Day 10: Coming Home

Our last morning in Rome.

Thursday morning we were up at 6 to check out and start the trip home. Fortunately, sunrise in Rome this time of year is about 5:30, so it we didn't have to travel in the dark. We said good-bye to Sister Christina and two Americans who were standing out in front of the convent waiting for their bus. They were amazed that we managed to fit 10 days worth of clothes in two big backpacks (although to be fair, we did re-wear some kind of smelly shirts though Lisa maintains this is due to weather that took a turn we didn't expect instead of not having enough luggage space). We hurried to the Metro station to the Termini train station and caught our train to the airport with about five minutes to spare.

Kinder Eggs in the airport.

We had coffee and pastries at an airport cafe for breakfast and then Lisa bought a couple of Kinder Eggs, the German chocolate eggs with little capsule inside that contains a toy. We learned this spring that these are illegal in the US and you can be fined for trying to bring them into the country - I guess they violate some FDA regulation from the 1930s about not selling food with non-food products inside. Anyway, Lisa enjoys the toys so we bought a couple and ate them on the plane somewhere over the Atlantic so as not to violate any US laws!

After that, we went through security, but I was so tired, I had forgotten to empty my pockets and take off my belt, meaning I had to go through twice. Even on the second try, I set the machine off, but the security guard saw the line building up behind me and he let me through, probably thinking, "Stupid American tourist" while doing so.

Elephant and Obelisk, outside
Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

When we got to the gate, our plane was already boarding. It was a situation like we'd encountered last year - rather than using a sky-bridge, everyone goes through the gate and down some stairs to a bus, which drives us around the airport to the plane then we get on using the old-style stairs directly up to the plane. Once we got on, we were overpowered with the smell of urine, but once the air conditioning came on, this went away. About an hour or so into the flight, we were then told that while the toilets in the bathrooms flushed, there was no water to wash one's hands. Clearly, this plane had some problems! Beyond that, though, the flight was fine, just long. I think it seems longer flying west to the US than east to Europe because the flight over is at night, so you can try to sleep. The flight back, though, usually leaves mid-morning and gets to the US in early afternoon, meaning you're on a plane for nine or ten hours in the daylight. Then when you land in the US, you've still got six or eight hours left in your day before bedtime, making for a very long day. Once we got to O'Hare, my dad was waiting there to pick us up and drive us back to Freeport, which was very kind of him to do.

Lisa and a mini-range, just her size!

Overall, I think it was a very useful trip in terms of helping us plan our study-abroad trip. We learned just how long we have to wait for Rome's buses which allowed us to realize that we would have grossly over-scheduled our days if we hadn't done the planning trip. There's no way we could have done everything we thought we could with the students. In fact, as you've seen, there were days when we couldn't do everything we wanted to do with just us! We also got a good sense of what's in the museums of Rome. I had been to all of these museums in 2003 when I studied there, but in the space of ten years, I'd forgotten the specific artifacts each one has. This allowed us to realized that some of these museums, while interesting to us, wouldn't be interesting to students or, at least, would be less interesting than other things we could be doing with them. That means we can cut some of the activities we had planned without losing much in terms of course content. In addition, we found a great hotel to use, too, with a delicious breakfast!

Piazza Navona.

Beyond the course planning, it was also fun to be back in Italy and do some things for just the two of us, like the Palazzo Farnese tour, the Galleria Borghese, Florence, and some of the churches. After I lived in Rome in 2003, I knew I had to come back and I knew that someday I'd make it happen. But I never thought I'd be able to go three times in the space of three years (assuming we get enough students to sign up for the trip next year)! I'm very lucky life has worked out that way because I love Rome; it's one of my favorite places in the world. As our colleague who teaches Italian said, "Rome is chaotic and anarchic, but you love it because of that chaos." I think that's a good way to describe how Lisa and I feel about it, too.

One of Aaron's favorite things about Rome: free public
drinking fountains. Thanks, ancient Roman aqueducts!

One of Lisa's favorite things about Rome: cats!

Ciao, Roma!