You’re getting closer. You see the sign and the arrow pointing towards the Fontana di Trevi. You can almost smell the rusted coins that have been soaking in those murky waters for God only knows how long.

Until you turn that final corner and you feast your eyes on a bunch of scaffolding.

And this is exactly how it played out for me. Almost like it was a bad movie. It’s like you know how the ending is going to turn out but the movie is so bad that you just want to stick around in hopes of proving yourself wrong. Well, it most definitely was not the Trevi Fountain that I had been expecting to see.

There was no water. There were no coins. But there still was a sh*t load of tourists trying to get a glimpse of said scaffolding. You couldn’t even get close to it unless you went on the makeshift walkway, that was only open during the daytime (I went one soul-crushing night in September 2014).

I was even ready to get there at 6 a.m., upon the recommendation of my sister – the perfect (albeit super early) time to go, when you can get your perfect shot, free of tourists. I even managed to convince my three friends to go along with this crazy schedule. But it was a good thing that we happened to be in the neighborhood after dinner that night and decided to make a quick detour on the way back to our hotel. Because if we hadn’t, and we had actually gotten there for that 6 a.m. call time, I would have been very pissed off. Not to mention, I would also have to take the heat from three sleep-deprived girls.

I’m not sure what they were doing to the Trevi – cleaning, restoring, I didn’t know and I didn’t care. All I cared about was that I wasn’t going to get to throw my coin. The coin I was supposed to throw with my right hand, over my left shoulder, with my back facing the fountain. The coin that was supposed to ensure my return trip to Rome.

I guess if I really try to think about it in a positive light, in a way, it did work. Now I really do have to go back to Rome one day to throw that coin. And not just into the makeshift puddle of water that they put in front of the Trevi. I recently read that it’s going to be closed until October 2015. So if you were planning to go, at least you have some kind of warning now. Unlike me, who had gotten the wind knocked out of me when I saw it. Kidding. But I did cry a little. Not kidding (sadly).