I awoke this morning to the soothing sound of Tibetan bells. The
alarm on my telefonino (cell phone) pretty much set the tone for my morning. I
snoozed a little, and then realized that there is no 8 a.m. shuttle bus in the
morning; only 7:45 and 8:30. Mom was due in at 7:45, and my flight had arrived
at 7:30, I got nervous for about two seconds, or as long as it took me to look
up her flight info online. She was delayed a half hour in Newark, and her
flight wasn’t due to arrive in Rome until 8:15. Plenty of time for me to shower
and dress. I took my pills (allergy, pro-biotic vitamin Primal Defense mainly
to process onions, and a baby aspirin for heart health) had a small breakfast
of twin plum cakes (basically pound cake about as big as a Twinkie), and headed
down for the shuttle. I made it to the terminal by 8:45 and was waiting when
mom came out at around 9:30.
It was strange when she came out. I first saw a Rome airport
assistant pushing her scooter, which was more puzzling because she wasn’t in
the thing. Mom was about 15 feet behind them, walking. I then got scared that the
scooter was broken. Mom said that someone had left the batter on when they
stowed it on the plane and it was now dead, but after further inspection, I
noticed that someone had simply put it into manual mode as opposed to drive
mode. Once we switched it back, she was up and running.
We headed directly to the Hertz office and picked up our
Peugeot 5008, kind of like a crossover wagon. It is a dream to drive and I
really got to stretch her legs on the 4-hour ride back from Rome. Another added
bonus is that the car takes diesel, which is about 20 Euro cents a litter
cheaper than regular unleaded. For those of you wondering, it is about the equivalent
of $2.34 a litter here for gas or about $9.82 per gallon. So the next time you
feel pain at the pump, think about the people who make about one third what
Americans make (based on a teacher’s salary) and pay three times the amount for
gas.
Tonight the plan is to head into town for pizza. Mom is
sleeping right now and we have already turned away company for tonight, so I am
not sure she’ll be up for it. We shall see.
