My Roman Holiday II

Part 2: When In Rome

Ok, ok, I know. It's been like a month since I was actually in Rome and I'm just finishing up the Rome posts now. Sorry, I was busy, I do have actual school work to do sometimes guys, and I just finished up paper season (phew).

In fair Rome is where we had set our scene. It was sunny and warm and I'd just had a wonderful little morning with my mom and aunt at an outdoor market. The rest of the day was decidedly less eventful. Mostly we just wandered around, we did some shopping, mom got her pair of custom made sandals (which she sort of needs since she has, essentially, child-sized feet), and we looked at some landmarks. I made it my personal mission that day to pick up every ironic postcard of the pope that I laid my eyes on, and boy was it a fruitful day. Everyone seemed to make some fun purchases, and we ate some yummy pizza and saw the sights.

The Trevi fountain was nice, though it was a little disappointing since there was a fence up around it and the fountain was devoid of water (wah wah), but it was cool nonetheless to see if "close up" (we couldn't get that close--see: fence). Then we walked all the way over to the Spanish Steps. It was getting kind of dark by then, and the plaza at the bottom of the steps was very, very crowded. I didn't even realize we were looking at the Spanish Steps until someone told me because, honestly, it was just a large outdoor staircase, and there wasn't much that made it stand out (yes I know, a heretical thing of me to say. I promise, I am an appreciator of art and architecture, but really, after several days of being on my feet all day with no alone time, can you blame me for being rather unenthused about a staircase, famous or not?). It, too, was fenced off, so, yeah that gives you a sense of the sightseeing portion of our Sunday.

At the end of the day, one of my aunts (cousins? again with the family tree and title thing) wanted to visit the Gucci store. Of course, me being me, I followed her and her husband in like a duckling following its mother because I was intensely curious to see the inside of a real designer boutique. I mean, the fanciest store I've ever been inside in my life is probably Lord and Taylor. I felt a bit like an imposter, like if I didn't walk right on my relatives' heels, someone would sniff me out and a salesperson would gracefully push me out the front door with their carefully gloved hands. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it was all just so dreadfully chic and glamorous.

I found it fascinating to watch as someone bought an actual designer handbag from a designer boutique. It was probably the largest purchase I've ever witnessed someone make, aside from when my parents bought their car (though the car dealership wasn't nearly as aesthetically pleasing or amenable, I mean, they brought out free water in little glass bottles, with crystal tumblers to serve in all on a dark lacquered tray. I mean...).

After that, and a lot more walking, and quite a bit of time being lost, we made it back to the hotel and went out to dinner, sort of as a way to celebrate my last night there. Dinner was nice, I was exhausted, and we had to take a ton (and I mean, a ton) of group photos. I had a fairly tearful goodbye the next morning with my family, as they all piled into a van to go on their food tasting tour of the city, and I waited in the hotel lobby for my cab to the airport to arrive. I hadn't really realized until that moment how much I missed the sense of familiarity that comes from home, even just from being around other Americans (I haven't met more than one or two in Leeds). It was a strange, makeshift, portable version of home, but nonetheless, it was decidedly less foreign and I felt that.

I didn't have to miss it for too long though. Hahahaha. Haha. Ha. Ha...

I got all the way to the airport, stood in line, and when I got up to the check in counter, found out that my flight was extremely delayed due to some monster fog that had eaten the Netherlands. Consequently I was going to miss my connection back to Leeds. Yes. I stood there in the airport, breathing very deeply, insisting that the counter employee check every single flight back to Leeds that day. She kept clicking her mouse, mumbling to herself in Italian, and shaking her head, while I stood there focusing all of my energy on not crying in public. I tried not to think about the fact that I had three classes the next day, or the strict attendance policy Leeds seems to promote, or any of that. Nonetheless, I was stressed. I mean, I was Princess-Mia-driving-the-Mustang stressed. I was breathing very heavily, which made the airline person glance up in concern at me a few times. Finally, she said something to the effect of well, I see no solution for you today, but I can book you on a flight tomorrow! TOMORROW. Apparently, this fog was so crazy that a whole bunch of flights were disrupted, and so many passengers were displaced that every flight to Leeds, on every airline flying out of Rome to every possible connecting city was absolutely full.

Just my luck.

I was sort of in a daze as I accepted my new boarding pass, asking where I could find a cab. I didn't really see any other option except to just go back to the hotel. By this point I was totally out of cash, so I had to wait a while until a cab with a credit card reader could pick me up. I continued to do my paper-bag breathing (sans paper bag) all the way back to the hotel, where I walked up through the front doors to the astonishment of the concierge at the desk who had seen me off in the morning. I sort of just shrugged my shoulders and said, well, I'm back. He was very kind, asking me if everything was alright, and if my family knew what had happened. They didn't (since my phone didn't work unless I had wifi). Well, he said, this will be a nice surprise for the Aquinos (which he, and everyone else, insisted on pronouncing "Ah-KWEE-no", saying that it was an Italian name, even when we said it was pronounced differently in Southeast Asia. That's a different story, though).

I was so distraught and caught up in the stress (as I am wont to do) that I completely forgot for a while that if I was going to be stranded somewhere, at least I was stranded in ROME. Eventually I calmed down and managed to let my family know what had happened, then settled in to catch up on some homework before they came back. I sat at the desk with the window open and a cup of coffee and I felt a little better. My family was very sympathetic, and I treated myself to another plate of tiramisu at dinner that night (I deserved it).

Then I had to do the tearful goodbye again. My family was scheduled to leave early early the next day to catch a train to Venice, but my flight wasn't until the afternoon. I woke up briefly to say goodbye to my mom and aunt, but I was only half awake really. When I woke up again a few hours later, I was alone in the room, which made me feel a little blue and achy, but was what I had expected really.

This time, I actually made it back to Leeds. Of course, the universe wasn't going to make it easy though. The wrong terminal was printed on my boarding pass, so I ended up having to walk 2 terminals over, which was fine. But then, I had to take a tram all the way to the international terminal, and then I got on a bus to go out to the tarmac to actually get on the plane (which I really hate doing, it's just so much shuffling). After a few hours we landed in London Heathrow, which is just a hot mess, let me tell you.

I had to first figure out which terminal I was transferring too, since this would be a domestic and not an international flight, and it turns out that I would have to take a 20 minute long bus ride to my connecting terminal. There, I had to check in and pick up my boarding pass. All I had was the flight and ticket number that the woman from the day before (when I didn't cry in public) had written on the back of my first boarding pass. The man at the counter seemed a little confused, but eventually he sorted it out. Then I had to stand in line for another 45 minutes to get through passport control. They only had 1 person stamping passports that weren't UK/EU. Oh joy. Then it was another 30 minutes through security, and by then I only had 15 minutes to pick up a sandwich before I was scheduled to board. But of course, after running through the terminal to make it, I get there and find out that my connection has been delayed a half hour. Wonderful. I love traveling. So much fun. Adventure.

I made landed in Leeds only to be welcomed by insanely thick fog. Gotta love that fog. It was 8:30 PM before I actually made it back to my room where I promptly fell onto the bed in exhaustion.

After Italy, going back to school, going back to cold, damp, dark England felt like being pushed into the deep end of the pool: you sink all the way to the bottom and have to fight for some momentum in order to get yourself back up to the air, struggling to breath the whole way. I felt like Dorothy at the end of the story, when she leaves the Technicolor dream world of Oz and heads back to literally gray Kansas. While there isn't nearly as much corn and dust as Kansas, Northern England can certainly rival Kansas in dull grayness. I guess that every time it's cold and windy and rainy here (i.e. every single day), I'll just have to remember that I'll always have Rome.

My Roman Holiday I

Part 1: This Is What Dreams Are Made Of

The place: Rome (duh). The holiday: Halloween (I know, it’s a weird one, but that’s just how the scheduling worked out, ok?)

Panorama of the Forum from atop the Palatine Hill

This week it was time to take my weekend trips up a notch, so instead of touring the UK, I ventured all the way to Italy. While I didn’t bust out of a palace, get a sassy new haircut, and hang out with Gregory Peck, or get mistaken for an Italian pop star and sing at an international music festival, for one glorious long weekend, I still got to run around Roma! 

I left after several weeks of straight mist, clouds, damp, and no spotting of the elusive sun. My flight was at the ridiculous hour of 6 AM, but I flew KLM, so it was not so bad (as you know from previous posts, I am now a big fan of KLM). The flight from Leeds to Amsterdam Schipol was very short and quite pleasant, I mostly napped and they gave us delicious little sandwiches to eat en route. My connection at Amsterdam was fairly harried, however. When I booked the flights, I thought for sure that a little more than an hour would be plenty of time for my transfer after I’d made one already getting to Leeds in September. It seemed like it would be no big deal at all. 

Well I was certainly wrong. I didn’t realize that when entering the EU common travel area, I would have to pass through passport control! Yeah immigration! I had dutifully followed the signs trying to get to my terminal, when I rounded a corner and saw a mass of people just standing still. My stomach dropped. I looked at my phone, I had 45 minutes. I looked at the crowd, and it seemed like more than 45 minutes worth of people. I did my best to bob and weave and rather ungracefully shove my way as close to the front of the line as possible. Even still, by the time I made it past the immigration officer (who seemed suspicious of me…?) with my stamped passport, I had to sprint to my gate to make my connection on time. That certainly must have been a site: a wild-eyed girl with an overstuffed blue backpack running and panting through the airport. I know how to travel in style, at least. 

The second flight was not so eventful. I napped, I watched as we flew over the Alps. It was fun to see the tiny little towns tucked away in the valleys up there, the lines of the hills punctuated with shiny blue lakes was amazing. Finally I landed at Rome Fiumicino airport. The pilot gave the typical landing city information, and I swear to god, I actually cried a little bit when he said that it was 22 Centigrade, and I looked at the cloudless sky from the tiny plane window. This is not a hyperbole, this is not a figure of speech that I am using, there were real tears welling up at the corner of my eyes because of the weather. I stripped my coat and sweater in favor of my tank top, hopped in a cab, rolled down the windows, and made my way to Rome! 

The Hotel Capo D’africa was so lovely. That’s really the best word for it: lovely. It was tucked away on a little side street just around the corner from the Colosseum. I found my family supremely jet-lagged and making themselves right at home on the lobby furniture. Par for the course, though. 

Admiring the sun and the view from the hotel window

A little word about my family: it was mom’s side (the white side) that went on this trip as a way to rediscover their ancestry or some such thing. The “lively” group included: my mom, my aunt Linda, my uncle Michael, my aunt Lu, my aunt (cousin?) Amelia , my aunt/cousin/something Noreen, and her husband Paul (not even gonna try with that relationship title). They told me to be gentle, but honestly it really wasn’t the Swiss Family Nightmare it could easily have become. It was sort of fun and enlightening, actually, to watch my family members try out being new people, or wake up parts of themselves that had long or always been dormant, like this was a vacation from their normal selves as well as their normal lives. 

Regardless, I promised not to be too critical or depreciating, and I assured them that I would never do that on the internet. 

Anyways! We got settled in our rooms and then I was ready to go out and explore, whether my poor jet-lagged family wanted to nap or not! Off we went exploring—my mom, aunt Linda and I got some snacks at a little street cafe before heading down the block (down the block!) to the Colosseum. It was wonderful and crazy and sort of surreal, honestly. We crossed a street and suddenly there it was. The Colosseum was right there, just a few feet away. I kept looking up at it as we walking the path around the perimeter. My mom and aunt were quite amused because I just kept saying “There it is. That’s the Colosseum. The Colosseum. Right there. I mean, I’ve seen it in pictures and textbooks. But now here it is. Right there. I mean, I could touch it! Wait, can I go touch it?” It was the pinnacle of the “old things” I had seen so far this semester, a feat of ancient Roman engineering right there for me to marvel at. 

There it is! Right there!

We made dinner reservations that night for 8 pm, but my family started the cocktail hour at like 4:30 (which they continued to do every night to my great amusement. They even became buddies with the bar tender. I found it a bit strange, but I’ve always found bar culture to be kind of weird). We had dinner that first night at a sweet little restaurant called Papagio, and it was delicious and painful. My family went a little crazy ordering the appetizers, we had a meat plate, these big, beautiful grilled mushrooms, some sort of cheese goop made with truffles over a bed of arugula (I forget what it was called, so we are going with “goop”), and something else I can’t remember anymore. I had my fill of those and would have left fully satisfied after that. But then came the entrees. I had gnocchi bolognese and it was amazing, but I could barely finish I was so uncomfortably stuffed. But I had to finish, so that I could justify getting desert. They had tiramisu on the menu, and I was not leaving without it, even if they had to roll me out Violet Beauregarde style. And boy, was the pain and suffering worth it, because that tiramisu was so good, I swear it was made by the hand of actual angels. Actual. Angels. Sure I had trouble sitting down the rest of the night, but aside from the several more hours my family sat at the bar after dinner, I really just went to sleep to rest for the big day of touristing ahead. 

Made by literal angels. 

The next day was true tourist day: 2 guided tours scheduled to the max. In the morning we had a private guided tour of ancient Roman historical sites. Our tour guide was a sweet man named Giuseppe, how rubbed his chin whenever he answered a question and was very excited about Roman history. He told us about the famous sites he helped excavate as a student studying archaeology, and I felt I had a kindred spirit in him. I spent most of the 3 hour long tour walking next to him, chatting about Roman history and asking lots of questions as my family trailed behind, taking pictures while I hogged all the learning for myself. 

Inside the Colosseum!

Palatine Terrace

We went to the Colosseum (inside this time!), the Forum, the terrace atop the Palatine palace, to several triumphal arches, and to the Pantheon. The Forum was particularly fun for me because, as we walked through, it made me think of a passage from the Aeneid (yes I know, I am total nerd, let’s move on), where Aeneas is walking around the Palatine hill before he has even settled and founded the city that would become Rome, and he is seeing what will someday be there, the grandeur and splendor of the city he is about to establish. I just found it super neat to walk around the same place Aeneas was supposed to have walked, while seeing what once was, seeing the past instead of the future. That’s just me, though. Giuseppe was quite impressed by my extensive knowledge of ancient Roman history, and was calling me “his assistant” by the end of the tour, asking me to help him fill in gaps. It was quite fun, actually! He even said that I had what it takes to be a tour guide like him in Rome (which is actually a pretty good gig in Europe, and is something I will definitely add to the list of future ). Needless to say, we are now best friends. 

The Oculus in the Pantheon!

After a quick trip to Piazza Navona, we had a speedy lunch, and then it was off to the Vatican Museum for our second guided tour of the day. Now, the Vatican Museum was beautiful and bursting with incredible works of art, but it just wasn’t what I was expecting. Everything went through a travel agent my family dealt with, and I sort of just showed up and hung around a bit, so I didn’t know many of the details of the trip. So when I heard “Vatican” and “tour”, I assumed we would be getting a tour of the Papal collections and residences, not just the Vatican’s collection of art, so in that sense it was a little disappointing. On top of that, I was pretty beat from the tour in the morning and a very small, rushed lunch (I was still fairly hungry actually). Also, it was so crowded, that we couldn’t spend much time looking at any one piece. 

I got a quick look at a famous statue of Laocoön and his sons (another Aeneid geek moment for me), and we didn’t even get to see the hallway full of statues where the crazy pope hacked all the genitals off the male figures. It was really cool to see things like The School of Athens, which I had studied in class before, but by the time we got to the Sistine Chapel, I was so exhausted and ready to go, and the whole time the guards just kept shushing the crowd. It was like a can of sardines in there, we had 20 minutes, and so I didn’t feel I got to fully appreciate the splendor of the Chapel, didn’t get to see everything the way I wished I could have. By the time we finally escaped into open air, I was stir crazy, exhausted, and sad that it was already dark out (I wanted to spend as much time in the sun as I could manage knowing I was going back to the dark place in a few days). We went into the Basilica, which was rather breathtaking in its scale. I saw the Pieta, which was masterful, and wandered around trying to grasp the size of the place. Nevertheless, after 10-15 minutes I’d had my fill and was itching to go do anything else. I was pacing pretty impatiently waiting for my relatives to finish at the gift shop and somehow it got communicated that I was on the verge of “a meltdown”. Really, I just wanted to go do something fun after feeling like I’d wasted 4-5 precious hours in Rome. 

The word “meltdown” seemed to stir up quite a fuss around me, as the relatives hustled to get me out. Then there was a quite a bit of hoopla around trying to get a cab to take us to a covered market I’d seen and expressed interest in earlier, but no one could remember exactly where it had been, and we couldn’t hail two cabs, and then one of my aunts flagged down a hoard of police officers to ask them about it, and the whole while, I was staving off some more tangible panic. If there is one thing I do not like, it is people stressing over me. When I am fussed over, I tend to freak out and curl into a ball. So I spent quite a bit of time hanging out with Paul, who imparted some touching words of wisdom: he said, really, you just have to learn not to care. Sure you’ll be disappointed sometimes, but you have to just not care. That’s the secret. When I expressed my guilt over having caused such hoopla, Paul said, oh there’s nothing to feel bad about. With this group, if it wasn’t you, it was going to be something else. In fact, with this group, chaos would’ve happened no matter what, like spontaneous combustion. Just a quick shout out, thanks Paul, that was literally the exact thing I needed to hear at that moment. 

The next day was much better. While the most of the family chose to sleep in a little bit, mom, aunt Linda, and I got up a little earlier and went off on an adventure to a famous outdoor market called Porta Portese, named for the ancient city gate that marks the start of the market stalls. We beat the crowds by 2 hours, and took our time wandering from stall to stall (and man did it take time: the market was massive, it must’ve gone on for more than a mile!). I got some lovely Italian leather handbags, and a silver necklace for dirt cheap, mom broke out her haggling skills (it didn’t go exactly as planned), and got herself a beautiful green leather jacket, and aunt Linda got a bag and some scarves and officially became “Euro-Linda”. It was so fun, and so peaceful, and just nice to be out and about early in the morning with the sun shining. 

If you’ve read up to this point, you can probably understand why I’m stopping here (this post is very long), but stay tuned for Part II. Rome was so amazing, and I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to wander down those cobblestone paths, and drink good coffee and wine, and feel the sun forever. I think Lizzie McGuire got it right, this is what dreams are made of. Hey now, hey now!