June 14 – Roma

We made it!

Today we landed in Rome around 1 pm and breezed through customs. I had a bit of a panic as my checked bag was one of the last to arrive. After all the Calgary and Atlanta flight bags had come, mine finally appeared. I was reunited with Kaitlin outside, and we hopped on the next bus to Roma Termini. Once we arrived, we headed straight to our accommodation, the Yellow Square hostel. We checked into our dorm, which we are sharing with two other girls from Montreal, and then quickly headed back to Termini in an attempt to make it to the Vatican Museum in time for our 5:30 pm time slot. I booked last minute (by which I mean two months in advance) so this was the last time slot available.

At the train station, we asked an employee where to buy Metro tickets. We were sent upstairs and could only find Trenitalia ticket kiosks. Upstairs, they sent us downstairs. We went back and forth until eventually, someone sold us the tickets. We went to the metro entrance only to find out it was closed! Running out of time, we rushed outside and tried to get an Uber, which didn’t work. I was very stressed out, but eventually Kaitlin managed to flag down a cab. We asked the driver to take us to the Vatican, and it seems my memory of this area is a bit twisted, as the museum entrance is actually quite far from the square where we were dropped off. We hustled to the museum and made it just in time for our scheduled time slot. We spend about two hours exploring the museum & the Sistine Chapel. Kaitlin was very hot and tired so we found gelato nearby before hopping in a cab back to the hostel.

After dinner, we walked back to the hostel to headed to bed. I couldn’t sleep because people were partying outside until after 3 am.