The lil’ dude and his family…

We left KL on 18th of December and arrived in London close to midnight. Weather? Well below freezing point. The plane ride? Quite good. Airport hotel? Mengarut to the max!

Since we were planning to take the first flight out of London to Rome the next day, I didn’t see the point in staying in a posh hotel for 6 hours. So I booked us in a small hotel that only costed us about £39 per night. Not too shabby, right? Wrong! Apparently the hotel couldn’t “claim” the money from my credit card (because I had to send it back to the bank since the CVV couldn’t be seen anymore) and so we got charged £79 instead! Blardy hell, had I known, we’d have just stayed at Hilton for that same amount of moolah. Dahlah kasi bilik kat atas and then berbau rokok. Gah!

Fast forward to the next day, it was our flight to Rome via Ryan Air. The queue at the airport was massive because I guess everyone wants to go home/somewhere for Christmas but we managed to sort our luggages out (1 bag per person and 15kg per bag and it doesn’t matter if you’re travelling on the same itinerary because there is to be no pooling of weight amongst the 3 of us - it was quite hell-ish packing 3 bags and making sure that they’re all 15kg per bag) and waited for the annoucement for our boarding gate. Ryan Air has already a month before the flight sent out an email saying that our flight would be delayed by two hours (and that has made all the necessary arrangements in Rome and Sorrento go haywire) and when we got passed security at Stansted, we were told that the flight would be delayed for another two hours! Guh-reat!

Upon arriving at Ciampino Airport, which is relatively small (and quiet) even by our LCCT’s standards, we had to go pick up the rented car to drive to Sorrento (Southern Italy). With 3 luggages, a stroller and a toddler, you’d wish that the rental car office/desk is in the airport itself, right? But nope, we had to drag everything with us for about 15-20 minutes walk outside with cars going in every direction.

Traffic getting out of Rome was quite bad but getting into Sorrento was even worse! Everyone was out shopping or dining and instead of arriving at our destination 2 hours after we left, I think it took us about 3.5 hours to get to the hotel. By the time we settled in, it was almost 8pm and with the wind from the sea blowing directly at us, I was freezing as h*ll!

The next day, we drove around Sorrento, Positano and Amalfi Coast. Not many restaurants were opened but we managed to find a small and quaint Italian/Mediterranean restaurant that served one of the best stuff I’ve eaten during our trip. :) Irwan had fun negotiating the bends from Sorrento all the way to Amalfi Coast.

We headed back for Rome after spending 2 nights in Sorrento and got to our cute lil’ hotel near the Termini Station after going through more jams in Sorrento and Rome. Sigh. What a waste of time, man!

It rained the next day but we had two umbrellas with us and Irfan was having fun playing in the rain as well. We visited lots of fountains and monuments and churches and by the end of the day I was feeling tired from walking in the rain and suggested to Irwan that we should take the train back instead. What a big horrendous mistake that was. :(

At the Barberini metro station, there was hardly anyone around us when we were waiting for the train. So when the train arrived, we immediately boarded it but to our surprise, someone was sort of blocking Irwan and the stroller and I felt something amiss because never in my entire life of travelling anywhere that such thing has happened before. People would always give way to a parent with stroller.  2 seconds later I could feel that there were at least 5 people behind me trying to push their way in. And we were still trying to get the stroller inside the blasted train. 3 seconds later, I felt someone’s hand inside my handbag (which was zipped) and tugged it immediately! As though on cue, the perpetrator who was “blocking” our way moved in and so Irwan and Irfan who was in the stroller could go in. I related to Irwan in BM about what happened and while talking to him, I looked at my handbag and sigh, the zip was opened and my wallet gone. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to hit all the bitches that were behind me but all I could do was cry. Rome was the start of our journey so I do have quite a substantial amount of cash in my wallet. Yes, I wanted to leave them in the safe deposit box but because we were rushing in the morning, I completely had forgotten all about it. All the what ifs, could haves, should haves came to mind but my RM3,500 will not come back to melah, kan? Next time, just use the blardy credit cards! Even if that means wreaking havoc in the budget but at least the money was spent on me and not some stooooopid gypsies. Urgh! I seriously hope they’ll die a slow painful death. Gah!

So then I had to make all the necessary calls to Malaysia to cancel my credit cards and asked from AMEX and VISA for a replacement card since I’ve got no cash whatsoever to survive. :P Next was to walk to the nearest police station to make a report but I was turned away because I did not have any ID (passport was left at the hotel) with me. Habis tu, dah my wallet kena curi? Duh! We had to walk for about 30 minutes (because I just refused to take the train again since they can’t even letak bloody CCTVs in the metro station knowing that this pickpocket business is so rampant there!) and I just wanted to collapse. All my energy was gone and I was furious, upset, disappointed, etc etc and I didn’t have an ounce of energy left to walk to the Termini station to lodge the report. But we did anyway.

Upon arriving, there was an Arab couple who was pickpocketed and just before we left, there was a group of Japanese people who shared the similar experience as well. In a span of 1 hour and in 1 police station, 3 people were making reports that they were pickpocketed. I wonder if the same ratio applies in Kuala Lumpur. Hrmmmmm…

Anyway, I couldn’t really sleep that night but vowed not to let this sh*tty incident affect our holiday. Sh*t happens and there is nothing I can do about it. So the next day we hopped on the “hop-on-hop-off bus” and toured the whole of Rome.

Here are some photos from our journey and I will continue on in the next post. :)