Thursday, 15 March

Roger – Part 1:
Boarding the Air Canada flight a border control person asked if I was carrying more than $10k. Once aboard the flight, it was uneventful and comfortable. All the announcements were in three languages [V: English, French & Italian]. I have no idea if they were speaking good French or Italian. Before the meal, I passed on the hot towel. We had General Tao chicken and braised veal stew. Gathered our luggage at the Rome airport. Valerie scored a free cart to put it on and off the Hertz place, which was a good walk. The rental car was a Renault. Had the guy show me how to take off the parking brake and change the onboard navigation system to English. Off we went to a nearby mall (Parco Leonardo Mall). Hit a bank machine for some Euros and then stopped at Auchan grocery store but found nothing on my list. Final stop was Vodafone store for an Italian sim card.

The drive into Rome was interesting. Our car had a on board navigation system and while the commands were in English our responses to the directions at times were incorrect. This resulted in hearing re-calculating route many times. Made at least one left turn from the middle lane. Encountered two police motorcades. The police would be waving their lollipops for us to get out of the way. Only problem was most of the time there was no place to go. Hoping there were no active traffic cameras getting my tag number on the streets where I possibly did something illegal – entering a residential zone without the proper permit [V: Ticket #1].

We finally made it to the Airbnb. The next challenge was to find a spot to park the car, as there did not seem to be any. We pulled into a very illegal spot and tried to call out host, Angelo, but the call didn’t go through on the Italian phone. While troubleshooting this, Valerie called the number on the small florist stand across from where we were parked. The guy answered and was looking right at me when I said “Sorry, wrong number”…

Reached Angelo the second try, and he showed up pretty quickly, and we found a free spot in front of a driveway gate that was no longer used. Checked into the Airbnb apartment near Piazza Galeno, unpacked and then nap time.

The weather was cool and damp, but we came prepared. We met friends for happy hour (precena). 10 Euros you get a glass of wine (only five choices) and a plate of food. After that I went to bed and Valerie went out to checkout the night life.

Valerie:
Toronto to Rome

Wish we had upgraded to First Class. This was hard on us. Arrived in one piece and got the rental car. Would have lost the Amazing Race at this point – can drive a manual but can not figure how how the emergency brake disengages. With help from the car rental staff, and maybe 45 minutes later (steep learning curve), we were on our way. However, Roger almost hits the car behind us when backing up – a sign of things to come. BUT, on the drive out of the airport we see the young couple who drove out well ahead of us on the side of the road trying to figure something out. So, maybe we wouldn’t do so badly in the AR. Nah! We wouldn’t last a day driving together in a race.

Anyway, after narrowly missing the concrete barrier to the on ramp, as well as cutting off a couple of vehicles, we make it to the shopping mall.

No success for the product Roger was looking for at the grocery, but we did get an Italian phone number for 30 euro, which included data, and then headed into Rome.

After imploring Roger to drive more carefully, we only had about five more incidents before we reached our accommodations. After having to throw my body across the parking spot to reserve it, we were able to park and get into out accommodations.

Things were looking up, and then they weren’t. Roger was feeling very weak and had the big D. We didn’t realize until later the extent of his illness/intestinal distress – weakness, light headed, in addition to the other fun things…this likely explains the very poor driving. Likely, it was food poisoning. Of course, this isn’t going to stop us from meeting the friends he made in 2016, Massimo and Francesca, at an eatery. So, after passing out for several hours, we make our way to the eatery.

And, Roger doesn’t know how to not eat – three meals a day, come hell or high water. So, he eats. Note, that it wasn’t until day three, that I finally convinced him that crackers and water for 24 hours will be helpful.

After tucking Roger in for the night, I wandered around the area, stumbling across the adult night life district by accident. I got back to the main street and back to Roger and to bed.