You are given a choice: go to Rome or go to kids’ club. This can be referred to as being between a rock and a hard place. This is because both choices are equally terrible. If you’re clever, you’ll learn to avoid the situation where you’d have to choose between these two. I was not clever. These were the two choices presented to me, and I was unsure of which to choose. I knew that there was a 100% chance that I would hate the kids’ club. Although I had never been to Rome, I knew there would be an 85% chance I wouldn’t like. After thinking it through logically, I went with Rome. This was a mistake.
After sending the babies to kids’ club, I switched cards with Khoi’s grandmother because you need your own card to leave the ship. I was mainly only going to Rome for some pictures. My father was nagging me about those, so I had to get some. Not many people know, but I’m actually a professional photographer. I’ve also taken some videos, but I accidentally recorded some upside down, so half of them are worthless. Anyway, after exiting the ship, we went on a bus to some random place. This is when my trip to Rome went sour. I was under the assumption that we’d all be walking around while exploring Rome. This was not the case. There were some people with giant signs at the bus stop, trying to sucker some tourists into buying a bus tour. They’re annoying, but I understand that people need to make a living. I thought we would just ignore them while the suckers paid for the tours. Unfortunately, Khoi’s father is a sucker. Thus, we all piled into a giant van and took off to somewhere. There was a sign inside that said they had free Wi-Fi, so I was pretty excited due to the fact that I had been deprived from any type of internet for the last few days. I was planning to write my blog while on the trip, so the events were still fresh on my mind, so I was about to write something when I learned that the internet sucked. Khoi’s father is a sucker who got suckered into getting into this van and I got suckered into believing the Wi-Fi worked. The van was filled with suckers.
After a millennium of driving, we arrived at our destination. Our destination turned out to be this giant Colosseum. At least, I think it was. We never actually went inside. To any other person, they probably would’ve thought, Wow, this is cool! I was not any other person. I was an irritated boy that had just spent several hours in the car. Is this it? is what I thought when I saw the building. To this day, I still don’t know what the building was. I still took some pictures though, because it looked ancient and most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between an actual Roman building and an imitation.
We all piled back into the van to our next destination. This time, we were at Campo Marzio. I think. It was a a city looking place with large buildings on both sides of the road. Shoppers were walking around like it was a giant outdoor shopping mall. Everyone was carrying an umbrella, so if you watched from above, I’m sure it would look like a lot of moving circles. It pretty much was a mall with all the shops they had. However, just like the stores in London, most of them seemed to be selling fashion items, while I was just looking for food and souvenirs. We stopped at a cafe where we were supposedly getting a bite to eat. This was a lie. A few minutes after I sat down, my relatives kicked me out so we could go sightseeing. There was not much to see. A large flight of stairs led up to a giant church. I personally don’t believe in God, but the rest of my family does, so I was dragged along with them. Near the church was a stone engraved with Latin. I asked if it was written in Roman. TD said that they spoke Latin, not Roman. It appears that my dry sarcasm and comedic genius goes unappreciated by none. There wasn’t much to do inside the church. The only thing you could do is set things on fire. Candles, to be specific. I suppose they’ve learned nothing since Notre Dame burned down. You’re supposed to pay to light the candles, but I did it anyway without paying. That brings my criminal acts up to two: Leaving an unflushed toilet and not paying to set things on fire. I think it’s stupid anyway. It’s kind of sinful to try to profit off of some Christians trying to pray to God. Suddenly, that klutz TL accidentally blew out someone’s flames, along with their ticket to heaven. Nice going.
I really wanted to go back to the ship at this point, but these are my relatives we’re talking about. We still had about an hour before the van would come back for us. I’m pretty sure Khoi’s father did that on purpose so we would be bored. I returned to the cafe along with everyone else, and I finally got some gelatin. To share. With TL. I didn’t feel like eating after that. If you want more information about the cafe, watch my video log, which is going on my Youtube channel. There wasn’t much to take pictures of at the cafe, besides the gelatin and a statue’s behind. Then we finally left.
I wish there was something to write about our last destination, but I can’t. Nothing interesting happened, and we weren’t at an interesting place. So I’ll skip this one over.
When we got back to the ship, I headed inside first because everyone walks slow. Then I realized I could only go to the Boom Room because I hadn’t traded cards with Khoi’s grandmother. Once I entered the Boom Room, Stranger 1 kicked me out and told me to go to Khoi’s room and that they’d let me in. So I walked alone to Khoi’s room. Then I got lost. There were signs pointing me to the right directions, but I was on the opposite side of the ship. Therefore, I ended up walking down the same identical hallways again and again, wondering how to get to the room. I walked and walked and walked and walked. It took me about ten minutes just to go from one room to another. At last, I arrived at the room and knocked on the door. No response. I try again. Nobody. I try one last time. Nothing. Now what? I paced around near the stares which caused some people to stare at me. I thought of going back to the Boom Room for help, but it would take a year to return back there because I hadn’t discovered the shortcut on floor 6 yet. So I paced around some more until I decided to suck it up and endure the mundane walk back to the room. This was the exact time that the other boomers showed up, and I traded cards with Khoi’s grandmother. And then I had to walk back again to Khoi’s room. When I got there, they said I had to go to the buffet on floor 15. Great. The buffet again. I had the buffet for breakfast as well. I was dying of thirst anyway, so I went up to the buffet and got a lot of water. Another thing about the buffet is that they only serve juice during breakfast. Why? Just because it’s free doesn’t mean you have to deprive me of the things I need to live.
We ended up playing video games in my room, but Khoi was being an annoying brat by stealing the controllers and such. Eventually, the adults whisked him off somewhere. Kids get bored easily, so we ended playing with TL’s dirty shoe. I don’t know what came over me that made me decide to play with her shoe. I must’ve been delirious since I was so thirsty. There was a minibar with a lot of cold soda in it, but the adults are always harping on about how expensive it is. They act like it costs a fortune just to buy a can of soda.
The rest of the night was uneventful. Khoi and Vien were messing around and making a racket, but they eventually fell asleep. I sat awake, wondering what we would be doing tomorrow. Perhaps we would be doing something that didn’t include me being dragged along by the adults doing mundane tasks and waiting for no apparent reason. This all happened.