We Arrive in Rome

October 25, 2009

Trip to Italy - Journal Entry #1 - 09/19/2009 - 6:45 pm

We are in Rome! We had one glitch leaving the US. Dad's flight out of Sarasota was delayed several hours for mechanical reasons. That meant that he missed his connection in Atlanta, and thus missed connecting with us in New York at JFK. That was the "bad news."

The "good news" was that Delta was able to book Dad on a direct flight to Rome out of Atlanta. So he left the US one hour ahead of us (about 4:00 pm) and he landed about 45 minutes after we did in Rome (about 8:00 am). And so we were able to connect at the Rome airport, and our schedule was not affected much at all. Further food news was that Dad was given a business class seat on his overnight flight to Rome. Lucky guy!

Unfortunately, it is hard under any circumstances to get comfortable on an 8 hour flight from the US to Italy. Sadly, Chris and I were very uncomfortable on our flight. The plan was packed -- no empty seats in sight -- and we slept little, if at all. To the extent that the world economy is still suffering the effects of a recession, this was not at all apparent from the crowds we saw during our travels, including how crowded were all of our flights.

More good news still -- we easily hooked up with Dad in the Rome airport, in the baggage area. He almost walked right by us, but we easily spotted him approaching from 100 yards. Once we had collected his bags, we took a taxi to our hotel -- the Hotel Due Torri (a few blocks north of Piazza Navona). The cabbie spoke no English, but Dad demonstrated that his Italian is quite adequate to get around. I'm glad we have him with us! [And not just because he speaks a bit of the language.]

Dad's favorite phrase when he first approaches most Italians is "Io parlo l'italiano come la vaccha del Spagnolo" -- which means -- "I speak Italian like a Spanard's cow." I'm not so sure why this is so funny, but he gets a genuine laugh 9 times out of 10 when he uses it -- and he himself never ceases to be amazed by his own cleverness. I heard this phrase at least three times in our first several hours in Rome. And I was to hear it many more times thereafter.