The Transportation

Buongiorno regazzi! (Hello/good morning everyone)...The great thing about that is that its totally acceptable to say good morning until four o'clock in the afternoon. Its pouring here today and its supposed to rain all week I am pretty sure so I thought today would be a really great time to talk about the Italian transportation since I won't be walking anywhere in this weather. I think I might have mentioned it before but there is much more to tell about the transportation here. I would call it a system but I don't exactly know if it qualifies as a system. Now here in Rome, they have extensive transportation meaning an under ground metro, an above ground tram, a whole fleet of buses as well as taxis that can shuttle you to any one of the four train stations or airports. Now, this would all be super great if the transportation was an actual system. But that's not really the case. It's more of an organized chaos and if you don't know the rules than you might as well count yourself out and just walk to wherever your going.
Now that I have been here a little over a month I pretty much have Romes transportation chaos down pat. The general rules are always leave early because sometimes the buses go on strike randomly and the under paid bus drivers refuse to do anything. But if you do happen to be able to catch the bus you still have to leave early....because if your catching the bus at a Desposito which is basically a parking lot where tons of busses leave from then that means your at the beginning or the end of a route and therefore the bus driver is gonna get off and have a 15 minute smoke break before he takes you anywhere. So then you think to yourself, Okay well I'll take the tram. 
Now the tram is pretty useful and I like it far more then the bus...except these two run on their own time especially when its raining ( like today) or the buses are on strike because then the trams are entirely over crowded. All this seems kind of inconvenient I'm sure but I am really not complaining. Being late is kind of the cool thing to do in Italy so it's totally acceptable to be late or sometimes even absent from class because of the bus system.Which works perfect for me because I normally run late anyways and I am kind of enjoying waiting around all the time for buses. Sometimes I try to talk to the locals and they normally humor me and correct my still not so great Italian.
As far as the trains go....everyone says "oh travel in Europe is so easy and cheap just hop on a train!" 
Well, I think that has some truth in it but its definitely not all true. I have taken the train outside of Rome twice now since I have been here. When I took it for a day trip to Naples a couple weeks ago it was not as bad as I imagined it would be. We went to the station early but only because we knew the bus taking us there would probably be running late but the train left right on time and traveling second class to save some money wasn't so bad. This past weekend I took a train to Venice for Carnevale which was absolutely amazing! First of all, because Venice is easily one of the most beautiful cities that I have ever seen.

My first sight when I walked out of the train station.

Second because the costumes where absolutely outrageous.

Even some little kids had on the most elaborate costumes.

 Third because wine actually comes out of the water fountains here....

Gives new meaning to Italians drink wine like its water...

And fourth, because the transportation is even funnier than Romes organized chaos.

Yes, I rode in a Gondola! 

The Gondola ride was incredible even though half the time I thought we were gonna tip because the boats are so skinny. The nice Italian man was definitely trying to overcharge us so I had to use my amazing bartering skills to get the price down. It ended up working out.  Our gondolier told us a lot of history on the ride and even sang in Italian it was great.  But you can imagine this is just another form of transportation that runs on its own time clock because it is certainly no speed boat...and sometimes they even crash which I thought was just so funny.  We also saw how they hand make glass, St. Mark's Basilica and museum, and some random little side street performances as well as an Italian jazz band. It was an incredible weekend overall and then we caught a night train home late Saturday night (early Sunday morning). Needless to say, this train ride was not nearly as fun as my gondola ride. In typical Italian transportation fashion, the train was overbooked so people just stood jammed up against each other in the corridors. And since it was Carnevale, everyone was covered in glitter and confetti and wine so it was basically just a continuation of the party that we had just left in St.Mark's Square. After a while I am thinking to myself 'well we will be at the next stop soon so all these people will get off'. But obviously the train stopped in the middle of nowhere for a good half hour to forty five minutes while people just tramped all over each other trying to steal a seat or find out what was going on. It was late by the time the train started moving again and I had never appreciated American transportation and its efficiency more than when I walked into my apartment and looked at a clock only to see that it was after 8 am. It was a long day (or night?) but totally worth it. And if anyone's going to be trapped on a train leave it to a bunch of college kids to make it fun. 
I hope everyone at home is doing good. I really wish you all could have seen Venice on Carnevale....it's more crazy than St.Patrick's Day at Station Square and Carson Street. It might be as great as a Superbowl or Stanley Cup Parade but I don't know about that. That's pretty tough competition. That's all for now. XOXO. Arrivederci!