Day 30

Woke up early as of course I was excited for my trip.  Packed my bookbag and headed out walking 2 hours before my train left , where I would eventually catch a bus to the train station.

 Have I mentioned how much I hate public transportation in Rome?  I walked halfway to the train station than waited around for a bus and finally caught one that said station Termine(the train station).  After I got on, it turns out that it was going the opposite direction.  Crap.  Got off a half mile away and went to the other side to wait for the opposite direction bus that would head to the train station.  Found buses that would end up at the station, however all their drivers were taking breaks and laughing with each other outside.  Don't have time for that nonsense.  After waiting for 15 minutes I walked back towards where I had originally gotten on a bus.  Sure enough I see the one I had been waiting for pass me.  Ughh.  Time is ticking.  Walked towards Colosseum, realizing that I had only 30 minutes left before my train left.  Waved down a cab and cursing loudly to myself lept in.

Cab driver looked at me and put up the larger fare(they do try and take advantage of Americans, to which I just stared at him, and watched him lower it to the absolute lowest one.  Guess he kinda felt I was heated.  So it was then a race in traffic to get the the train station.  And by race...I mean crawl.  Like most things, traffic in Rome doesn't make sense, lights are all weirdly timed and people stop everywhere.  Time is ticking down while my fare was ticking up(based on time).  Finally made it with 15 minutes to go(after leaving 2 hours earlier) and went to claim my tickets.  Wouldn't work, no surprise.  Tried again and it finally worked for me, ended up climbing on with 6 minutes left.

Train ride was nice though.  Not very crowded.  Sat across from an Italian businessman who was going through accounting reports on the phone the whole time.  Probably annoying to some, but kind of interesting to me because all of the terms I understood and was trying to take a peek at the financial records to see if it was anything I know.

Beautiful countryside in Italy, really makes you forget about the city and all of the traffic there.



Arrived in Modena, not exactly sure what to make of the place.  Train stations are always rough places so I had difficulty judging what to think.  First newspaper I see laying around has on the front cover that an ATM had gotten stolen the night before.  Not just taken, ripped out of the wall.  Blue ink was everywhere from trying to mark it's captors.  Well...not a great sign.

I had the map and directions on my iPad, and even though I knew it was close, I had no idea in what direction.  There are no iPads here yet.  So to avoid causing any gleaming eyes, I would duck around corners to check the directions on my iPad.  All good so far, although it leads me down some alleys.  Keep ducking in and out of doorways to check it.

Wait...is that a $400,000 Bentley?  Ohh...so it's that kind of town.  I get it now.  Had no problem walking around and finding my way straight to my hotel after that.  How can I be worried about my iPad when there are much bigger fish to fry if someone was really looking to do something? Just gotta keep common sense and my head up.






Went out walking while it was still daylight out and visited some of the beautiful sights.  Modena is not a big town, so it was relatively easy to walk from one side to the other..without public transportation.

Visited this cathedral which was built in 1099 and has been standing since.  Very pretty.

Pretty little church dedicated to the rising of Jesus Christ.

Then I found a building dedicated to the Car Gods...

Turns out I was staying right across the block from Maserati headquarters.  Beautiful place.  I wanted to get inside, but they had closed 2 hours ago.  Tried getting in but the guard said something in Italian.  I pretended not to understand but he still wouldn't let me go.  Had to try another tactic.

"Me Piache Maserati" I told the guard.(I love Maserati).  The guard laughed and said I had two minutes to run in.

 Above:Inside of the Maserati Showroom.

Beautiful Maserati.












Deciding that wandering around Modena alone after nightfall was probably not a smart thing to do, so I retired to my hotel room and watched some media as I prepared for tomorrow.  Unlike Amsterdam, which was the first time I got to watch TV since I've been here, of course all of the channels were not in English.
Watched an Italian mafia movie for some time, then found a cartoon channel.

Yepp thats uhhh....that's Dora the Explorer.  But I have excuses!  It was on after Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny!  Some of the words were even translated into English for me to understand....

Oh well...better that than nothing. Thank you Hotel Europa!







Went to sleep early and set my alarm for possibly my most exciting day yet....a trip to see Ferrari.  Thank you all for reading!