Mike and I checked out of the ship and took a train (our last, thankfully) to Rome. The trip lasted about four hours and we popped out of a train station in the heart of Rome. As we made our way to the cab line in front of the station, a man approached us offering a fare of 45 euros. Thinking that was too pricey for a three-mile trip to the hotel, I told Mike to turn him down for the cab line. Thankfully, by doing that we saved ten euros.
So, let that be a lesson to you all: in a big foreign city, take the organized cab line over the independent seller. The independent guy miiight try to rip you off.
[End uninteresting story.]
Rome --> Home
We stayed overnight in a cheap three-star hotel before flying out. At this three-star hotel was a really bad and overpriced breakfast buffet. For fifteen euros I had really bitter ricotta cheese, incredibly tasteless salami slices, and overwhelmingly rich hot cocoa (which is saying a lot of a self-proclaimed chocolate addict). Why I had that combination? Because everything else looked depressing and inedible.
Mike skipped out on the breakfast. I ate because I thought, Fuel up now or get hypoglycemic symptoms later.
I regretted that.
We took a shuttle to the airport. The driver's loony pace on the bumpy roads starting working horrible wonders to my motion sickness. I looked around in a panic for something in/onto which to heave, deciding on Mike's jacket. But, preferring not to draw attention to myself among a group of seven, I worked hard to keep my stomach tame for the time being.
I thought the feeling would improve once we got out of the shuttle, but it remained while we were at the airport. This was definitely not motion sickness. The bulldogged discomfort was telling me it was food poisoning.
Just my luck.
From the shuttle to landing in LAX, it was Holly's mind (concentration) versus her body (digestion)--a lengthy battle that eventually landed her at the doctor's office. Somehow I survived a ten-hour flight from Rome International to New York-JFK without saying hello to my breakfast again, and never had I ever had that much Sprite (I don't drink soda, period).
After landing in JFK, we had to re-check in our bags. Why? Beats us. With enduring pains, I stood in line with Mike near the front doors of the terminal. And I say "near the front doors" because the line was worse than that of the chocolate buffet on the cruise.
The pains continued into LAX, where we discovered we had missing luggage. At around 1 AM on a Friday, we finished reporting our lost luggage and hopped in the car toward home. I had to purchase new toiletries while we waited for our suitcase. A few days later we got word that it made its way back to Spain (where we began our trip) from JFK and didn't bother to take us with it!
Another lesson learned: don't travel via American Airlines, and don't fly through JFK if you can help it.
The next week I went to the doctor and learned I didn't have food poisoning after all; instead--and I'm going to admit this to the public--I was really backed up. Apparently that can disrupt stomach digestion. Not only that, while trying to recover from this I was "over-medicating" with my routine medication, my new medication, Dramamine, and something else that I can't remember. Maybe it was mineral oil.
A third lesson learned: if you don't poop while on a two-week vacation, that's bad.
