Chaos Leaves Town

The next day, I headed back down to the colosseum, using the light rail and then subway. I’m liking Rome’s subway system. You can go practically anywhere. What I planned for today was a open topped, double decker bus ride around town. Sort of a way to get acquainted with Rome. The buses are hop on, hop off type that pass by all the famous sites in Rome. You can jump off anywhere along the route to explore, then hop back on another of the buses to continue the circuit. Pretty cool. Back in the ol’ USA, I’ve never taken a tour bus. They must be here somewhere, but I don’t recall seeing them.

So I just did a Google search of bus tours in New York and yes, they are there. And Viator is there too. It’s $48 for a open bus tour of NY. I’m a big fan of Viator over in Europe because their online system is so well designed and easy to use. You can buy your ticket online and print your ticket or, with your Android tablet or phone, just show them your ticket on your device to board the bus. Also, you can have them call you and remind you of the tour departure times and locations. And…they have tour guides with clip boards when you arrive at the bus and your name will be there so you get to board. And yes, I did see web sites for tours, trains, airlines, and buses in Europe where they weren’t anywhere near that helpful or organized.

Since my itinerary called for a week in Rome, I wasn’t in any hurry to run around Rome like an idiot, but I did have a list of things I’d looked up online back at home and wanted to vist. It didn’t help that I caught a cold and cough on the freakin’ train ride to the LA airport. Curse my luck. So, OK, I lost a couple days in Rome due to illness, I wasn’t going to let that wreck my entire trip…besides, it was already slacking off and I was feeling pretty well.

I’ll start this post with a few pictures of my colosseum and beyond visit I didn’t post last time.

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Rome is enchanting and exciting…all that history, right in one city!

After doing a little reconnaissance around Rome, learning the ropes so to speak, the 3rd day after my arrival, I took the rapid transit to the termini, then the Metro subway over to the colosseum.  My tour was to take off early, and naturally, I was just on time. Not early, just on time.

I was attempting to keep a travel diary and here’s what I’d done so far:

Apr 13th, sneezed a couple times on the way LAX, did not know it at the time, but caught a cold somewhere.

Apr 14th, bought cold meds in Copenhagen. Little help. But I did notice that they seem to work better than the OTC products in the USA. Arrived in Rome at 9:30pm, long walk to local trains…no customs at all! Train had no map, low volume announcements, and an electronic reader that sucked, usually showed station we just left not upcoming. No signs along the tracks at the stations…and two guys (suits) told me, incorrectly, that there were two more stations to go so I missed the stop. Host wouldn’t come where I was so I took a taxi back to his place.

Apr 15th, stayed home in bed. Except for a sortie around the hood. I toured the area and found 3 ATMs nearby, found a coffee shop. Got some more Euros. Then, I noticed a neighborhood grocery store right next door to my apartment. Bought some food, so I could cook my own meals. Saved lots of money that way and intend to do that wherever possible on the trip.

Apr 16th, ventured out in the neighborhood, got a book of tickets for public transport. Found a trolley station just two blocks away from my flat. My host just pointed me to the buses and didn’t mention that a block further on was the trolley. I happened to notice it while I was wandering. Bought a train/trolley/subway system map…waste of $6E, too confusing for a newbie. In order to get familiar with the trolley instead, I just took it to the downtown central station, the termini. While there I bought my train ticket for Naples on the 21st from a ticket machine. It really helps to be able to do these things at your leisure instead of under the gun. Back home, and using Viator.com, bought a ticket for the guided Colosseum tour, then discovered that I’d booked one day early for my trip to Naples/Pompeii. Hah! Well, OK, I’d stay in Naples overnight. Why not? Found a hostile and booked one night. Naples is just a 1 hour local trolley ride from Pompeii, after you take a high speed train from Rome to Naples. I wanted to take the train and all…part of my trip plans were to ride the European rails at 200MPH.

Apr 17th, took trolley to downtown, then subway to colosseum (2 stops away, well marked), met the tour group & toured colosseum and forum, etc. When finished, took a tour bus around city. That night, I bought a ticket for Vatican and St. Peter’s online. Again, from Viator.com. Liked their website, prices, and tours. Really handy to be able to use my tablet to join the tour…didn’t have to try to get a ticket printed out. Phone displays of your ticket work for Viator too.

The colosseum tour started early, around 9AM in order to avoid the crowds. I could have chosen a different time of course. Our tour group gathered right across the street from the colosseum and was limited to 25 people (but there were several other tours gathering too). The guide was a local with very good English, and years of experience.

We enter the Colosseum…

Notice that we walk right by all those tourists lined up in the non-tour que.

Our tour guide.

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Apr. 14th, 2014: Resting up…

After the little mix up the night I arrived in Rome, I was happy to get to bed and enjoy a night of dreamless sleep. Next morning, I just hung out at the apartment trying to organize my plans and make up an itinerary for the next two months. Traveled around the neighborhood and other than all of the signs being in Italian, it’s a nice typical neighborhood. More small shops then in the US but everything was recognizable. Seems as though English is made up of a bunch of Italian words. Or is it Latin?

I was staying at the Piazza San Felice de Cantalice. In a quiet private room in a private flat which I shared with the owner. My room was kind of small, but the bed was comfy, plenty of places to store my stuff and had a nice desk. The apartment is just six miles from the heart of Rome, near by both an electric train and bus station. The train only takes 30 minutes to get to the termini, and the termini is the train’s last stop, so I didn’t bother with buses. The room was small, the wifi worked best in the living room, but it was fine for a weeks stay. Kitchen was light filled but crowded by an overlarge table so I would have to move to my bedroom or the livingroom to use my computer when the owner was cooking for himself. Overall, I wasn’t disappointed with the room. Host was helpful and friendly, and very quiet. The shower was makeshift and not comfortable…it’s really more of a tub with a shower, though. The neighborhood has all the amenities…there is even a grocery store next door. ATM’s, cafes, bars, banks, and shopping. Restaurants too. Overall, very convenient. Found the room on Roomorama, and paid $32 per night. Pretty good price considering.

Light rail station near my apartment.

Arriving at the termini.

As you probably have figured out, the termini is the main rail station for Rome. I was on a local train and the station handles both those and the long distance trains. Then the Metro underground is another entire subway system. I found a map in the Metro area that showed me which train to take to get to the colosseum so off I went.

Here’s a map I used quite often to get oriented: Rome

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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.

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A few more weeks were spent at Parker, but then it came time to go. It was becoming annoying that the WiFi was completely off for days at a time, and like I mentioned before, the RV park does not take responsibility for it and only allows people to install their own. So, it had been out for a week this time and I decided it was time to leave. Screw it. Besides, it was warming up in Rosamond, and I had to start buying stuff for my trip to Europe. I’d bought the ticket to Rome (one way) back in January for April 13th departure and it was getting close.

Neat picture.

So, a few hours driving through the Mojave desert, brought me back to my brother’s house in Rosamond.

With a month and the better part of 2 weeks left before leaving for Rome, much of my time was spent on the computer trying to arrange for places to stay. The previous month, every once in a while I’d get online and cruise around the internet gathering info. My bookmarks for the trip were numbering in the hundreds. But I had found and reserved both a place in Rome, and a place in Pompeii. And I had some good leads on places to stay in my other destination cities too, but no reservations.

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Being close to a casino was fun…someplace to go every night if I wanted. I didn’t go every night, but 3-4 times a week I’d bike over there and wander around. The place also had a theater on the grounds so I caught up on my movie watching. In mid January, there was an exhibit from Italy in the main meeting hall. The da Vinci exhibit. Very interesting. Suggest you visit if it comes to your area.

Ooo, cool. Lookie there.

The exhibit was of both his artworks and his inventions. The artwork consisted of authorized reproductions of his famous works and the inventions were scale models and full sized models of his inventions. All created by Italian craftspeople. Exhibit has been traveling around the world for years. I got lucky that it was here in tiny Parker, Arizona.

Scale model of a lifting machine.

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My stay in Beatty was great, not only was the weather outstanding but the local company in the form of real people was more interesting than television. Can’t beat that. Maybe a Seahawks game could, but that’s about it.

One afternoon we were sitting around bs’ing and this burro and her little one wandered down out of the hills for a visit. The elder burro’s stomping ground is up in the hills and the entire town of Beatty. Everyone around me seemed to know her and her baby and as she wandered into the RV park it was obvious she was a regular in the park as she headed straight for us. The three of us were sitting outside the mini store at the picnic table just talking at the time. The guy that actually worked in the store jumped up, ran inside, and grabbed a sack of carrots.

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I was staying at Fallon RV Park, (they have no web site) and the Amazon warehouse was in Fernley. It’s around 30 miles away, and like I said last post, I did try to find somewhere to park my RV in Fernley with no luck. For the first time in many years, I had to get up at 5AM, dress, eat, check my em, make my lunch, then go to WORK. Gah! Not fun. The 10 hour work shifts weren’t all that fun either. Then the warehouse is sooo large that getting to break rooms, or lunch rooms, took such a long time that you’d end up with a shortened break. And you have to go through a metal detector whenever you leave so I soon found out that I’d have to get a plastic belt to avoid having to remove and replace my leather and metal belt 4 times per day. The kind of belt that holds up a guys pants. Turns out that the stores don’t carry all plastic belts any longer. They use to, but I couldn’t find any. Eventually, one of my co-workers mention I could find plastic knapsack clips and braided belts in the sports sections of WalMart. And, Walmart was just across the street from the Amazon facility. I could, I bought, and made my own plastic belt. That saved some time heading to break, lunch, and home.

The break room was nice and compfy, had plenty of refers to store your lunch, or you could buy the prepackaged crap that’s available. I prefer, and recommend you bring your own halfway healthy lunch. There’s also sugar and chemical infused ‘drinks’ available but I stuck to the free coffee.

The job I was assigned to be doing is ‘Picking’. In the morning, you’d walk in the plant, put your stuff into your assigned locker (anything metal, and your cell phone because cameras are not allowed – you can get fired for taking a picture inside the plant), put on your vest, grab your box cutter and gloves (provided free), walk inside and pick up a UPC bar code scanner. The scanners have the old Microsoft CE software in them so they were always giving us trouble and would just stop working or would go nuts. So you’d have to walk all the way back to one of several scanner kiosks and pick up another one. Then you’d assemble in your area for any announcements. Anyway, after that meeting and recommended stretching before work (which was fine, I enjoyed that), you’d turn on the scanner, enter your employee info so they could keep track of your picks per hour, and it would check via WiFi where you were to go for that session. Then you’d walk over to the area and start picking product (go to Amazon dot com to see what kind of products), and loading it in tote bins. Which when full would be placed on conveyors. Super boring work. Sometimes, well, many times, the picking area would be up 2-4 floors. You would pick there for 30-45 minutes then the scanner would send you half the way across the plant to another area. And usually up 3 flights of stairs. The facility is so…behind the times. First off, they are still using Microsoft CE UPC scanners. Gah! Then, they don’t even have CD/DVD automatic picking carousels. Such an easy product to handle automatically…but here instead, we humans were trying to sort through randomly placed CDs in a shelf bin looking for the right one out of 5 or 10. Nor do they have automatic pallet wrappers, which are an industry norm…they’re still having 2 to 3 people wrap them with clear plastic by hand. I was not impressed in the least with Amazon’s seemingly antiquated warehousing techniques.

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After arriving at my brother’s place in Rosamond, I met the neighbor Brennen when he wandered up to say hello to my brother. We all enjoyed a sit down with beer by the pool and he offered to let me park my RV in his front yard! Nice, reasonably flat area to park. No more parking on a dangerously steep hill. A spot from where I could run a cord up to Dan’s house and plug in and run my battery chargers. Too long of a cable run for much of anything else, like the refer, but I could go down there in the mornings for some computer time and TV time during prime time (my brother doesn’t have a TV in his house). So, we struck a bargain and I gained a new friend. He and I liked the same bar too so we’d go down there quite often to relax.

While there at Dan’s, I finally broke down and bought my first brand new computer. For years, I’d been given past-their-prime computers by clients when I’d sell them a new one so I was always on the back side of the technology curve. Mainly to save money. My new one is a Quad core AMD with an ASUS mobo, 500gb HDD, DVD/CD, etc., and a top of the line PSU. Nice. Really screams. Does HD movies and such without a hitch.

Bennen invited me to join him one Sunday at a golf course at Tehachapi (Tah-hatch-a-pee is how we pronounce it here in the area). He has a friend that lives in the gated community nearby with it’s own golf course. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want a gated community clear out here in the boondocks. There probably wasn’t any more crime near here than inside the gates. Tehachapi only has a 3600 population. Who they were trying to keep out is unknown. The farmers nearby maybe?

Anyway, here’s some pictures of our trip there and the golfing.

Mostly desert on the way to Tehachapi.

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