Andrushka

I’m now in my convent/hotel in Rome. I’ve been in the city for about four hours now and still haven’t done any sight seeing. I have successfully taken the train from the airport, bought my next train ticket for Florence to Paris, took the metro to the stop nearest my hotel, and checked in to the hotel after about 40 minutes of wandering around wondering where street names might be on both my map and the streets themselves. Melinda’s yellow bag got quite a workout.

The smells of Rome remind me more of Ukraine than Western Europe. The train from the airport to the central station smelled like Sergey after a soccer match, and after my long flight, I’m sure I wasn’t helping any. At the train station, I stood in line to buy tickets behind a young American couple. I hope I didn’t creep them out by continually sniffing in their general direction. Admittedly, mass transit systems are generally the armpit of a city anyway, so I’ll see if the smell similarity holds up at the more touristy areas.

The flight over was perhaps the worst Transatlantic flight I have yet experienced. It didn’t help that the flight attendants didn’t have a vegetarian meal for me as I had requested and said it must be my fault. But the icing on the cake was the shrill woman from Kansas City who sat in front of me. She was a leaner. About an hour into the flight, she shoved her seat back into my knees and kept it there for the rest of the flight, even during and after touchdown when we had all been instructed to place our tray tables up and our seat backs in the full upright position. The result was seven hours of my knees at odd angles. Now, I know the ultimate fault lies with American Airlines for their seat design and spacing. However, I still feel it is always rude to lean back your seat if an adult is sitting behind you.

Even the lady sitting next to me tsked at the woman, but it went unnoticed and I didn’t want to cause a stir. You never know when there’s an air marshal on a power trip aboard.

My seatmate was a good part of the trip. We didn’t talk a lot, but when we did it was pleasant, she didn’t smell, didn’t drink, and stayed on her side. What more could you want in a seatmate? She was wearing hijab, so naturally I wanted to ask her all sorts of questions related to Little Mosque on the Prairie, but since she was from Los Angeles and not Canada, I decided that would be inappropriate on more than just the usual levels.

The guy sitting behind me in O’Hare sounded almost eerily like Lowell Hagele when he talked: pitch, cadence, intonation, all of it very Hagelian. When I turned around just to make sure it Lowell wasn’t stalking me, I saw his mohawk and the dragon tattoos on his scalp flanking his hair were less like Lowell. He did talk about living in Japan though …

In Omaha, the 20-something Latino woman sitting next to me was speaking to a friend on the phone in a mixture of Spanish and English. During one break in the Spanish, she said, “I want to be on the hot tamale train.” I was reading a very funny book, so my laughter may or may not have seemed related to her conversation.

Well, considering I only meant to write that I’m here safe and sound, I should probably get going. My goals are to 1) find a bankomat (ATM) 2) find something to eat and 3) go to the Coliseum. From there on, it’s anyone’s guess.

P.S. The "free Internet" the convent advertised is not, in fact, Wifi, but rather a cord I can plug in only in the lobby. So, I won't be doing a lot of updating from here.

Labels: Eurotrip, flight, Rome

Posted by Scott on 11 September 2009 at 9/11/2009 07:20:00 AM | Permalink