Day 11 - Guest post

 Hi there! 

Jumping in here with a guest post to fill in the blank of a travel day and a sick kid.

 Yep, both Gwen and I have managed to come down with some kind of minor cold. I'm mostly over it - at most, a few sniffles - but Gwen's kind of peaking today, so she's off blogging duty in hopes she'll take the opportunity to get a bit more sleep (dubious at the best of times, but also, see my comment our lovely Italian air conditioner at the end...). 

Today was our last in Bristol and first in Rome. We checked out at noon, and planned to watch the first of the two Women's World Cup games at the Bristol "Fan Zone" - a large area in the middle of the city with a big screen showing the games, with games to play, food trucks and other things. Unfortunately, the weather didn't co-operate (our experience with weather in Bristol didn't exactly disprove any British meteorological stereotypes...) so we decided to skip the Fan Zone.

Since the airport bus runs eight times an hour, we didn't have to worry about an abrupt change to plans - we just decided to head to the airport immediately. We thought we could watch the game on an airport TV somewhere.

Our Bristol Airport experience was certainly... educational.  I don't mean to be snide - it's not that it was negative - only that it's an airport set up on a model that I'm really not familiar with. It handles 10.5 million passengers a year, putting it between Edmonton and Calgary in a Canadian context - so it's big. However, almost all of those passengers are: a) using discount airlines such as RyanAir or EasyJet b) British and local to Bristol - the airport doesn't have much inbound tourist traffic, and c) vacationing (not travelling for business or connecting through the airport). 

That combination of factors meant a few things: There were signs warning about the penalties for "Drunken Behaviour" all over the place - people getting drunk in the airport before a flight to a Greek or Spanish beach is clearly a problem. There were also a grand total of ZERO televisions in the entire airport. (Not counting the TVs used as monitors to display flight information). I think that's because, in 2025, when all of your passengers are local, you can simply assume that people who want to watch something will be able to stream it on their devices.  Finally, it's CROWDED. There were people everywhere in a way I've never seen in a Canadian airport. Clearly, by cramming everyone in, costs are kept down, so prices are kept down, and that's at the end of the day what many people want. I can't say it was pleasant, though!

The flight was uneventful, and we took a direct train into the city (Rome - it's Sunday, so we're in Rome, right?). We're joining our group tour tomorrow, so we were on our own for finding a spot to stay tonight. Kes found a perfect place - cheap, clean and near the train station. However, it certainly fulfills a certain stereotype. It occupies the 2nd floor (only the 2nd floor) of a 4-story apartment building. The room is very small. Though, as I said, everything is clean, it doesn't look like anything in the room is younger than about 1985 - but possibly 1965. The beds are solidly hard - probably more comfortable than what we sleep on while camping, but maybe not. The air conditioner - a plastic monstrosity on the floor near the window - cycles through two modes: noisy-but-effective and quiet-enough-to-let-you-sleep. Of course, when it's done the latter long enough that you're sleepy, though overheated, it reverts to the former. In the morning, we'll see how well we've slept, and whether any of us have taken an axe to it over the course of the night.

 In general, our trip is going really well, and we're really looking forward to this next phase - Italy, let's go!