Don't ever lose your passport in a foreign country. I don't recommend it. On the bright side, it's a lot easier and faster to get it replaced these days than it used to be. I'm in Bologna right now. I went to Rome on Saturday, and spend Saturday night and most of Sunday there. Somewhere during the course of the day, though, my passport just came up missing, along with the credit card I had stashed in it. Could have been a pickpocket, but it probably just fell out when I took my hand out of the pocket it was in. The ironic thing is that I was in the habit of sticking my hand in that pocket frequently, just to reassure myself it was still there.

The shitty thing about losing your passport isn't the fact that you can't get back home without it. That's not a big deal, 'cause usually when you lose it, it's somewhere in the middle of the trip, and you've got plenty of time before you need to get home. No, the bad part is that you basically lose your ability to live wherever you are once you lose it. Sure, you can move around all you want, they don't check passports at the borders in the EU, but you can't stay anywhere. Law requires every hotel to take your passport when you check in and report to INTERPOL that you're staying there. Some places give your passport back, some keep it for the duration of the stay (that's mostly just a security thing, for people who aren't going to need their passports during their stay, and don't want to risk losing it). Okay, not a big deal, so you can't stay at any hotels or hostels. You can still take the train. Grab a night train and bed down. Of course, taking a long enough train to let you sleep through the entire night is more expensive than just getting a hotel room, but hey, at least it lets you sleep without getting arrested. Unless, like me, you didn't change all your money to Euros before you got into the country because local banks offer better exchange rates than the airport money changers. Yeah, you guessed it... Money changers REQUIRE YOU TO GIVE THEM YOUR PASSPORT.

Thankfully, there are credit cards. Which is what will allow me to get to Florence (and, more importantly, the closest US Consulate) tomorrow, to get a new passport (which they do in only one day now! Wow!). Which will allow me to change the rest of my money. Which will allow me to get on with my vacation and get out of Meredith's hair. I've already been here a day longer than I expected, and will be another day. Thankfully she's putting up with me well.

On the bright side, Italy's a beautiful place, and being able to exchange text messages on my phone with family and friends has kept me sane while I'm trying not to panic because of the passport problems.

But I think two weeks might be a little bit long of a stay for my first vacation abroad and on my own. I get lonely, and I didn't plan this vacation worth a shit. Meredith has been my savior, even if she is the one who kicked me out and made me go to Rome by myself. (c: I really wish I'd planned this trip better, and I REALLY wish I'd brought someone along. Having my brother here right now would be really nice.