first day in italy

Air travel is medieval torture.

My flight on American Airlines began innocently enough. I woke up at 4:30 AM to be at SFO by 5:00, so more the merrier. My flight to Chicago O' Hare was early but decent enough, and I slept almost the entire way there. As my flight out to Rome was at 5:00, I did a few laps of the airport (typical for me,) ate a not-half-bad shrimp and strawberry salad, and waited. We boarded the plane and so we were on our way.

Except.

Apparantly, there was a tear in the plane's landing gear, which was discovered upon push back from the gate. The pilot had us wait about twenty minutes for the mechanics to assess the issue, whereupon they decided it was un-tenable and that we would all have to get off. General moans and sighs of discontent ensue. Especially from me. For someone who so very enjoys travel, I turn into a frothing monster when flight Complications occur (and yes, I should seek professional help). Ever since my flight out of New Delhi literally caught on fire, I have been a willing proponent of the worst-case-scenario method of air travel. I was *not handling it well*. However, since I am not an aeronautical engineer, there was jack all I could do about it, other then park myself by the airplane desk and glower a lot. (I am a grade A glower-er).

Success: they had another plane for us. It was coming really soon. Any minute now. We all got really excited and huddled around the window, me and the high school girls and the increasingly pissy Italian natives and the middle aged tourists, noses smudged to the window. When will it come? When will our romantic Italian vacation begin?

We ended up waiting like that for about five hours. Constant "announcements" that told us the exact same thing came every thirty minutes - theT plane was en route, the plane was coming, the plane was being serviced but they were pretty much done - reassuring sentence after reassuring sentence, as the rabble got angrier and angrier. I placated myself by doing roughly 20 laps up and down the terminal - I can't sit still when I'm extremely angry - and eating a surprisingly okay Wolfgang Puck chinese chicken salad.

Finally. At roughly 8:00, we boarded the plane. After filling out our swine flu forms and eying our seat mates with great distaste, we were ready to begin. I puffed out my (amazing) TravelRest pillow, mentally snubbed the Jim Carrey movie that was playing, popped an Ambien, and was dead to the world. I woke up over Corsica: my professor says she hates reading accounts of air travel more then anything else in the world and I guess she has a point, but it was still rather nice to see the orange coast of Corsica, the boats and yachts parked at the docks, and the heights of the mountains beyond that. It was a nice sight and almost compelled me to keep my bone-tired eyes open.

We arrived in Rome. The door malfunctioned. A collective roar of hatred and fatigue went up among the cabin and I wondered if we would have a mutiny on our hands. Not to be: the crew seemed to realize the danger they were in and got the door open in a jiffy. We poured through and into the fairly unobjectionable Rome airport. I was pleasantly surprised to find my bag had actually made it. Pulling the huge thing behind me, I headed to the train station and caught the Leonardo Express to Rome.

Getting on Italian trains very much reminds me of getting on Chinese and Indian trains -the same third world scrum, the same pushing and shoving, the same matching of sharp ass elbows against squishy bodies. I happen to be pretty good at the ancient art of the Third World scrum (and in a hellaciously bad mood to boot), and I maneuvered my way to a window seat, where I tried to doze during the 40 minutes long journey to Rome's Central Termini. The trip involved huge amounts of graffiti doubtless incredibly offensive to Italian sensibilities and a VIP view of some of the most unattractive apartment blocks known to man. Were these designed by Mussolini himself to sap the people's will to resist? I would draw offensive graffiti on them too.

I got into the Central Termini and then was forced into the dilemma of catching my train to Orvieto. I had been all responsible and bought my ticket online for 2:00 - not happening, as it was already 4:00. Completely confused, I wandered from departure sign to departure sign, unable to figure out which, exactly, was the Orvieto train. I asked a travel agent and recieved an almost Gallic brush off, and managed to stumble through a combination toy and book shop to an epic, epic line. (And this was 4:00 on Monday). It moved glacially slowly, and as I muttered expletives under my breath, I managed to befriend a lovely Australian-Italian girl, who let me use her phone to call my Italian contacts. She also told me something important: if they won't let you change your ticket, just get on the train anyway. This would prove important.

In any case, I made it to the exhausted looking ticketing officer, who glanced at my sheet and told me I could indeed catch the 4:44 train to Milan, with a stop in Orvieto. Duly noted. I took off for the Platform 8 for Milan as fast as I could. Nice Italian-Australian girl, if somehow and in some fashion you read this, know that you were extremely helpful.

I hopped on the train and found myself a seat. Then some middle-aged Americans booted me out of it. Found another seat and was booted out by middle-aged English people. Found another seat, wondered if a pack of middle aged Swedes would boot me out of that, and was pleasantly surprised when they did not. The girl next to me was an art history major from NYU - specialist in Russian modernist art of the early 20's. She was cordial enough but had no sense of humor. These things are probably interrelated.

The scenery to Orvieto was very pleasant - think rolling green hills and foggy mountains and a pernicious, atmospheric rain - and I enjoyed looking out the window. Italy reminds me of a perverse cross between California Wine Country and North Carolina's Smokies.

Finally to Orvieto. I meet the cab driver, Luigi, who was I supposed to be late for but apparently stayed on. We drive up the hill in the pouring rain, past various provincial burgs, agri-tourism sites, Authentic Etruscan Restaurants, stands of waving wheat, and so on. We stop at where I am right now, a renovated convent with a considerable statuesque presence. I signed in and went to meet Sabrina, and then went to meet the rest of the class. They were participating in a symbolic reading of Ratatouille, the Pixar movie. Well.

Dinner was lentil soup, sausage with fava beans, and blackberry tart and very tasty. Especially since I had subsisted on little but Luna Bars for the past 30 hours or so.

After meeting the local dogs and blowing a fuse in the bathroom with my blow drier, I am here, blogging this, and very ready to go to bed. Will be back tomorrow...