Shawn Assignment # 2

Roman Exodus
*
Excitement and dread mix together, and wake me on my last day of familiarity. I sleep with clothes on for an early morning flight. Time to roll out of bed and leave with every drop of sleep available.

*
I gesture like a
Fool, crowned in the glory of
A new beginning.

*
My arrival in Rome was one of the most tiring and uncomfortable times of my life. I remember exhaustion and sweat. Sleep had been just a dream for two days, and those days had been filled with Greyhound bus rides, where I couldn't even move enough to uncross my legs—at least one of my legs got to sleep.

*
I had started in Newark, one week before I stepped out of the airport into the sunny streets of Rome. I left Seattle for Pennsylvania to visit my godmother Judy, my Grandpa, and my Aunt Ellen. Judy picked me up at the Newark airport. Due to my debilitating inability to sleep anywhere but a familiar bed, I had stayed awake the entire red eye flight. But I didn't want to pass up being so close to the city, and I hadn't seen Judy in years, so we decided to go visit Little Italy and Chinatown in New York. A fitting precursor for my eminent journey.

*

Little Italy is being taken over by Chinatown.

*

Judy lives in rural Pennsylvania. She is a teacher, and this is the first summer she has taken off since her own childhood. Every morning she bikes with her friend. She has four cats, two of which she nursed to health as kittens with the help of her students. Her daughter lives with her. She bought me a book, The Lovely Bones, from a locally owned book store. The owner asks me about my trip. Everyone always gets excited for me when I tell them. We visit a historical hotel on the top of the mountain. "What mountain? I don't see one." Judy points to a what I consider to be a hill. At the top Pennsylvania stretches below us, and I wonder what Rome will be like. We buy produce from a Menonite girl, about 12 years old. She has finished her last year of school, and she wears a long dress and a bonnet. We drive back to her house and see a boy driving a horse and buggy. It thunderstorms in the morning and the rain pours down, unlike the constant drizzle of Seattle. Everyone always misunderstands.

*

I stay only for two nights, and then Judy drives me to Scranton where my grandpa and aunt live. Scranton is where the TV show The Office takes place, and one of the places in the country where the population is actually decreasing. They worry I will be bored, but I enjoy spending time with them. My grandpa gives me the rosary of grandmother, who had died a year before. My family pretends to be religious for his sake, but I take it because it is also a memento of my grandma. After a few days of walks, TV watching, long talks, Ellen drives me to the bus station.

*

Ellen asks if I would like her to wait with me. But I tell her no, we should say goodbye now. I don't want to say goodbye in front of the crowd of people I know will be here to catch the bus. I watch her walk away as I cling to my luggage. A few tears escape my eyes and trickle rebelliously down my face before I wipe them away. When the bus arrives I cram myself and two pieces of luggage onto a seat. The largest piece I checked into the bottom storage of the bus. I spend the next several hours jammed into a window seat with my knees to my chest, pushed against the person next to me.

*

The bus takes me to New York, where I switch to a bus that takes me back to Newark. The bus station in New York is an underground cavern, with passages to every city. I take an escalator to find my gate. The next bus drops me off on a street a few miles from the airport. I hail a taxi for the first time in my life, and the driver helps me load my luggage. He comments on it size, and takes me to the airport.

*

I will fly to Amsterdam, and then to Rome. The flight is around eleven hours and arrives in Amsterdam at 6 in the morning. I shuffle off the plane to go through the procedural motions. I show the man my passport and visa. He glances at it and tells me I've gotten a haircut in unaccented English. I agree. I have only fifty minutes until my flight to Rome leaves, but I find the gate with plenty of time to sit and wait. I have not slept. On the plane here I talked with the guy next to me about the last Harry Potter book. He had it with him, and was rereading it to pass the time. It is not a small book; too big for me to bring and lug around for two months.

*

I board the plane and it takes off. The window is blocked by a child's head looking out of it excitedly, so I miss the final descent. But I'm not bitter. By this point I have not slept in two days, and I disembark awkwardly, stumbling and confused. I blink at the sunlight streaming in through the windows. Signs direct me to baggage claim, where I proceed to wait two hours for my luggage. I see all the other passengers from my flight come and go, new flights arrive and claim their belongings. But I wait, unwillingly to deal with people who might not speak adequate English, and I feel like a coward. Just when I start the process of complaining I see my bags. Relief fills me.

*

The next item on my list is cash; I need euros to pay the taxi driver. I have never used a cash machine in my life, but I am confident in my ability to complete a transaction. I wind up staring stupidly at an uncooperative screen. It's broken. I walk around looking for another machine all the while struggling with a laptop, a 45 lb. backpack, and an even more giant roller bag that I am unwilling to leave alone for even a second. I see people watching me, judging me, and decide asking them is a last resort. I end up going to an airport bank window and asking the teller if she can give me money from my debit card. She is young and smiles at me. She tells me there will be a fee, and I should just use the cash machine to the right. I sigh and tell her it is broken, and she answers that there is another machine about ten feet away from the broken one. Inside I could kick myself, but instead I smile and thank her. She wishes me luck.

*

Withdrawing the cash was and easy process, and it makes me disproportionately pleased with myself that I did something correctly. But if anything else goes wrong I will not be able to deal with it. My next move is to procure a ride to the Rome center, so I walk out of the airport and into actual Italy. The sun hits me and the air rushes past me, but I would not describe the experience as refreshing. Rather, it was like an overload of my senses that I was too tired to deal with, and the additional heat did nothing to cool my already damp body. And the humidity in the airport equaled the humidity outside.

*

I immediately see a sign advertising taxis. Next to the sign is a well dressed young man leaning against the wall. He looks official.

*

"Taxi?" I ask. He nods and motions me towards him. He takes the handle of one of my bags and leads me to an unmarked Prius. Alarm bells go off half-heartedly and I stop him and ask him how much the trip will be.

*

"70 euro."

*

"I was told it should be less," I said in a feeble attempt to be travel savvy. I know that it should cost less but I think he can hear in my voice that he's got me either way. I cannot think, I can barely move; I am way past exhausted. I know, and he knows, that I will give in.

*

"That is what it costs." He responds.

*

"Alright." Negotiation over, and I wince at myself. Next time I will not do this. I will hold out, I will plan better. But it does help to confirm my contention that the worst thing that will happen to me while traveling is overpaying.We load all my stuff into the car and get going.

*

His name is Fabio and he has lived in Rome all his life. He asks me about myself, and I tell him nothing specific. I am annoyed at myself because my resentment towards him is slowly fading. I should be angry, but I am just tired. About half and hour later he drops me off. I get out and leave.

*

I am so close. The road is cobbled with fist sized stones, and my luggage makes a huge racket as I roll it along. Palazzo Pio. I look around, unable to take much in. A small burst of reserve energy gets me to the door of the Rome Center, and I ring the office intercom. A woman's voice answers, and the massive door unlocks. I pull open the door and shove myself and my awkward bags inside. Then I am challenged with the stairs to the first landing. White, slippery, marble stairs. I begin the climb and rejoice at the sight of an elevator which I take to the Rome Center main office.

*

I am about to walk in and I realize how awful I must look. I am sleep deprived, red with physical exertion, sweaty, my hair is damp, and I have not brushed my teeth in a day and a half. Oh well. I walk in and ask where I can store my extra stuff until my program starts. I am going to go traveling around Italy. I am pretty sure that I am the first of my program to arrive. I babble, talking fast and a little incoherently.

*

The receptionist leads me to a classroom down the hall, and tells me I can put my stuff here. I smile and thank her. I lay all my bags down and sit next to them. I open all the zippers and dump out almost everything so I can rearrange them to fit my plans. I don't need my laptop to travel. I need my school books, but not all of them. I had brought around 15, one reason my bag was so heavy. I take my phrase book and the books assigned by Shawn, as well as some books I had brought to read for pleasure. Still a lot to carry, but I would rather have them with me. I shove some clothes and toiletries into the backpack. I will leave the other two pieces of luggage behind. I lift of the backpack and discover it weighs about 40 pounds, but I can't think of what else to leave behind. Hmmm.

*

Before my ordeal, I had planned to hop a train to Cinque Terre after my stop at the Rome Center. Ha. What a joke. Even though I had already reserved a hostel in Cinque Terre, my need for rest and an immediate shower overrode anything else. I wind up paying 75 euros for a private room with a shower, and it is worth it. I go to bed at 4 in the afternoon and leave the next day at 10 in the morning.

*

Back at the Rome Center, I ask for directions to the train station, and am directed to a bus that will take me there, and given instructions for buying a bus ticket. Clean and ready to conquer the world, I walk out of the Rome Center and am lost within 5 minutes.

*

But it's ok. I bought a compass in Pennsylvania, and decide to walk north until I find a street that looked "main" enough to be the street with the bus stop. Then I am bound to find it eventually. I walk, and here's a street. But is it "main" enough? No. I keep on walking. I wander through a large square, which I realize later during the program to be Piazza Navona (and is north of the main road we spoke of). I go through it. I walk and walk and walk. I decide that I have gone too far, and that west would now be a good idea since that is the general direction of the train station. I am bound to run into a bus stop.

*

My backpack gets heavier all the time, and I need to sit down and rest. I sit down in front of some steps. Could these be the Spanish Steps? I don't think so, they are not very big, and I imagined them to be grander. A small fountain gurgles at the bottom of all the steps. I never saw the label of the square, Piazza di Spagna. I had been sitting in front of the Keats/Shelley House.

*

I get up and wobble further west, mapless, until I get to a huge open space. Little did I know I was looking at Termini. I chose to go south, and one hour later ended up getting to the station from another direction. It had taken almost four hours to walk to the train station. And the entire time I was looking for a bus to take me there. I was no longer clean or happy.

*

I left Rome with a vengeance, and hoped I would have an easier time returning for the program in three weeks.

*