Before we descend into holiday hell, I’m going to get all sentimental and gooey. Here’s a song that often pops into my head when I’m on my way back to Blighty:
Yes, last month I was in Italy, and from the title of this post, you can probably guess this is not going to be a postcard of relaxation, Roman architecture, and ravioli.
What would be the fun in that?
Our family had spent a week in the Italian countryside before we headed to Rome for the final three days of our holiday.
If you only garner one peppercorn of wisdom from this post, it is this:
DO NOT GO TO ROME IN JUNE.
My God it was hot. And the crowds and pollution and the city being essentially a griddle of crumbling stone didn’t help.
While the wife and kids explored Rome, I spent two days vomiting and rolling around on the bed with agonizing stomach pain (don’t ask), so was chirpy and well-rested for the fun and games of the last day and our journey to England.
My wife wanted to take a taxi to the airport. Having observed the constipated thoroughfares of The Eternal City, I insisted on the train. ‘More reliable,’ I claimed.
Yes, you already know where this is going.
We arrived at Roma Termini (Rome Central Train Station) and bought tickets for the express train to the airport.
There were constant announcements over the station tannoy, but all in Italian, and my knowledge of which could be written on the back of a postage stamp with a magic marker.
Once again, The Girl (my 11-year-old daughter) bailed us out at the automated ticket machine when we couldn’t work it out (if we’re like this in our forties, God help us when we’re in our sixties, and in our eighties? forget it, I’ll book Dignitas now).
We only had four minutes until the 9 o’clock train, so we booked the 9:20. But by the time we got to the platform, the nine o’clock train was still there (you can ride any so long as you have a ticket). Our lucky day.
But the doors didn’t open. Time ticked on. They still didn’t open. The 9.20 train didn’t show.
Then the screens in the station ticked over.
Cancelled.
Cancelled.
Cancelled.
Mamma Mia.
That’s when I noticed that most of the people standing around me were foreigners like myself. The locals are long gone. A bad sign.
And then I learned why. A member of station staff explained to another tourist that due to a problem on the line, all trains to the airport had been cancelled half an hour ago.
When would they start running again?
They expected in four hours.
That was okay; we could still make the plane.
That is, assuming the plane waited on the tarmac an extra two hours exclusively for yours truly.
We were screwed.
Another irate passenger remonstrated with the member of staff. It turned out those constant tannoy announcements had been telling people (i.e. Italians) not to buy tickets to the airport. But they were happy to let the tourists continue to spunk thirty bucks on trains that didn’t exist. Fuhgeddaboudit.
Rome Termini, terminator of holiday plans.
In the time it took us poor ignorant no-Italiano heathens to figure this out, all the taxis were gone. What about the buses?
A member of staff told us that because of our situation, our train ticket would be valid on the bus.
We flew outside to find a last seat on the Titanic lifeboat bun fight. It seems when people are desperate, they don’t do lines, or order, or reason.
A bus pulled up, a rush towards the door. People cramming luggage into the side like they’re stuffing groceries into that overfull bottom drawer of the fridge, hoping that if their bags are on, it means they’re on.
Drivers squared up to people, smoking cigarettes as if it were going out of fashion.
Parents held up children, ‘Please, Philadelphia, just the child, I beg you.’
Okay, maybe I imagined that last one.
We held our place in the crowd, slowly edging forward as each bus arrived and departed. Then we were at the front.
I held up my ticket to the driver.
‘Not here, different company, line 3.’
Lines, there are lines here?
I staggered to a board in the distance with a ‘3’ on it.
Eventually, we got to the front of that queue/mob. Only four seats were left on the bus. Maybe our luck had turned.
Then the driver looked at our tickets.
‘Not this bus.’
Surprisingly, I didn’t lose my shit. Looking back, this was some achievement, considering I was standing in the burning sun, my wife complaining about my poor decision in my ear, and a leprechaun wearing stilettos tapdancing inside my stomach.
My wife turned to leave/drown herself in the Tiber, but I grabbed her.
‘Wait, we’ll buy tickets,’ I said to the driver.
Whatever it costs — a hundred bucks, a kidney, one of the kids—this was our last chance to make the plane.
We paid another thirty bucks; we were on the bus.
On the way to the airport, my wife and I agreed that we’re completely spoilt when it comes to levels of service in Korea.
If this had happened at Seoul Station, there would have been a military-operation levels of coordination: hundreds of replacement buses drafted in immediately, staff apologising and explaining details in five different languages, complimentary bottles of water, and above all, orderly queues.
Not a single person would have been allowed to miss their flight. The aftermath would see public apologies, high-level resignations, perhaps even the ritual suicide of a board member.
When things like this happen, Koreans think it reflects badly on their whole nation, so break their backs to minimize the damage, reduce the shame.
The Italians? Fuhgeddaboudit.
I digress.
We arrived at the airport. It was going to be tight.
We leapt off the bus and tore through the terminal. Imagine the family from Home Alone, but much poorer and sullen.
That’s me with the handbag, minus the hair and less chic and more, well… shit.
We arrived at the check-in counters. The lady monitoring the head of the line quickly waved us forward. A group of four adults in front of us were already checking in their luggage.
We wait.
And wait.
And wait.
The middle-aged woman behind the desk was, shall we say, taking her time.
Here’s the sloth scene from Disney’s Zootopia to give you an idea of her industry:
It’s FINALLY our turn.
“Where are you travelling to?”
“Manchester,” I panted.
“Manchester… UK? ”
“Well, last time I checked, EasyJet doesn’t fly to New Hampshire, you moron,” I don’t say. I nod instead.
Tap tap tap she goes (with one finger on each hand, of course). Then her mouth falls open. “Oh… you’ve missed check-in by 6 minutes.”
I collapse onto the desk.
She says something in Italian to a colleague at the end of the row.
Please.
The colleague throws her hands up. That’s never promising.
Yep, we’re doomed.
For the final kick in the nuts, the travel insurance wouldn’t cover the 500 quid for the rescheduled flight the next morning, as our late arrival was nothing to do with the airline.
And at that very moment, all of our credit cards decided to stop working. This was getting better and better. I ended up having to call my mum to ask her to bail us out.
But at last, we secured the flight. My wife suggested that we find a hotel. The nearest available one within our budget was twenty miles away.
I wasn’t going through this dance again. We only had 25 hours to wait.
We bedded down on the airport floor. It’s character-building for the kids, I tell myself (trying to drown out the little voice inside whining about being such a broke-ass mofo).
The cheapest cots in town.
I didn’t sleep all night; I figured I should probably keep an eye on the kids. We’d already learned things can always get worse; child abduction at that point would have been level par.
I’m glad I didn’t sleep, otherwise I would have missed an eye-bulging 50-something American dad lecturing his 20-year-old son in front of the rest of his family.
*Finger pointing and lengthy, menacing pause after every line*
“You’re getting on that plane.
*Glances around*
I don’t like Europe.
This place is on the slide. It isn’t safe here.
I don’t know why we didn’t just let the Jerries….”
*Marches off, still pontificating. Rest of the family follow, heads bowed in silence*
Guess Rome didn’t agree with him, either.
Anyway, we made it, and after my rotten Roman Holiday, I can’t describe how sweet it felt to peel off the sweat-sticky clothes I’d been wearing for the last forty hours and finally flop onto my old bed in my room. I slept like the dead.
Home again.
Speak soon,
JL
PS: To find out how well I -don’t- deal with flying, check out this post.
PPS: For free stories, and a whole raft of rat’s tails from the life of a forty-something fu*k up trying to tunnel out of Korea, one word at a time, sign up for the newsletter:
