Hot Potato

Today was another crazy hot day the thermometer reached a whopping 93 degrees. Great day to get textbooks, no? Thats what we thought too. Sadly, we did come here to study and not just explore, so off to get textbooks we went. We had a map, so we thought we could knock that little task off our lists lickety-split. How wrong we were....

The journey began by trying to track down bus 116. The directions told us the wrong location so we wandered around for a while before we were successful. Once we got on the bus, we realized that it was going the wrong direction (we needed 116t, not 116) so we got off at the first stop and went across the block to the other bus stop. When the bus approached the stop we got on and realized that it was the same bus we got off. Turns out at the end of the line it turns around and goes the other direction. Who knew? Then came the most frightening experience of my entire life. Sitting in the bus while the driver careened around the roads like a mad man. There were times when I thought he was going to take the lives of several pedestrians (he did not).

When we got off we were near the Spanish Steps, so we thought we would explore before we got our books. So we took some pictures and sat in the church at the top of the stairs and listened to part of the mass. It was such a beautiful church and the homily (though I understood only bits of it) seemed very good, it held the nuns in rapt attention.

After climbing down and around the stairs we were famished, so we went off to find lunch. We settled on a cafe that had an air conditioned inside (remember, crazy hot day). That was a very interesting experience. Our server gave Erica a plate of potatoes (that came with her meal, or so we thought) and then came and took them back. He walked back to the kitchen and two minutes later brought the same potatoes out and gave them to the table in front of us. It was so weird (and very much like a game of hot potato). The couple caught on to what had happened and spoke to him in rapid Italian, they got a free dessert. Then the table next to us got their food before us, even though they came after us. It was like they gave preference to native Italians. Like I said, strange.

Next we went off in search of the bookstore. What was supposedly 250 meters away turned into a 30 minute walk. Then when we got there, they did not have one of my textbooks. Awesome. So I will be going to amazon or something to get the book. Luckily I don't have readings from it right away, so I do have some time. Here is the best part of the story, bus 116 picked us up right in front of the bookstore. This also means that it would have dropped us off in front of the bookstore. Conclusion, we were given awful directions to find the bookstore. What took us the majority of the day conceivably could have taken one hour. But, at least this way we got to see the Spanish Steps. "Boo" for bad directions, but "yeah" for exploration!