Rome Trip - July 2-3: Getting to Rome

Up at 4:55 AM! Ready to leave Durham by 5:45 AM. Out to RDU Airport.

There was a very officious line minder at check-in, who couldn’t seem to understand that the signage (Which was the baggage check line?? Which was the ticketing kiosk??) might be confusing to a group of reasonably intelligent people. Note to self: ALWAYS leave time in the schedule for this sort of thing…

Smooth flight to Philly. However …

There was a very loud guy seated 2 rows ahead of us, who turned in his seat to talk to the two men seated in the row just ahead of us (two men it turns out he’d just met!) Very loud, and all golf, all the time. Did I mention the volume? I began to strongly dislike him, but also found myself despairing that my command of cutting wit was so much less than that of Wilder, Muggeridge, etc. How could I cleverly address his volume, the baseball caps (no one is fooled, dude, we know you’re balding), or the sunglasses (take them off already!)

In the Philly airport, picked up (1) a watch for Izzy, (2) another plug converter, and (3) pop-up Rome map for me.

SEPTA (SouthEastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) train to downtown for $5.50 each, then we walked 10 blocks north on 16th street to North Street. Visiting with friends from Durham & 2 of their grandkids. Lunch of bread, fruit, cheese. Great old-style, newly built row house with stoop, back garden, roof picnic area, etc. Good catching up.


(Note for Dan, etc. Pix of inside of house, and of us w/family & your kids accidentally erased in memory card calamity. Alas!)


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Took the bus (There were no lockers in the Philly Airport, so we’d been lugging our carry-ons during the earlier stroll) back to the “Suburban” stop (across from Independence Hall is suburban?) Thence to the airport via train. No one came to collect our $$ for the fares.

Our plane to Rome was late in boarding, which lead to a bit of a free-for-all in the US Airways Zone loading system. Nice surprise (for me, the very infrequent flier) when we boarded; there were pillows and blankets on EVERY seat, not just a few in the overhead bins.

Movies on the passenger pacification system. I watched Master Spy: The Robert Hanssen Story. Pasta dinner.

Bumpy air several hours of the overnight portion of flight – Izzy’s innards weren’t too happy.

Flight crew awoke us at 7 AM local time (1 AM EDT.) Crackers & cheese snack. My body clock & blood sugars will doubtless take a few days to adjust to the new time zone.

Landed in Fiumicino Airport, and spent 1 hour in baggage claim. At least we weren’t looking for luggage that had been pulled off of the carousels into several huge, unattended groupings. We’d put orange duct tape on various parts of our luggage - -helped ours stand out from the rest of the sea of black bags.

Off to the train & to Roma!