Rome, Italia: Part 1 - Buon Viaggio!

I never know what to pack, and this trip was no exception.

I awoke at 3 a.m. the night before flying to Rome, Italy, in a desperate attempt to change my sleep schedule and avoid jet lag. And of course I hadn't packed yet.

The world was still asleep as I stretched my limbs, cracked open a can of sugar free Red Bull, and squinted out my living room window at the soundless sleepy streets of Chicago.

Hours went by like minutes.

Over the course of the night I managed to pack my necessary items into my worn, tattered duffle bag, and check all of my documents and print outs half a dozen times. I never said that I wasn't slightly OCD.

Morning came like a breath of fresh air -- the anticipation made my heart race and now the clock played a cruel trick on me, advancing ahead slowly as if taunting my excitement.

Courtney and I called each other sporadically throughout the hardest leg of the early morning, keeping each other awake and having dance parties in our respected apartments. I was keyed up and ready to go.

C and I joined forces at the Chicago CTA Damen Blue Line stop, and jumped on an el car bound for O'Hare airport.

We sat across from one another, eyes shining, clutching our belongings in sheer disbelief. We kept looking at one another and suddenly one of us would crack a grin, and we would just mouth "Italy...we are going to Italy". Somehow saying it made it real.

As the train clattered over the elevated tracks, I stared out of the window and said my goodbyes with Chicago. Whenever I go overseas on a trip, I always silently say goodbye to my home. I took a mental snapshot of the urban landscape, filled with metal and concrete, and prepared myself for what lay ahead.

We arrived at O'Hare with no problems, and shuffled our way to the Al'Italia desk and were promptly greeted by a neat, well kept host decked out in green. The only thing she wanted to see? Our passports. No questions, no once overs, nothing.

The International Terminal was literally dead. There was a flight heading to Mexico City around the same time as our flight, so C and I spent time waiting to go through security with a lot of people in cowboy boots.

At our gate I saw a unique mixture of both Europeans and Americans waiting to board the flight to Rome. Native Euros always stick out like a sore thumb to me, and I get a really big kick out of spotting them.

A group of four 20 something males sat slunk down in the plastic airport chairs, chattering away in Italian. Loudly.

They all had dark hair, ginormous Gucci inky black shades (worn indoors), designer tee shirts, rings, faux-hawks, and killer kicks. But he took my breath away.

He had the biggest sunglasses out of all the guys, and he positioned himself several rows in front of me, yet we were facing each other. It took every ounce of my preservation not to stare. He was quite literally the most gorgeous "normal" man I've ever seen. I literally felt like I couldn't breathe, and I hadn't even arrived in Italy. The rumors must be true.

I played eye tag with this man for 1.5 hours, although I cannot be sure since his poker face revealed nothing from behind his giant dark lenses. In my defense he stared straight at me. A lot. I would then blush and break his gaze. His tee shirt hit him in all the right places, and he just had this air about him. He and his designer jeans needed to teach me a lesson if you know what I mean. I began to daydream and wonder if he would be seated by us.

C sat directly across from me and therefore missed it when Mr. Italiano decided to take off his sunglasses for a precious 5 minutes. I was met with intense dark brown eyes (to match the dark brown hair) and the sexiest smile I've ever seen. I am an absolute sucker for a man with brown hair/eyes combo as it is, so it was a KO from there.

Helllllo, Italy!

Ahem. The rest of our flight's travelers consisted of suburban couples with fanny packs, and one absolutely delicious pilot who appeared to be flying with his super thin Italian mistress. OK, maybe they were dating, but they definitely gave off a weird vibe. Almost like a sly, secretive vibe if you know what I mean. Well, these two canoodled and made out FOR ALMOST 2 HOURS as we waited to board the plane.

Stewardesses from KLM, Lufthansa, Air France, and Aeroflot occasionally paraded by in their high heels and skirt suit combos and reminded me once again that Europe is full of drop dead gorgeous women. These hot little numbers all giggled with each other and walked into the super secretive high-end terminal lounge across the hallway from where I was sitting. I looked down at my jeans and New Balances and sighed.

Once we boarded the plane we quickly realized that it was only half full. Al Gore would have had a heart attack from all the carbon footprints we were about to leave, and for so little people. What I didn't know at the time is that Al'Italia is going bankrupt, and have been in talks with Air France to be bought out. This translated to the worse service and flying experience I have ever encountered. But at this point, I thought everything was just peachy.

Due to the lack of patronage of our flight, C and I snagged the middle 3-seater row and deemed the middle seat as a curl up when you're sleeping/keeper of all things purses and munchies chair. This was rather awesome I must say. I temporarily overlooked the shoddiness of the plane's interior and absolute lack of personal space. Even the stewardesses looked angry.

As our plane took off, some overhead bins in our neck of the woods decided to open and display menacing pieces of luggage. We gripped the edge of our seats in fear as the plane ascended into the air, but not after craning our necks and calling out to the stewardesses for help, whose reply was to shoo us with their hands.

Great service aboard that flight.

After being treated to the wonderful acting of Nicholas Cage in "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" the lights dimmed and it was sleepy time. The hot Italian men sat 5 rows in front of us, so I kept my eye on them as I poked through the rest of my mystery pasta and fruit cup. Luckily Italians believe in drinking yourself into liver failure, and the free red and white wine kept flowing. When C and I weren't busy playing solitaire on our ipods, or shoveling Chunky Monkey trail mix into our mouths, we were guzzling down copious amounts of vino italiano. And giggling. We giggled a lot.

The saucy and rather salty stewardesses didn't even flinch when I decided to (bravely) try out my rusty Italian for the first time in 2 years. Without batting an eyelash they responded to me in their native tongue and passed me another plastic cup of the good stuff. This marked the first of many translation situations for C, which I loved because it gave me great practice. My pride was soaring.

After another hour or so, the entire plane was silent save for the hum of the jet engines and the occasional whisper among cohorts. The entire plane seemed to have descended into sleep. C was curled up with her feet tucked onto our sacred middle seat, ipod ear buds in place, snoozing away.

I then fell asleep for an undetermined amount of time before I jolted awake in a cold sweat, and almost screamed. No really- the scream caught in my throat and in a panic I grabbed onto Courtney's shirt sleeve.

I want to preface what I'm about to say with I like to watch horror movies, and yes, I promise I'm sane. OK continue.

While I slept I dreamt that I was on that exact plane, in that exact spot, with C two seats away from me. In my dream a man was walking the aisles as everyone slept, singing Kumbayah (told you this was weird). Well, some faceless individual didn't take too kindly to this and suddenly yelled out, "Hey, you! Shut the hell up!"

The man quickly walked to the back of the plane and when he returned he had a chain saw in his hand. He walked up to the guy who yelled at him and literally cut him and his chair in half!! Then he threw the chain saw and it landed right next to my feet, still spinning. Everyone started screaming and running around the plane.

This maniac then pulled out a switchblade and started stabbing people. The chainsaw still spun at my feet. I sat there in my chair paralyzed in fear, hoping that the man wouldn't notice me. The pilot came on the loudspeaker and said they would have to make an emergency landing in Kiev, Ukraine. (Ed. note: Why there? No idea. That seems to be the least of my problems at this point). Everyone is panicking, crying. It was one of those dreams that felt SO REAL.

In my dream I latched onto Courtney, shook her and repeatedly asked "Is this really happening right now? Is this really hap..." over and over and she looked at me wide eyed and said yes.

This is when I propelled myself awake, only to notice that everyone was still sleeping in the dark, and that I had flung my complimentary scratchy airplane pillow into the aisle next to me.

Needless to say I needed another drink, since I sweat all of the alcohol out during that madness.

As I nestled back into my seat for some additional slumber, the Italian men decided to start conversing. Loudly. As in, I could still hear them despite wearing ear plugs. Right then and there I decided they weren't so cool anymore.

In the early morning light our plane changed direction and dipped towards the Mediterranean Sea. I sat absolutely still with my neck craned towards the window, trying to drink in the white caps and mountainous coastline. This was Italy. This was Rome. We were here.

We landed in Fuimicino (Leonardo da Vinci) airport and disembarked on the tarmac and had to take a bus to our gate. Oh Rome, how very Mexico of you! I got a huge kick out of that.

Since we didn't check out bags, we were ready for anything. Ready to test my Italian language skills, ready to eat something, ready. Just ready. Our harebrained scheme of waking up in the night and sleeping on the plane worked beautifully. So far no jet lag, although to be fair it was still rather early in the game.

We found the train heading into Termini Station, the main railway connection in the city center. As we sat on a bench and tried to figure out where to buy train tickets, and wait, how much is that cappuccino in the cafe window, a man barked at us from a tiny booth.

I suspiciously approached the booth (because I don't trust strangers at all, let alone ones in foreign countries) and learned that this man was hawking chartered mini-buses to the center of Rome. For a mere 3 euro more than a train ticket, we could get dropped off at our hostel door. C looked at me and asked what I thought. I rolled the idea around in my head, did the math. The train to Termini cost 11 euro, and the metro connection another one. So basically for 2 euro more we could get dropped right off. Since we had no idea how to really get where we needed to go, we obliged.

We then found ourselves sitting with other dazed Americans on the same metal benches, wide eyed, like a herd of cattle, awaiting the mysterious driver named Mateo who would drive us to our destinations.


Courtney holding a free guide from the booth guy, standing in front of the cappuccino place. MMmmmmm....cappuccino.


View from our bench -- trains that left the airport to the main station in Rome.

I took this time to take in the typical European socks with sandals combo, along with Euro mullets, designer fanny packs, and uber tight pants (on males). Chuckle, chuckle. I felt pretty overwhelmed, a little bit nervous, but 100% ready for action.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, Mr. Mateo showed up and guided his herd to the nearest exit. We spilled out into the parking lot only to be greeted by looming pigeons, and the balmy Roman air.

After Mateo gruffly muttered something unintelligible, he manhandled our bags out of our hands and threw them into the back of the bus. I silently thanked myself for not packing anything remotely breakable and/or of value, because I don't think Mr. M would have taken too kindly to an itemized bill.

We then boarded the bus in early morning silence, and buckled our seat belts. Little did we know we would really need them.

To Be Continued.....