Roma

Stage directions: Volcanic cloud drop down over Europe, stop me from going to Greece. Lady at the train station guichet finds me one of the last train tickets to Rome. The next day I board the train. What a compartment. 2 Americans who speak French (including myself), an Indian woman who speaks English, but no French or Italian, a French woman who speaks English, an older Italian man who speaks a touch of French, and an older Italian woman reading a French novel, who spends her time in and out of the compartment. Just making the seats into beds could have been a story in itself, with the parcels of languages swirling together to create the conversation. Then, we all shared the communal language of sleep. Upon waking, it was goodbye train compartment story, hello historic Rome. Ross, a friend from my baby group arrived at the station to receive me and off we went to his huge apartment filled with rowdy, fratty boys. The testosterone, although a bit much, was a nice change from the estrogen pumped days of Paris. Bag-drop at the apartment was quickly followed by a whirlwind tour of the city. Coliseum, the Forum, Piazza Venezia, Vatican, Pantheon, St. Angelo’s, check, check, check. To top it off, Rome decided to celebrate its birthday the first day I arrived in Rome, thus my night closed with the most amazing fireworks show I have ever seen, complete with an intense classical soundtrack blasting and an important Italian track race projected on the buildings. Welcome to Rome. The rest of the trip was as blissful as the first day was exciting. One night consisted of relaxing on a roof of a Roman apartment building, one of watching fire dancers from an 8-story high balcony, one of the Trevi fountain and one of a strange mélange of someone from every stage of my life (baby, elementary school, high school, college, Paris). Upon leaving Rome, the pouring down rain gave me a big wet kiss goodbye, knowing that the city had successively convinced me that a return would be a must.