But not without some traveller's tales getting here. I departed Brisbane airport at 12:15pm on Saturday the 15th – the Ides of March. Seemed a somewhat appropriate date for an assault on Roma – a six-month campaign. The QANTAS (domestic) jet was spot on time and I was soon winging towards Sydney and it's international terminal. After a brief transfer, again spot on time, we were invited to board. I must have been in the first group of 20 passengers and had just settled into my seat and overhead compartment when we were called upon to 'de-plane' so that the mechanical fault could be repaired – always an encouraging sign for flyers.
But this aircraft, one of only two Airbuses of its type in the QANTAS fleet, was out for the count, so they diverted the other (of its type) from duties getting folks to the Grand Prix in Melbourne and we “swapped” - over four hours late. My connection in Hong Kong had a two-hour transfer and sadly they did not wait for me. At three in the morning they put me up in a very nice airport hotel room and told me that I was booked on KLM to go to Rome via Amsterdam at 11:00am. Nervously worrying about sleeping through, I arose to check out at 8:00am but was too early at check in because I was wait-listed only and had to “wait” which I did for 90 minutes until I was given a ticket.
I have to admit that the flights into and out of Honkers were very good and I was able to sleep. The hotel room was handy because I was able to shave and shower and started again somewhat refreshed, but the first and last legs were ordinary and the whole process turned what could have been 24 hours from airport to airport into a marathon.
I arrived in Rome just after 10:00pm local time (or 7:00am Brisbane time – on Monday). So that was a 43-hour trip (door to door – 46 hours).
I understandably crashed in my hotel room in Rome. A dangerous thing to do in a hotel room that is only 5 feet wide (I could not stretch without putting my hands through both walls. The same hotel where I stayed when last in Rome but then it was a small room that was two or three times the size of this one. However my mini room had all mod cons and was very neat. I just had to be careful when I moved about.
The hotel was booked before departure from Brisbane and I chose only to reserve for five nights, thinking I might change into more permanent accommodation. When that didn't happen and I asked to stay on, I was told that the hotel was booked out over Easter. So I had to make some sudden plans and moved into an apartment on Good Friday. I will only be here for a few weeks pending better digs coming along. My present abode is very Italian. Also a little tired and a little noisy, being a corner apartment on a busy street, in a “night club district” – read an area where Italian yobbos greet the wee hours of the morning with a loud delight in their language. The stairwell is being renovated and looks like London during the blitz, and there are six flights of stairs to this, the third of four floors.
But I was able to have a home-cooked meal on Good Friday night for the first time – spinach and ricotta torteloni cooked to the accompaniment of some Italian opera courses on Mac's iTunes – Hey! When in Rome!!!
This apartment is but 15 minutes walk from my office so that is a pleasant distance. The hotel was 45 minutes walking, pretty much across the centre of Rome. It was near the Porta Pia. A straight walk down the Via XX Settembre (viente settembre - 20th September) that continues as the Via del Quirinale, past the Presidential Palace. Thence down a narrow street lined with ruins and hotels (and ruined hotels) and you are on the road to the Colosseum. I work about 800 metres past it.
The twice a day walk for five days was delightful. The Forum on my right and very few tourists about, just commuters and street sweepers, unlike in the middle of the day when the whole area is invaded by Lonely Planet-clutching, camera-clicking and excited visitors.
The mornings and evenings have been very brisk – one or two days quite cold but I really enjoyed the exercise of walking especially after being restricted in planes for two days. I am already feeling much fitter and as I tend to hit the sack early for the first few days (8:00pm is 5:00am according to my body clock), my meals were solely a solid breakfast and a light lunch in the office cafeteria. So I might have lost a pound or two to boot.
Apart from the cold, the weather has been very changeable with a night time electrical storm, drizzle, rain, some brief hail and a wet Easter.
Observations so far in Rome? Well, I have now been here longer than all of my other trips combined, no dramatic differences this time, although being a resident now, I have learned how complex everything is. I doubt that it is even easy for the Romans, and they speak the language at least. I now understand why they left the place to conquer Gaul and the Britons – they wanted to avoid filling in forms and paying fees!!!
But apart from the Italian language – still pretty much a mystery to me – crying out that I am in Rome, there are lots of other spectacular “flags” – the (frequent) whining of ambulances as only they can whine here (reminiscent of so many European movie soundtracks); the proud “SPQR” on every manhole (Senators & Patricians of (Quo) Rome???); the small coffees and the need to pay for them somewhere other than where you obtain them and drink them; skin tight jeans and snooty or painful expressions; communal rubbish bins on the streets; dogs in restaurants; the morning an evening clip-clop of horses hooves as they travel to and from the tourist haunt of the colosseum; yep!! This is Rome.
'Til next time
Your obedient “The Douglas Report” correspondent
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