6:00am (10:00pm DT or Denver Time) We wake up in the Aklesia B&B in the Colosseum district of Rome to the sound of the iPhone alarm going off on the side of the bed. Snooze? Nah. Gotta get up, shower and hit the Metro station. I reach in to my backpack to find the croissant and mixed berry jam left over from the breakfast before. This is one of those days that I never know when the food will come so I better eat when I can. A few bites and off to the shower, pack up and hit the street.
6:55am (10:55pm DT) We hit the streets after the four flights of granite stairs from the room. I hate getting up before the sun. I know there was a time, back in the day, when I had to get moving every day before the sun came up. That was work. And, even though I did get used to it, I have always hated it. No one should have to be awake before the sun comes up. Anyway…We take the quick walk to the Metro station, stop by the auto-ticket machine, pop in a couple Euro and grab our tickets that will enable us to move us through the turnstile. The Rome Metro stations are crazy most of the time but, this early, things seems a bit more laid back. We get to our platform, look up to see the next train scheduled for 3 minutes, plot our car choice for the brief, two stop journey and move on.
7:25am (11:25pm DT) Termini Station, and the long walk to the Leonardo Express, the train that takes us directly from the center of Rome to the center of Rome’s largest airport. I’ve said it before, and I think it bares repeating, our home of Denver could use a train to the airport. We Americans designed a project that put a man on the moon and returned him safely back to earth in 9 years…back in the 1960’s. Why does it take 20 years to get a train 20 miles to the airport? A quite nice nice, albeit a bit tall, thin, strung out, flamingly homosexual, very friendly American kid in his late teens to early twenties offered, in his vocal attempt to sound worldly and semi-British, to share a cab with us to the airport, obviously not wanting to spend the 15 Euro needed to take the train. Maybe he was just lonely and wanted to share a ride in a comfortable car. However, our tickets were free, so apparently it was the train for all of us. He looked a bit disheveled in his appearance, lacking a clean shirt, or apparently a comb. He was a painter (he said while quizzing us about Florence) and was clutching a pen and one of those Hawthorne or Keats or Henry David Thorough books in which he had been underlining passages for a month trying to find its meaning as it relates to his life. He asked us if we were American and then proceed to tell us about his year away from school and his month and a half trip to Europe by himself. This kid was a bit crazy. Forty-five days in and he had done 15 countries. Friends, that’s a lot. No wonder he was thin, looking tired and obviously a bit beaten down. His cough was so bad that the sweet little Korean student he sat by uncomfortably suggest a throat lozenge out of her personal stash. He accepted and then back to his book and pen. His mother was coming to Italy to visit her boy and he had to get out and meet her and tell her all her little guy had learned. Keep traveling.
8:30am (12:30am DT) We hit Fiumicino, or Leonardo Da Vinci International Airport. We got off the train knowing, after an hour of internet research, that we had to find T5, the terminal that had been set up in the last few years to handle only American outbound flights. Now, sports fans, I am pretty good at this travel thing, but this kind of got me and, unfortunately, seemed to be a precursor to our day. Found Terminal 3, but not Terminal 5. After a quick search, we saw a shuttle bus down the street a bit that was to take us there. Great. Hop the bus, take the 5 minutes into the back parking lot of the airport where they had hastily set up this American screening process. We get off the bus, cruise into the “profile room” where we are judged as to our threat level or, probably more accurately, judged on our fashion sense. Security check and passport control number 1. Pat down for G number 1. Now, go to some line in that other room, we won’t tell you which one, to check your bags. Okay. Which line? Okay. That one. No. That one. Done.
9:30am (1:30am DT) Bags checked, time to hit the bus back to the first terminal to find our gate. Another “profiling room” and onto security check and passport control number 2. Pat down for G number 2. Wanding of G number 1. At least the Italians actually call these rooms “profiling rooms.” They imply that you will enter these rooms and be racially, ethnically and threateningly profiled. Cool, from an honesty perspective. We would never call it that in the States.
10:10am (2:10am DT) We get to the terminal and settle in to deciding on what to eat for breakfast and if we will be doing any duty free shopping. I always laugh when somebody says duty. I am such a child. I am happy I can go to Italy and buy Marlborough’s and Tennessee whiskey, duty free. We grab a water and a sandwich (Tuscan, with a little prosciutto and a little provolone) and choose a little spot by the windows to sit, the same windows into which a trapped pigeon is hammering himself in an attempt to get out after making a foolish mistake by coming into an airport terminal in the first place. Pigeons. Not bad for the sandwich. Off to the stores to buy a bit of chocolate for our trip and for our home and back for a last glass of wine (yeah, I drink wine before noon, wanna fight about it?) before boarding the plane back home.
11:05am (3:05am DT) Boarding begins for our scheduled 11:50 take off and, although we are all broken down into boarding zones, the boarding process more resembles Thunderdome. Everybody get on board….NOW!!! There are no rules. We wait out the crowd a bit and, knowing we don’t have anything going into the overhead compartments, have our tickets punched a few minutes later. Security pat down for G number 3. At this point, I’m starting to think I have been profiled. Time to walk the walk down to the plane. Row 33. Seats G and H. Now, understanding that nobody is pleased with their airline seats, let me be brief in describing what it was in which I was to be seated for the 10 hour flight to Philadelphia. The seat had been torqued or bent or removed and replaced hastily as to leave it a bit crooked. It was also, clearly, placed in a position that was intended to leave absolutely no leg room. I am not a big person. No, really. At a lanky 5’6″, I was clearly the smallest man on that plane, yet when I sat, my knees were literally resting on the back of the seat in front of me. I measured it and I actually had 15 inches between my chest and the seat back ahead. That’s crazy. And the big guy in front of me hadn’t decided to lean back yet. The tray was crooked, resting on one of the arm rests in a position to make it sit at about a 30 degree angle from front right to bottom left. That tray was not going to be useful. I guess I am okay with that as when the tray was down it rubbed my against my belly. I started to giggle, trying to fend off the crazies that were coming. I mean, seriously, how much worse could it be? At least I was going home and I had only about 10 and a half hours in this position. “Can I get you anything?” the attendant asked. I just gazed back in a fog.
11:50am (3:50am DT) Scheduled Take off time.
2:40pm (6:40am DT) Actual take off time. Yup. Nearly 3 hours sitting in this position without seeing any progress. Apparently, according to the captain and the less than gracious flight attendant, we had a bit of a mechanical issue that was solved quickly but not quickly enough to make our take off and airspace window across France. France was seemingly going through some labor issues, causing a series of complications that all conspired to keep me grounded in my airplane dungeon rack for 3 hours before taking off. Well, I was able to stand up for about 4 seconds at a time every 30 minutes before the flight attendant barked at me to remain seated because they had no idea when we might get the urgent message to take off and they couldn’t guarantee I would make it back to my seated position and remember all their emergency instructions in the 20 minutes it would take to taxi to the actual runway. Some of the older passengers flagrantly broke the rules to use the bathrooms in those three hours, but I could see the hatred coming from the eyes of our dungeon masters and was certain those who decided to relieve themselves either wouldn’t live through the trip or at least get a drink spilled on them. Hey. How about the TV’s? Can we at least have the TV’s? How about beverage service? Nope. Nope. Have to be ready for the call that never came. Every 5 minutes, I would look at my watch and do my little math and negotiate with myself into still making our connecting flight to Denver. Two hour layover in Philly became one, became 30 minutes, became none. Our hope did remain for a time when our captain said he was going to make up some time in the air, but reality quickly set in. That 40 minutes of savings after a three hour delay was no good. It’s the math, man. We were not making our flight.
2:40pm Rome time to 5:55pm Philadelphia time (6:40am – 3:55pm DT) Our flight was relatively uneventful, I guess. Long. Ten-plus hours. But uneventful. So, with nothing to talk about, here is a few things I’d like to talk about regarding the flight. The seat across the aisle from me was broken, stuck in the leaned back position, causing the staff to freak out and not be assured of a properly timed take off. Bad for that guy, because he also got a full cocktail poured on him by a drunk elderly lady half way through the flight. She didn’t notice. Nobody noticed but him and me. He must have stood up too many times on the tarmac and pissed off the plane gods. The arm rest on a seat a few rows in front of us actually fell apart, causing the staff to freak out and not be assured of a properly timed take off. The video screens, which were on the back of every seat, for your on-demand viewing pleasure, didn’t work for everyone, forcing the staff to reboot and reboot a few times in the first couple hours of the flight, therefore making all others lose their movie, TV and radio selections and have to fast forward or watch everything again. I know, small things, but when you are on a tiny plane with 300 other people for 13 hours, these things stand out. I mean, really, how many times can I fast forward through ‘The Karate Kid?’ There were these cool little green and red lights placed above the lavatories to alert all passengers of their status. Red for occupied. Green for go. That would have been cool, had they worked. Countless people, relying on these lights as indicators of lavatory status, tried to forcibly enter these facilities while others were fighting to protect their territory…and take a leak, of course. Also, there was this constant rattle coming from the overhead compartments. It was like there were tons of loose bolts or luggage roller wheels bouncing all over these things the whole trip. I’m shocked they stayed in place. It was about half way through the flight when I started feeling like William Shatner on that Twilight Zone episode. You know the one, right? The one with gremlins ripping apart the plane he was on? For my younger audience, the Simpsons did a spoof of this for one of their Halloween episodes, too. Shatner kept looking out the window and seeing the gremlin tearing pieces of metal off the plane, but no one would believe him. Finally, he went crazy. Crazy. But the gremlin was real. I guess all would have been forgiven had the staff been nice. A smile goes a long way. Nope. Not here, folks. Just muttering under their collective breath. “No, you don’t get more frequent flier miles for this. You’re sitting on the runway.” “No, we can‘t help you find connecting flights. That‘s for the ground staff.” “No. We ran out of chicken.” “You have to have the pasta.” “Not our fault.” “Stay in your seats.” “No!” Fine. Not your fault. But can you remember the moment you lost the passion for this work?
5:55pm (3:55pm DT) We land…just as our connecting flight was scheduled to take off. Actually, it left early. There’s a funny one. We run out and find the first US Airways douche bag we can find, hoping they have done something about our flights and hoping it isn’t the one that stole our credit card number from the flight out. YEAH….they worked it all out. They run up to us as we exit the jet way and hand us boarding passes for our new flight. Hurry. Hurry. Here you go. Hurry. Sweet. Run. We run to the baggage area, hoping against hope that we can grab them and get through customs in enough time to catch our…7:50am flight the next morning? Ah, shit. Well, maybe we can still get something on another airline. Our bags get out in a reasonably timely manner and the veteran customs guy, seemingly thrilled to see us, cruised us through, joking about the Italian cheeses and olive oils stashed in our bags that he said they had no need to check since I described them in such a detailed manner on the declaration forms. Here’s to being a little obsessive. He trusted us and saw we were in a hurry to try to catch a flight. He was cool. Probably the bright spot of the day. Seriously. Really nice guy. Way to go America. Well, time to try. The nice lady at the US Airways counter was unsympathetic, said we were screwed and pointed us to the hotel voucher for the Wyndham Airport Hotel, the curb at which we were to stand to catch a shuttle and the meal vouchers that were provided us due to our unfortunate circumstance. I checked the vouchers and had to find another person to decipher the meal one in order to find out how much we were allowed to scarf down tonight on the US Airways tab. $10. Each. This is where I think I blacked out. I came to in a few minutes, apparently laughing about not being able to get drunk on the $10 they think will get me to the next morning. Then Lael mentioned that the voucher wasn’t good for alcohol. I nearly had to be physically restrained. Luckily, for them, I had no energy left from the pretzel-like-turkey-and-processed-cheese-food sandwich and warm Diet Coke they fed us a few hours ago on the plane.
7:00pm (5:00pm DT) We make it to curb for the courtesy pick up for the hotel, start looking for the van and making the calls. Hey Wilt, no need to pick us up tonight. Thanks. Hey Jen, can you check on the house one more time? Sorry. Thanks. Hey Dad, yeah we’re in the states but not home. You know the drill.
7:30pm (5:30pm DT) Thirty minutes in, we find out through the grapevine of other stranded travelers that we are in the wrong area for the van. And, much to our horror, we are told that the blue and white Wyndham van we had been promised was coming has been replaced with the blue and red unmarked van and has been stopping by every 10 minutes or so and we have all missed it. We all rush down the sidewalk and await the next van. There are about 50 of us still stranded, all awaiting our Wyndham experience, and once we find the right vans we come to the realization that our travels are not yet over. Each van, of which there are two making the 30 minute round trip to the hotel, can only carry eight. Aw, crap. We wait. We wait. We wait and try to strategically place ourselves in a position at the pick up area in order to shaft the next gang of little old ladies, just back from their Mediterranean cruise, just so I can get to the hotel first. I know. I’m a stinker, but Lael is great at this type of maneuver. She has a gift of placement, a small frame that glides like an elk and a face that no one can get upset with. I, on the other hand, would be strung up with cheap Italian scarves and beaten with novelty Colosseums, David figurines and cardboard storage tubes had I been the one trying to secure our place in line.
8:30pm (6:30pmn DT) We made the van…I think the fourth one of which we were aware, and got to the Wyndham in time to find all the people we saw get on previous vans still awaiting check in, their room keys, and their spot at drastically understaffed and soon to be closing hotel lounge.
9:00pm (7:00pm DT) I don’t even want to discuss the room. I guess when you get a room for free, you get what you pay for. Missing drywall. Mold in the shower. Lumpy carpet (maybe the body of the drywall hanger is under there…I mean, it is Philly). There was TV and a bed that, despite the looks, was pretty comfortable for the 2 hours that I slept due to jetlag and still being on Tortellini Time.
9:25pm (7:25pm DT) We made our arrangements for our unexpected, and unwanted, next travel day and found our way to the lounge that was to close in 35 minutes. Out of wine? Okay. Really? I’ll have a Sam Adams. Make that two. We sit and watch the Philly’s game with one eye, the business travel types try to hit on their only female co-worker with one eye and watch the little old lady brigade, all from the same cruise and all friends of some sort, funnel into the hotel and then into the lounge with the other eyes. I can hear them ask the bartender now, waiving their $10 meal vouchers, “Excuse me sonnie, can we have 53 hamburgers and 53 glasses of still water, please?” I think the Mexican guy in the kitchen would have a stroke when he saw that order come in right at closing time.
10:00pm (8:00pm DT) Retire to the room. A little Jon Stewart being interviewed by Larry King. How does that guy keep getting work? Larry, that is. Love Jon Stewart. Anyway. A little HBO. Some travel and home management now that we are stateside. A little baseball. Try to clean up the bags a bit and toss the trash. Move from Euro back to Dollar. Move from passport back to drivers license. Set the alarm for 5am the next day to make the van for the airport for our 7:45am flight home. Try to relax and get into the whole USA time zone flow. Try not to remember that it is 4am in the land of linguini.
12:00am (10:00pm DT) Sleep. It will be good to be home. By the way, I got frisked a few times the next day, too. Fun.
