but what could we say? He gave us some towels and Jamie went to take a shower while the rest of us lounged on the freed up couch and contemplated a night in the living room. Jetlagged and red-eyed I could tell all Ryan wanted to do was take a nap, well and he said so several times, but since no one was interested in my idea (find out where the prostis hang out and rent a hotel for a few hours....what?) there was no napping to be had for any of us. So we consulted our list of vegetarian restaurants, put our luggage in the kitchen in a corner, and went out into the city to get dinner.

Week 14 + Pictures from Capri

Pang: Sunday was the annual Thai New Year/Songkran Festival at Wat Thai DC. I pretty much go there every year with my family to stuff my face. This one wasn't much different except I went with two of my American co workers...and with my very red hair...we kinda stuck out like a sore thumb. We ate like Kings and Queens and ended up broke, yet satisfied. Honestly, I wish I had brought more money so I could have taken more food home. Can someone say gluttonous? This is one of my very favorite Thai dessert/snack, which I forgot to even buy, I bee lined it to the main course line and forgot to grab these before we left. Why can't everyday be Thai New Year festival?

Me: During our stay in Rome we decided to spend a day in Capri. Getting off the train in Naples you would never know that this beautiful island is just a 40 minute ferry ride away. Naples is loud and crowded and dirty due to (we learned this by eavesdropping on a conversation) the fact that the Mob runs the trash system there, and sometimes they just decide to go a month or two without picking it up. Lovely. But, supposedly Naples has the best Italian food, and I can at least vouch for their pizza! In any case should you ever get the chance to go to Capri, DO IT! Its pretty much paradise. The water is this beautiful clear turquoise, there are so many different kinds of birds and plants, and you can't really take a bad picture. We stayed on Capri for only a few hours and unfortunately didn't get to see the Blue Grottos or take a massive hike like we had planned but maybe one day we will go back.


I was pretty blown away from the start.


Take the funicular up the hill to get a spectacular view of the island. Also up top is lots of swanky expensive shops, terrace restaurants, and of course, gelato. From here you can go in several different directions. Look here for different walking tours (not guided) you can do. I would have liked to try the perilous one to the blue grottos.


There are tiny covered streets that go between buildings and take you higher up on the mountain. While on one of these paths we were surprised by the all the different plants growing on the island, like these giant cacti!


I can only imagine what this place is like in full summer.


The water is so pretty here!


Back over at Naples, be sure to check out Castel dell'Ovo, which translates to Egg Castle. Why Egg? From what I could find out, there is a legend that somewhere inside the castle there is a hidden magical egg. The egg's fate is linked with that of the city of Naples. So long as the egg rests hidden and intact, the city will be at peace. Should the egg break, catastrophe will strike the city.


Also in Naples is the New Castle....built because Egg castle just wasn't big enough. Really.

PS! Try the pizza with friarielli at Pizzeria Trianon da Ciro on Via P. Colletta, 46> Friarielli is sprouted broccoli that only grows in the region of Naples. It has a light flavor of broccoli but the look and texture of spinach.