Departure

I left the house in a frenzy, having put off packing my bags until the very last minute. Estella came by at noon, as per an earlier agreement, but I did not manage to get out of the house until 1:30! In my rush I forgot some important things: deodorant for one (and when I later discovered this I rightly panicked, having as yet found no evidence that Romans, in general, use deodorant, or much of it, or the kind that works at any rate,) my Italian-English dictionary (whose absence has deeply affected my so far short stay) and all of your phone numbers and addresses! Do kindly forward those to the_usual_place@gmail.com.

The flight was excellent aboard Czech airlines, and the service was superior to what I received on American Airlines when I went to Peru last Christmas. Due to a linguistic constraint I have no time to explain right now (if you are very curious you can ask Rob) whenever the flight crew spoke "English" they always spoke of "chick" airlines. It was rather funny at first, but it proved a real annoyance once I got to Prague airport, and every 90 seconds the automated robot voice would ask all passengers of Chick Airline flight ### to proceed to the gate. I am, however, getting ahead of myself.

The flight lasted 7 and a half hours, and like I said, it was all very pleasant. A ridiculous movie about Marie Antoinette that featured rock music in the background was played; as you can well imagine, I could only watch the crude thing for the first 15 minutes. I read my Italian grammar book instead. (Thank you Anne!) There was little cloud cover during the flight, so I got a very nice view of the land below until halfway over the gulf of St. Lawrence, and then from the east coast of Britain all the way to Prague. I saw several little ships on the St Lawrence. We flew a great arc, from Toronto over Ottawa, over Montreal and the St. Lawrence, over the gulf to the southern tip of Labrador, across the north Atlantic to the north shores of Ireland, across England, the North Sea, and then over Amsterdam, very neat bits of German countryside that looked like a patchwork quilt, and finally Prague. The captain of Chick Airlines was very helpful in pointing all these things out to us. I got an isle seat, but there was nobody sitting to my left by the window, so I moved as soon as the doors were closed and thanked our Lord for this very kind favour.

My original plan had been to spend my five hours in Prague downtown; I especially wanted to pay the Infant Jesus of Prague a visit. I modified my plans though, when I got to the airport because it was all very confusing. For one, neither I nor any of the other passengers had to go through customs and immigration. Then en route to find my gate I had to go through three security checkpoints (isn't once enough?), so by the time I did find it (30 minutes later) my original plan to leave the airport was abandoned. It was a very dull experience exacerbated by the nearly continuous announcements over the P.A. for "Chick Airlines flight ### etc." by the monotone robot-lady.

The flight to Rome eventually got on its way, much later in the morning, and much later than the scheduled time. For anybody else who has been to the Chick Republic, is it standard practice to board the plane 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time, randomly letting through the passengers massed at the gate waving their boarding passes and elbowing each other? It was faaaaaaaaaar below my dignity to participate in such a display of non anglo/germanic barbarity that I comfortably sat for 30 minutes and was the very last person to board the plane.

On the flight to Rome, we received a small collation even though the flight was barely an hour and a half. Again I got the window seat, and saw some very neat things along the way. The north European countryside is really a treat to watch, and very different from the shades of brown of the Italian peninsula which also has its own charm. I did not see any significant mountains along the way, just a few craggy peaks here and there, but very astonishing valleys, of the most vibrant emerald green you can imagine, with little hamlets perched on all sorts of impossible places, and little roads connecting the lot. A nice Sardinian couple sat beside me, and I made my first attempt at Italian conversation. It was soon abandoned because they were more eager to practice their English than I was my Italian, and so I complied. You all know how obliging I can be :0)

Then I got to Rome. Note to Hilary: you were correct about (some of) the Romans. I am convinced they would stand by looking at their watches and tapping their feet in impatience whilst somebody was murdered, maimed or bludgeoned before them. They do not help little old ladies with their bags to get on the train. In fact, I was rather surprised they didn't push them aside, but maybe they save that for the back alleys when none of the tourists are looking. They also have NO CONCEPT of how to queue, or why it is highly desirable to do so. When I went to buy my train ticket into the city, the other foreigners and I attempted to make a line and wait our turn before the ticket booth, but masses of Italians, (and the omnipresent Arabs and Abyssinians who seem to fit right in) pushed, jostled, and elbowed us from all sides. A woman even rushed to the ticket booth while I was there paying for my ticket, waving euros in her fist and babbling nonsense. I believe I must have experienced what is generally referred to as "culture shock."

On the train I made my second attempt to speak Italian, but practiced my French instead. I did a very good job! It was sad to note how little this person knew about her great city, and that she merely shrugged in indifference when I became all giddy at first sight of the Aurelian walls, the Porta Maggiore and the tomb of Eurycaces. Termini was even dingier than I was expecting. Thanks to Noel I knew exactly where I had to go to catch a cab, otherwise I would have been quite lost. Now would be a good time to point out that something remarkable occurred on the train ride to the city. A strange feeling came over me as I watched at the (mostly dirty and dilapidated) buildings along the way, and all around Termini. It was recognition. I felt like I was in Lima again. By the time I got off the train and said goodbye to the hate-the-Catholic-Church-pseudoBuddhist-knowNothingAboutMyCity-Italian, I was on full third-world/uncivilised_place_with_loosers_out_to_cheat_you mode. I adroitly side stepped the veiled gypsy nonna eager to accost me, and chuckled heartily at the man who offered to give me a ride to my hotel for 20 euros, and made it to the official taxi stand. I didn't have long to wait. For 5 euros, not 20, I was safely delivered to the Ostello Marello where I am currently lodged.

I want to assure all of you, especially my family back in Lima, that I am in a very good and safe area of the city, even if those concepts are not really applicable in Rome. I am on the via Urbana, picturesque cobbled street, not much wider than Mary and Anne's office at the Kelly, with 5 to 6 storey buildings crouching on either side, pretty in their 17th century way, but covered in grime, cracked here and there, in need of fresh paint, and missing bits of masonry. An equivalent looking place in Lima is not somewhere any of my family would ever be caught in, except perhaps dead. Our Lady's temple is just on the next street, not even five minutes away, at the east end of the Via Urbana, is the very ancient and rightly famous Santa Pudenziana, San Pietro in Vincoli is just down the road on the west side.

The Ostello Marello is itself a former convent, beside a little Church proudly bearing a Latin dedicatory inscription to Sts. Lawrence and Hyppolitus, martyrs. The building is now partly owned by a congregation of sisters founded by an Italian Bishop, Giuseppe Marello, called the Work of St. Joseph. All the sisters I have met are Filippino or some other variety of Asian. Some are nice, some should definitely be cloistered and not allowed to deal with the public again. My room is small, but I don't have to share it. The washroom is public. Overall, the place is adequate if you are in a pinch, and not very expensive, which is a bonus, but I don't really recommend it. I could just be sour tough, since the sisters won't let me visit the roman house beneath the convent which belonged to St. Hyppolitus, and the prison where St. Lawrence was kept for a while.

That first night I fulfilled a promise made, and I paid the Salus Populi Romani a visit at Santa Maria Maggiore. What an amazing church. It is beyond my meagre powers of composition to describe it to you, so I will just tell you what I did instead. I said a rosary in the Borghese Chapel, and I begged our Lady to keep me out of trouble. I prayed for my mom, my family, all of you back home in Toronto, and then I went to confession. I walked around for a bit after that, and got back to my room around 7 p.m. I was too tired to keep walking, too tired to take any pictures, and too tired to eat. So I simply went to bed, and had a really good sleep.