Rome Day 2

Yesterday was an "administrative day" as we continue to address the kinds of daily details that enable us to stay here for a month.  Not on our agenda but urgent on awaking to no hot water was to contact the rental management company.  Not having hot water is a nuisance but not exactly out of the ordinary in this country where things mostly work, most of the time but sedom work all of the time, for reasons known only to Italians.  (Based on a conversation with a cab driver, that statement could also describe the Italian government.) Our agenda was to pick up our portable wifi, pick up train tickets and buy some replacement clothes, since Scott's luggage has still arrived.  But as always in Rome, there was more.  We went back to the Pantheon and played around with the physics of sound in a dome.  Meredith and Cecily backed slowly away from the center and found they could still clearly hear us once they reached the far wall.  Next it was on to Piazza Navona, where we were intrigued by a monk sitting still three feet  in the air, legs crossed and unsupported by any poles or wires that we could.  It's some sort of conjurer's trick but still impressive.  With very little effort we found the address for the WiFi pick up point.  We weren't even phased by the discovery that the name of the place is displayed only inside the store, and one simply had to use deductive logic to discover where your destination might be!  Transit passes were next on the agenda, which requires a cross town trip to Termini station, home to the world's largest collection of pickpockets and petty criminals.  The girls got an invaluable education on that aspect of Roman life.  Also valuable was the exercise of more deductive logic to figure out that the 70 bus actually gets one to Termini even though it doesn't say that it does on the sign.  The 7 is direct, but in the 90 minutes we stood at the bus stop watching the sign saying our bus was "arriving" while it never did,  we never saw one 7--only busses to other places.  For some reason not understood, there was a great chatter amongst the Italians halfway through our waiting and the entire herd ran to the other side of the road, grabbing busses in the opposite direction.  Finally, when our bus did come, not one but two coaches pulled up to collect all the people no longer waiting.  Needless to say, and unusually, we had a relatively uncrowded ride to Termini.  Props to Laura for figuring out the deductive logic around Italian navigation and props to Olivia who figured out the the  reader board actually counts down the number of stops remaining before the bus reaches us, and not the stops the bus will travel once (if) we board.  Once at Termini, we bought our weekly transport passes, interchangeable on busses, Metro and trains.  These can ONLY be purchased at Termini while tickets for any other single form of transport can be purchased at the local tabac--tobacco shop.  There is probably a logic to this that escapes me--perhaps the same logic that presumes that life's essentials--tobacco, postage stamps, girly magazines and bus tickets should be vendee together from  a single location, while the sale of specialty items such as multi-mode passes must be left to experts such as the newsstand operator at Termini.