Rome

My sister moved to Italy in 2003 to work in the Rome office of her employer. At about the same time, my aunt and uncle moved to Vienna so that my uncle could work for the IAEA. Over the winter, the consensus developed in my family that it would be a lot of fun for us to all meet in Rome to celebrate Passover there together. So Scott and I will be meeting up with my parents, my aunt & uncle, their two kids, and my cousin's girlfriend, my sister, and last but not least, two friends of my parents who have spent a lot of holidays with our family.

This will be my third trip to Rome and Scott's first.

It's a long flight from SFO to Heathrow but not as bad as I'd feared it would be. Haven't flown British Airways in more than a decade but they're quite nice. Despite my best efforts and a sleeping pill, I scarcely sleep. Too wound up from running around full tilt all day trying to get ready, I suspect.

The layover in Heathrow is annoying - 3 hours. There's more & better shops in the waiting lounge but it's basically just another airport. One sign that you're definitely not in the US - a seafood bar in the food court. I did have a 'proper' British breakfast in the pub here, which was fun. Baked beans and a portobello mushroom alongside bacon, sausage & fried eggs. Scott had the sausages.

Even here, folks line up for Burger King. It grosses me out just thinking about it. American fast food is sucky enough at home, why would you want to eat it here when there are better options? Pret a Manger is right next door and has some tasty looking snacks. I order a coffee and some Blood Red Sicilian Orange Juice.

I prowl the shops a bit to kill time. I can't find an old favorite candy bar - Lion bars. Kind of sad, that. It's great to be able to use my ATM card to buy stuff though. What a relief, not having to mess with traveler's checks and multiple currencies.

Finally, we board the 2nd flight and head for Rome.

As my mother had promised, there's an ATM by the baggage claim area. I pull out some Euros and we hit the taxi stand. The driver's English is sketchy (as is our Italian) but with the help of a map we show him which hotel we're heading for. You know you're Somewhere Else when your taxi driver goes barrelling down the highway at top speed, while simultaneously chatting with friends on his cell phone and smoking a cigarette. At least traffic was light so he didn't have to weave in and out of cars as well.

American pop music is just as jarring now as it was the first time I heard it on the radio in Italy. I still don't like Italian pop though.

It's late at night as we speed through the streets of Rome and I see it again for the first time in a decade. The first thing that jumps out at me is how small it is. Like you'd taken a regular city and put it into a shrinking machine. Streets are much narrower than streets in any American city I've been in, with the possible exception of the oldest parts of Philadelphia. The via Condotti, for example, is the Roman equivalent of Fifth Avenue in New York, but it's about 1/4 the size.

The other thing that leaps out at me is how much like New York it feels. The energy feels similar. Also the dirt levels. Crowded and busy, even at night. But that' s OK - you recognize that it's just part of the appeal.

We're staying in a tiny hotel called La Lumiere, 3 blocks from the Piazza di Spagna. If you raise the metal blinds over our room's window and look down, you see the via Condotti. To the left is the Piazza and the Spanish Steps. The hotel at the top of those famous steps is surrounded by scaffolding this trip.

Exhausted, we sleep.