Matt’s parents came to visit us before we left for vacation, so we had a fun night with them before it was time for them to take us to the airport on Wednesday afternoon. I ran out of work frantically around noon, leaving Joe to figure out my job. We packed the last of our stuff and re-weighed the bags, since they had to be under 44 pounds on the EasyJet leg of our flights.

My parents stopped over briefly to wish us a good trip, and then it was time to go. We threw everything in the car, and stopped at Ryan and Chris’ along the way to drop off some food and a baby sweater, because she was being induced that weekend!

Security was easy thanks to the frequent traveler line; I had even managed to get my backpack in my (gigantic) suitcase, so my only carry-on was my purse. We found the G concourse completely remodeled and fancy, and you can even buy beer at the kiosks now! We grabbed a few snacks for the trip, then went to the Mill City Tavern. We had time to kill, and they were serving classic cocktails in the airport. While we sat there, ESPN announced that Junior Seau had died.

We boarded our flight early and were seated in Economy Comfort seats. For $60/seat, we had extra legroom, leaning-back room, and free drinks for the trip. Totally worth it, especially when we’d only paid $420 total for the tickets. I ordered a gin and Fresca, which I would not really recommend to anyone.

The plane took off, and we searched for a movie to watch. We started Columbiana, timing it so we could watch at the same time. The video and sound kept cutting out, to the point it was nearly impossible to watch. They rebooted the system, but that didn’t help much either. We finished it anyway.

I was served a vegetarian meal and a gin and tonic, and did the sudoku that came with my dinner.

After dinner, they lowered the lights and we tried to sleep with about 5.5 hours left in the flight. Matt spend the entire time listening to Frank Turner and old episodes of his podcast. I kept dozing off and then waking up from sounds around us. I gave up trying to sleep with about a hour and a half left, and took the Italian language lessons on my television. I dozed some more, and the sun started coming up halfway over the UK.

They served us breakfast with about an hour left. We landed early at Charles De Gaulle, around 7am. It was very, very foggy in Paris.

We got off the plane, used our first stinky French bathroom, and waited for our bags. I got 200 euros from the ATM, and then we looked for the bus to Orly. I asked the information desk while Matt got cash, and we were on our way to the bus stop.

We weren’t prepared for how cold it was in Paris. I was in a tshirt and capris, so I opened my suitcase and got out a hoodie. The bus arrived after 20 minutes or so, and we got on with about 15 other people. We made a stop at the other terminal, left the airport grounds, and immediately found ourselves in Paris traffic at 8am.

The bus practically crawled to Orly. And though it was a gigantic bus on the order of the Greyhound, that didn’t stop the driver from doing things like exiting into neighborhoods, taking side streets, and hopping back on the highway to skip three cars. We knew it was at least an hour-long ride, so the extra slowness didn’t make it that much worse. We had intentionally scheduled a flight that gave us plenty of time for delays.

It was our first time in France, so we stared out the window looking for notable signs, such as crowds of people in berets carrying baguettes. We didn’t see that, but we did see a Citroen factory. (The first store we saw from the highway was IKEA, actually.) Also, we noticed that every surface along the way was covered in graffiti.

We got to Orly 90 minutes later, and followed the EasyJet signs to the basement of the terminal. We checked in with a friendly gate agent, and were relieved that our suitcases came in under 20kg. (Delta and most other airlines allow 50lb, so the 44lb limit for the first half of our vacation was a big challenge. The luggage scale was a lifesaver.)

We headed up to the concourse to find some food and kill time between flights. The store we stopped into had nothing vegetarian except salad, but I was fine with that. I got that and water, and Matt got a sandwich. We found a little table to eat at, and attempted to find some wifi to let people know we’d arrived. There were a bunch of networks, but none of them were free. (We would soon learn that was the case throughout most of Europe.)

We still had some time, so we went to a cafe and got beers. It was 10:45 in the morning, but our sleep-deprived brains thought it was almost 4am. While we sat there, we noticed a few people carrying baguettes around, even as carry-ons (our favorite was a guy in a Derrick Rose jersey). THE STEREOTYPE WAS TRUE!!

There were police in fatigues walking around with machine guns, which was unnerving. We noticed that French people barely seemed to notice people around them, too. Just like Minnesota!

We went through security, which was nowhere near as thorough as in the US, then headed to our gate. We sat there for a few minutes, and when the gate agents arrived, people started standing and lining up. The agents set up two signs, one for Speedy Boarding (where you can pay $79/person to board first and get your pick of the seats) and the other one for those of us who chose to take our chances with the rabble. It was still an hour before takeoff, but apparently queuing up was the thing to do. (This is #2 on the list of things we’d soon find out was consistently true in Europe.)

We finally boarded, and noticed that the exit row was open. The flight attendant had said we could sit anywhere, so we decided to take it. They came around and asked us to put our bags in the overhead for that row, but otherwise it was fine. (We were nowhere near functional enough to want to do anything on the flight anyway.) A very fidgety lady came and set next to me, and I started to nod off right after we were in the air.

I had been worried that EasyJet would be on the order of RyanAir, which I’d read many horror stories about. It ended up being really awesome, even on a full flight. You just have to make sure to get there early and make sure your bags fit their standards (they’re strict about the size of roller bags as carry-ons, and luggage weight). They charge for pop and snacks on the plane, but that’s more than made up for by the price; they’re way cheaper than the other options. Our flight from Paris to Rome was $150RT.

Halfway to Rome, the pilot pointed out the Costa Concordia laying on its side next to the island where it had run aground. Shortly before landing, the flight attendants came around selling tickets for the bus to Rome, so we bought a couple. (Having taken both the bus and Leonardo Express train, I would recommend the train… it’s way faster. But we didn’t know that yet.) We picked up our bags, then rolled out to the very full bus and got on. It took about an hour to get to Rome, and they dropped people off near the Vatican first before heading to Roma Termini. It was slow, but we got to see a lot of the city along the way, and would recognize things again later.

The bus pulled up next to Termini (the main train station in Rome), and everyone on the bus seemed very confused about what was going on; the bus driver didn’t announce it, so nobody knew we were there. We figured it was the place, so we got off and picked up our bags from the driver.

We crossed the street, stopped to look at the map with our hotel on it, and headed off that direction. The cobblestones weren’t great, but we only had about five blocks to go. Rome was much warmer than Paris, too, so we were at least dressed appropriately for that.

We found Hotel Cambridge, and had to haul our suitcases up a half-flight of stairs to get to the lobby. Our room was small and not at all fancy, but it was clean, and that’s all we cared about. We unpacked a little for the short time we were staying, then laid down to nap. It was 4pm in Rome, or 9am our time.

After the best hour-and-a-half nap of our lives, we got up and went to go see some of Rome. The hotel advertised free wifi, so we went to get the password from the front desk. While we were waiting, we watched a couple of guys kneeling on the floor of the lobby with a tiny black and white TV in a plastic bag, testing to see if it worked. From there, we headed back toward Roma Termini so we could walk through the station and know what to expect the next day when we were taking the train to Civitavecchia.

We’d seen Bourdain’s show about Rome recently, and he couldn’t say enough bad things about Termini. Personally, I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. The place is awesome, and I loved it immediately.

We walked through the station and headed toward Trevi Fountain. I had a map I’d printed off the internet, since we knew we probably couldn’t rely on our phones for directions. Roman streets were as confusing as expected, but we followed landmarks and finally found a plaza with a fountain we thought might be it. It turned out to be the Fontana Dei Dioscure instead, but that was alright. We were wandering around Rome on the longest day of our lives, and no matter what we saw, it was exciting.

We found a scary-looking alley that ended up being one of the many staircases all over Rome. It had a drinking fountain near the bottom; they were everywhere, too. (It’s very convenient when it’s warm. We needed them.)

We found Il Vittoriano, which was GIGANTIC. On the way there, we passed several sidewalk restaurants, and the majority of people sitting there were drinking negronis. At that point, we knew that’s what we needed: food and negronis on a patio in Rome. That seemed perfect.

We passed one end of the Pantheon on the way back, and stopped to take pictures. Then we went to a place we’d seen along the way called Rockodile, and the specials met our approval (they were typically Italian, and they had a vegetarian dish). We got a table out front, ordered Negronis, and it was indeed perfect. (Rockodile was very interesting, too… they had traditional food and drinks, and also bro-bar-style shots and a dance floor.)

I ordered the vegetable risotto, and Matt ordered carbonara. The server ended up bringing him vegetable lasagna instead, and apologized that she had screwed up his order of meat lasagna. He hadn’t order that at all, but he didn’t care because it was awesome. Plus she said she was going to bring us grappa shots to make up for it. We ordered a couple more negronis as well, which she brought right away without the grappa.

We finished dinner and were sitting with our drinks, wondering if she’d forgotten the shots. Suddenly they appeared, and we were especially happy to be in Rome right then. We went in to pay our tab, used their bathrooms, and headed back in the direction of our hotel.

We headed down Via Nazionale, which is a huge street lined with fancy stores and souvenir shops. We wanted to find a liquor store where we could pick up prosecco to bring with us on the cruise ship the next day, so we walked down a side street and found a combination liquor, sandwich, coffee, and gelato store. (Places like that are called ‘bars’, and they’re everywhere in Rome.) We decided to get negronis since we were there, so we ordered them at the bar, and the server said we could get a table outside and he would bring them to us. He brought them out in wine glasses with fancy garnishes, and we sat there watching traffic go by and being very happy about Rome. It seemed like a really great city to just hang out in.

A very persistent Senegalese guy came by and tried to sell us the last of the wood carvings he had, but we finally convinced him we weren’t buying. Another guy came by later with the same exact carvings and did the same thing, too. We went into the liquor store side and bought a couple of bottles of Prosecco and to-go beers, then headed toward Termini, so we could cut through on the way to the hotel.

By the time we got there, we decided that another negroni was a GREAT idea. Termini conveniently has a bar right inside the door, so we stopped there and ordered. The guy said they were out of Campari (gasp!), so Matt ordered Fernet instead, before I even had time to react. We were still carrying the beers we were drinking, so then we ended up juggling our bag of prosecco, beer bottles, and shots of Fernet in tiny paper espresso cups.

And that’s how we ended up sitting on the floor of the train station on our first night in Rome, doing shots of Fernet. Welcome to Europe!

We woke early on Friday to the sounds of a street market going on right outside our window. We got up, showered and repacked, and headed to the lobby, where they were serving free breakfast. There were three girls behind a bar there, making coffee and serving food. It was my favorite kind of European meal: various kinds of bread, cheese, jam, and coffee.

We headed out to see more of Rome before it was time to catch the train. We walked through the market, where you could buy anything you wanted: produce, bread, and even underpants.

We stopped into a Tabac shop to get a couple postcards and stamps, then went over to Termini to see if our train was on the board, but they only listed departures for the next 45 minutes or so. We walked over to the Roman Museum and Diocletian Baths, which were nearby. The gardens of the museum were open to the public.

We met our first Roman cat there. Later he would get in a standoff with a gigantic crow-like bird.

There were a couple women sitting on a bench near the baths, so we walked in and wandered around the grounds. On the way back, there was a chain barrier across the entrance. Apparently we weren’t supposed to go in there, but nobody seemed to care much.

We went to a cafe a block away that had huge cases of amazing pastries and a coffee counter. We ordered and had to go pay at the cashier, who asked if we were standing. (It’s cheaper if you stand.) We followed the lead of a guy standing at the counter: hang out for five minutes or so drinking your coffee, then move on. Even the cappuccinos came in tiny cups like espresso, and they were delicious. (We quickly became fans of this coffee system; it’s way better than the way it works at American coffee shops. We did notice that the guy making coffee gave them to us in to-go cups, as opposed to ceramic like the locals.)

We went to do some wandering around the neighborhood, and confirmed that it was definitely a great city for roaming. We circled a few blocks, then headed back in the direction of our hotel to check out.

We rolled our suitcases to Termini, checked the boards for our train again, and went to go kill some time. We had no idea how early we had to be there, but we were glad to have pre-purchased tickets. (First class tickets were on sale when I bought them, and were way cheaper than 2nd class.) We went to Chef Express and grabbed a couple of Heinekens. At the counter, I discovered something called Pocket Espresso to Go, which is basically the greatest invention ever. I got one of those too.

After hanging out in the cafe for a while, we wandered around looking for a post office box to drop the postcards in, and then went to look for our train again. There was no sign of a train to Civitavecchia at that time, but after examining our tickets for a while we found the train number and matched it with one that was going to Genoa. The second that its track number appeared on the board, a huge mass of people headed that way. I’m pretty sure it must be like that for every cruise departure day.

The train arrived, and we had to roll all the way down to the far end to get in the first car. We hauled the bags on board clumsily, and were met by a porter who was checking tickets and hoisting suitcases up into the overhead compartments. Matt tipped him and he pointed out our seats, but they were the wrong ones. A couple of guys had bags in our actual seats, so they cleared them out and we sat down. More people started boarding, and mass seating confusion ensued. The guys behind us moved their seats and bags twice, and finally everyone was settled.

Another porter came by demanding money for the bags. We were unaware of any cost for that, so I asked how much. He said, “Ten euros. Two people, five euros.” I pulled out a twenty and handed it to him. He rolled his eyes back so far in his head I thought they would stick, and pulled out a wad of cash to give me change with massive exasperation. It was HILARIOUS.

After he moved on, we asked the guys near us if they had been charged for bags. We suspected it was a scam, but had no idea. They were wearing official-looking jackets, but there was no indication that they worked for Trenitalia. (On successive train rides, we never saw porters again. I suspect that’s some kind of semi-sanctioned cottage industry.)

The train headed out, and passed Vatican City again. We were quickly out in the country, headed toward the coast. It was gorgeous.

Halfway through our ride, a guy came to say hi. He was one of the people I’d talked to on the Cruise Critic message boards, and knew he would be in the same train car. He was from Texas, loud, and really entertaining. We compared notes on our arrivals in Italy; over the course of our cruise, it became clear that we were the only people who had an easy trip there. Despite having the longest day of our lives, of course.

We arrived in Civitavecchia around 12:30, and everyone piled off the train (unsurprisingly, no one in first class was going on to Genoa… they were all headed to cruises). For the first of many times, we got to experience the joy of hauling luggage on train platforms in Italy: lug the bags down two flights of stairs to the underground tunnel, roll them a short ways, then haul them back up two flights of stairs. I had a gigantic hard-sided bag that was too heavy for me to lift fully, so there was a lot of bumping involved.

We had street directions to the port, but it was easiest to just follow the crowd. We rolled en masse the five or so blocks to the port entrance (apparently some people take taxis… that’s ridiculous). There were shuttle buses lined up just inside the gates for the five or so ships that were docked there. People were disembarking and arriving at the same time, so a bus would empty and then reload and head out right away. We found our ship’s bus, threw our bags on, and got on to ride to the ship.

We were intentionally very early (it was about 1:15, and the ship left at 7). What we’d discovered on previous cruises is that the first day in port is the best time to wander around and see the whole ship, have some cocktails, and chill. Check-in went very quickly, and then we went through security and boarded.

Our travel agent at Delta Vacations had noted on our account that it was our honeymoon, and we would be happy to get an upgrade if possible. They did very well for us: we had the same class of balcony cabin that we’d booked, but it was on the top deck at the back of the ship. That meant that the balcony was slightly larger, and we had a way more awesome view. We were thrilled.

We unpacked our carry-ons (the luggage would be delivered later), checked out the cabin, and then set off to tour the ship. Our first stop was just upstairs on the Lido Deck, where we took care of the most important business first: cocktails on the pool deck. (From our bartender, Bong.)

We started with the very top of the ship, circling our way down deck by deck, stopping for drinks when we were empty. We checked out the ping pong tables and basketball court, and the super-fancy cabanas that cost a ton of money.

The Crow’s Nest was the big lounge in the front of the ship, where we’d end up spending a lot of time. They had recliners, even! That’s where the game room was, too.

We stopped at the burger grill on the Lido deck for lunch. Matt noticed their collection of weird Dutch sausages, and vowed to try one later. I was happy they had a veggie burger. The server from the bar there asked if we were interested in signing up for either the pub crawl or their mixology classes. Two of the classes were during port time, but one of them was on the sea day and looked interesting. We told him we’d pass on signing up for now, especially since we could easily do our own pub crawl.

After wandering for a while, we ended up at the Ocean Bar on one of the lower decks, and ordered fancy cocktails. The bartenders once again asked about the pub crawl and mixology classes. (They clearly got some kind of incentive for signups, because we were asked CONSTANTLY.) We decided to sign up for the Asian-themed mixology class, but passed on the pub crawl again.

The disco was awesome, and of course we ended up spending a ton of time there over the cruise. We walked through the casino, and I was very excited that they had a craps table. Having toured the whole ship, we decided to go back to the room and see if our suitcases had arrived. They had, so we got to unpacking.

Shortly after that, it was time for the muster drill. It’s no longer a requirement to bring life jackets (people were prone to tripping on the straps while going upstairs), so it’s just a matter of gathering in the right place. They lined us up and took roll call, which took a long time. They radioed in the people that were missing to the bridge, and they made announcements about those people over the loudspeaker. It was serious business in the post-Concordia era: if you didn’t show up to the muster drill, you’d be kicked off the cruise.

Finally we were set free around 5:30, and we headed upstairs to the Cruise Critic meet-and-greet. It took us a while to get there since everyone was waiting for the elevators, so we arrived after it was mostly full. We got cocktails at the bar, then grabbed our nametags. A server circulated with free champagne, so we took advantage of that too.

One of the CC guys did an announcement about casino-related events with the casino manager, and they did a contest for prizes. After that, we hung out talking for a while. We met a couple from Madison, Wisconsin, who we’d end up running into several times over the course of the cruise. We also met the couple who had organized the Meet and Greet, and ran into the guy from Texas again. We stayed there for quite a while listening to Texas Jim’s stories (I still have no idea how much of it was true, but it was hilarious), then headed back to our room to sit on our patio with champagne for the sail-away from Civitavecchia.

We sat and watched them preparing the ship to leave. It sailed around 7:30, and then the MSC ship behind us left immediately after. Once we were out to sea, we went down to put our names on the dinner list. (We had ‘as you wish’ dining, which means you can stop by anytime and potentially have to wait. It worked out very well, and we rarely had to wait long to be seated. We always had a table to ourselves, too.)

We went to the Explorers Lounge to get a coffee drink (or if you’re Matt, Jameson on the rocks), and our dinner buzzer went off shortly thereafter. We got a table and had an excellent dinner. In general, the food quality on Holland America seemed quite a bit better than on other lines we’d been on, which was saying a lot. They had a fully vegetarian menu, too.

Happy hour in Northern Lights (the club) was from 10-11, so we headed there after dinner. It was almost empty when we arrived, so we got seats at the bar. The happy hour deal was the second drink for $1, which for the first few days meant that you both ordered the same thing and it was cheap. Later in the cruise, that meant that you got two drinks yourself. It evolved!

DJ Stylez started playing around 10:30, and we were of course Party Rocked almost immediately. There was a guy sitting at the end of the bar slamming 2-for-1 Coors Lights, rapping to himself. We heard Lady Gaga and Waka Waka, so it was basically everything I wanted in a cruise ship club. We had a couple Mai Tais while we sat there, then decided it was time for bed. We got a to-go Manhattan and headed to the cabin for the night.

The major upside to not going directly to the airport or having to make any other travel connection after a cruise is that you get the luxury of disembarking last. We got to sleep til 8:30 and take a shower while listening to all the other groups of people being called to disembark. The ship was really empty by the last timeslot at 9:45, and the crew had mostly taken over for cleaning duties already. They stopped by at least three times to drop things off in the cabin, so we felt like we were being rushed to breakfast.

There were a few people left up there, but they still had all the food out. It was amazing that they would have to turn that all over in the next hour, since people could start boarding as early as 11am. While we were finishing, they called for everyone left onboard to head to the exit, so we did so. Sadly.

We got off the boat and found our suitcases waiting right inside the port building door. We rolled them to the shuttle bus and rode to the port entrance. Dale Earnhardt and Leonardo DiCaprio, two people we’d seen everywhere on the cruise and named according to their lookalikes, were on our bus, too.

We rolled our bags across Civitavecchia, and it seemed like we were just there even though it had been a week. Near the train station, we ran into the Madison couple again, so we said goodbye to them and rolled on to the train station. The line for tickets was crazy, but we got to an automated kiosk easily and bought second class tickets there. We then hauled our bags to the platform, clunking up and down stairs in a very uncomfortable way.

There were a ton of people on the platform by the time the train arrived, which is always kind of harrying. We piled on with everyone else, and that was a big challenge with our huge bags. Matt found us some seats and threw the suitcases up overhead. We didn’t realize until the train was packed and we were about to leave that we were actually in a first class car. There was no evidence of shady bag handlers or train staff around, so we just crossed our fingers and hoped we didn’t get kicked out to go stand in between cars for the hour-long trip.

We got lucky and arrived in Rome with no issues. The train pulled into a different terminal behind the main one, so it took a while to get our bearings. We headed off in the direction of the hotel, which this time was the opposite direction from Termini. We had to consult the map about five times, but we finally found it about eight blocks away, just past the Opera. Again, we had to haul our bags up stairs, this time a flight and a half. But the man at the counter was very nice, and our room was already prepared even though we were early for check-in, so we were thrilled. We headed up in the elevator, and the porter came up behind us with the bags. The elevator was barely big enough for them.

We cranked the air conditioning and flopped on the bed for a while, then got onto the hotel’s wifi and checked in with people back home for the first time since Barcelona. We looked at our maps and made plans for what we wanted to see, then went to find lunch. We stopped at a place at the end of the street called Strega and got an outdoor table. The place was a combination sit-down, carry-out, and coffeeshop, and it was packed.

Matt was beyond thrilled with his lunch, prosciutto and cacio e pepe (which was simple and delicious). I ordered a quattro formaggi pizza. A cat hung out on a table next to us, completely uninterested in what was going on around him.

After lunch, we went to wander. We were headed toward the Colosseum, which we had pre-bought tickets for at home. I had an idea that if we just walked in that general direction, we’d obviously run right into it.

Getting around Rome is NOT THAT EASY. We’d pass a landmark that we saw on the map and head the right direction, then suddenly be in the wrong place again.

Finally we got our bearings, and saw that we were on the opposite side of a very large park from the Colosseum. It was also very hot, and we were sweating and thirsty. It took us a while to get there, but we made it!

One thing we were reminded of yet again: the ancient buildings in Rome aren’t just interesting because of the history; they really are that impressive. I was thrilled to be in the Colosseum.

We got to jump to the front of the line with our tickets, too! Definitely do that if you’re going to visit, because as far I we could tell, there are always a billion people there.

We toured the building, halfway following the signs pointing the way. There were people sitting on pillars all over the place, so we had to do that, too. We visited the museum upstairs and stopped at the gift shop. Then we headed back out onto the plaza.

There was a cart right outside the Colosseum selling beverages, so Matt got Powerade and a water for me. The place was making a killing, and my water was gone way too quickly. (I was also carrying a bottle that I’d emptied long ago.) We traded picture-taking opportunities with a couple in front of the Arch of Constantine, then went over to the entrance to Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum, which were included in our Colosseum tickets as well.

I hadn’t really done much research on the sights we’d be seeing in Rome, focusing instead on our cruise stops and later stays. I figured I would just see a bunch of famous things and know all about them. But I really had no idea that there was this gigantic area in the center of Rome where the Forum and Palatine Hill were. It was pretty amazing.

To my vast delight, one of Rome’s many public fountains was there waiting for us at the Forum. We filled up both water bottles, and I instantly felt much better.

While we were wandering around, we met a guy from Georgia. He complained about the heat, and said that their plans had changed abruptly because there was a bus strike going on. We’d seen a crowd picketing outside the metro station, but didn’t know what it was about. He said it was due to be over at 5pm, though, so that wasn’t a big problem for us.

After touring the Forum, we went over to the other side of the park to see Palatine Hill, another piece of history I knew very little about. It was amazingly serene for being on a hill in the middle of Rome.

Please note that the trees look EXACTLY like you expect them to look in Rome. There were more palm trees than I expected, though.

We walked back down the hill and left the area right before closing time. We headed to the metro station nearby and got a ticket. Matt bravely used the train station bathroom… I was too scared to venture in.

Rome only had two train lines, so navigating is very easy. They cross at Termini station (like every other transit there), so we rode there and switched to the other line. Having been in the subway portion of Termini, I can understand why people might hate that train station. (I loved everything about it otherwise!)

We boarded the other train and rode across the river to the stop nearest the Vatican. It was still a several block walk from there, but at least we got to rest a little on the train.

My biggest excitement in visiting Vatican City was having the opportunity to walk into another country. I’m not religious, so it wasn’t a huge deal to me. The buildings are impressive, though, and they had just had some sort of mass there, so it was packed. Apparently cars can drive right in and park in the huge square, and they do so in typical Italian fashion… it was like one of those board games where you have to shift all the cars in the parking lot to get one out.

As we walked around taking photos, the plaza emptied. I was really amused at the number of nuns and priests just hanging around. We looked to see if the Pope was looking out the window or anything, but he must’ve gone to bed already.

We headed off to find the Pizzarium, a pizza-by-the-slice place we’d seen on one of Bourdain’s shows. It was a long walk, but we figured it would probably be just as far back to the metro to take the train there. So we walked around the Vatican wall, and finally found our way to the Cipro metro stop. The pizza place was thankfully just across the street from it.

We went in and quickly realized we didn’t know what to order. The pizza looked amazing, but we had no idea what was on it, or how to verify that it was vegetarian. We decided that it was a little too confusing, and went to look for a place with a menu instead. A block away, we found a very similar place that had little signs by all the pizzas, making it way easier to make choices. We pointed and ordered, telling them what size to cut with a hand gesture. We got two giant bottles of Peroni, too, and went to sit on the patio to eat. It was really, really nice to sit down, and we were conveniently only a block from the train station where we could easily ride back to somewhere not a million walking miles from our hotel.

We only finished one of the beers, so we put the other one in a bag and took it with us. We got to the entrance of the train station, but there were gates over the doors. It was maybe 9pm, so that seemed strange. We crossed the street to the main entrance, and found that blocked off as well. We weren’t quite sure, but it definitely seemed like the transit strike was back in effect. We saw a security guard walking away as if he’d just locked the doors.

There was no way we could walk from the Vatican back to our hotel, so we decided to hail a cab. The neighborhood we were in was really quiet, so we headed back the way we’d come, to more major streets. We walked eight blocks or so, stopping at each corner to watch for cabs going by. We saw a couple of them that were full. Finally, we stopped again and a cab pulled over. I asked the driver what was going on with the train, and he tried to explain in the little English he knew. It was clear it was related to the strike, though.

Riding in a Roman cab was fantastic. He tore through the city, and we saw a lot of the sights we had passed a week ago on the bus. We were at our hotel within 15 minutes.

We decided to go find a place where we could have Negronis and sit around. Rome didn’t seem to really have traditional bars, though, except for the single Irish pub we’d seen that looked less than appealing. They had a million restaurants that all seemed to serve cocktails, and the little shops where you could get a sandwich, gelato, coffee, and drinks. We walked around the area by the hotel looking into places, and finally decided on a restaurant that wasn’t very busy. We got a table and explained that we just wanted Negronis, not food.

We got our drinks quickly, but the server was in no hurry to come back again later when we were done. (We saw this a few times, and Matt’s theory was that since they’re not a tipping-based service economy, they’re going to pay less attention to lower-cost tables.) It felt kind of weird being in a restaurant to drink, even though we weren’t taking away space from anyone else… there were only a few other people there. Also, it was a million degrees in there. We decided to move on and see if we could find something else.

We stopped into one of those gelato places, because they had a whole rack of amari up on the wall. But they didn’t know what a Negroni even was, so we moved on.

At that point I was really tired of walking, and just wanted to hang out. We decided to swing by the liquor store right by our hotel, and pick up some beers. We’d noticed it before because of their awesome kama sutra grappa collection in the window:

There was an old guy behind the counter who pointed us to the beer cooler. We picked out a few things, and then I was laughing at the collection of wine bottles named after fascist dictators. He showed me the huge collection of miniatures you could buy, which was pretty amazing. The guy who ran the place was adorable, too. We took the stuff back to our hotel, and propped ourselves up on the bed with our beers. We turned on Sky Sports Italia and translated the sportscast to each other, to our massive amusement.

We got up and enjoyed the best shower yet in our cute little room at the Hotel Lirico, then went to breakfast in the lobby. European breakfast will always be my favorite: bread, cheese, fruit and coffee.

We calculated that we should have exactly enough time to go see the Spanish Steps before having to head to the train station, so we set off that direction, checking the map regularly since we didn’t have time to get lost. It was already incredibly hot and humid in Rome and we were rushing.

A sign led us to an underpass at one of the major intersections, and the underpass ended up being a book store. That was very, very strange.

We only got a little diverted once, but managed to find our way to the steps. The area was packed with tourists. The plaza was super-cute, and I’ve loved to have shopped there.

Of course we’d arrived at the bottom of the steps, and the easiest way back to the hotel was to go up them. Plus it seemed important to climb them. We had to stop halfway up to rest, but we made it in the heat. The top was full of buskers, guys in gladiator outfits, and people painting landscapes and selling their work.

We rushed back to the hotel, a journey that seemed to be mostly uphill, even though we’d just climbed up to what we thought was the top. We checked out of the hotel, and the porter carried my bag down the stairs for me, thank god. We rolled our way over to Termini and bought tickets for the Leonardo Express from a machine. The train seemed to only have first class tickets, but they were fairly cheap.

The train pulled in a little late, and everyone hopped on. It was less of a crush of humanity than it had been at Civitavecchia, though, and the train was much nicer. Matt put our bags on the rack, and we got seats in a little elevated couch section in the middle where we had a good view of the Roman countryside.

One thing that surprised us about Rome is how quickly you leave the city. On the train, you pass Vatican City, a couple suburbs, and then it’s basically nothing but farmland between there and the airport.

We got to the airport half an hour later, and took the long walk to the terminal through the station. We found the EasyJet check-in: it was the one with piles of litter laying all over the place. (I assume that’s one of the reasons it’s so cheap.) The lines weren’t long, but there were only two desk agents helping people out. There was a proletariat line that we were in, and a line for their frequent fliers. That line got priority, which was fair.

Once we got to the front of the line, we stood there waiting for the agent to gesture to us, just like he’d been doing for everyone else. The French couple behind us got REALLY angry that we weren’t going, explaining that this was the queue and we should just go down there. They were definite asshats, those Frenchies. We went to the counter when the guy called us.

We checked in, went through security, and a French lady jumped to the front of the line at the scanner. We didn’t have a great opinion of them by that point, and were wondering how our trip to Paris would go.

Our gate was fairly empty, so we went to do some shopping in the terminal. I overheard something in French about our flight number and a new gate, so we checked the board and that was correct. By that point the EasyJet queue was pretty long, so we were a little worried about getting crappy seats. But a bunch more people showed up behind us, so we figured we were safe. We stood there for 20 minutes or so, and then they started scanning boarding passes. We went into the jetway area, and found the whole ramp full of the people we’d just been in line behind. We were used to the queuing, but it was about 20 degrees hotter in the ramp area.

We stood there for way too long, and then the line started moving again. We made it to the entrance of the actual jetway, and Matt and I were able to edge inside far enough to feel the air conditioning. We stood there for another 10 minutes or so, then slowly the line started moving toward the airplane door. (I still think it’s worth it for the price of EasyJet tickets, but holy crap. Prepare to stand in line for a hour.)

We managed to get a row to ourselves, which was awesome. We bought cans of London Pride from the flight attendant, and had a meal of the Italian version of Go Ahead (which I’d bought at Roma Termini) and my Pocket Espresso. (Note: don’t open a Pocket Espresso on a pressurized airplane. It will just go on your pants.) We had a good flight, and our British captain Gary got us to Paris-Orly ahead of schedule, at 4:20. We saw the Eiffel Tower from the plane, too!

We stopped at a little shop in the Sud terminal to get some food and drinks from a vending machine, then started following the arrows to the rental cars. They ended up being at the Oest terminal, but the walk wasn’t bad. We found Citer/National after some searching, and checked in at the desk. There was some mixup with the car we requested (automatic, with a trunk since we’d be keeping luggage in there for a while), so they ended up giving us a much nicer car: a Citroen C5. It was hella fancy, and we decided to name it President Mitterand.

I’ve never driven a car with GPS before, and I’m generally annoyed by it, but it made our getting around infinitely easier. We figured out how to program our destination after some futzing with it, and headed out on the highways of Paris. We only encountered a few traffic jams along the way, and then we were out in the countryside.

We could read most of the road signs, so that was good. (We didn’t know what ‘rappel’ meant, but thought it was pretty funny.) We learned that France is really, really proud of its rural areas: they put signs up showing you what kind of farmland you’re passing, or what industries exist in a town. We passed the Asterix theme park, too, which looked a little bit run-down.

We entered a toll road and paid with a credit card, with no idea what the toll was. As we saw the Belgium border coming up on the GPS, we wondered if there would be any remnant of the plaza that used to be there pre-EU, but there was no sign of it. Just a ‘welcome to Belgium’ sign in French and Dutch. We took the first roadside exit at Texaco to use the bathroom and get snacks. Matt got an individually-wrapped Belgian waffle, since obviously that’s what you’re supposed to do there.

We were shocked when we got out of the car: it was COLD there. Like, way colder than we had expected. I was in capris and flipflops, and I was freezing. After we left the building, I dug my hoodie and sneakers out of my suitcase in back.

We got back on the road and soon crossed from the French side of Belgium (Wallonia), to Flanders, the Dutch side. The President told us how to get to the hotel, and that all went well til we got to the center of Brussels around 9pm and encountered Pride. Like, the actual parade was going on right at that moment. We diverted and had to circle a few blocks, but we managed to find the hotel. There were cars parked three deep in the entrance, but the valet told us to leave the car there and helped us unload the luggage.

The Hotel Metropole was probably the fanciest building we’ve ever stayed in. The lobby was full of Japanese tourists taking photos, and the entryway was full of notes from celebrities who had stayed there. We had a gigantic room, and the rack rate was 450 euros (we paid $140). The bathroom had a huge tub and a towel warmer. There was a trouser press on the wall, which Matt tried out later.The TV greeted us by name in English, and there were 2 free Stellas and bottles of pop in the fridge. We looked out onto Boulevard Anspach, which was in a certain degree of disarray due to Pride.

We unpacked a little bit while enjoying our beers, then decided to go try Delirium Cafe so we could enjoy several of Belgium’s ten billion excellent beers. We set out and walked a few blocks as things got quieter and quieter, so we suspected maybe we weren’t going the right way. We also noticed that every other business there was a temp agency. We looked at the map and turned around, heading back down another street. We passed a battery store, and noted it for later: I’d realized only a few days into the cruise that the one thing I’d forgotten was my camera battery charger, and I was heartbroken over the idea that I might not be able to take photos. I was glad that we at least both had nice cellphone cameras, but it’s not the same.

We passed our hotel and went the other direction. The street became crazier and crazier, so we figured we were going the right way. The area around Grand-Place was nearing a disaster, with drunk people stumbling everywhere and empty cans and cups all over the place. (It was around 10:30 at that point.) We hurried through the narrow cobblestone streets in the area, knowing Delirium Cafe had to be nearby. But we couldn’t find it, after circling and passing places we’d already passed before. We finally saw a sign for it pointing down a street, saying the entrance was in the alley. We followed the arrow and there was nothing there, so we kept circling. Finally we ended up going the other direction on the street with the sign, and found the alley… and it was absolutely packed with Pride partiers.

I was exhausted and had zero interest in trying to get in there. We decided to go find somewhere else to eat, and come back to one of the bars in the area for beer. Everything in the area seemed to be closing down except for the bars, so we finally decided on the Sultans of Kebap right outside Grand-Place. It was going to be packed with drunk people later, but at that point it wasn’t too bad. Matt ordered the doner kebab, and I got falafel. That food was so good, it will haunt me forever. They had the best bread in the universe.

Refreshed, we headed back into Grand-Place and settled on a place called Drug Opera, for one reason alone: it was quiet. We got seats right at the bar and ordered beers. Finally I was really happy to be in Brussels. AND they had free wi-fi!

We had another round, and the place started to close down around 1am. They only charged us for one beer, and we were fine with that. We decided to stop by the liquor store across the street from our hotel, and ended up grabbing a couple of beers, a can of J&B and cola (Matt had seen them smashed in the street, and was intrigued), and Kriek Max. Holy crap, I fell in love so hard with Kriek Max. It’s delicious.

Back in the hotel, we watched a German-dubbed version of British Silent Library, and a Tosh-like YouTube show called Rude Tube. European TV is so entertaining.