And then I started crying.

Well, this did not exactly turn out to be the relaxing day at the beach I had hoped!

Yesterday I asked a guy at the information desk at the train station where I could go to the beach. His English seemed quite good, and he asked me if I wanted to swim and so I thought we were definitely on the same page. Apparently we were not. Unless they have swimming at the airport, because that is where he told me to buy a ticket for. He wrote it down for me and everything!

Luckily I decided to double check this morning (after I had already bought my ticket of course, but it was only 10 euro) and the lady in the ticket office looked at me like I was crazy when I asked here what stop to get off at for the beach. She didn't think much better of me when I started weeping either, ha ha. I was just so tired and frustrated and all I wanted to do was lay in the sun and read my book and I just couldn't contain myself, but at least they were just the leaky tears, not big sobs. So, with 3 desk agents discussing the crazy American girl in rapid fire Italian, it was finally decided that I should go to Ostia, wherever the hell that is. But no problem, she wrote the directions down for me! And we all know how succesful that was the first time, right?

This time the trouble came when I needed to switch trains, and the station had no less that three different types to choose from (imagine BART, Caltrain, and Amtrak all at the same station, with very few signs and even fewer employees). So I walked and walked and walked through their underground maze of tunnels, and finally found another ticket agent and of course he said I needed to turn around and go all the way back to where I started. On the plus side, I had only bought one metro ticket by this point, because nobody in Rome seems to care at all if you have a ticket or not. Which is good, because I was hopping on and off trains and buses like it was going out of style. Eventually I saw signs for the Ostia train and guess what? There were four different stops. So I decided just to follow the two girls across from me who were in their beach gear, and who had been discussing the stops in Italian with the lady sitting next to them.

That seemed like a great plan until it became obvious that they didn't know where they were going either. At that point I decided to stop stalking them and actually ask them where they were going, and they kindly agreed to let me follow along. They were Austrian and were effortlessly switching from Italian to English to German, it made me feel like a total dunce but they were obviously smarter than I am so I was happy to be with them.

One last bus ride and we were finally at the beach. And it had only taken me 3 hrs to go about 15 miles. It wasn't a glorious Mediterranean retreat (because it was the Tyrrhenian Sea), but it was better than nothing and I had a few nice hours before I started the trip back. It was a lot easier since, as the saying goes "All roads lead to Rome," right? And now I am back safe and sound at my home away from home: the internet cafe.

And tomorrow I'll be heading to Florence! I'm looking forward to it because I hope the pace will be slower than Rome. I really am enjoying myself but there is so much to see that it is just overwhelming, and with all the logistics to sort out it seems an awful lot like work actually. But I'm sure I'll get the hang of everything, just in time to come home.

Buono sera (sp?)...