(I met her at church and she was more than willing to tell me where all the best hiking and running trails were. In fact, we jumped in her jeep after church and she took me to all of them-what a cool girl! I also found out that she used to work on cruise ships with the twin sister of a guy I was dating [in Texas] at the time.) Some people are just supposed to meet I guess.
Anyway, so my friend Christy Warnick went to the UK for vacation. The whole thing had been planned months in advance. She gets to Scotland and the girl who is supposed to travel with her bails. She's jet-lagged and can't sleep; it's some ridiculous hour in the morning there. It's like 9 or 10pm here. We chat for a few minutes on facebook and she tells me her predicament. My response is, "you want me to come meet you some where?" Her response, "You know if most people were to say that I wouldn't think much about it but with you, I know you're serious. I've never been to Rome and always wanted to go."
Great! In all of Europe, Italy is the one place I've always wanted to go. 6am (her time) comes, sleep and travel frustrations build, she decides to get some sleep and will call me when she wakes up.
2:30 am: my phone wakes me up. It's a go. I find a beautifully cheap flight to Rome, book it, pack and fly out 4 hours later.
On the plane I met two brothers Mike and Walter, originally from Italy, now in Philadelphia (Mike owns a gift shop, the one right across from the liberty bell if you're ever in need of a Philly souvenier hook up), who are headed to Eastern Italy for a cousin's wedding and I'm invited. HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE?! To experience Italy via Italian wedding style! If only I could get ahold of Christy and if only we had more time. Alas, you can't win 'em all but still I'd really liked to have won this one....but turns out I wouldn't have traded the trip I ended up with either. The answer is simple. I just need to spend more time in Italy.
16 hours later I arrive in Italy, 8am local time. Christy's flight doesn't come in until 4pm and I am kaput! I've got time to kill and desparately need some sleep. I scour the airport for a crash pad. Apparently I'm really good at finding good places to sleep in airports cause at one point I was awoken by homeless man poking my side repeatedly. I was in his spot. At first I just grunted, turned and closed my eyes. I could take him and it was the only row of chairs in the airport that didn't have armrests between the seats, but the poking persisted. FINE. GRRRR.
At this point I realized it's probably better to move since many homeless people have underlying mental disorders (which noramlly don't bother me as I see them in a clinical setting and they feel more safe but can act out irrationally and unpredicatably when not in a "safe place" or feel threatened, not to mention the very slow processing of my brain as to what sorts of stuff I was most likely laying IN if this was his regular spot.
4pm comes, and goes, so does 5pm. Her flight finally arrives somewhere closer to 6pm. We see each other and just smirk with exhaustion, relief and mischief. We did it, as silly and possibly stupid as it was, we had planned that morning and met the next evening in Rome, Italy. And what a miraculously wonderful time it turned out to be.
2 comments:
so, you have to have an invite to view your friends page. i wanted to see pictures!
Sorry babe, pics are coming. I'm going to post some here as well. i have a few days of the trip half written and will add pictures to all of them. Just taking some time.
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