This wasn’t how we had planned it.  I was visiting my daughter Amethyst and her boyfriend Marco in Sienna and it was almost time for me to leave.  The plan was that we would all go down to Rome for the weekend and take in the town before I flew out Monday morning, but on a trip to the coast a couple of days earlier she had caught a chill and was sick in bed.  So, with Marco staying to take care of her I found myself on the bus to  Rome alone.  I have always been comfortable traveling on my own and as we sped down the autostrada I looked forward to the adventure ahead.  I had no way of knowing what the next two days would bring, but I certainly wasn’t expecting it would play out as it did.

I checked in to a little hotel near the Colosseum and settled in.  Dining in a small trattoria next to the hotel I contemplated plans for the evening.  After all, I was alone in Rome on a saturday night and this presented a unique opportunity to explore the culture of the Eternal City.  I decided I was in the mood for some nightlife and went looking for a jazz club.  I found a cab driver that understood “musica” and dropped me off in front of a club downtown that he was apparently very familiar with.  The bouncer met me at the door and escorted me to the bar.

As I gazed around the room it had a surreal quality to it, like a set from a David Lynch movie.  Red leather booths and mirrored walls.  There was a small stage on the far wall where older couples in tuxedos and evening gowns discoed beneath a mirror ball.  Immediately upon taking a seat at the bar I was joined by a very attractive young women as the bartender poured us each a glass of champagne.  Her name was Leila, and she led me to a booth, where she explained to me that she could show me a very special evening.  All it would cost was two hundred euro for her and three hundred for the club.  I explained that while this was a very attractive offer, that for one that wasn’t what I was looking for and in any event I didn’t have that kind of money.

We were then joined by the maitre’d who explained that the champagne we were drinking was not complimentary and that the club had a two bottle minimum at two hundred euro a bottle.  When I repeated that I couldn’t afford this he proposed a deal.  “I’ll knock a hundred off the girl.  If you don’t take that deal you’re crazy!”  He was clearly becoming agitated.  Scanning the room I picked out at least four of the staff casually watching our conversation, each of them to my mind calculating how to inflict the most damage were I to become a problem.  Deciding that this was the wrong place to start an argument, I agreed to pay for the bottle that had been opened.  My bank account drained, I made my way back to the hotel.

I woke up the next morning I woke up with ten euro in my pocket.  The train to airport cost nine sixty-five so I immediately made my way to the station to buy my ticket so that whatever happened I had my ticket home.  That left me with thirty-five cents to make it through until the plane left at six o’clock the next morning.  Back at the hotel the manager kindly agreed to take a post-dated check from the credit union in Petaluma.  I still had a whole day to kill and all of the old city to see.  Leaving my luggage at the hotel I took off walking through the streets of Rome.

Now, if you’ve never been there I can tell you that Rome on a Sunday afternoon is one of the coolest spots on the entire planet.  They close the streets to traffic and everyone is out walking in there Sunday best.  There are street musicians on nearly every corner and the music echoes throughout the city.  Walking past the ruins of the old Forum I passed a young man dressed in Andean garb and playing a pan flute.  And as I walk past I pick out the tune and it’s “The House of the Rising Sun”.  So I’m walking through the streets of Rome and some guy who looks like he just got off the boat from Peru is playing Leadbelly on a pan flute.  Bemused, I walked on past piazzas and fountains toward the Spanish Steps.

From the top of the Spanish Steps you can see the dome of St. Peters, so getting my bearing I headed off toward the Vatican.  Past the Villa Medici and across the Tiber.  It was about at this point that I realized that I had not eaten since the night before and that in my current financial situation my next meal would be on the plane the next morning.  However I had eaten so well on my visit that I really wasn’t hungry.  Italians believe as a point of national pride that they have the best food in the world and will never tire of proving it to you and any uneaten food remaining on your plate is considered the highest of insults.  So food was not a problem.

St. Peter’s square was teeming with pilgrims.  It was the first Sunday in Lent and the Pope had said Mass earlier that morning.  I meandered through the square, past a giant obelisk that had been plundered from Egypt, and entered the basilica.  Inside the opulence is stunning to the first time viewer.  A towering edifice of marble trimmed with gold and stained glass.  Front and center is the massively ornate altar, under which they say St. Peter himself is buried.  Fun fact, the basilica also serves as mausoleum and over ninety deceased popes are buried there.  The older ones are in crypts, but the newer ones are on display in glass vacuum cases.  In one of the cases was John XXIII laid out with a death mask.  Pilgrims were kneeling before the case, some crying and some praying and many leaving offerings of the folding kind.  A procession marched by marking some unknown ceremony of the day.  There was an admission price for the Sistene chapel so short of raiding the collection box that would have to wait for another time.  With that I made my leave of the Holy City.

The sun was getting low by the time I reached the Pantheon so I decided it time to make my way back to the hotel and on to the train station.  I approached one of the street vendors and in my best italian asked directions to the Colosseum.  Before coming over I had bought some tapes and a book and spent a month learning basic italian.  However soon after arriving I realized this would be of no help when it came to understanding directions as the locals spoke at such a rapid pace that I was helpless to follow.  My only salvation was that they would point as they talked, so I would strike off in the direction they pointed until I found someone else who would point me further along my way.  So the street vendor at the Pantheon launched into a long, convoluted set of directions while pointing with his left hand, adding at the end, “It’s about ten minutes”.  So with a general idea of where I was going I  headed back to the hotel and retrieve my hundred pounds of luggage and make the final grueling half mile trek to the station.

I checked in at the airport about ten that night, only to find that I could not check my luggage until four the next morning.  So luggage tightly in hand I spent the night in the airport trying to sleep on those oh so comfortable airport seats designed to keep you from sleeping on them.  At some point I managed to contort my body to the point where I get a couple of hours of shut eye before it was time for my flight.  Finally morning came and I boarded my flight, exhausted, sore, and hungry but elated at the same time, leaving Rome with thirty five cents in my pocket and a story to tell.