Possibly, some of you who have little else to worry about have been asking yourselves why I haven't written anything for ages. Well folks, there's been a whirlwind of activity in recent weeks!

I was in Munich, then in Rome, then in New York, then in Hanover, and now back in Munich. That's the very short version of events. But now for something a little longer:

Picking up where my last blog left off, on my second day of rubber-stamping I was too efficient for my own good, so on the third day they moved me to the sorting office. There I was given the task of alphabetising rejected applications to the Uni. My heart sank.

I alphabetised like a frenzied librarian on speed, and they were impressed so after lunch I was promoted to putting away the accepted applications in filing cabinets (alphabetically of course). My heart reached somewhere about the level of my thighs. After a few hours of that, I was eventually allowed onto the computer OOH GOODY to update the applications with a note to say they had been filed.

One girl showed me how to do this, and then got me to do it to show I had learned it. I did it too quickly for her, so I had to do it again slowly to prove that I hadn't missed out any of the three steps. Argh! I could feel my heart pressing itself into one of my feet.

The work was so incredibly dull, I could only console myself with the thought that it was my last day. So when I heard the overseer ringing my temp agency and asking to extend me I nearly died. He came over to me and sounded most disappointed that I only had two more days working for them, but looked forward to seeing me on Monday. I nodded weakly and began to fall very very ill.

No, to be fair, I was already coming down with something. Perhaps that's why my alphabetising was so feverish: because I was. Anyway, my body rebelled at the news that I would have to come back for more synapse-dissolving filing work and by that evening I had a massive 'flu. I was basically bed-ridden all weekend and was still ill enough on Monday to go to the doctor and have myself written off sick. It was SUCH a pity that I couldn't work at the Uni any more...

Thankfully though, by the time Christian & I flew to Rome on Thursday afternoon I was feeling much better. We nearly didn't make it onto the plane though, because Alitalia's check-in machines don't like Alitalia's online ticket purchase reference numbers. I got a boarding pass but Christian didn't. Of course, there were no humans anywhere we could go to for help. We just queued up to hand in our luggage and were informed that we would have to wait until everyone else was checked in before they could confirm our seats. Argh!!

Bloody airlines and their overselling of seats, honestly. We were shoehorned in at the very last minute (there was a group of four that didn't make it) and flew down in one of the smallest planes I've travelled in in a long time, with just two seats on either side of the aisle.

Rome's Fiumicino airport greeted us with a blast of hot stale air on the ground, and we were treated to a fabulously blood-red orb hanging low in the sky as we walked through the many glass tubes that lead from the terminal to the railway station. It was the kind of rich, almost purple sunset that you can only really get in cities that are smothered with smog. I was reminded of Santiago de Chile.

The trains were all late, so we had time for a coffee - ah! the coffee in Italy! always a pleasure - and to look in a map book to try & locate our hotel (I had foolishly not printed out the how-to-get-there instructions). After some confusion, I located what I thought was the nearest Metro station and once in Rome we made our way there.

Sadly, I had got it a bit wrong. The Metro, Valle Aurelia, was nowhere near the railway station we actually needed, Stazione Aurelia. The security guard in the station helpfully told us which bus to get (there was no Metro connection) and, only 45 minutes later, a bus picked us up from the windswept overpass atop which we were standing, lorries and coaches thundering past us as they laboured up the slope.

It was a bus ride of a good half-hour, during which time we left civilisation, joined a motorway, passed a big road sign with "Roma" crossed out, and frankly started fearing for our lives. When we finally reached our stop, which incidentally was the terminus of the bus route, the description on the hotel website "close to the Vatican" loomed absurdly over the desolate wasteland we found ourselves in, with only our bus driver, a homeless drunk and the hiss of the cicadas for company.

I rang the hotel, only to learn that in Rome you have to book your own cabs, no-one's allowed to book a cab for you apparently. So I rang the cab number the receptionist gave me, and explained that we were at Aurelia station and needed a cab to take us to our hotel (the bus driver hadn't heard of the hotel or the road it was on). The woman on the other end of the line said "what road are you on?" and I said "Aurelia station" and she said "no, what road?" and I said "I don't know the road, I'm not from here, but it's a big station" and the bitch hung up!!

I figured it might be my ropey Italian that was the problemgot the bus driver to speak to her which he kindly did. Still, I think she hung up on him as well, although he assured me a taxi was on its way. Some 45 minutes later (it was past eleven in the evening by now) I rang the hotel for an update, and after speaking to the taxi company he told me the cab was five minutes away. Ten minutes later the last bus was starting up to head back into Rome, and Christian quite rightly insisted we get on and find a new hotel in town.

Which we did, without a hitch! Thank you Lonely Planet. It was pretty basic, but veeeeheeery central (a five-minute walk from the Vatican - now THAT's what I call "close"!) and no more expensive than the one out in the wilds would have been. Breakfast was acceptable and we even had a view of St Peter's from our window. What more could one want?

I'll write about Rome itself in my next blog. For now let's just enjoy the fact that one of my less pleasant travel experiences of recent years makes for a jolly good yarn after the event!