I said, “I love Rome, but it doesn’t have the public transportation like the other European cities.”
He shook his head.
“They start to, how do you say ‘scavare,’ excavate, dig to begin, and then they find something. They always fucking find something. They plan a transit and say, ‘Maybe we will build a metro here,’ and everyone is happy. Then they dig and it’s always the same: they find some other fucking room or some secret tunnel for a king and have to stop.
-Fabio
We meet again, Rome. Rome, with your dangerously unpaved roads and cobblestone alleys that look straight but are actually circles that dead end or lead to more circles that laugh at your lost travellers in the dark as they struggle through the streets with broken suitcases. Rome, with your fast-paced civilians and lightening speed bicycles zipping in and out of the throngs of nameless tourists and locals never looking back at the unintended chaos they’ve created. Rome, with your gray skies and heartless cold, foggy streets under flickering lampposts rolling hauntingly beneath brown and red apartments with all of the windows shut up. Rome, with your limited technology limiting communication and unreliable transportation rendering us unable to penetrate the city walls, trapping us in the interior as the rest of the world goes on wondering and I, unable to communicate and alone find myself powerless to the confines of my own loneliness. But who was that person then?
9:00 AM, Italy Time
My nutella trick didn’t work. WTH. I still can’t believe that. I need to work on my booby trap skills.
So after getting back I fell “asleep.” I woke up at 6 in Naples, then at 7 we got to Termini station in Rome. I ate a muffin and proceeded to run to the Leonardo Express. It was way easier than arriving. At least my Italian can get me directions now.
Unknown time, probably around 11pm, Italy Time
On a boat/ship of hell
So begins my 37 hour journey home. I’m on a sleeper train with a sick Columbian grandma who won’t stop yelling in Spanish about how sick she is, her daughter, a gross women who is judging me for absolutely no reason, and a women I suspect is a prostitute.
Taormina is a city on a cliff. The ocean is on the bottom. It’s all fun and games going downhill. The sun is shining. The ocean is beautiful. The day is spent drinking wine on the beach and soaking up the vitamin D.
And then the sun sets.
You realize that what stands between you and your destination is a mile of stairs and infinity winged crocodiles. Yes. Winged Crocodiles. Let me tell you about the bugs here. They are GIANT. And mean. And they are plotting against you.
July 2, 2011, 6:55 PM
The bedroom, after the most exhausting Saturday ever.
So last night Susan wanted to go out. Bad. “It’s a Friday, it’s a Friday.” All I wanted to do was get a glass of wine and go sit somewhere, but no: we were going to DÉJÀ VU. I told Germane and she agreed to come with us. I was so tired I couldn’t even talk to anyone. Not that I wanted to though. To be honest I’ve never felt less into trying to talk to guys. I’m not really sure why, but I have absolutely no interest in being all flirty. I’m really over it.
June 30, 2011, 7:04 PM, Italy time
My room, waiting to go to a dinner with the host fam at 9pm
THEY EAT WAY TOO LATE HERE. Good thing I ate like 2000 calories of gelado and cookies after work. I can’t wait until 5pm on Friday so I can relax!! I feel in full force here now and super ready for the weekend.
I have composed a short list of things I want to do when I get back to Norcal and Newport:
SINCERELY, LIZ B 