The Day We'll Never Forget

When in Rome...you need some excitement right? Well on our last day in Rome the Traveling Aggies were rewarded.

Event 1: The Return of the Luggage
Upon arrival in Rome, one of our fellow travelers, Katie Novak realized her large roller suitcase wasn't on the bus! We'd been using only smaller day bags in Italy because of the parking and the briefness of our stays in each city (arrive in the early afternoon, leave the next morning). Since we had 2 days and change in Rome, everyone got their larger bags and Katie got her pleasant surprise. However, luckily for her there was another AESU tour following our exact itinerary, but a day behind and their wonderful tour director, Jaime picked up her back where she last left it...in Austria several days before. Needless to say she was very happy to have her belongings returned to her.

Event 2: The Revenge of the T-Sips
During our wonderful city tour where we saw the Colosseum, Trajan's tower and the Pantheon among other things we stopped at the famous Trevi Fountain. The fountain is enormous! And around the semi-circular edge of it are overflow drains evenly spread out every 2 feet or so. The hole leading down to the drains are about 2 in by 2 in squares. Two of our fellow travelers are twins, Kristin and Kourtney. They are also a divided twins - Krisitin is an Aggie, Kourtney a Longhorn. And for one reason or another while walking along the fountain Kourtney ends up with Kristin's Aggie ring in her hands. And I didn't witness it myself so I don't how it happened, but Kourtney was bumped or stumbled and accidentally dropped Kristin's Aggie ring - the pride and joy of an true Aggie. And just like in the movies it bounced once in slow motion and somehow defied all odds and landed in one of the drain holes, clinging to a random edge over a foot below!

And the Aggie Spirit jumped into motion immediatley afterwards. Clothes hangers were donated by store owners, strings, magnets, little children with skinny arms were employed and whoever else was willing to help try to fish this ring out of the drain so as not to be flushed out into the river! Nick Bortka found an 8 foot metal pole with a hook on the end and me being the boy scout had a leather man with pliers to bend it as well as a flashlight to see down the drain. Needless to say we were quite the spectacle.

Over 30 minutes later of suspense and dread of the inevitable, Allison Bruce performed dare I say, a miracle and "hooked" Krisin's Aggie ring by swinging a piece of string with a bent clothes hanger tied to it at the bottom!!!! If she had missed, she would have easily knocked the ring the rest of the way down the drain. After the calming down from the emotional turmoil of the day, we calmly continued walking to the Pantheon! The Legend is that if you throw a penny over your left shoulder with your right hand into the fountain you either are granted one wish or will have a life of happines and love, but I don't know what Kristin would have received for throwing in her Aggie ring!

Note: It was completely accidental, Kourtney probably suffered the most agony while praying we got the ring back, so I can't juice up the drama anymore by saying she intentionally did it. She would never do that!

Event 3: Life is Balance
Black and white. Day and night. Yin and yang. Life is balance.

And after the miraculous recovery of Kristin's Aggie ring I guess we were due for a disaster?...Anyways, on our last metro ride of the trip I was pit pocketed! Got it right out of my front pocket. No one does this to ME! One of the girls maybe, but not ME, not to one the MEN of the trip! But sure enough, they got me. Here's the rundown:

It was our last free afternoon and Josh and I decided to try to check out one last museum (Capitoloni) that supposedly had sculptures and engines, good man stuff. Well the museum was closed...and so here we go

Mistake 1: Josh and I get split up on the JAMMED packed metro (only 2 metro lines for all of Rome's 4 million people)

Mistake 2: I try to be polite and hold my back pack at my feet and somehow get turned facing out towards the door

Mistake 3: I wore baggy Nike workout shorts and decided to be a genius and leave my camera and my wallet in my left pocket

Mistake 4: I grab the hand rail above my head, further exposing my left pocket. Practically putting a sign on wallet, "Take me!"

And sure enough as I soon as I stepped off at the transfer station Termini 2 short stations later I immediately feel only my camera and not my wallet and yell to Josh "I just got pit pocketed!" I turn to look for a suspect and am welcomed by literally thousands of people entering and exiting the metro. Game, set, match.

That was around 5. After waiting at a police station for an hour to be told that I can't file a police report without an ID, my phone dying while canceling my credit card, getting back on my favorite metro to go back to my hotel to retrieve my passport (which at least I had that!), then walking 30 minutes to a different police station to be told they're closed, and then returning a third time to my favorite metro to hike back to the original police station at the end of platform 1 (a.ka. China) I finally received my police report.

I always knew God had a sense of humor, but I didn't think it was that cruel! Anyhow, thanks for reading the vent. The world did keep spinning. I lost around $300 (another mistake, forgot to divide my money up after the ATM I went to the day before), my student ID card, check card and credit card. I still have my passport, received tremendous support and cncouragement from my fellow travelers who have become like extended family, and ended my night wonderful evening sitting on a statue, eating pizza and drinking an ice cold Heineken with money Josh loaned me, listening to an outdoor mass infront of a beautiful Roman church as the sun set.

Worse things could have happened. God humbles the proud and works in mysterious ways. I hope whoever stole from me used my money wisely and enjoyed it, because there was no way he/she was going to stop me from enjoying the rest of my trip in Greece...the next post will be shorter...I promise...well I promise to try to make it shorter...