Thanks to
the magical powers of sleeping pills combined with complimentary Heinekens,
most of my overnight flight to London was spent in-and-out of various states of
slumber mixed in with the occasional visit to the not-so luxurious wiz palace
at the back of the plane. I still for
the life of me cannot figure out how anyone who is more than six feet tall or
who weighs over two hundred pounds manages to use those things. Truly one of life's great mysteries. After touching down at what I believe to be
the craziest airport in the world, Heathrow, I unfortunately had to catch a bus
to one of the other London airports (Gatwick) to catch my connecting flight to
Rome. Normally this wouldn't bother me
so much, except for the fact that because everything in the God-forsaken United
Kingdom is so expensive a bus, yes bus ride from one airport to the other cost
me just shy of $50. I am a firm believer
that if you are going to have to pay that much for a bus ride and not even
change postal codes, they should at least throw in a free hand job from a
midget, or at the very least give me an open-top double-decker foam party bus. Having said all that, I made it to the much smaller
and calmer airport and was on my to Italy.
I could already smell the parmesan cheese and hair gel as I stepped on
to the plane! Opa!
I arrived in
the old country (as I understand the Canadian-Italians like to call it) around
3pm and had lots of time to kill as Colleen's flight(s) from
Kelowna>Vancouver>London>Munich>Rome would not be arriving for
another seven hours. After draining the
battery life on all available electronics (see: laptop, cell phone, e-reader,
IPod) I was left with a few options:
·
I could sit there and marvel at how much better
all the Italian men dress than myself (fear of someone confusing my sexuality)
·
I could sit there and ogle the Italian women
(fear of my girlfriend somehow finding out and exacting her revenge by leaving
me for a Fabio lookalike)
·
I could go and attempt to order food and hope
that someone spoke a bit of English (sounds safe and boring)
After
weighing my limited options on the dining front at the Rome airport, I decided
to try and order a panini and a fountain pop.
Due to a breakdown in communication between myself and someone who's
name I'll assume was something along the lines of Carlos, I ended up with some
weird bread thing and an Italian man yelling at me. Eventually, I did get a pop, albeit in a can
and not from the fountain, as Carlos' crazy hand gestures eventually led me to
believe that the fountain pop machine was not working. After dining on my mystery sandwich, I was
dealt another blow as Colleen's flight was delayed coming in from Munich and it
was going to be close for us time-wise in making the last shuttle bus into the
city centre where our hotel was located.
What started out as a nice day with complimentary beers and non-dramatic
flights was quickly getting Brenty-boy agitated. Sometime around the turn of
the century, Colleen's flight decided to greet us with its presence in lovely
Italy and came accompanied with my now blonde(!) girlfriend. After making some quick, sweet, magical,
passionate love on a bench next to some homeless bag lady at the airport we
hopped on the shuttle bus to Termini Station which would take us into the city
centre.
Having been
to Rome before, I kind of knew what to expect stepping off the bus, but for
Colleen it was a magical comical first impression. Immediately upon stepping off the bus we were
greeted by drunk people all around us (both homeless and otherwise), vomit and
piss all over the sidewalks, and multiple bums sleeping at both the tops and
bottoms of moving escalators. Now I
often times like to consider myself an expert on the fine art of sleeping in
strange and unusual places and it is safe to say that this definitely towards
the top of my list. Navigating our way
through the minefield of human bodies we had no idea how to get to our hotel as
the subway was now closed for the night.
We were eventually able to find a police officer who informed us that he
had no knowledge of bus routes and that we should just take a taxi. Normally I hate to use taxis unless it is
absolutely necessary, although as I start to age get lazier this is
starting to change and I am more open to letting taxi drivers rip me off. Naturally, knowing that we were tourists, our
taxi driver took us on a few extra trips around the block to run up our cab
fare, as I noticed he was very good at ignoring the directions/missing
turn-offs on his GPS. Seeing as how it
was almost 1am and I'm a non-confrontational pussy, I said nothing and handed
the yellow-car bandit my hard earned Euros.
Upon arrival
at our hotel (Re Di Roma, 8.5/10) we
knew one thing and one thing only: we needed to get some grub. The helpful gentlemen at the front desk were
more than willing to direct us to what appeared to be the only place still open
in the neighborhood as we were staying a couple of kilometers away from the
main tourist district. Colleen was about
to get her first taste of authentic Italian pizza! As would become a common theme throughout our
weekend in Rome, we received terrible service and were treated to some not-so-incredible
food. I must say that the beers went
down rather smoothly though and it was officially time to see how much weight I
could gain over the next two weeks. If I
tried really hard I bet I could even get myself an extra roll on the chin
before Christmas!
~Brentski~
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