I was forced to depart to Rome without my beloved Nikon that had been stolen the week before on January 6th from JFK airport. I laid out all of my clothes, following the list Cornell gave me to a “T,” which proved to be great advice. Like “don’t bring a hair dryer because they explode”, and “bring slippers for naturally cool apartments.” I most definitely over-packed though, and brought items that I thought I couldn’t live with out, and left behind items that I later found out I couldn’t live without…
A little background: after excessively researching flights and cheap options with visions of saving hundreds of dollars, I booked my flight to London in November and opted out of the group flight. Later on I booked a flight on Alitalia to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport. My baggage situation ended up being a disaster since my flights, naturally, weren’t connected. I paid for overweight charges both in US dollars at JFK and then again at London, Heathrow after having to sort through all my bags in front of the whole airport line, throwing out shampoo and layering on a few heavy jackets.
My eventual arrival was SUCH a relief. I was heckled by third party cab drivers but followed Cornell’s advice and refused to accept a 75 Euro cab ride into the city center. I got the proper cab for the standard 40 Euro, got dropped off and walked into 11 Via Sant’Anna. My roommate and fellow art student, Erica, met me at the door, we screamed for a second out of excitement and she helped me drag my overweight bags up the stairs. To my surprise the rooms were huge! Rome is such a small-scale city and the apartment opened up into something quite contrary to its façade.
Despite the traveling challenges, we made it. That night we got dinner at the worst restaurant in Rome…they served us popcorn and peanuts as appetizers! We then went around the block and found the most delicious gelato of our lives. Shortly after, at around 9pm Roman time, we were asleep in our apartment, trying to overcome extreme jetlag.
– Ginny Johnson