Roma...

After two days of incessant teasing by my hilariously sweet cousin, we headed to Rome. Our train was supposed to leave at 6:42am and around 7am we realized it hadn't arrived. I took myself into the station to find out from the station master what was going on. Apparently there was a scipero (strike) and our train was not going to be arriving at all.

Herein lies the problem, we needed to change trains in Monza to head to Milano Centrale to catch our train to Rome. The missing train to Milan completely threw off our schedule. Fortunately the station master, Antonio, offered to take us to Camnago. So we hopped into his little car, because all the cars in Italy are little. We managed to communicate very well with Antonio, enough to tell him about ourselves and to understand he has a four year old daughter named Bennedetta. We also understood when he warned us of the people in Rome and not to get into anyone's car with them...LOL...:-)

Antonio got us onto the train in Camnago and the attendent there was pretty sure we weren't going to make our 8:15 to Rome. So, in Cardona, we hopped off, the attendent directed us to the metro and told us to get on the M5 to Milano Centrale. Once at Centrale we made our way to informazione to try and get our ticket changed to the 9:15. After failing to get our tickets printed so the lady at informazione could make the change she sent us to the ticket office for an hour wait to try and change to the 10:15.

We're tired, but laughing and praying we don't end up with the cranky looking guy at the counter, which we did. We explained in broken Italian what happened and that we were sent to change the ticket and he informed us that we couldn't. After a couple of minutes he got up and came back to let us know they would change. Never had you seen happier and more thankful gals. We spent the next few minutes while he made the changes profusely thanking him in Italian. By the time we left him he was laughing and smiling at us. We ran upstairs, found a bathroom and found our train. The next few hours we chatted, slept and read.

Rome, here we come!