Roma

Airlines on the bad list. Alaska Airlines, US Airways, North Korean Air.

Airlines on the better list: Frontier, Virgin, Cathay Pacific, Dragon Air, Asiana

So the flight to Italy is on US Airways, which is a resounding disappointment. The planes are old, the service is skimpy, the inflight entertainment is largely nonexistent, and the seats are small to the point that I can’t even stuff my carryon underneath. Boooo…

But there is some small consolation, I’m starting to be able to sleep on planes a bit. Not for long stretches, and not very easily, but I can succumb to exhaustion on planes finally, and that’s something to be excited about I suppose. Actually, that’s a huge improvement. One of the benefits of getting old I spose?

Rome International is something of a disappointment as well. In fact, LAX just barely beats it out for the lousiest first world airport I’ve been to to date. Italian customs is a joke, the passport agent waves me through with just a brief question of my destination, no stamp, nothing. Next time I’m bringing a bunch of invasive species just to teach the Romans that Gauls are not the only invading hoard they have to worry about.

Rome countryside is rather underwhelming as well. Though you’d expect a feeling of antiquity to permeate the experience, you instead just feel like everything is run down. Concrete cracks, graffiti proliferates, weeds run rampant tearing up mortar and brick. Out the train window, a tall weed that looks like corn covers the immediate landscape entirely. The train itself is less then amazing. A dirty old thing, the seats don’t recline, and the train is neither fast nor amazing despite being an express train to Rome’s city center. In fact comparatively speaking, this train ranks far below China’s trains, and in some cases comes in below even the trains I ran with in Vietnam. Somewhat disconcerting considering that you expect a first world experience in Rome.

Between the news of Italy’s economic woes, and the personal anecdotes of the complete lack of jobs in Italy, I suppose it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise however that Italy is on the slump. There is no economic thirst, no vigor to this landscape. The middle age workforce is missing from the picture. No where do I see the professional business casual one might see anywhere in the US or Asia, the tell tale sign of the working professional, the wage maker of the economic infrastructure. No office buildings, no manufacturing buildings. Instead, I see the elderly, and the young; this, it would appear is what a service economy looks like.

The central Rome Terminal is a bustling affair of tourists however, and I wander around aimlessly, trying to recall how to get to my destination, or even recall what my destination is. Maps appear to be in short supply in this country, and it is only through my tour book that I finally puzzle out where I need to go. It has been a long day already however, and I’m famished so I find a self serve cafe in the train station and help myself to a fruit salad and cobb salad, and am entirely distressed to find the salad dry and bitter, with no hit of dressing anywhere in the establishment. I eat the food mechanically, pushing nutrients and calories down without enjoyment, until I can withstand the awful flavor no longer and push the bowl of disgusting aside.

My hunger temporarily quelled, I move along to a travel agency to get help to my destination, a little town called Chiusi. The travel agent assists me well enough alternating between english and italian in an easy back and forth manner that I pick up the intent if not the exact meaning. This train is no more impressive then the Leonardo express that brought me here from the airport, the on board restroom looking like a sad imitation of a Vietnamese first class water closet. It is at this point I decide that I’ll never run down Amtrak or our domestic train systems again. For all their failures, and our lack of funding of the system, they are quite a bit more palatable then this decrepit railway that holds Italy together. Though I wish to watch the landscape, and am fearful of missing my stop, sleep hits like a ton of bricks, and I nap fitfully throughout the ride.

I disembark at Chiusi with little affair, and am plagued by the need to use the restroom, and here I find something I’ve never encountered before; a bathroom attendant, who appears to make this her very real and possibly even state sanctioned job. I can’t tell for certain if you’re supposed to tip her, or if the fee was 50 cents, but in any case I give her 50 cents to avoid any potential disapproval.

I wander around the train station in a ghost town, looking for a car rental. Here I am thwarted however; the town is dead beyond belief because I’ve arrived right during the lunchtime break. In the states, I would expect all the workers to go to cafes and the like for their midday meal. I am at a loss where everyone goes during their midday break here, which judging by the signs last between 2 and 3 hours a day, and shutters the town in its entirety.

I shrug and take a cab instead, not eager to hang around the train station for an extra 2 hours just to rent a car. The cab driver has a limited english vocabulary, and I have an even more limited grasp of the italian language, so our journey and communication is basic and quiet. However the cab driver goes to great pains to communicate to me that he is going to pass a slow moving truck by going into on coming traffic, and not to be alarmed. I nod my understanding and acquiescence, he revs the tiny car as fast as it’s little motor will go and we pass the truck without incident. I am however, terribly bemused at how apologetic the cabbie is that he had to perform the maneuver. I wonder if he’s trying to repair a sullied reputation amongst Italian cabbies, or if he simply gets a lot of extraordinarily timid english speaking passengers.

The landscape moves to golden rolling hills with holdfasts on top of any major hill, and a close collection of buildings around it. The hotel I’m staying at is the Il Poggio, and it proves to be an epic little retreat with a commanding view of the landscape around it. Though I am deathly tired, I resolve to continue the day, hoping to combat jet lag and win. I walk up a nearby hill with a cluster of stone and brick buildings. The avenues have steps, and are much too small for any motor vehicle, and betray its ancient heritage. Here there are picture opportunities galore. The perfect, typical Roman landscape is preserved entirely. I can’t wait to take my camera out on the morrow, as today, my eyes are so shot I am having trouble merely focusing on the simple objects in front of me.

The hotel grounds are home to a startling number of cats, all sunning themselves luxuriantly in the warm Tuscany sun. On a distant hillside, the hotel’s equestrian farm can be seen, and closer, a pair of women have chatted for hours about nothing in the shade of a cafe.

My friends Meredith and John have arrived in the late evening, and we take our supper at a small restaurant that advertises pizza as their speciality. I make an order of chicory greens out of pure curiosity, the only knowledge I have of the substance is that the roots can be roasted to make a poor imitation of coffee. The greens turn out to be a disappointment, but whether it’s because of the greens themselves, or the shoddy way they are boiled and dumped on a plate with a wedge of lemon, I couldn’t say. The pizza is decidedly mediocre, whisper thin and displaying neither the visual or sensual complexity I have become accustomed to in even my own creations. Day one of my culinary adventure in Italy is decidedly a disappointment.