The next morning, Beth left to fly to NYC to do an interview at NYU for a law school scholarship, and my mother and I set out to find a pair of tennis shoes for her, and I needed a few items myself.

After grabbing lunch and wandering around the Colosseum, we walked back to the enormous department store to browse the merchandise. We started sifting through some 1 Euro t-shirts when one of the store employees came over and started hovering over us. A bit uncomfortable with this overly-cozy arrangement, we moved on. As soon as we did, the woman pounced onto the shirts and began refolding them, since we clearly had not done a thorough enough job. (more…)

Beth: The next morning we headed to Terminal Station. Lauren was going to take the train to the airport to pick her mom up. As soon as we arrived at the station, we realized that the train to the airport didn’t run all that frequently, and the next train was leaving soon. Lauren left her large pack with me and ran for the train.

Lauren: I ran to the train and jumped through the doors just as it was pulling out. Once again, I made it in but my bag didn’t, and I had to wrestle to pull myself and my bag all the way into the train. I tugged and wiggled with all my might, and finally got it free, staggering ungracefully into the arms of one of the uniformed train attendants who had been watching my performance. (more…)

Our short week in Egypt prepared us for what could have been a horrible culture shock as we landed in Rome. In the last two weeks, we had been in 5 different countries (Uganda, Kenya, Qatar, Egypt and now Italy), going from a small island without electricity in East Africa to four-star hotels in the Middle East to now what would be our biggest expense thus far on the trip: a Best-Western Hotel in Rome.

We had looked into staying in hostels in Rome, but with the declining value of the dollar and between paying for two beds in a hostel, we decided it was worth the extra money to get a hotel and clean up. And my colleagues at Fenton had given us traveler’s checks to spend on a nice hotel in Shanghai (oh well), so we logged on to Hotwire.com and agreed to a “mystery 3-star hotel in the city center, just a few stops away from Terminal Station.” (more…)