"I knew I should've stayed home today..."

We awoke from our cold slumber (I would've put "hibernation" but it sounded like a medical condition) to a mildly sunny Sunday morning. It was almost too good to be true! Could today really be a happier day for us?

Hmm... let's put it this way: before we left the States, someone suggested we name our to-be scrapbook about the trip "A Series of Unfortunate Events". If I ever find who said that, I will personally strangle them with a Gamecube controller cord.

First came the "Not your bus!" episode. When we tried to board the charter buses with the other reinactors, we got several people talking to us in Italian. They finally found a translator, who struggled through anything from "Where are you from?" to "Where is your group?" in an attempt to help us. We thought she meant, "Where is the REST of your group?". Oh, no; she was asking where our group's bus was. Weellll... we had just hopped on the last available seats to go to the banquet the night before! We didn't have a bus. So when she told us, "This... this not your bus," we panicked. How were we going to get there?

Fortunately, some other group let us jump on with them. The girls (plus Lee and Miss Teri), Jordan, and Andrew rode with the Bacchanalians (which turned out to be a bunch of people singing --in Spanish, wasn't it?-- and bearing the most realistic adhered horns on their heads), and Patrick and Papa Phil jumped on with the group they called "Grumpy-Old-Men-Re-enactors, Italian Edition." It was a short ride, thankfully... I was getting a little wary of the guy across the aisle from me, whose horns looked unreasonably sharp. YIKES.

It was starting to cloud up in the distance as the buses slowed to a halt. And even then, outrproblems continued after they had dropped us off across the street (and nearly a block away) from where the other re-enactors had congregated. Had I known I would have to run across a busy Roman street at Patrick's heels, I would NOT have worn sandals without a heel strap. In any case, we found our way through the crowd to the head of the event (who called himself Nero o_O) and asked him where we were supposed to be. He showed us a paper of "formations" that instead resembled a text version of a pan of lasagna, and cheerfully told us he had to go deal with everyone else and ran off. Dazed, confused, and overtired, we resigned ourselves to stay put between the groups on either side of us. OY. V_Va

Our formation? Naomi and Katina were in the front with their bright, cheerful, and particularly too-thin-for-rain costumes; I was between Patrick and Andrew, and we were second in line; Chrissy and Abigail were behind us; Miss Teri and Lee followed them; and last came Jordan and Jennifer. Papa Phil was on the sidelines, filming the parade. Luckily for him, he had enough camera equipment that no one thought he was one of "those weird Americans" and he was not questioned or stopped by anyone. Phew...

The cool thing was, we got our own flag-carrier! \^^/ She was a nine-year-old Italian girl named Sylvia (and like almost everyone else, she spoke no English) who had either volunteered or been volunteered by her group. Her mother wasn't far off, and she had briefly spoken with Lee (because she spoke enough English) before we set off in our cozy little formation. Sylvia was placed at the front, shyly carrying the American flag she had been given.

As the parade went on, we heard an ominous booming in the distance. My head shot up from where I'd been trying to stare at Katina's ankles, and I swallowed nervously and said, "please tell me that was a drum horribly off-rhythm..." But a loud crack of thunder caused us all to jump. As we had feared, the clouds were getting bigger and darker by the minute, and heading straight for our precession. By the time we had nearly reached the Colosseum, a light shower had started to fall on our heads (and down our necks, which was cold!). The eternal optomists of our group -counting myself- agreed that in a matter of moments, the rain would stop and the sun would be out again.

Ha.

The bottom dropped out of the clouds. In a matter of moments, the rain had gone from an uncomfortable shower to a fabulous downpour. I think the appropriate term, as used throughout the area of the South in which I live, is actually "Gully-warsher" or "frog-strangler." Whatever the case, it was a lot of rain on a lot of people who had no means of shielding themselves. Sylvia, our poor flag-carrier, was taken to the sidewalk by her mother and sheltered under an umbrella; we felt so sorry for her, as frozen and half-drowned as we all were. Andrew took the flag and we reassembled our fleet a little: Patrick was between Naomi and Katina now, and I was between Chrissy and Abigail.

We made a few unscheduled turns along the way, because Nero came and directed us to follow a troupe of dancers and some gladiators through the Forum. Apparently, we were at the "important" end with all the "important" people, though we had done nothing (consciously) to earn the honor. It was weird o_Oa but kinda cool.

Eventually, we joined the rest of the parade, and by the end of it all we had been offered a ride to lunch by a group of guys (Katina wasn't too upset about this) and stood huddled under the only tent for several miles. Trust me, we had just walked those miles, and we knew this was the only place to stand. Plus, it was where the bus would pick us up. And dry. Cold, but dry. We all huddled as tightly as we could, and I ended up resting my forehead on Patrick's back, partially hugging Katina, and squished between Andrew, Naomi, and Abigail. Katina was shivering uncontrollably (as were we all, but I fear her flair for the dramatic was trying and get further sympathy out of our oldest young companion; I was, however, in no position to be skeptical without making others scornful of my disgusting jealousy and ashamed of my utterly selfish behavior), and no one's breathing was regular. Normally I have fear of being trapped in such a crowd, up to the point at which I get violently desperate for personal space or make myself as small as possible and cry, but I suppose this only shows how a basic need can overcome an irrational phobia.

Also, some of us were able to strip their top layers of dripping wet costume, tolerating their mostly wet topmost undershirt (yeah, I was THAT prepared) for when they found a dry place to wear just their middle and lowest undershirts. Oh, and my jeans had been under my costume the whole time with the legs rolled up around my knees. ^^v Hooray for my mother, who taught me to prepare for everything except the end of the world!

The troupe of dancers (all female, and the very same that Patrick and Andrew had... enjoyed... the night before) offered to give Katina a ride in their van, and unbeknowst to Miss Teri, she jumped at the opportunity to be warm and left with them. Soon, our bus came, so we boarded eagerly in hopes that Katina was safe and dry, and that we would be, too. It wasn't much warmer than it had been outside, but our surroundings kept getting better -- at least now we could be cold, wet, and slightly miserable with additional elbow room.

Just think: all this has happened, and it's only just lunchtime!

Okay, we arrived at the restaurant where the other re-enactors had already arrived. We searched desperately for Katina, and we were very surprised to see that she had changed clothes. Now whatever she was wearing, it was blindingly emerald green. She told us that the dancers had borrowed a tablecloth and pinned her together in the bathroom, then frog-marched her in the direction of the closest heater. After we fould our table (which had been reserved), she took us by the hand individually and we all had turns at the heater... oh, the sweet feeling of hot, dry air on your wet skin! By the time I got back to the table, my feet were still blocks of ice, but I didn't care -- I was warm, dry, and soon to be full. And sitting by Patrick. I evilly enjoyed the idea that Katina was probably jealous from the other end of the table. *grin*

In all honesty I don't remember what we had for lunch. It disappeared too fast from my plate for me to become well-acquainted with it. But it was probably pasta ^^a Always a safe bet in Italy, eh? It was probably closer to three or four in the afternoon before we all finished and got out of there.

But our day was still to be eventful yet. Someone -probably with the dancers, because they were everywhere- caught Katina by the shoulder and said, "Be careful, they might want that back!" and pointed to her tablecloth fashion statement. Those of us who were nearest to her (including myself, Papa Phil, Patrick, Naomi, Abigail, and Miss Teri) panicked. Papa Phil quickly told her to bundle up in her jacket and we smuggled her out of the restaurant. Unfortunately, by the time we found our way out, the rest of our group had vanished. We hurriedly searched buses in hopes of finding them, but to no avail (and they were going back to their respective countries, anyway); then we turned and, to our horror, a bus we hadn't checked was speeding off down the street. Wouldn't you know, our group was on that bus, and now we were without a ride.

I want to take a moment to praise Papa Phil. Without him, we would've been completely lost and not nearly as calm as he kept us. He immediately took charge and shuffled us to the nearest bus stop, checked the schedule, and cheerfully told us there would be a bus along in a few minutes. From there, we could navigate back to Camping Fabulous between a couple buses and two or three Metro stops. So, when our bus came, we hopped on and took a seat.

Keep in mind, more than half of our traveling circus was in street clothes, two were in costume, and one was in a tablecloth with a gold hairpiece on her head. It's safe to say we got some weird looks.

After the bus ride, we took the Metro to Termini and Papa Phil decided we should stop and get some food for breakfast the next day. Having had very little to eat that morning, we grimaced at the memory and agreed in unison, and after forty-five minutes in a basement supermarket (which was so cool!), we continued the remainder of our trip. If I failed to mention this before, compared to where we were at that moment, Camping Fabulous was on the end of nowhere. I sorely wished I'd brought a book, because it was going to be a while.

We got to our last bus stop and waited a few minutes for our ride, but night had already fallen and we were getting hungry again. Papa Phil's groceries were looking very tempting... but I reluctantly refrained. After all, it was only going to be a little farther, right?

Right.

In short, we got on the bus, rode, and we were so tired that we forgot to watch where we were being taken. After a little while, Patrick looked suddenly alert and glanced out the window. Then he said, to our horror,

"Dad, wasn't that our stop?"

Oops.

We got off at the next stop, which was a little over a half-mile from our intended destination. So... cold, tired, hungry, sore, and minorly lost, we started walking in the direction from whence we came along the side of the road. I was in the back, wistfully listening to Patrick, Naomi, Katina, and Abigail talk about things I had no idea about. I was sad, because after all we'd been through, they had apparently forgotten to include me. I had tried very, very hard to be their optomist, and still contented myself to believe that I could wait for them to notice how quiet I was. And even though they didn't and continued talking, I trudged along behind them until Miss Teri pulled up alongside me. She and I talked for a little bit, and after a bit of silence between us she requested I walk on the inside with her closer to the road.

As we turned down the road that led to Camping Fabulous, Miss Teri slipped and fell before I could catch her. Katina helped her mom to stand, asking all the usual "are you okay? Are you bleeding? Are you hurt?" questions. Then she immediately rounded on me, blaming me for not protecting her mother by walking close to the road instead of making poor Miss Teri do it. I tried to explain, but Katina wouldn't hear of it, and she took Miss Teri farther up and walked between her and Papa Phil. Once again, I was in the back of the group, and I followed them with hot tears of indignation burning in my eyes.

But, we were all tired and miserable again, so perhaps it wasn't her fault I was so angry.

When we got back, we found Lee in utter relief that we had finally returned. She had worried herself sick because the buses wouldn't go back for us, and had held a sit-in at the front desk of Camping Fabulous until our group was either reunited or given better accomodations. Fortunately, both were eventually granted -- we now had heat, hot water, and a dry place to sleep. Oh, joy of all joys!

And as a wise man once said, "That which does not kill us, makes us stronger."