121【Lady in the sky】Roman Holiday ep.3

We started sightseeing by taking the subway to the Vatican. The problem was, we didn’t have any coins or small bills, so we put a 50-euro bill which is about 9,000yen into the ticket machine. We didn’t really understand how to use it, and the moment my husband pressed the cancel button… the bill slot started flashing red, and the touchscreen completely froze. Of course, the money wasn’t returned either. I was like, “Oh no, it’s broken!” So I went to the staff member standing next to the ticket gate and explained the situation in English. But he just snapped at me, saying something like, “I’m not in charge of the ticket machine! You deal with it yourself!” — mixing English and Italian and kind of shouting. I didn’t know what to do… Then, suddenly, two really cool guys in uniform walked by. They had “ITAPOL” written on their backs. I asked them for help, and they were so kind. They listened carefully and even called the ticket machine company for us. But the company said they would come in three hours… which was impossible because we had a reservation at the Vatican. So, sadly, we had to give up on getting our money back. The two cool guys felt sorry for us and even helped us buy two tickets for 1 and a half euros each using a credit card at another machine. To say thank you, we gave them some Japanese rice crackers we had brought from Japan. We said, “Molto molto grazie!!” and everyone was smiling when we parted ways😊 Even though it was a rough start, Rome was absolutely beautiful. The whole city was just like the place I had dreamed of. We took so many photos! At the Trevi Fountain, a tiny old lady handed me her phone and asked me to take her picture. I had heard that there are a lot of pickpockets around there, so I was a bit cautious… but honestly, I thought, “Well, I can probably handle this grandma if anything happens,” so I took the picture. She gave me the sweetest smile, and when I showed her the photo so she could check it, she got super excited, saying “Grazie, grazie, grazie!” with big hand gestures. Then she joked, “I’m cheap, right?” and tossed a 10-cent coin into the fountain. We laughed, and we also threw a 1-euro coin in for good luck, hoping we could come back to Rome someday.