i see danger

In addition to all my Italian language learning, I have also picked up a few handy signs and gestures for getting by in the world. For example, and I have demonstrated for your education as well, the army sign for "I see" is fingers pointing to one's eyes, and the sign for "danger" a downward slashing motion. This comes in handy when you are leading infantry over a hill and you see the enemy approaching, or you are about to pass men who think it's fine to clap at you or suck their teeth at you, or if you see a really good gelato place. Or if you plan to sleep on the ground outside of Rome's central train station.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Heidi's original schedule called for her to get into Rome early in the morning and then catch a train to meet us in Florence. But stupid American Airlines canceled her flight and put her on a much later one that would get her into Rome fairly late the next night. So, since we had received an invitation from th ex-spies to come down to Rome, Brie and I decided to go down there, hang out with them in Rome, and ride a late night train back to Florence with Heidi, so she wouldn't be dealing with that stuff alone late at night. Yvette stayed in Florence since she was kind of tired of us anyway.

The time in Rome was fun. I finally made it to the Colosseum (photo courtesy of Coma's camera with a polarizing filter), after three trips with Yvette where I only looked at the outside, as well as Palatine Hill and the Roman Forum. But I didn't have the good book with me, and basically my sightseeing is useless without the good book. It was interesting to look at cool ruins but we didn't really know what we were looking at. After that we did a lot of walking around. Brie and I took them for lunch at our favorite place, which we call Santa Monica Pier, but which is really called Cafe Strega, or Witch Cafe, don't ask me why. I only know this because of reading Harry Potter.

When it was close to time for Heidi's train, we went to a gelato place near the Termini Station. Places near Termini station are not really the nicest places to eat. This one was interesting because we were drinking rancid wine (Brie and I were not drinking it, they were drinking it, maybe the Army makes you immune to it) and then an African man came up to us to sell belts, and Coma offered him some of the wine, which upset the gelateria owner, who started yelling at him, and then he started screaming back that we had given him the wine, and then everybody was yelling at everybody. So basically we started a riot.

Then we moved inside the Station to wait for a while, and finally I got a call from Heidi, and I checked the times to make sure we were still with the trains, and it seemed that we were. So then she got there, all safe and blonde, and we bought our tickets to Florence. And then as I was looking for the train number on the track schedule, I realized that I had somehow managed to buy tickets from a different Rome station to Florence, and that there was no way that we had enough time to get to Rome Tiburtina in time to catch the train.

But we looked on the schedule and there was a midnight train to Florence, so we decided to just take that and plead ignorance if the conductor checked. So we got on that train, said good-bye to the ex-spies again, and waited to leave. One of the ex-spies gestured through the window, very animatedly and specifically, that they were going to wait for the train to leave, but they didn't. And I know they didn't because we just sat there. For about twenty minutes, with nothing happening. And then I got off the train to check the track number and they turned off the lights inside the train. Because that train wasn't leaving for Florence, it was arriving from Florence. But I would like to point out that everyone looked at the board and we all thought it was leaving for Florence.

So then we got off the train. (In retrospect, maybe we should have just hid on it and waited until morning.) No ex-spies, no trains to Florence, nowhere to stay. I talked to a taxi driver about cab fare to Florence (just on the off chance that it wouldn't be hundreds of euros, which of course it was) and he said there was a train to Florence, still that night, from Tiburtina, and I said there wasn't and he said there was, and we got into a whole thing about it, (in Italian, which was by far my best example of speaking Italian this entire trip, it was like being stuck in Rome in the middle of the night woke my brain up, I think for a while there Heidi thought I could actually speak Italian) and finally he said if there's not a train to Florence that night we didn't have to pay for the fare to Tiburtina station. No treno, no paga.

So we went to Tiburtina station, in this unlicensed cab (I could feel the spirit of Yvette cringing), and when we get there the guy goes into the station with me, while Brie and Heidi stayed in the cab with the doors locked, which I'm sure they just loved. And we're looking at the schedule together, me and the unlicensed cabbie, still arguing, because THERE IS NO TRAIN TO FLORENCE. And he's trying to tell me that I should take the train to Milan because he's sure, he's just sure, that it stops in Florence, even though Florence is not listed as one of the stops.

So then I really don't know what to do, so I have him take us to the hotel where the ex-spies were staying so we could see if they have another room. Which they didn't, apparently, even though it was like, a Monday night and I didn't see anyone within miles of it. And the ex-spies weren't there. So I asked to use the internet, which I know they have because I'm looking at it behind the guy, and he won't let me use it, even though it's just a pay internet computer for guests. I almost killed him, but instead I let him live and left a note for the guys.

Heidi, by this time, is over it, in Heidispeak, and doesn't want to get a hotel room, but wants to walk across Rome with her duffel bag and camp out at the station until it's time to catch the first train. And, even though Heidi has never been to Rome before, and she hasn't really slept in five days, I say, yes, let's walk across Rome in the middle of the night and hang out at Termini, adjacent from Rape Alley, that sounds good to me.

Somewhere near the beginning of our trip we stopped at an arcade to use their bathroom. Brie and I went down to the basement, into this weird empty blue room that looked wet but wasn't, to find the bathroom, and Heidi stayed upstairs, where apparently the arcade clerk guy and some other guy got into a fistfight.

While we were in the basement, Coma, who had gotten my note from the clerk, called (surprisingly, since I think I may have called the clerk something not nice in Italian) and said they would meet us. So they did, us dragging Heidi's busting-open duffel bag along. And we took a taxi to the station, Steve McCann following in another cab since the driver wouldn't take five.

And so we get there... and the station is closed. Until morning. It's probably, I don't know, 1 at this point? I asked our cabbie if there was somewhere nearby that was open all night, and he said he thought there was a place on Cavour, so we walked to Cavour, and wandered around and didn't find anywhere, and finally we saw a "Pizza Kebab" place that was still open, and so we went in there and tried to thaw out. We all bought pizza (no kebabs unfortunately) and then the guy gave us all free baklava. Then he was closing, so I asked him if he knew somewhere that was open all night, and he said something like, he would normally close now but he would stay open. And then we waited for a while, maybe 45 minutes, and he was really just going to stay up all night with us, but then after a while we felt bad and said we would go, so he could close up, and he closed up as soon as we left. I was really kind of touched.

Then we were just really out of options. So we went and sat outside Termini. And I was so glad we had the ex-spies with us, because that is not a cool place to hang out. And we were freezing. This is a picture of me and Heidi huddling for warmth.



Finally at about 4:30 they opened the station so we could at least sit on the floor inside, and then we said good-bye to Coma and Steve McCann for the third time, and left for Florence at about 6:30. Without getting murdered or freezing to death or anything.