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Published: September 21st 2006
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Ciao!
Micheal seeing me off from DFW Thursday, Nov. 31 and Friday, Sept. 1
Here I sit… in seat 36C. I was supposed to have a window seat, but I guess when I rebooked I didn’t specify. I’m exhausted. I’ve only had a few hours sleep in the last few days. Things at DFW went very smoothly. I boarded at 3 p.m. The flight was on time, very little turbulence. I’ve slept sporadically. The merlot helps. I love getting to practice “mein Deutsch” with the flight attendants (I’m flying Lufthansa). I’m somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean near Ireland. There’s a very friendly Indian gentleman to one side of me (in my window seat), telling me, “When it’s noon in Dallas, it is midnight in India.”
On the other side of the aisle is a young couple (also Indian) with the cutest baby girl ever. She has smiled and laughed continually since we boarded the plane….
Touched down in Frankfurt at 7 a.m. The warm voice speaking German that fills the airport is comforting, in that I actually understand more or less what is being said. My flight into Rome is delayed. Of course. All I want to do is get to Silvio’s apartment and sleep.
Providing I can find it.
In Italy now. At a hostel up the street from the Stazione Termini called the Ciao Bella Hostel. How did this happen?
I wondered around the airport with absolutely NO idea where to go or what was going on for quite sometime. I tried to call Silvio, the friend I was to stay with to ask him for directions, but the payphone wouldn’t take my card and I had no cash. So here I am in Italy with no place to go. After trying to book a hotel with the help desk guy, I met Fabio, Fabio said I could stay at his sister’s bed and breakfast for 60 euros, but I’ll have to ride back to Fuimicino with him at 6 a.m. if I stay. Boo.
I’m finally able to call Silvio, he said he is on the way to work. I can take the train to San Giavanni and we will meet, go out, and then I will stay with him at his apartment.
Sounds reasonable.
On the train I met some American boys, Phil and Dan (computer graphic artists) who were here for work, something to do with Disney…
Phil gave me the address to the hostel and his number. I still thought at this time, there was a chance to make it to Silvio’s but I took the info just in case. Get to Stazione Termini, very large and complicated. The metro to San Giavanni only accepts cash, no Visa. What to do? I wander around the termini for hours, window shopping and finally decide to go the hostel route as it’s within walking distance. City map in hand and luggage in tow I hit the streets of Rome.
There are cars everywhere and traffic flows very smoothly for a place with no lanes and seemingly only suggestive traffic laws. The streets are mostly stone and very narrow. Both sides are lined with shops, lots of AMAZING shoe stores. I walk up and down and up and down… and up and down the street and see no hostel. I asked several shop keeps for directions to no avail. So just when I think I’ll give up, I’m standing in the doorway of this… bank, I think. And this Italian man stops and says, “What do you look for?” I show him the address scrawled across the back
of a receipt and he walks me to where he believes it is. Just then, Phil leans out the window, “Hey! You made it!”
Let me just say about the Italian people, they are very friendly, so welcoming and warm. The best part is… everyone keeps mistaking me for an Italian. I’ve had countless people approach me and begin spouting off Italian at me and look very shocked when I say… “Ciao. Parli Englese? Son Americana.”
I guess I actually fit in for the first time ever. Everywhere I look there are beautiful olive toned, dark haired people. I wish I could have put you all in my pocket.
So at the hostel I meet Nacho and Pablo, Argentinean street performers… Raphael from Brazil… and this truly amazing kid from Norway that actually lived in Texas for awhile and has been to Oklahoma.
We drink some beer and then the Norwegian invites me to get some dinner. He takes me to “the island”. An island in the middle of this river that you reach by cobblestone bridge. There’s an old man playing jazz/blues on a sax, smiling people everywhere. Everywhere! We eat at this great Mediterranean place, I have pita and hummus, but sample also the falafel and couscous and a potato dish of some sort. It’s an outdoor restaurant under a bridge, with cushions that you sit on to dine and hookahs at the tables.
Afterwards, we walk to the Colosseum (spelled it wrong I know), the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon… WOW! You have no idea how amazing it was to see these. I was standing right next to the Pantheon, which I’ve obviously studied at length, and -though I recognized it- had no idea what it was! The pictures I’ve seen in text books hardly do these places justice… The Pantheon was just immense!
I will write more details later.
Anyhoo, we walked the streets until 1 a.m. and then returned to the hostel. I had a nap for a few hours, now it is morning and I’m preparing to head north to Tuscany, somewhat reluctantly.
I am truly in love with this city. I never want to leave.
More later.
Ciao.
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