It’s a
quarter after ten, local time, and an extraordinarily cautious Roman named Pepe
is driving me through the suburbs of that much-vaunted city. I am somehow
reminded of rural Florida.
This is the last leg of a
multi-stage journey begun on Wednesday morning. After checking out of my hotel, I caught a
shuttle- amid rising wind and a driving rain- to Terminal 1, JFK airport. This
would become my home for the next twenty-four hours.
For eight hours I wandered the
terminal aimlessly, stopping occasionally at the Greenwich Village bar which,
if it is to serve as any example, is a strong argument against ever visiting
that neighborhood again. The bartender’s name was Rajh and he called me “buddy.”
I didn’t like him much. The only other options, however, were singularly bad
Chinese food or the ministrations of a stand advertising hot dogs topped with
sweet and sour chicken, a combination I found unacceptable, bordering on
sacrilegious.
At five o’clock, the tour group
with which I am traveling- including my mother and grandmother- arrived, and I
was treated to my first glimpse of my traveling partners. Within the hour, we
were all fine friends, united in hope against the storm that had turned to a furious
blizzard. That is, excepting the cohort of what can only be described as
“uppity biddies.” They were almost automatically despised. They will be
recurring characters, have no fear.
We checked in, breezed through
security, settled down to Martinis at the only open terminal bar (Martinis are
very safe traveling drinks. Since they’re composed almost exclusively of cold
gin, they’re pretty difficult to screw up) and waited with crossed fingers for
our flight to be called.
Long story short, crossing your
fingers never works. Let that be a lesson to you.
Our flight was canceled and
required rebooking, a fairly straightforward process that was complicated
monumentally by the needy idiocy of the following monikers: the Who-Loompa (she
looked like a cross between a Seussical Who and an Oompa Loompa), Fisherman
Sweater (she wore one) and Blonde Annoyance (non descript, but blonde and
annoying). They decided, against the better judgment of the vast majority of
anyone who’s ever had a single interpersonal interaction, that the best way in
which to expedite the righting of our travel arrangements was to harangue the
already harried Alitalia clerks. This worked about as well as expected and Mom
and I repaired to a round of beers.
There isn’t much to say about the
next eighteen hours except these things: do not sleep on cold marble. It’s
uncomfortable and, well, cold. That aside, the night passed without event, we
were scheduled to a five p.m. flight from Newark, and Fisherman Sweater,
turning her proclivity for annoyance to the good side, secured us a private bus
to New Jersey.
Newark is a strange city to me.
It’s just across the river from New York, is dominated by similar-but smaller-
architecture, and even sounds like an abbreviated way to say “New York.” I have
decided to christen it “New York Lite,” with the happy knowledge that it almost
certainly contains only half the caloric load of actual New York.
There’s even less to say for the
flight to Italy. We lifted off at five, on time, flew through the darkness, and
arrived at 1:30 EST. We deplaned, spent about a lifetime in the airport, drank
overpriced and terrible espresso, crowded like the herd animals we’re quickly
becoming onto a charter bus and now I am sitting alone in the back of said bus,
typing. Woah. Meta.
It’s time to sleep. The ride is
three hours to Florence. I haven’t properly slept since Tuesday. Exhaustion,
take me.
