Day One became Day Two somewhere on the flight as we passed over Great Britain, the English Channel, France, and then into Germany. Dinner was served at about 12:30am Toronto time (Lasagna, bun, cheese, cake, and curried lentils, but not in that order.) Yesterday (several hours previous,) I was eating lunch at around breakfast time. Today I was having dinner around lunch time (or in the middle of the night, depending on what time zone we are now referring to.) Toronto is 3 hours ahead of Victoria, and England is about 5 hours ahead of Toronto. So you can see how your digestive tract could get confused, though in actuality, mine seemed to acclimatize quite well. Though the fact that I kept viewing the in-flight meals as "free" helped as well.
Our movie was "National Treasure." And for some reason they waited until the wee hours of the morning (current time-zone time) before playing it. Surprisingly, Nicholas Cage does a decent and somewhat entertaining job with a variation on the role of the Indiana Jones type character. Not that he is a bad actor, just that if I was the casting director, he wouldn't have been the first person I thought of for the part. I guess that's why I am not a casting director.
Breakfast followed the movie, approximately three hours after dinner was served. A bit odd, but I didn't argue (fruit, bun, jam, cheese, fruit bar.) I should just mention now that you will notice that buns and cheese will become a common food theme throughout the next several countries.
We landed in Frankfurt to zero degrees and light snow. I was dressed for ten degrees and no snow. I ended up staying at the airport for three hours, not so much because of the weather, but mostly because I was indecisive and didn't know what to do with the time. Not knowing the language or understanding how to read the metro map didn't help either. I talked to the girls at the info desk, but that didn't seem to help. I eventually figured out the train transit with help from a local, then decided that given the time and the fact that I would be miserably cold, a trip into downtown Frankfurt wouldn't be that fun after all.
I located a baggage drop location, which would come in handy on my way back through Frankfurt airport in a few days. Next I found the pick-up area for the shuttle bus to Hahn Airport. I boarded the bus for Hahn earlier than planned as I was anxious to catch my flight to Rome. I slept on the bus the whole way, and was a bit reluctant to wake up and disembark into snowy weather again.
Hahn airport is a small, very crowded little airport with little seating.. It was constructed to house the growing number of discount airlines that service short flight destinations. What it lacked in seating or comfortable waiting space, it made up for in snack bars, coffee shops, and full service restaurants. Its like it was designed so that anyone waiting had to either stand or buy something at a restaurant so that you could sit. Which is what I ended up doing for the first hour of my wait.
The airport grew a bit quieter into the evening, and the lines dwindled down so that at least passengers weren't queued all the way back to the entrance doors. I had managed to find seats during the several hours I was there waiting, though also ended up standing or walking around for a good portion of the time as well.
Speaking of queues, the lines here seem to start at the whim of passengers, causing a sudden rush to line-up. It can happen at anytime, there doesn't seem to be any indication I can tell for when its suddenly time to queue. But once it happens, everyone jumps in (even before the flight attendants have appeared at the check-in counters, for example.) There is little order in the queue, and all the passengers seemed to ignore any signs and markings giving instruction or making requests regarding queuing. Also, you don't have to line-up directly behind the person in front of you, but can join the line pretty much anywhere, depending on how assertive you want to be. But on the other hand, none of this really seemed to bother anyone. Cultural expectations are relative.
The flight arrived in Rome (Roma) at 9:48pm local time. By the time I collected my baggage and found the taxi stand it was 10:10pm. I had been monitoring the time closely as I needed to check in to the convent I was staying at by 11:00pm at the latest, which is their curfew, and I had no idea how long it would take to get there or if the taxi driver would know where it was.
I found a taxi quickly and after confirming the destination, we started to pull out. We didn't get far as he lightly ran into the back corner of the taxi in front of us. After a few apologies in Italian, we started to make our way through the traffic jam.
As we left the airport, the traffic thinned. We sped along narrow twisting roads that seemed to go through a pastoral landscape. As we neared the city center, the driver became more talkative. He asked where I was from and if I had been to Rome before. Though he had a basic understanding of English (and I knew no Italian) he made a concerted effort to describe the history of the area to me and point out the sights. The narrow road we entered the city on was actually the Appian Way, which I knew about from studying the map of Rome.
The Appian Way was built around the third century b.c. Early Christian cemeteries began to appear along the road centuries later, which served primarily as catacombs, but also as protection from the Romans during severe persecutions. Tradition holds that St. Peter had a vision of Christ along the Appian Way, as he was fleeing the persecutions. He asked Christ: "Domine quo vadis?", which translates "Lord, where do you go?" Christ replied that he was going to Rome to be crucified again. The meeting convinced Peter to return to Rome and accept his inevitable martyrdom. (1)
I learned that the driver was born in Rome, and he was proud to share his knowledge of the area. At one point he stopped the car to talk about a certain site in more depth. The delay wasn't too crucial as I was being charged a flat fee of 40 Euros, which is the standard rate for transportation from the Airport to inside the city walls. He located the street the convent was on, rang the buzzer, and talked to one of the nuns who opened the automatic gate, enabling us to drive in and up the short street to the convent at the top of the hill.
I made check-in just a few minutes late. Sister Mini was very warm and patient, explaining the bus system to me and giving me a better map of Rome than the one I currently had (the new map would prove to come in handy.) I found my small, clean and simple room and went to sleep immediately.
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(1) http://www.nationalgeographic.com/places/places-of-a-lifetime/rome-walking-tour-3.html
http://www.activitaly.com/inglese/monument/appia.htm
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=NG9
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