Rome Again

Ferbent's mother lives alone in Albania. Being Albanian means it's very difficult to travel as they need visas for pretty much every country. It took 6 months and about a billion documents for her to get an Australian tourist visa a couple of years ago to visit us in Australia.

However, it seems that having the Australian visa in her passport makes it easier for her to now get other visas. So she applied for a Schengen visa at the Italian Consulate and got it almost immediately. We thought it would take a least a couple of months so were caught off guard a little. The big problem being, where was she going to stay? We only have a studio apartment.

We quickly gave notice on out apartment but I've yet to start looking for a new place. I hate the thought of having to call people to look at overpriced apartments and then have them laugh at my flimsy dossier. The Particulier a Particulier comes out tomorrow so I really should start looking then.

Safura's visa stated she had to enter Italy before the end of August. So I booked flights for us to go to Rome with Vueling and we checked into one of the crappiest hotels I've ever stayed in, the Hotel Primavera. It was filthy with the most disgusting towels I've ever seen. At €90 for a triple room it was way overpriced. The old hag working there refused to return my passport until I paid extra for the air conditioning which had already been included in the price. Only after I yelled at her did she return it. What a cow. I must admit the location was fantastic though. Right next to Piazza Navona and a short walk to the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, The Vatican, and Trastevere.

Ferbent and I spent one night in Rome and then he went to Bari to pick up Safura. Her ferry had been cancelled so she got a later one and different arrive until 10pm. They then got a lift back to Rome and knocked on my room door at 5am, exhausted. The stupid hotel doesn't have 24hr reception so they were stuck outside for a while ringing the bell until they got the owner out of bed. He was less than impressed, not surprisingly. If the 2 new mobile phones had arrived which I had ordered 3 weeks earlier then we wouldn't have had that problem. That'll teach me to buy something from a French website.

The 3 of us then did the hop on hop off bus tour and showed Safura around Rome. I think that was my 5th trip to Rome which is really more than enough. I do love the city but I've seen everything now. I couldn't get over how many tourists were around, especially those in groups. I was really disappointed with the food. I always remember the food in Rome being great. This time it was mediocre at best. It was cheap though. Around €5 for a pizza margharita and sometimes as low as €3.

After a few days we got a slow, crappy train to Nice and I was happy to be out of dirty, heavily polluted Rome. Ok, the pollution was probably due to the numerous fires surrounding the city but anyway...