It rained for most of Tuesday, our last day in Rome, and we spent the whole day resting and reading and relaxing. It's not what you think you will do when you are in such an exotic place, but it was absolutely the right thing to do since we knew we would have to get all the way home the next day. Jon really spent the whole day in bed. I sat at the table and read and wrote, looking out at rainy Rome.
But the three of us went out for dinner, walking downhill through this elegant neighborhood, on wet streets, dodging the cars, looking at all the huge residences looming over the walls -- apartment buildings, mostly, so European and colorful and gigantic. The restaurant was a little over a mile away and we took our time. Ate outside and it sure felt like Paris to me. By now we have been with Ronni long enough that we are talking about big ideas, not just our own domestic stories. This is what happens when you have the privilege of intense time with a like-minded, curious, thoughtful, generous person. Big thoughts, lots of analyzing of the problems of the world.
We got a good night's sleep, amazingly. Jon has been coughing and coughing forever, but Tuesday night was miraculously restorative. Ronni found us a cab (much harder during a rainy rush hour morning) and we set off once again for the airport: taxi -- fast train (yay) -- long time hanging out at the airport which is set up for maximum shopping -- three hours to Lisbon where once again they dump you out on the tarmac and you take a bus to the terminal to hang around -- couple hours of waiting with lots of noisy American students -- nine hours from Lisbon to Dulles but we got to sit in the exit row so that made everything much less claustrophobic. We watched movies. On this trip, both of us saw "Hidden Figures" which we liked a lot. The first thing I noticed, as we marched from the plane to the shuttle in the wee hours of the night, was there was no more translating. People just barked directions at us in English. In Europe and Israel, they explain everything twice. Oh, the other thing we noticed was a young family with three children: a little boy and two girls, roughly two years apart in age. That was us 30 years ago. The boy in this family was even named Benjamin. The older girl was totally melting down from middle of the night fatigue, and the dad carried both girls from the plane all the way through passport control. We used to carry our children too, but I don't think we ever tried to carry two at once. We were never that young and strong.
When we got home, 19 hours after walking down the steps from Ronni's apartment, Jon went to Kaiser to get assessed. We knew there was something happening in his chest. Yep, he has pneumonia. But they didn't make him go to the hospital, so it's not as bad as it could be. He has antibiotics and he is in his own bed, sleeping. It is good to be near doctors again.
It was an ambitious trip and we knew there was a chance we would have to take it very slow sometimes. But we got to all our destinations without trouble and we spent a lot of time on trains, which is certainly so much easier than driving rental a car in Italy, except for all the walking and carrying stuff. But we packed lightly and we only brought what we needed. Who knows if we will take another trip like that again. Maybe not. Maybe next time we will spend money more freely and fly directly, or pay to sit in the bigger seats, and not go to so many different places. But we love all the people we saw, and it was great to be surrounded by so many languages and to walk slowly through hilly, beautiful, ancient cities and eat in restaurants with people who speak Hebrew/Italian.
Not sure when or if there will be pictures added to this post, but who really needs pictures of rainy airport days.
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