Day 12 (Jan 5) - Roman Driving Adventure [ Day 11 | Index | Day 13 ]

We got lucky yesterday, because the weather this morning sucks. It's fitting, though - I had another nice night of puking my guts out, which means Sarah's driving into Rome. This should be fun. We head down the coast. To save some time, I call Thrifty for a different rental drop-off, and find out there's a place right by our hotel. I look at the maps and it seems easy. Brilliant. There are a couple things the maps don't show, which it turns out are the reasons you don't drive in Rome: Nearly every street is a one-way street These streets change direction midway through Italians drive like rabid monkeys on meth So Sarah's flying through the streets, splitting lanes between double-parked cars and making illegal left-turns in front of cops (who didn't even bother giving us a shrug), while I keep looking at the map as if it's going to help. Eventually we give up and find a "parking space" (about 3cm of curb directly blocking a crosswalk), and walk down to the place. "Hi, we have a drop-off." "Where's the car?" "It's down the street." "We need the car here." "Ok... How do we do that? Because we can't figure it out." (A huddle ensues between the 2 Italian staffers) "Ok, there is a way, but it's a little tricky." Anyways, another hour later the car is finally turned in. We have a nice Italian passeggi along the Spanish steps, a delicious dinner at this restaurant called Il'Gabrielo, and I buy Sarah a beautiful lilly... to try and overpower the raw sewage stench of our hotel. The flower died.

Dinner at Il'Gabrielo The Spanish Steps