Round Two in Rome: The First Two Weeks
I have a dear English friend, Gemma, who was a part of my
circle of friends from last year; she had spent the summer in Lake Baracciano
and invited me up for the day. There was a small board walk around the lake,
with restaurants right on the street in front of the water. The small quant
little town with tiny paths and doorways, wooden window shutters, and stone
steps was equally as breathtaking as the lake itself. There was one house in particular
that sat on the boardwalk facing the lake. They some how managed to build a
garden on the sidewalk itself, tall sunflowers, lush greens and bright red and
orange Gerber daisies, yet the most amazing thing was no one disturbed it. It
was made for admiring and it demanded respect, and it was granted by everyone.
Gemma and I spent the day lying on the beach and paddle
boarding together on the same paddle board, falling every 15 seconds, one after
another and laughing uncontrollably, I could only imagine what the people on
land were thinking. Stupid Americans/English
girls, paddle boards are made for one person…
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| Restaurant on the lake |
We ended our evening at that perfect little restaurant on
the lake, we had made a reservation earlier and there on a tiny white paper
writen in black Sharpie sat my name on the exact table we had requested. No
wonder Katie Holms and Tom Cruz got married here, and it’s simply marvelous…
Settling into my second week in Rome, I found a familiar routine with the
boys back in school, making the weekends never looked so sweet. When Tia’s
family is out of town we usually spend the whole weekend basking in the simple splendor
of our own apartment. Acting like roommates we cook dinner, drink wine, stay up
late telling boy stories, and dance around in bras. It’s my favorite way to
spend a Friday night, although usually by midnight, we have found ourselves
getting ready for a big night out.
Saturday morning we were up by 9, ready to hit the
beach for the whole day with my surfing buddy in Ostia. Ostia
beach looks somewhat like a lake, with tiny waves and mix of rock\dirt they call sand. It’s not the best beach in Rome, but it’s near and the key word is ‘beach’
and some days just the smell of the salty sea makes me feel at home.
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| Ostia Beach |
Tia and I were lying in the sand wondering what trouble
tonight may bring. My surf buddy had invited us to an outside reggae concert in the
park, which had seemed to be a great idea until five minutes after Tia’s cousin
called. Her cousin is a professional Bocce Player on the US National team (who
knew such a team existed?) and was playing in the world championships in the
small northern town of Feltre, situated
underneath the Alps.(5 hour train ride)
Earlier in the week we had sought after this cousin of hers,
trying to organize a day in Venice
with the players; we have been unable to reach him until now. It was 5:30pm and
Tia and I are lying on the beach covered in sand,
“Should we do this?” Tia asked.
“Let me check the train tickets”, still having no desire to
move from the heat of the sun, I reached for my iphone and glanced at the next
train time.
“There isn’t a direct ticket to Feltre, you have to
stop in Padova in order to get there.” The next train leaves at 7:05! We are an
hour train ride outside the city and we would still have to go toTia’s to grab
our bags! At this moment we kissed our friends good bye and headed straight to
the train station.
To our luck the train pulled in just as we had arrived. We
both looked at each other and agreed it was a sign from God that we are suppose
to go. Laughing at our current ridiculous spontaneous adventure, we started to
pre-pack our bags, delegating who would grab what when we arrived at Tia’s
home. As I took a closer look at the train times, I noticed that the last train
to Feltre was 10 minutes after we arrived in Padova. I spent the next 30
minutes on our train ride home from the beach devising a plan to connect the
Bocce players for the night. Finally, it occurred to me that Padova
must provide a more thrilling and entertaining night life than Feltre, the boys
could just meet us in Padova, then we could stay up all night and catch the
first train to Feltre in the morning.
Tia’s cousin agrees that Padova will provide much more
entertainment for the night and promises to take the last train at 8:10 to
Padova, arriving at 10, and remain in the station until we arrived at 11. Everything
will work out just perfect!
We arrive at Tia’s house at 6:45, we have 5 minutes, to
throw as much as we could in our beach bags, and with our partially wet bathing suits still on, the two of us ran
to the station, beach bags in one hand and our over stuffed purses in the
other. My hair was in its natural curly sea-salt state, wearing a floor length
white and black maxi dress that was too long on my 5’foot frame, I had to hold the bottom of the dress so I
didn’t trip. We were the epitome of tourists.
We reached the station within 5 minutes of departure.
As we approached the ticket machine I remembered that last
year on my way home from Torino I was able to purchase something called a ‘Globe Pass’
it was a first class ticket incredibly discounted. I don’t know how I was able to use it or just
simply how nice the conductor was, but when he asked for my ‘Globe Pass’ I
handed him my California Drivers license and he let me on, not asking a single
question. So I had the brilliant idea to
test my luck again, yet when I know something is wrong and I do it anyways,
there will be a little voice inside of me that asks me what are you doing? You know better!!
Often I don’t listen to this voice, so we bought the ten
dollar tickets for first class and hopped on the train.
It wasn’t before long the conductor was making his rounds
for tickets,
“Posso vedere i biglietti ?”
I look at Tia and in English said, “Huh, What did he say?”
He glances up and down, and through the little smirk on his
Italian skin he can see in an instant we’re ‘tourist’; although I normally jump
at the chance to practice Italian, in this case, I better keep my big mouth
shut.
I handed him our tickets, shaking like a child who stole a
pack of gum at the grocery store.
“Here’s our tickets Sir” I said and tried to smile, “and
your passes” he replied.
I looked at Tia and said, “umm he needs our ID’s” so we
handed him our American ID’s.
“No signiorine, this
is no Global Passes”
Wide eyed and as innocent as a little sinner could be, I
said, “We entered the numbers of our passes and we were able to buy the tickets
that way, you see…,” and this is when my creative imagination started to take
off, as I begin to tell a story that we had been at the beach all day (true)
and one of our bags was stolen (not true) that had our passes in it, and I had
called Global Pass for our pass numbers so we could buy our tickets, and they
told us to show you our ID’s. Starting straight at me, this man didn’t know
whether to laugh or kick us off, because obviously we look like hooligans
gypsies trying to get a free ride in first class (partially true).
“Ladies, la next stop a Florence, a questo stop you must buy one
ticket of 50 euro.”
“Oh really? Our passes don’t work anymore?” giving my most
convincing confused faced I could possibly make. So at the next stop I did exactly that, I
bought One ticket for 50 euro from Florence to Padova. I even
showed the conductor on the way back into the train, “Guarda, adesso tutto
bene?”, slipping and speaking Italian, with a small tilt of his head he started
at the ticket and said, “Si, va bene cosi”. As I was walking back onto the
train still in my bathing suit, long maxi dress and crazy hair, I see him glace
at me with the most puzzling look, later as he came back around to check
tickets it became evident that we knew just what we were doing, when he asked
why is there only one ticket of 50
euro, and two of you? Staring
straight at him I simply replied, “I’m sorry sir you told me to buy one ticket
of 50 euro didn’t you? And you see Sir, I showed you the ticket before we got
on the train and you told me everything was okay, so I believed you.” with a
small shake of his head he mumbled, “Dai non fate niete, ciao ciao regazze..”
(come on, don’t worry, bye bye girls).
Tia and I looked straight at each other and the second he
walked away started to giggle, for we have known what we have done, and we are
guilty as charged. We both said a prayer out loud in forgiveness promising
never to lie for train tickets again. And asking God to walk with us on the
adventure for we are in need of protection! Shortly there after Tia receives a
message from her cousin, “I missed the F*ing train, because no one speaks
English!”(that’s what we get for lying!) everything up to this moment has been
in our favor. We look at each other in dismay, oh my God what are we going to
do in Padova, alone? It’s shocking we are foolish enough to leave for a night
knowing that it’s impossible to reach our destination until 6 am, but knowing
that a male family member would be accompanying us somehow brought comfort. Now
we are arriving at 11pm alone on a Saturday night.
I changed in the train bathroom and gaving myself a sponge
bath, trying to de-crevice sand in not so friendly places, after all, we are
going out all night we better get ready.
I did Tia’s makeup in the train seats while she helped fix my rat’s nest of
hair. When we finally arrived we found a bathroom nearby and tried to make the
best of what we had.
For our current circumstance we didn’t look half bad, Tia
was wearing a bright red summer dress and I was in a black mini skirt and heals,
and both of us had two bags in our hands and no indication where the hell we
were. And off we went down the streets asking everyone we saw where we should
go. A friend who lives in Padavo had mentioned a few Piazza’s in the center
that we should find, and so we did. Unfortunately, my tour guide couldn't make it at that time, because his knowledge would have been priceless that night.
Nevertheless, we found a bustling piazza, covered with teenagers and young
adults. We found a small little table near the corner end of the piazza, and
sat outside with a few glasses of wine.
The strangest thing
started to occur, around one am, every little rigazzini started to disappear,
it was as if the flood of people that surrounded the streets slowly melted away,
and the vast amount of 200 or so denigrated down to10. In Rome this is never the
case, the streets are bustling with tourist all hours of the night, and besides it is only one in the
morning, and in Italian time that’s equivalent to around 10pm.
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| Empty Piazza di Padova |
“Ladies I’m sorry you must go, we are closed now” the waiter said as politely as he could, nevertheless asking that we leave.
“Where does everyone go to dance here?”
Noticing my accent he started a friendly conversation and
informed us that in the center everything closes, there are no clubs, the only
clubs that exist are outside the center about 6 kilomiters away.
How is that possible? We are still in Italy right? I know the north is different but every Italian city I
have been to has dicotecas in the center, it’s part of their culture to stay
out all hours of the night, especially on a Saturday night. Astonish we had no
idea what to do, we have 5 hours before our train left for Feltre at 6:40am and we are alone in this
town. Having an idea to sight see at 2am we started to walk around admiring the piazza when
two somewhat older gentlemen approached us. One was short around my height in
his late 30’s with tan skin and spiky gelled hair; he wore tighter jeans and a halfway open
button up white collar shirt with two gold chains around his neck, and a few
sliver bracelets dangling from his wrist. The other man was tall and thin, with gray hair and soft kind
eyes, if I had to guess I would say he was in his late 50’s. They had a
puzzling look on their faces, as if they could see we weren’t from Padova,
and I returned the stare, because obviously they too were not from here. They were from Bari,
the south of Italy
and they too were stumped to find nothing open past one. Four is better than two, they
said, stay with us, we’ll find something to do….. to be continued...soon I promise....xx
oh nicole, cant wait to have one adventure like this with you!!! loved ittt - olga
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