Events
Roman Holiday - Brought to you by Tits -
Day 1: 5th August 2005
Here at LeedsMeUp.com, we’ve already expressed our hatred for travel. Which is why, when we were faced with a 20min walk, 75min train, 30min bus, 180min wait, 120min plane, 60min wait, 30min bus, and 30min taxi to our destination, the collected 9hr wait was not met with anticipation. We would just have to keep a positive outlook throughout.
The positive outlook however was chucked out the window, smashed to the ground, and destroyed by a speeding car when the Subway® we were promised at the airport proved to be just a myth.
At the airport was our first, (and last come to think of it) encounter with ‘that girl’. ‘That girl’ is a girl (and what looked like her mother) who followed us around, the whole of the travelling process. At first I thought this may have just been because East Midlands airport is the size of the Dry Dock. She was never out of sight, every check-in, passport control, every shop, every café, even on the plane.
Waiting for the shuttle bus, on the shuttle bus, even getting our bags out of the bus, she couldn’t help but jump in front of me, shoving her arse in my face. I’m sure she wasn’t too bothered, it was a nice arse.
You can imagine our disdain upon arriving at the hostel after a €40 taxi (we later found out for a €14 ride). All we wanted was to get to bed. After being directed to a pre-colonised room, we remembered the story of Goldilocks, and didn’t much fancy our chances. So we decided to just find a free one in the mixed dorm.
I’ll admit we hadn’t expected much from a hostel with beds from £7 a night, but I thought (and I still think) that £7 should have included a lock, maybe even a door would have done. We unfortunately got neither. The only thing, separating us from a visit from Mr. Big Hairy Rapist’s Italian counterpart, was a 2ft curtain. We slept with one eye open that night.
Day 2: 6th August 2005
10:00
Having to fight for sleep, as well as a place to sleep meant we only got down at 4am. So a 10am rise was about the best we could hope for. After a quick walk the night before, we were ready to tackle the morning in Hostel Tiber. Unfortunately ‘The morning in Hostel Tiber’ includes cold showers, and Windsor throwing shampoo bottles at you’re noggin (In Birds-Eye's case). But at least you get a lock on your door.
11:00
Showered off, we were brimming with anticipation of getting our bags, passports and fucking off out of this god-forsaken hellhole. Our main qualm, how safe would our bags be, left in a room with a tieback for a lock? I’m joking, it didn’t even have a tieback. Once we’d found the ‘secret’ luggage room however, our nerves were settled.
Once arrived at the ‘Prima Porta’ local train station, it became clear what this holiday was going to turn out to be. Faced with literally hundreds of photo opportunities of the ‘beautiful’ local graffiti, and general signs of suburban-hell, I just about came right there. Turns out I should have held it in, for there would turn out to be plenty more, better opportunities to cream myself (and not all the time over photography)
12:00
The free map we had been given at the hostel marked out 10 major tourist sights, as well as some lesser sights. The 10 pretty much covered the whole area of the city. So we decided over the three days we were there, to spread the areas out, and see how many sights we could cram in. (I’ve lost the map in the whole travelling business, but from memory, I think we managed to get 9/10. Not bad.
So it was decided that we would head first, for No.1, makes sense? This would help us cover the west and south of the city, seeing sight numbers 1,2,3,4, and 5. Then walk through the centre back to the station. Certainly a full and daunting day.
No.1 was The Vatican, we looked around, hoping the popemeister would roll in blingin’ it up in the popemobile, bangin’ some bitchin’ tunes n catchin’ sum scorchin’ rays. But sadly that never happened. Of course there were plenty a photos to be had, what with all the architecture in the place. Unfortunately we had to cut the visit to the second country of our trip short as a herd of schoolgirls strolled in and it all became a little too wrong. Even for us, I mean there’s a line you know?
?
After that we headed across to the river, after Windsor had stuffed 20 or 30 of those little folded pizza things down his fat head and fat throat, we finally got to sight No.3 (Sight No.2 was also in Vatican City) Some castle thing. We could have gone in for a sort of tour, but it was all of €5, and we didn’t have much time.
Like, half-hour after ?
Walked south, following the river (more or less) through the city.
N.B. This is where you find all the cute little alleyways. Even on a busy Saturday in Tourist season you can spend half an hour sat at a small fountain, and not see a soul. It’s amazing.
After stopping for a nice little riverside drink, and Windsor had fallen asleep, (again). We walked up to No.4 Some shitty fountain. It probably had some sort of historical significance, but I didn’t see any attraction, nor did anyone else really.
Bout 5 maybe?
And so we started the long walk back into the centre of town. The day had already been a big success. We’d all enjoyed the sights, and just taking in the wonderful architecture and culture of the city. However good the day had already been, it was about to get a lot better. No.5 was The Pantheon. I only know the names for 3 of the 10 sights, and two of them I already knew, this was one I only remember because I thought it was so nice. The actual building I think might be some kind of old church, but it looked more like a ‘Wetherspoons’ to me. (It’s that round building with the whole in the top). When the sun hits it right, you get a magnificent godlike shining light through the building. It’s like watching a sunset. I’m not sure if it was a church or not, but I’d say the building definitely had some sort of religious significance. There was some sort of Hymn taking place as a bird (probably just a pigeon, nothing special) was flying in perfect circles around the top, getting closer and closer to the hole. Every visitor was following it in an incredibly eerie silence.
18:30 – Windsor had a watch on.
There’s this square that is used for some sort of horse race apparently. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it but we stopped there for our evening meal. Very nice, and quite cheap at €8-€10 a main meal, considering it’s right in the centre, in a square next to a big tourist attraction. The food was cheap, but the beers were €6 each!
20:00
Anyway, after the meal, and a couple of beers, I’ll admit, we were in the mood. In the mood to plaster the city in a wonderful shade of LeedsMeUp.com, Sheen Unit style! We were convinced that this wouldn’t be just another night at Walkabout though, so we headed into the poshest looking bar we could find. After being shown to a table by possibly the best looking barmaid since LeedsMeUp.com favourite, Walkabout’s own Kelly, we were handed 4 menus. 10 seconds it took to bridge the language gap (i.e. for her to understand what we were looking for, and take the menus away again)
Continuing in the same frame of mind as ‘When in Rome, Do as the Romans do’, we had to get pissed in the style of Rome. Not really knowing what style this was, and not sure if Gloria (Fit Italian Waitress) would know what ‘Diesel’ was, we asked for assistance. She promptly returned to our table with a bowl of pistachios, a bowl of weird, hard orange nut things, and 4 glasses of pink stuff with lemon. I have no idea what it was, or even the Italian name for it. But it tasted like a cross between white wine, and Gin. And apparently it’s what all Italians drink when they start off a big night of drinking at about 7-8 o’ clock. Whatever it was, it did the trick.
Next Round
Mr Sheen, Windsor, and Birds-Eye Ordered 3 beers, then Gloria and myself had to face the complexities of putting Rum&Coke through the language test. Oh, and Tequila, ‘4 Tequilas’ I requested. Upon this request expressions instantly changed at the table. Windsor and Birds-Eye's eyes widened, Gloria’s smile doubled in size (Which at the time I feared impossible), and Mr Sheen's head dropped, dropped in the same fashion he was hoping Gloria’s knickers would be later that evening. Oh Mr Sheen!
It was about this time that Birds-Eye realised all these drinks we were having, we’d have to pay for. And we still hadn’t received any kind of a menu or had any clue of the price of any of these drinks. Normally, this might have been a time to worry. But thankfully we were drunk enough, and were too worried of embarrassing ourselves in front of the fit waitress to ask how much we were spending, so we just carried on.
Next Round
The next round was basically more of the same, however I think Gloria was getting the hang of it by now. Every time she came to the table, she’d perch her waistline against the table, leaning over us. Thus accentuating her breasts, accentuating right into Windsor's face. Instead of the normal Tequila we had in the last round, this was a special, extra extra strong brand of the shit. About 60-70% I believe she said. Well it certainly felt like 70%.
I think that was the last round, the last train was at 22:40, so we had agreed to leave the bar at 22:00, giving us plenty of time to stumble back to the station. There was talk of just spending all night in the comfort of not knowing what horrendous prices we were shelling for stuff you could use to start a nuclear war, but we decided against it, and opted for the bill.
The Bill
€128!!!!!One (and all those other jokes). Actually this wasn’t that bad, £95 between 4 was less than £24 each. Which for 5 strong drinks in an incredibly posh bar in Rome is not bad. However there was a problem with the bill. It was wrong. Basically, I think she’d charged us for an extra round of that pink stuff. Now I could go into a whole thing about British tourists getting fucked when they go away to foreign countries because staff know they have no clue about the currency, and don’t want to say anything. But I’m not going to do that. Yes, that may have been the case. It could have been Gloria trying to get some extra cash out of our (what at the time seemed to her like rich pockets), or it could have been the bar trying to do the same thing. But it equally could have just been an honest mistake. If you ask me, yes, they, or she might have been at fault. But we have no stance to complain unless we see it, and then say ‘Is this right?’ And that’s just what we did, so I’m not going to complain. Turned out the bill was somewhere in the region of €100.
Now considering the mistake she’d just made, be it with the bill, or trying to fool us. I can imagine the idea of a tip from us was alien to her, never mind a big one. I don’t know what the common amount you’re supposed to tip in Italy, or when dealing with the Euro. But I tended to balance it somewhere between 10% and 20%. This meant that we each should have given a tip of between €2.50-€5.00. Now don’t get me wrong, I was drunk, but it’s not a hard sum. I had no problem working that out. I think everyone else left tips in the region of €5. However I was struggling with the change and notes on the table as I didn’t have the right amount of each to add up to a €5 tip (what I was aiming for). I finally got there, then came the drunk part. I found out later, there was a €10 note missing from my wallet. Realising I must have just left it with the bill, I understood why on our way out of the bar, Gloria stopped us and gave us each a free shot of ‘green stuff’. Well what would you do after expecting to get nothing, you get 30% tip? I blame her for not offering blowjobs. Or it could have just been to say thank you for not causing a fuss about the bill. Either way, it was a free shot.
So after exchanging names, where we’re from, small talk, and cards with Gloria, we left into the night, promising to see her tomorrow. Bad thing was (I think she believed me).
22:20
In case you’re wondering, or hoping (whatever kind of sadistic sadist you are) we missed the train, you’ll be disappointed. I managed to drunkenly direct us to the station with ease, and time to spare. This meant we had time to stop off for another quick drink in a nearby bar. Upon there, we were accosted by another waitress. Actually I don’t know if she was a waitress, I never saw her actually serve anyone. My guess is that she was just the daughter of the owners of the bar. She couldn’t have been a day over 14, but was still whoring herself about the place. I mean seriously think about it. We are a group of 4 young, drunken, British, strapping, fit and healthy men. What did she think was going to happen when she introduces herself to us, tells us where she’s from and asks where we are from. I mean you’re not a stripper! Do you wanna get raped?! Lucky for her we’re not that kind of young, drunk, British, fit, healthy, strapping men, and that WE were there to stop Mr Sheen.
23:30
Upon arriving back at the Hostel we instantly opted for the bar, a White Russian Each, and another tequila. Whilst at the Hostel bar, as you do we got talking to a range of people, people from all over the world. As I recall, the first port of call for us was a couple of Australian girls. We were like ‘yeah, where’re you from’, they’re like ‘Perth’, and so on, and so on. It was all going swimmingly, until Mr Sheen stuck his head around the corner and shouted out in typical Mr Sheen style, ‘Australia’s Shit!’ Can you believe it, this was one of their buttons, of all the luck.
Birds-Eye had an encounter with the main barmaid, she sounded like she had an American accent, so Birds-Eye Inquired. ‘No I’m Canadian’ was the answer. Birds-Eye loves Canada, and he’s been there a few times, as she soon found out. In fact she found this out every single time she saw him that night. Leaving her mightily pissed off.
We spent most of the rest of the evening talking to some Dutch guys, I have no idea of anything we talked about apart from introducing them to ‘The Game’ (sorry) ((No, I’m not sorry, I’ve just lost it, you should too!)) This was probably all we talked about, it takes a while to explain to an Englishman, so it must have been hard.
01:00 – Bar closed
About half an hour after the bar closed, they turned the beer garden’s lights off. This caused people to gradually disperse back to their tents, caravans, or to fight for a bed. And soon enough, we followed suit. I believe we got in to the same room we had been in on the night previous, and collapsed onto our respective pillows. This lasted for all of 7 seconds, before someone (Birds-Eye tells me it was me) said ‘D’you wanna get some fanny?’ Which was promptly followed by us jolting upright out of bed with 3 cries of ‘yeah!’, and run back out again. Unfortunately, Mr Sheen's attempt to ‘get some fanny’ seemed to be just shout ‘Excuse me!’ over and over, and over again to get the attention of what turned out to be a guy. Then ask for a light.
After Mr Sheen was blown out by that guy, we decided to call it a night for real.
And for the last two nights, I’ll leave you in the very capable typing fingers of my Sheen Unit counterpart Birds-Eye.
Roman Holiday - Brought to you by Bird’s-Eye -
Day 3. Sunday.
Shocking hangovers from the night before. Enough said, really. The kind of hangover where you open your eyes and go “Ooohhh, no.” and instantly go back to sleep.
Despite feeling like a refugee in Poland (circa 1939), we braved the 30 minute trek into Roma, all the way holding down the entire contents of our stomach and quietly suffering near enough the worst headache we (and, most likely, the world) had ever experienced in our short lives.
Occasional acid flashbacks of the night before (and if you’ve just joined us, that looked like this: beer, beer, beer, tequila, tequila, some weird Italian drink, beer, beer, tequila, overcharged when the bill came, complimentary shot of something yellow and weird, beer, beer, beer, some moody Canadian bird, tequila and some Dutch blokes who decided to talk about football and golf) plagued our thoughts and mind’s eye.
Now, here is where the men get separated from the boy. Having all drunk the same amount of alcohol the night before, Tits, Myself and Mr Sheen were all raring to go the next morning (albeit, bottling our suicidal tendencies inside), desperate to get into the city and have another 14 hours of cultural bliss, admiring buildings and life in another country….
Windsor, however?
He threw up. A few times, in fact. And then went back to sleep while we all showered and got ready. He even contemplated not coming with us. Imagine that! Windsor was even considering NOT spending the day in Rome, merely staying at the ranch and sleeping. All day.
We had all drunk the same amount and got to bed around 4:00am. We all got up at 9:30am. But not Windsor, oh no.
One message, one lesson, one piece of information we got out of the trip was most definitely the confirmation that Jordan Barber is officially, wank.
But he doesn’t get away that easily, not with the remaining three members of the Sheen Unit at his heels every step of the way. Hangover or not, we dragged him kicking and screaming into the hot, steamy streets of the great old City. We took the piss on the train when he fell asleep and looked like he was going to tip his guts into the poor young Italian boy’s lap, in front of him. We even took the piss when he asked Mr Sheen for his walkman, “to distract from the sickly feeling”.
Oh, by God we ripped the piss right out.
That day, we walked the streets all day. Rome is beautiful and I would have been happy walking around all day, strolling past the great little cafes serving fresh, hot coffee and home made ice-creams with great flavours like ‘fudge crumble’ and ‘raspberry and pear ripple’. The Italians are people to admire. They can be overworked, underpaid, live in a sweltering country, breathe car fumes and smoke like chimney’s, but there’s one thing they all share:
They All Look Fucking Cool While They Do It
And They All Dress Like Fucking Style Gurus.
We should all be Italians. Maybe one day, we will be.
We saw plenty more attractions on this day, including the one and great, the only, the legend ---- THE COLISEUM. Yes, Maximums (and Russell Crowe) has fought and died here. This was an amazing structure, but it’s hard to imagine that it was once the biggest building anyone had ever seen.
Hard to imagine that this place, now a tourist and family day out hotspot, was once the epicentre of display’s of disgraceful public violence. Blood sport of the nastiest nature. Strange, that. But a beautiful structure, all the same.
I tried to take a photograph of a man dressed in a Centurion's outfit, smoking a cigarette and drinking a bottle of Sunny Delight. But he sneered at me and told me, in Italian, to fuck off.
Ah, the life of a photographer.
The rest of the day was spent basking in the beautiful Roman sunlight, taking photos and indulging in ‘the cosmopolitan’s’ takeaway pizza, from the many mid-street vendors that sold food of the best quality.
It’s strange for me to write up the days gone by. I could go on and on about what we did, list the entire trip in bullet point form. But no description of the environment will give anyone any type of idea of the visual images we were subject to for that three days.
Rome is, in one word: Stunning. And two words: Absolutely stunning.
Amazing, in fact.
When we finally got back to the accommodation, Tits and I met the two Dutch guys we conversed with the night before. The difference was, this time they were absolutely hammered and we were stone cold sober. We chatted about the differences between countries and continents and I felt bad about only being able to speak English (where as he could speak about five languages). We left them to fall asleep in their puddle of Bacardi sick and bedded down for the night.
We were flying home tomorrow, after all.
Day 4.
Up early-ish again. Today we sat around the pool and sunbathed. After feeling slightly deflated at the fact we couldn’t swim in the pool (you needed to wear a truly 70’s style swimming cap to be allowed into the pool – no joke), we sat around and sunbathed for the morning, and wrote/read/bitched about Windsor/sweated and felt disappointed we were leaving.
On the coach back to the airport, we all beamed with a half glazed, happily exhausted look on our face, upset we were returning to England, but glad to be going home.
The airport was fairly standard, checking in bags, sitting around and the like.
I got harassed by an Italian shopkeeper woman, who told me to “BUY THE MAGAZINE, NOT READ IT!” whilst I was flipping through a copy of GQ magazine with Jessica Simpson on the cover. I promptly told her, in English, to shove them magazine up her skinny, skeleton fucking arse and stormed out of the shop. She mumbled and grumbled something in Italian as I left.
Seriously, the cheek!
Then Mr Sheen ate TWO very large sandwiches (and was still hungry after he’d eaten every crumb).
So after the short plane ride back to England, we got on the York train. What was supposed to be a 50 minute train ride to Leeds, turned very quickly into a three and half hour “severely delayed” train ride to the capital city of the North.
We finally left the train with Deep Vein Thrombosis. Wicked.
Writing about the final day has been horrible. Your final day on holiday is always a full day, wasted. Dead, in fact. A full day in the city/location you pay for, but taken up with travelling, lugging your bags around everywhere and waiting for transport. Travelling 10 miles to the airport always takes 20 hours, when you could have got a taxi and got there in 15 minutes. This only occurs to you two days after you return home. Silly, that.
In conclusion, this trip was truly superb. So much so, writing about it seems wrong. I see the epic scope of such a beautiful city, be swallowed up by words typed on a screen. A little bit like seeing a beautiful sunset upon the horizon and taking a photograph of it – the scenery just disappears when you look at it through the lens; it gets swallowed up and condensed into something that doesn’t even come close to what you experienced on the day.
I think my message to everyone is this:
You’ve just spent twenty minutes reading about our trip to Rome, when you could have spent that time booking your own.
Go and see it.
Come home.
Then go again.
Fin.