April 13th, 2014. Time to go to Europe. I started this trip by having my brother drive me down to the local railroad station in Lancaster, California. There is an intercity rail line that connects Los Angeles to the upper valley where he lives. One of the problems is that the train doesn’t go all the way to the airport…LA International (aka LAX), where my flight would depart from. I knew what to do though so not a big problem as long as there wasn’t any big pile ups on the freeway.
My train all ready for me.
The train trip is two hours! Then the bus trip is estimated at 45 minutes…traffic permitting. So of course I left hours early so I would be at my boarding station way early. No way was I going to miss my flight to fuk’in ROME!! (Being the cautious type though, I did buy trip insurance so if I’d missed the flight, everything I’d paid would have been refunded so, no worries really).
Not too crowded.
Funny thing was…just after I took the above picture of an almost empty train car, a couple people came in and sat at the table booth you can see there. They were both coughing. I didn’t think much about it at the time since they were so far away from where I was sitting.
The train trip was pleasant and the bus ride went smoothly so around 5pm I was hanging out at LAX. Boy was the airport screwed up. Lots of construction going on. Many areas blocked off. I had a hell of a time figuring out what was where compared to LAX a year before when I was here for my flight to Hawaii. And it was time for a drink and some food so I had to trudge miles to find anything. Turned out the entire food court was closed! I was sooo confused and distracted. There wasn’t much help either, I tried asking an employee that actually worked at LAX where could I get a beer and some food. She had a thick accent and had (seemingly) NO IDEA what I was talking about. Wow. Eventually, after some employees directed me, I did stumble upon a bar, and was able to order some food but it was a bit frustrating to have to wander around like I did to find anything.
Board the plane, off we go heading east. Around 15 hours later we land in Copenhagen. By now I’m seriously exhibiting cold symptoms and find a convenience store with a few OTC drugs and grab whatever seems good. Because of the cold, and our short stay, I didn’t get to experience much of Copenhagen. Well, maybe next trip. The people seemed nice and helpful though. The airport is smallish, but pleasant. But they aren’t part of the Euro money system so I ended up with a handful of funny coins that only worked there. Here’s a picture of Copenhagen. Neat.
After 15 hours, arrived in Copenhagen, waiting for the plane to Rome.
After a slug of cough syrup, and a one hour wait, we’re ready for the 2 & 1/2 hour or so flight to Rome.
Rome Airport.
After 18 or so hours, in total, we finally arrived in Rome. It was late in the day…evening actually. Soon to be dark. After we got off the plane (and by ‘we’ I mean me and all the other passengers), I took the above picture ‘cus, well, it’s Rome! It’s a large international airport so it was a long walk anywhere. Funny thing was, there wasn’t any customs to speak of. I did see 2-3 security people but they just directed us through the airport and either outside to the taxis or downstairs to the light rail.
Hey, still daylight.
I didn’t spend much time wandering around as these pictures might suggest. It was off the plane, walk 1/4 mile or so, then walk through customs, follow the signs (many were in English) towards the railway (I already knew I’d need to take the train), and then wait for my train.
Oh, there’s the entrance to the train system.
And after crossing into that magic tunnel, and walking another half mile or so, finally found the train I was suppose to take. Or at least I was in the area. Everything was in Italian down here but guess what? The language seems to be where English came from and you can make out what they are trying to tell you. That was helpful. And, many Europeans can speak 2-3 languages so it didn’t take much to find someone to help me find my way.
Yea, the train.
OK, so it’s way off there in the distance far enough that you can’t see it but at least it was on it’s way. By now it was fully dark outside but I thought I knew where I was going and did jump on the right train. It was more crowded than the above picture would suggest and most everyone was friendly. Turned out that the trains don’t have very good maps or annunciators aboard like I kind of expected. I did have a document telling me where I wanted to get off the train, and I’d called my host who was going to meet me at the station but the damn train conspired to prevent me from discovering what fuk’in stop the train was at!! The scrolling LED annunciator in the car always showed the stop WE HAD JUST LEFT for some stupid reason. Realizing I had no idea what was going on, I politely asked a couple suits on the train if they knew where my stop was? Sure they said, 2 stops from here. Turned out it was the next stop. So I missed my stop. Two stops later, I realize the mistake, and jump off the train and find myself alone on a seemingly abandoned train station. Without a clue of how long until the next train. By now it was 10:00pm or so. Gah. So I called my host, after I tell him where I am, he tells me I’m too far away and I should get a taxi. Damnit.
So I walk across the street to what looks like a hotel, and which has a taxi parked outside their rear entrance. Two guys just walked out of the building for a smoke and I ask them a few questions. Lucky they both speak English. One of them calls a taxi for me because the one there in the street is off duty. Whew, I didn’t have to figure out how to call a taxi. Takes a half hour but finally a taxi rolls up, I jump in and off we go to my room. Quite a ways away too. When we get to the area, couldn’t really tell where the hell I was suppose to go, so imposed on the driver to call the host…who was nice enough to come outside and wave so I could find him. Exhausted, I introduced myself and then excused myself so I could go to bed. Ahhhh. In Rome. Cough, cough.
Next post, we explore beautiful Rome.