step 3: back to Roma

we spent the whole night up in Torino at the notte bianca, an all-night party of sorts in the streets of Torino. unfortunately, not much party-like or olympic-related activity was going on, but we could at least wander the streets as part of a large crowd instead of by ourselves, which would have been extremely creepy. by about 2 00 i was getting very very hungry and was probably dehydrated some, and was starting to feel faint. all the bars were crammed packed, and sadly the only two places that weren't swarmed were mcdonald's and a pastry place. i probably could have used the sugar, but anything really sweet didn't seem appealing at the time. i ate some fries and got back on my feet. not that i ever left my feet. we were standing or walking the entire time, until we got back to the Porta Nuova station. there we found a bench and around 3 30 our train came in. we quickly got on and claimed seats, which was good, because it was standing room only by the time it departed at 5. we got to Milan at about 7 and headed back to the hotel to pick up my bags. i rested there for about half an hour before going to Milano Centrale station and buying my ticket back to Rome. i spoke my halting but correct italian to the ticket clerk, who immediately started using english. it must be my accent or there'd be no way they could know so quickly! by the end of the transaction i was speaking all italian and she was speaking all english. there's definitely something backwards about that...

i planned on sleeping the entire way back to Roma, but that didn't happen. the girl who sat across from me on the train somehow looked like she spoke english (i guess if i can tell i know how the italians do) and in fact she did. her name was Kelty, and she's a 5th year student at the University of Calgary studying geology. all she has left to do for graduation is a field school this spring, so she's touring Europe here during the late winter. you can read all about her travels over at her blog. we talked about curling (yes! i found more curling fans!), geology, classics, good books, and life in general, until she debarked the train at Firenze. i did then pass out entirely, and i'm glad i woke up for my stop in Rome. i had set an alarm, but it went off without me hearing it. i woke up 5 mins later, plenty soon before we arrived. it felt like i was home at last when i set foot in Stazione Termini! i caught the 75 home to the Centro and got there just 10 minutes into the Lazio match which started at 3 00. we beat Fiorentina 2-1 in a very entertaining match. last night i crashed at 10 00, since i was so dead. i figured that i had about 4 hours total in the past day, all sitting up. now it's monday night, and late at that, so i better be getting to bed again. field trip tomorrow, buying tickets for the Roma-Lazio derby on Wednesday. hopefully, i'll keep you posted more frequently! a domani, ciao!