I have been hardened, toughened like authentic leather, made ready for the battlegrounds of departing and arriving, incoming and outgoing, security labyrinths, and all modes of veritable torture that one is put through to get from point A to point B. After the day that Nick and I were put through upon leaving Rome--a day that I think I can fairly say will live in infamy, at least for the two of us who experienced it in the trenches--we have risen up, beginning as humble young travelers with stars in our eyes and a glowing halo of innocence above our heads, filled with dreams of golden wanderings and transforming, out of desperate necessity into the Peregrination Marines.
That sentence was probably worthy of Charles Dickens. In that it alone causes a comma shortage in the world of literature. Although I most certainly do enjoy Mr. Dickens' writing, which is perhaps why I try to emulate his style for certain pieces, and I tip my hat to him most fondly. Please, if you haven't yet, read "A Tale of Two Cities". Brilliant.
5am dawned dark when the alarms screeched forth into to the quiet Roman hotel. Dark and hot. We'd at last found the thermostat last night after sweating to death the previous two nights. Ironically, it was located on the radiator. Yes, the side of a metal radiator that echoed a 1940's Philadelphia home, or so I can imagine. Still, it seemed that we had not figured it out entirely because I for one woke up with the covers half thrown off my body, covered in a light sheen of perspiration and cursing the physically painful, but necessary act, of opening both my eyes.
"Nick, come on," I croaked, sounding like Eartha Kitt in her role as the old fortune teller in "Holes". Or like Louis Armstrong on any day.
"Nooooo . . . ."
Amen to that, but we had no choice. So we dragged ourselves up and made our way down to the front desk to check out. Things went smoothly and we were leaving the Hotel Arcadia behind forever by 5:30am. A walk down the narrow road in the pre-dawn grayness of the world, everything a blur in that morning haze, that sleep that clings and won't quite recede back to your subconscious where it belongs. We crossed the road, passed that minuscule gas station, and stood at the bus stop, the faint memories of dreams still drifting like ghosts before our eyes.
Twenty minutes later we arrived at the metro station and hopped aboard, shipping out of the suburbs of Roma to the city center where we bought a shuttle ticket to take us to Ciampino Airport. We waited in a long line of other exhausted-looking tourists, everyone bearing a heavy suitcase. The bus filled up and we were told to wait for the next one.
So we stood there, at attention, our nerves on end. We knew we would not be able to relax fully until we were sitting before the correct gate.
The bus came. My suitcase was loaded onto the bottom of the bus. As he was only carrying a backpack, Nick had nothing to stow away below decks. The ride was a long one. Nothing looked familiar.
"Are you sure we need to go to Ciampino?"
"Yes. I'm 100% positive," I answered tiredly. I was in no mood for any kind of debate.
"100%? Not 50% or even 80%?"
"No, Nick."
"Okay, just checking." Then we lapsed into silence and I ate my rations: an apple from the breakfast offerings of the day before and a granola bar, the last of the five that I'd brought from Madrid.
We arrived at the airport, disembarked with all the other passengers, reclaimed my luggage, and then made our way inside. Our itinerary said Terminal 3, but the building that we'd just entered wasn't labeled. The line inside was atrocious, enough to scare anyone. A few select curse words may or may not have been flung out into the open; I will neither confirm nor deny this.
Nick insisted that we go to the information desk before blindly getting into a line that stretched all the way back to the Persian Empire and it was a lucky thing too. The man at the front desk scowled up at us when we asked where Terminal 3 was located.
"There's only one terminal here."
"Yes, but our itinerary says we need to get to terminal 3. Do we need to take a shuttle?"
"What's your airline?" he growled.
"Uh . . . Swiss," I said, double checking our paperwork.
"We only fly Ryan Airlines. You need the other airport."
$@?!
I need to take one moment here to show an ounce of humility and gratefulness at the graceful tact of Nick not mention my 100% guarantee at this given moment. I don't know what I would have done if he had. Bravo though to a good friend for letting that one pass. I must mention here, lest we both look like total buffoons, that our itinerary did not say the airport on it; only the terminal number. One question for you, Expedia: why?
We hurried outside and saw a cluster of cabbies standing together. In Spanish, I addressed them and asked how far the other airport was away from Ciampino. There are only two major airports in Rome, the other being Fiumicino.
"About 30 minutes," was our answer. By our calculations and from previous taxi reconnaissance, we knew the going rates were about 1 Euro per minute. Ergo, 15 Euros each for a ride to the correct airport wasn't so bad; the bus shuttle here had only cost 6 Euro, so total travel cost from hotel to airport at just over 20 euros sounded pretty much like a bargain. And we desperately needed it too. Both of us were a wee bit depressed about the amount of wallet vacuuming that had occurred whilst in Rome. Granted, however, we both now knew what the deepest, innermost corners of said wallets looked like and they were quite tidy and uncluttered.
We climbed into the cab after my luggage was loaded in the trunk. Mistake. But I'll get to that.
Drizzling and fairly cloudy now, the pavement was slick, but this somehow did not deter our driver from acting like we were in the Indianapolis 500. Blinkers forgotten, passing on curves, speeds of 130+ km/hr . . . rest assured I was weighing to myself the benefits of not having to pay for the cab ride since we would all be in a ditch somewhere very shortly. Even if we survived that, surely there would have to be a "I'm sorry I rolled over the cab into a muddy field because I couldn't make logical, safe driving decisions" discount. So we didn't panic much.
Screeching to a stop and drifting into a parking place along the drop off section at the airport, we arrived, just as promised 30 minutes later.
"Ok," said the driver, "79 euros."
"Excuse me, what?" Cotton must have become lodged in my ear at some point during the trip, surely.
"79 Euros."
"For a 30 minute cab ride? You realize that was 30 minutes? It should be around 30 euros."
He turned around then, his olive complexioned features stern. "You took express."
Now that, we couldn't argue. However, we were clearly in the process of being robbed. Had I known then what I know now, I never would have put my luggage in the trunk. That cab-thief would have held no collateral and I simply would've thrown down about 40 euro, hopped out, and said, "Sue me."
Alas, this was not the case. Nick and I rummaged through our emaciated wallets and scrapped together, by some miracle 65 Euro. "This is all we have," Nick assured him. Close enough right? You two poor young college kids can have a break this once.
"Go inside and find a cash machine then," the cab driver shot back.
How can I describe the stress then bottling up inside of me? My throat had become a bottlenecked traffic zone of profanities and curse words that most likely weren't even real, but lodged as they were in my efforts to hold back tears of frustration, I leapt out of the taxi and ran inside, even as I heard Nick saying, "She'll go get the money, I'll stay here, ok?"
Legs pumping, hair flying, I soared across the shining tiled floor toward the overhead sign that, at the opposite end of the check in area, bore the Euro sign. I surely must have borrowed Hermes' winged sandals as my tan boots barely skimmed the surface of the gray flooring. At the ATM, my hands were shaking, a mixture of anger and also knowing that I had to hurry. Our flight left in 45 minutes and we still had to check in and go through security and find the gate--
A fifty spat out of the machine. I crumpled it in my fist--hell if I was going to lose anymore money on this trip--and ran back again, dashing out to our cab where I paid the driver, made the mature choice not to tell him what I thought of him, and grabbed my luggage.
At check in, I was told that my carry on would have to be checked. Ahhhh the inescapability of it all. Lady Luck was indeed with us that day, but they are identical twins perhaps better known as Good or Bad, and we had the less desirable of the sisters in our company that Thursday.
Security went well . . . until Nick was held up for having a full water bottle, which he was made to chug to prove that there was nothing flammable, harmful, or otherwise poisonous inside. Ugh. So much water in less than a minute. We were cleared then, only to make our way to the "D" gates area where we had been instructed to go at check in and discover that not only did our flight not have a specific gate number assigned yet--even though it was due to take off in less than 20 minutes-- it also was delayed for 45.
"This means we didn't need to take express," Nick tried to joke lightheartedly.
"Right." The was all the numbness in my head could come up with; my brain was on leave.
The flight to Zurich was uneventful. Until the end of it. Nick and I were scheduled to fly out of Zurich at 12:25, just one hour after landing. Yet, our flight from Rome took off 45 minutes later than originally anticipated due to air traffic control problems in Zurich so now we would have 15 minutes to find our gate and board.
The flight attendants flitted around the plane, handing out maps of the airport to passengers who were to be boarding connecting flights with nearly overlapping landing/take off times. Our gate was approximately a 15 minute distance from where we would be landing (trust the Swiss to have an airport map with measured walking time estimations between all the gates; a gold star for efficiency!).
As soon as the plane touched down, we bolted. Down the aisle, off the plane, Nick clutching the map and quickly taking the lead with those impossibly long legs of his--"Keep going! I'm right behind you!" I yelled out as though we were fleeing an airstrike--up one of those moving walkways to a sub level, then up another. The civilians waiting patiently at the neighboring gates stared at us as we thundered through like a pair of wildebeests spurred on by ravenous hyenas, skidding to a halt, breathless, as we found our gate.
We'd done it in five minutes. It was a tad bit anticlimactic handing in our boarding passes with ten minutes to spare and the stewardess raising a skeptical eyebrow which clearly questioned our rationality and right to be traveling alone. If only she knew. I get that look every time I propose that I want to create the 100% efficient solar cell. They tell me it's impossible and that I'm an idiot with those eyebrows of theirs. That's also what they said when Tesla predicted global warming.
The flight back to Madrid was uneventful, thank goodness. For one and a half hours, I simply vegetated as I listened to my iPod.
When we landed, the two of us of course made our way to baggage claim to await my poor carry on that had been torn away from me. Taking up strategic positions at the conveyor, we waited as the belt looped its ceaseless way around and around its deep U-shaped track. Little kids squealed excitedly when their brightly colored luggage passed beneath the plastic black flaps and into view. Adults pointed and gestured at certain bags, disappointment cresting on their faces when the little logo on the outside or the color of the ribbon tied onto the handle didn't match up.
Eventually all were satisfied though. All but me. Nick laid down on a non-active belt and stared at the ceiling. I stood my watch, vigilant as ever, staring down those vertical black flaps that led into the great expanse of the unknown from whence all luggage came, mysteriously, transported by clandestine airport workers, possibly somehow connected to Narnia. The world may never know.
The belt finally chugged to a stop.
A weak sigh escaped my lips. "All right, Nick. Let's go to lost and found."
He sprang up with some inexplicable source of energy and we made our way to the lost baggage desk where, after scanning my corresponding luggage ticket, the woman behind the counter informed me that my bag had yet to leave Switzerland but would arrive within approximately four hours.
"Would you like to wait for it or would you like us to ship it to you?"
Hell if I was going to let them ship it to me. I could kiss all my souvenirs, electronics cords, clothes, and the blue flats that I stole from Mom the day before I left from Spain, all goodbye.
"No I'll wait."
"Okay, you can head back over here--we're in Terminal 2 right now--in about 4 hours. Until then, I suggest you go to Terminal 4. There's more restaurants and shops over there."
So we proceeded to Terminal 4 via shuttle, where we hung out, eating airport food, playing cards, reading, and drinking tea for the next four hours. I had a fierce headache and it was all I could do to remain in an upright position. My mood was blacker than strips of burned tire rubber on the runways outside. I had promised my mother to call when Nick and I arrived back at my dorm, telling her that at the latest we would be home by 5pm. However now we would be lucky to be back by ten o'clock and I knew she would worry.
My phone would not work. I tried everything short of building my own personal cell tower to get that thing to make a single 30 second call but the universe would oblige me nothing that day. Luckily, I had my kindle however so Nick and I went to the wifi hot spot so that I could email her.
"Uh, Meg?"
"Yes, Nick?"
He was holding my kindle at the moment. "It says we have to pay to use the internet . . ."
What was holding me together at this point, I'll never know. Robbed by a cabbie, forced to pay for a bland lunch at the airport when we could have had lunch at the residence hall, forced to pay for wifi, and we would inevitably miss dinner at the res hall as well so that meant plain toast once back home. The money situation was killing me, as I'm sure every college kid or blue collar worker can relate.
Finally 8:30pm came, the appointed hour. We dragged ourselves back to the shuttle and rode in silence to Terminal 2. We were told to stand by the "Paris" baggage claim, but the belt never started. A new crowd of passengers was milling about the same area and small clusters of them began to break off from the main group to go to the baggage information counter and interrogate the workers, who seemed to have no idea what was going on, based on the myriad different answers everyone was getting.
Nick and I each took up a post near one of the two moving baggage belts that finally came to life and--at long, long last-- my black, nondescript bag with the tiny metal oval that says, "American Tourist" in blue lettering circled around the corner and into my awaiting arms.
Taking no chances however, I opened it and verified that the contents were mine.
In a display of modern chivalry--which, despite the cynical beliefs of some is not extinct, only endangered-- Nick offered to carry my bag, but I would have none of it.
"After all that, I kind of just want to hold it," I told him. Somehow he understood.
Shuttled back, for the last time thank goodness, to Terminal 4, we then caught the train back to the residence hall. It was an hour and a half long ride, but it felt good to finally be on track, all possessions in hand, worries abated for the time being.
After that terrible drudge of a Thursday, I don't think there's anything that the world of traveling can throw at me that I cannot handle. Absolutely nothing worked out right to the point where we simply had to beat a retreat into the flat-lining world of unquestioning acceptance. Even there though, I had a bit of passport trouble; it seemed that I had a long history of struggles regarding simply accepting things so the security officials didn't want to let me in. Said I presented a real threat to those who simply wanted to follow the robed figure with the crook around the ever-green pasture in the valley known as Everything is Fine where runneth the River Complacence.
So even that presented difficulties. Ahhh well. Nick and I are now Peregrination Marines as I said before, decorated callouses hardened to the strains of the traveling life.
Nothing can stop us now.
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