We woke up before the rest of Rome, but not before Ronni. She had hot chocolate and fruit and cake ready at 6:30, plus she used her app to call us a cab and it arrived in three minutes. After never taking a cab in our whole lives together, practically, we now have taken two rides in two days. And it wasn't even very expensive. The trip down the hill through empty streets, all the way to Rome Termini (which we later learned has 175 million travelers passing through it each year, or half the US population) took six minutes and cost 12 euros. We should do some more of that.
 |
| This is actually from dinner last night, but it is very similar to breakfast this morning. Just the dark window is acting as a mirror rather letting us see Rome wake up in the early morning. |
But then we paid the price of the frugal traveler. Jon decided last night that we had time to take the slow train, the one that stops a bunch but costs 4/7 as much as the express train. We would take the 50 minute trip instead of the 30 minute trip. I agreed with this, but neither of us knew that we would have to run about a mile through the station to get to the cheap train. Really, a mile. It was so far! We arrived at 7:12 and fell into the train. It was scheduled to leave at 7:12. I was still sweaty about an hour later.
Across the aisle, a young man watched us with a smile and eventually said, "You made it!" He agreed that he had not known either how far away Track 28 would be. He was on his way to the airport to meet a tour group, 180 high school kids from a Christian academy, coming for spring break. There would be two other tour guides helping, plus the chaperones. The plan was to spend two days in Rome, two hours in Florence, and visit about five other important Christian sites in Italy in the next five days. There is some place where John the Baptist was boiled in oil, but he didn't really get boiled, so it is a sacred place worthy of a visit. They will mostly visit free sites because if they pay to go inside, every single student has to be present and accounted for at the time of the appointment. If one student is late, no one goes in. They only pay to go into the Colosseum. The rest is walking around outside. While they are here, these students will also be performing some band concerts. The guide reminded me of a young Heinz and he reminded Jon of his high school friend Bill who went on to become a high school principal (a totally sweet man). The guide told us all kinds of other details that have accumulated in his brain, including how many miles a car that runs on propane can go before it needs to have its valves ground again because propane runs hotter than gasoline. 200,000 km, in case you are wondering. Most people drive about 20,000 km in a year so that's not a repair that will come up so often.
Ronni had told us that the Rome airport was very speedy with security because they process so many people, but Ronni has never traveled to Israel. That is never a speedy check-in. First of all, the El Al gates are absolutely at the furthest end of the terminal. Then each passenger gets an individual interview where they try to find holes in your story. She looked at us pretty dubiously when we showed her how much luggage we were carrying. For how many days? How can that work? Where are you staying? Why did you bring so little? (Because we are old and it is hard to carry everything from one train to the next...) And then there were the usual six or seven more passport control stops. I got patted down fully. They always pick on me. Last year when we went through security, they separated me and Jon and tried to make me think that his story was different from mine.
When you get on an international flight, as soon as you get on the plane, it feels like you are in the next country, not the one you are leaving. The plane was full of Israelis (but no black hats, so interesting) and the announcements were in Hebrew, with translations that were half as long so we were not getting all the details, it seemed. The sandwich was melted cheese and sweet potato. I have never had one of those. It was edible but not expected.
Since we just came through Tel Aviv a year ago, we sort of knew where the train was and we knew how to do it better this time. But when it was time to get off, even though we knew perfectly well that Benjamin was already waiting at the station, we neglected to get off at the Haifa Central stop because I was looking for the Hebrew version and didn't see it and because Jon's phone was telling him that he and Benjamin were in Beirut. Apparently Israel has been scrambling the GPS information on everyone's phones since the start of the war, to confuse the people who are bombing. I have been wondering why Benjamin keeps showing up at the Beirut airport when we are checking his location. A nice passenger told us to get off at the next stop, cross the bridge and get on the return train. So we did, and Benjamin waited for his air-brained parents for 20 more minutes.
Mika has been sick for a couple of days with a fever and a stomach ache so we had to keep wearing masks when we got to their house. She tried to rally and smile, and she managed for a little while, but then she just melted into sadness and had to cry her way through some Tylenol and then fell asleep in Benjamin's arms. Liana is still a wiggling bundle of smiles but she was a bit wary of the masks. She smiled at us from a distance. Jon and I had forgotten what it was like to have sick babies, but of course it all came right back to us, and we could understand every expression of Mika's as she tried not to be miserable. Yael is very much hoping that the whole family is healthy enough for Purim, since they are ready with a family costume. They officially joined their temple, which is nice news for grandparents who are dedicated temple members, if not regular attendees.
Our apartment is further up the street this time, but my knee is a whole different knee from a year ago, and climbing the hill is no trouble. We have to go through three locked doors with three different combinations, but the apartment is clean and well-furnished and just lovely. We are much closer to shopping, which is nice (for Jon).
No comments:
Post a Comment