My Sick Roman Holiday . . . continued
I consider myself a savvy and experienced global traveler. I know how to pack well and conserve energy, stay cozy whilst looking chic, and whisk through “fast-track” or “pre-check” as is usual on many of my flights; alas, I forgot to check on allowances for carry-on toiletries in the UK. I noticed with despair, my bag being sent to the other track of security check for inspection. With only 20 minutes to get to my connecting gate for Rome, the congenial TSA woman began fearlessly plucking every cosmetic bag [about 6 of them] and dumped the products into a dirty grey plastic bin! She handed me a sandwich sized plastic zipper bag and said determinedly, “You’ll have to make a choice and fit all of your selection into this one bag!”
I could feel the fury and frustration come over my face as I told her, “I have to get to my flight in about 15 minutes”.
“Not to worry. You have time. It’s just downstairs and I’ll walk you to the gate”, she reassured me. How in the world was I supposed to make a choice between which sample size, allowance-worthy products from home, those items I spent 2 days preparing and carefully selecting, were coming with me? I focused on my confiscated items being tossed and sealed into a large plastic bag as I blindly threw a few bottles into the sandwich bag and heard her say, “We can send the rest to you wherever you are. Of course, with the holiday season, I doubt they will arrive before Christmas”.
Who the hell cares about that! I just wanted my precious products carefully chosen to make me look more presentable to the Roman public, to be spared. I filled out the requisite forms, and as promised, she walked me to the gate and hugged me good-bye with a cheery “Happy Christmas!”. When I landed in Rome, the headache was upgraded to a cold. Feet on the cold rainy ground, crossing through the limo parking lot, the driver who met me at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport handed me his cough drops and tried his best to keep his distance.
Luckily, he was a tall, brawny man who was not afraid to climb the one flight of the steepest stairs I’ve seen since climbing The Great Wall. He lugged my two suitcases upstairs and dutifully bid farewell. The little apartment was sweet, but not exactly what I had hoped for. Sufficient, but strange, and the fact that I was now full throttle into being sick with what I thought was just a passing cold, made the unpacking dreary.
The first two nights at the flat, there was no heat because Eduardo forgot to show me how to turn on the gas heater, and this, quite frankly, led to my being even more miserable than one could imagine.
I risked going out in my Trastevere neighborhood for fear of escalating the cold, and quickly stepped into the closest restaurant. I didn’t notice the name. Nor did I care. I wanted food and then to return to the little cove of where I would be staying for three weeks. The restaurant was quaint but dull. A long table in front was brimming with the voices of jubilant young people of varying cultures. When they were pulling on coats and hats to leave, I heard someone speaking in Turkish and I gleefully asked them if they were from Istanbul. “Iyi geceler!”, I said.
“Merhaba! Iyi geceler. Yes. We are all from Turkish Airlines! You should come with us to Istanbul. We will be waiting for you!” Was this some kind of a sign? A cruel twist of fate? I’m in Rome for the first night by default of not being able to go to Istanbul, and I meet people from where I was supposed to be! The other two people sitting next to me were a mother and her daughter from Minnesota. I travel all the way to Rome to meet people from Minnesota? And I happened to see them three other times in the same neighborhood. If only they had been a father with his son, a father who was unmarried, divorced, or widowed. Now that would have been the meet-cute film version of this story. But, no. Not for me. It was a mother and her daughter. From Minnesota of all places, who suffered through my hacking coughing throughout the dinner. I hustled out the door with half of my Napolitano pizza and resolved to make the best of it by turning out the lights and latching the shutters closed.
Prior to the trip, I made arrangements for iPhone and SIM card usage whilst there and purchased an AT&T passport plan for my business iPhone so that everything was ready to function seamlessly. Sadly, someone in AT&T didn’t get the memo and I had no phone until I had the host of the apartment, Eduardo, take me to a TIM office near the Spanish Steps. Mind you, by now most people would have already seen the Spanish Steps and strolled through the streets and alleyways of Rome unencumbered with mundane tasks such as this, but my first day was spent trying to figure out how to get heat in the apartment, conversations with Eduardo to meet me in the afternoon. Instead of inside the fine shops nearby the Piazza di Spagna, I found myself inside a small kiosk of a wireless telephone company speaking to the shop manager whilst making calls to the States to resolve the problem. It was bloody cold. I was annoyed, sick, and fed-up with having to start my Roman holiday on such a pathetic note. With a little bit of luck, I was off to see the sights before feeling the need to get back to bed with medicines at hand. Medicines? Oh my God! I didn’t have anything because they were in my mailer bag of toiletries coming to me, with any luck from the British Royal Mail, sometime before January 5th.
I shuffled into a deli to buy minimal staples, aimlessly crossing the Piazza del Popolo and feeling as if I wanted to die as I hailed the first cab I saw. The onslaught of a total physical breakdown improved by having to get up the next day for a tour I had pre-booked through Walks of Italy to see the Vatican, Sistine Chapel, Basilica, and St. Peter’s Cathedral. It was a 5:00am wake-up call to throw on warm clothes to ward off the morning chill of 35° weather in an effort to find my group by 7:15. It was unthinkable to cancel the expensive booking, so I braved away.
I was completely lost on the cobblestone sidewalks of Rome after the taxi driver pulled up at the wrong entrance. Must have been my fault with the lack of fluency in Italian. I didn’t have the heart to blame my father for not continuing to teach his children his native language, but the thought crossed my mind. By this time, I didn’t care who saw me wailing as if a forlorn tourist who had over-stayed her visa and was about to be deported. Through the early morning grizzly air, I noticed two military guards in camouflage fashion at the gate. I approached, tears flooding, spitting out a mixture of Italian, Spanish, and massive vexation, how I might miss my tour if I didn’t find my group at a place called “The Green Bar”. Kindly, they started calling every green bar in the area determined to be of some help only to find out no one knew about this arrangement. They offered me a seat in their camouflage armored vehicle while they continued calling. Across the street, there were two or three large buses blocking the visibility of the kiosk in the square, twenty feet in front of us, painted green, where the tour groups were meeting.
Escorting me across the street towards a woman waving a flag, the guards saw a woman approaching and asked if this was the group heading to the Vatican. I was saved. The petite group of four then trekked towards the Vatican and all I could do was wave back to the two handsome Italian guards with a robust sign of gratitude and wishes for a Buona Natale! Of course, as anyone who has seen these sights knows, there are no words to describe how you feel seeing the work of Michelangelo. I wept upon entering but also realized I was at an emotional low point, and although the tour was more than memorable and informative, I couldn’t wait to get home to get into bed. If they had offered me a chance to meet Pope Francis, I would have asked to reschedule.
That was the 20th, and then the very next day I was dragging myself out of bed at 7:00am to head to the Coliseum and The Forum for another pre-booked tour I wanted to cancel. By this time, Salvatore, the spectacled gnome who worked at Erboristeria, twenty cobblestones away from my apartment, had become my only friend. I stocked up on Propoli sprays, soothing herbal cough drops, and room fragrance for the inevitable unpleasant uprising facing my trips to the loo.
I arrived early and sat down at the pedestrian café to warm up with a cappuccino and took out my phone and saw that distressful “low battery” sign. I specifically decided not to take the camera with me because the kind of photos I wanted to take were not typical tourist fare. I tried my best to recharge the damn phone in a green kiosk [Italians love green.] charging station [wish we had them in the US], but the connection failed even after having to buy a new fake Apple chord.
Our group consisted of me, and a conservative, reborn Christian couple from Tennessee. No romantic movie setting happening here either! With our gifted History PhD guide Sev, we cruised through the Coliseum and The Forum in the bitter cold. I half-heartedly listened and observed to the stories he shared. I wept when I saw the first glimpse of the expanse, but I couldn’t wait until this Gladiator movie was over, and I could escape from the cold and windy weather. When we came upon Caesar’s grave, I mourned the ruler of the Roman Empire as if I was ready to salute him in the afterlife.
The fever lasted more than 5 days. At night, I was delusional with a viral infection that felt as if I was going to die in Rome. No. You might revisit “Death in Venice”, but you won’t die in Rome! “Great, I thought. It took me all these years to finally come to my ancestral heritage city and I came here to die!”. I was being punished for having waited this long to come here.
Thankfully, there were the daily evening calls from WhatsApp from my friend Phillippe, in Paris. We had been a couple living together in Paris when we were both in our 20’s and 30’s but remained the best of friends. His care and attention, and the positive messages and calls I was receiving from my nephew Taylor and his wife, Liz in Manhattan were life-saving. They gave me strength to remain vigilant and positive. It wasn’t until I made the Christmas Holiday call to my family in New Hampshire, they suggested I contact the host to request to see a doctor.
Giovanna sent her driver to pick me up to go to a hospital nearby. After visiting two hospitals, the driver dropped me off at a small clinic where non-residents were directed. When I entered the stark empty 1940’s style minimalist design, I found myself in a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. There was no one working, no person to speak with, and I uncharacteristically began screaming, with my hoarse voice, through the halls for any sign of help. Turns out, it was a dental office and they were all away on holiday. I found this out when I met a lovely young Polish couple whose daughter was sick, and we found the correct clinic by having to walk outside and around the corner.
Sign a 5 x 7 piece of paper with your name, contact information, address, and country of origin. Take an uncomfortable chair in the uncluttered waiting room with other foreigners and wait to be called. Not more than ten minutes pass, and I heard my name being called. A bald-headed pudgy doctor performed a quick checkup. At this stage, I would have almost welcomed being sent to a hospital where I would get 24-hour service, a warm comfortable bed, and food delivered, and I wouldn’t have been alone. Result: I didn’t have pneumonia, my biggest fear. My lungs were clear despite the deafening sound at night of the gurgling in my chest as if a lung brigade were at war. I called the driver Juan from Brazil, whose entire family were not in Rome, to come meet me and we left to find the nearest pharmacy to fill my prescription for antibiotics.
When in Rome . . . I was glued to an uncomfortable bed, staring at a fake painting of Roy Lichtenstein with a dialogue bubble that said “I’m a sailor’s girl!”, with street noise pounding until 2:00am from the bar, nightclub, and movie theater underneath my windows, feverish, coughing as if I were an 80-year old in a nursing home, and hallucinating that my dog sitter wasn’t sending me text messages to reassure my 12-year old, heart murmur diagnosed dog named Luna, who had been with me since she was three months old, was fine and happy, because she was dead, and Carlene didn’t know how to tell me. A couple of days later, the photos arrived with her message of her having to buy a new phone! A welcome relief for the good news and loving the photos of Luna so far away.
On Christmas Eve day, I was driven out of the apartment by starvation and the idea I would find interesting people to meet at one of the trattorias surrounding my flat. I shuffled to the nearest one, which had a terrace outside and of course, I was freezing and ached for a table indoors. The place was bursting with noise and overflowing with a crowd of families and friends; tables at least with four to eight people dining together during this festive time of year. I stood patiently waiting for the waiter to notice me, trying desperately not to stand out as “just one?”, but when he approached and asked, “Signorina! Quanti persona?”, I held up my finger and said, “Solo mio!”.
In English no less, he responded, “What’s the matter with you? What happened?”. I shrugged as if it didn’t matter and replied, “I sent them all away!” - of course, meaning the legions of suitors who were dashing after me. In any case, I was saved by being seated at a table in front, outdoors, with a wonky-looking bearded, cigarette-smoking, musician/rock-star type and his mother! Not exactly what I said earlier about preferring to meet a man with his son at a restaurant, but nonetheless, mixed emotions on eating a hearty meal unaccompanied by a glass of wine. Antibiotics Anti Vino-Controle!
I slept through most of the 25th of December. My products arrive on the 27th. I feel somewhat more settled in and happy to organize these in my bathroom. The windows to the outdoors are flung open during the day and shut tightly at night, blocking everything but the noise out. I adapted to the cold and turned the heat up for warmth whilst watching my Turkish TV series on my iPad in bed. This wasn’t the Roman Holiday I had imagined at all! I researched food delivery services and found fabulous restaurants who deliver incredible meals to me. Who says eating linguini con vongoli for breakfast isn’t resourceful? Apart from this, I researched getting around Rome with a car and made a smart decision to hire a driver from the same company Juan worked for. Scheduled for the next day, I finally felt well enough to step into the refinery of a chauffeured car and see Rome from the back seat of a BMW.
My prayers to the Roman Gods were answered. Andrea arrived the following day at 11:00am; a most handsome, young lad staring incredulously at the steep marble steps in front of him as if to say, “You expect me to climb those?”
“Buon giorno!” I closed the heavy green metal door to the flat [they like green here!] and steadily made it to the bottom. Andrea was charming, accommodating, and most of all, fun, and I think, after the two days we toured the city together, he appreciated having someone out of the ordinary as his client. Andrea knew the city as if he had grown up here, but he was originally from Naples. His instincts about the kind of travel I wanted to make, even with his broken English and my insanely terrible Italian, took me to places I never would have seen, and my photography skills started to kick into gear. We spent two days cruising through quite dismal rainy and overcast weather, yet I now identified with Audrey when she finally broke free of her castle prison. Even when Andrea pulled the car over so that I could jump out and take a few photos, I felt as if energy and perseverance were returning to me. This is the way to go for the single woman traveler: a great male guide who looks after you and ensures your pleasure of sightseeing in this romantic city. The two days following my adventures with Andrea, forced me to get out on my own in the now familiar city and walk, walk, walk until I felt as though I would drop. Camera on the shoulder and massive photos already on the card, specialty shops visited and caffés visited, my evenings were consumed with downloading images to my iPhone, then uploading groups of photos to share on Facebook. Before I took this trip, I was of the opinion that I would never share photos of my holidays as everyone else did because I would be busy doing so many other things. Laugh out loud. Given there was no one else in the apartment, I had nothing better to do given my unique circumstance, and so, I broke with my earlier opinion and let Facebook become my unusual link to the outside world. The feedback from the photos sparked further efforts through the end of my Italian journey.
By the time New Year’s Eve arrived, I was in relapse mode and succumbed to bed as I had not the willpower or stamina to venture out to an ideal location to celebrate. Habitually, I had become such an unexciting person to be around. I was going to bed by 8:30pm because I was so exhausted. I remembered there would be fireworks by Ponte Sisto, which was a 3-minute walk away, and I felt I would get bundled up at night and go to the bridge to see the display of New Year 2018 in Rome. That didn’t happen. I woke up at midnight to the sounds of the fireworks pounding against the walls of the close-knit buildings, and resounding over the Tibur River, but I had no inclination of getting out of my warm yet lumpy bed to take part in it. “It’s just another celebration for another new year”, I told myself. Yes, but this was in Rome!
A new year. A new plan: go find an elegant boutique hotel where you can indulge in a hearty breakfast and feel wrapped in luxury. I chose the San Anselmo Hotel in one of the most delightful and lush neighborhoods I had yet seen. Despite being dropped off again by a taxi driver who sent me to the wrong hotel nearby, I found the perfect place. Perfect photos taken on the sly so as to not look as if I were stealing the scenery as a non-resident. Heavenly buffet and serene locale sent me on the way to find more locales to shoot until the slight drizzle turned to the heaviest downpour and I found myself slivering my way from one villa’s entrance overhang to the other to take shelter from the pelting rain which inevitably, would aggravate my illness. I was familiar with the square several blocks away where I thought to find a taxi, but the street where I might have easily found one, was suddenly blocked off by several armored cars and yellow ribbon blockades, and I was forced to change course and continue walking in the rain to the nearest metro station where finally, a taxi driver saw me frantically waving my hand and dodging traffic to catch him. As we meandered through the wet streets of Rome, I found myself singing along with the driver to Elton John’s “Yellow Brick Road”. He knew more of the lyrics than I did!
As in Shakespeare’s, “All’s Well That Ends Well”, there is a magical ending to this drama. Three days before I was set to leave Rome, I wanted to find a restaurant where I could have a familiar breakfast of eggs in my fascinating neighborhood. Being lost in Rome is not a hardship but when one is so sick, so alone, and after three weeks of not living La Dolce Vita, being lost is another layer of dismal until you meet someone by chance and ask for directions to EGGS. She was emerging from her apartment and I asked if she knew where this restaurant was. To my surprise, she joyfully offered to walk me to EGGS, which was merely two blocks away. You see, I was close, but so far — as is what happens when you find yourself in the maze of tiny passageways in the historic and charming area of Trastevere. I found a table and then saw Chiarra coming into the restaurant with her mate, Livio. I asked them to join me for breakfast and after our lively exchange of conversation in a mixture of languages, they invited me to join them for the day. A touch of magic had crossed our paths and we embarked on a 3-day friendship that continues to this very day. Chiarra is a jewelry designer/professor from Palermo and her boyfriend of seven years is an established journalist in the arts and culture field in Puglia. Without the care and kindness, generosity of helping to make my last few days memorable, I never would have seen such amazing places I had only earlier on, either briskly passed by with Andrea in the dark overcast days in the car or missed altogether. Brava!
How joyful it was to share the day’s explorations, to have interesting people to exchange ideas with. Our conversations were robust, thoughtful, and they simply, just clicked. This is how you meet people in Rome, or I suspect, anywhere else in Italy. How many times has this happened to me in Los Angeles? NEVER! There is a genuineness and openness of the Italians that is effervescent. Let me say, on the few days I felt motivated to get out and about, and especially when chauffeured by Andrea, I made up for lost time by shopping in every single shop I researched before going on this trip, or on evenings alone in my room. By coincidence, when one evening I lost track of Andrea and was wandering in circles to find the car, I happened upon a small jeweler who invited me into his 52-year old shop near the Pantheon. Percossi Papi is the jeweler to celebrities and his stunning craftsmanship is seen on royals as well as in mega-films such as Murder on The Orient Express and Elizabeth. After chatting effortlessly with him [in English], I set my heart on one of his jeweled gold rings and found myself thinking about it all night only to return to make the happy investment.
I obsessed on the most enchanting corridors and passageways on Via Margutta, Via del Pelligrino, Via del Boschetto, Via del Leone where I fell in love with U.I.T., and TOKO across the courtyard from Bar Fico, an indulgent 2-hour spree where I left with the best of silver jewellery after an engaging conversation with its owner and designer, Marco De Luca Gioielli. Returned for bags in Del Giudice and re trepose where both the shop managers were delightful.
I found beauty in the graffiti artfully splattered on almost every building façade save for the churches, visited palaces, orange grove gardens where one could overlook the entire Eternal City, took high tea at Babington’s at the foot of Piazza del Spagna, marveled at the carvings and ceiling paintings, the artifacts and frescoes of 1st and 4th Century basilicas, and wept upon entering the majestic Pantheon.
I felt as if I were a native of Rome when I was able to introduce my new friends to La Fiaschetta near Piazza Navona and privileged by having viewed the Monet and Japanese artist, Hokusai exhibits. Dined with an Italian composer of cathedral music in one of the most intellectual cafes ever, and finally tasted the Roman cuisine and fine wines in the company of others.
On my last evening, after packing my toiletries into my checked bag and deciding I would check-in both pieces of luggage that were now bulging with my new purchases, I was ready to meet when Livio who arrived to escort me from my flat to their apartment four blocks away, so as to not be lost again in the maze of Trastavere alleyways, to have a home-made bon-voyage dinner together. Chiarra showed me the heavenly simplicity of making pasta al carbonara! It was sad to say goodbye, but I knew we would not let geography keep us distant.
My sick Roman holiday was bookended serendipitously by the chance meeting with a couple in the tax refund office who just happened to be from Istanbul.
Did it take me three weeks to feel at home in Rome? It took all of my life, but it was worth every moment of this memorable and unforgettable journey unlike anyone else’s! With courage, and not a moment of feeling sorry for myself, or an uncomfortable feeling invading my walks through the entire city, not one moment of “wishing I were with someone to share this with”, I braved the hollow moments, surpassed the severe discomfort of being seriously ill, and survived like a true gladiator. Caesar would have placed a wreath upon my shampooed head.
Now it’s time to embrace my destiny and the idea of moving to Italy where my instincts tell me I will be settling somewhere near the Arno River. Although, this time, I intend to arrive in stellar health, with much more than two suitcases, a shoulder bag, and toiletries that will not have to be confiscated. Oh! And I will be bringing my little doggie Luna with me! Life is beautiful!
"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end."
Marcus Annaeus Seneca (54 BC – 39 AD)