Penultimate day in Europe. I’m ready to go home.
No useful presentations this morning which gave me time to pack myself up and leave the apartment that has been my home the last week. I managed to get everything into one suitcase, including my carry on, although it was very heavy and took a great deal of effort to close. It was starting to buckle by the end of the process so I was worried its structural integrity might fail at any moment, sending my possessions flying in spectacular fashion. However, it was worth the risk as I had one more train trip and only having one bag to look after is much easier.
The driveway up to the conference venue is unfortunately gravel, which is not very user friendly if you have a suitcase with wheels. I was happy to carry it by myself but even though i tried to be surreptitious, I couldn’t stop people offering to help. One Portuguese lady wouldn’t take no for an answer, and also roped in some colleagues to help. Very embarrassing. Once I had wrestled my luggage into the cloakroom I went to my first lecture.
It was during this first session, while mindlessly twirling my hair, I discovered I was missing one of my gold earrings. I spent the entire lunch break going back over the route I’d taken that morning, staring at the ground. No luck so I checked with the conference organisers and also messaged my landlord for the past week in case it turned up during cleaning. An annoying distraction.
Many more interesting talks in the afternoon. My manspreading friend had another presentation where I discovered he actually works in Marseille, and with a last name of Velly he is most likely French and not Italian. Apologies for the misinformation. I had a train ticket booked for immediately after the conference finished, and just as the last speaker was done, my landlord messaged to say my earring had been found. Great news but now I was cutting the time very fine. I raced back to pick up the earring and then back to the venue for my suitcase. Once again, i couldn’t escape without someone helping me, this time a very nice man from Scotland. He was quite dismayed at how heavy my suitcase was, but I did explain I had been over here for three months which is nearly true. it’s lucky Simon took some stuff back with him when he left last week.
I raced to the train station, found the right platform, but couldn’t find my carriage. There was a six and a four but no five. There was a young conductor standing by the entrance to carriage four, and by now I was quite anxious because you don’t get much time to board these trains before they set off. “Cinque?” I asked. He looked at me with distain and said very deliberately and with clear reproach at my rudeness “Buena sera. Si, cinque.” I wasn’t expecting a lesson in manners but I did feel suitably abashed. It wouldn’t have taken me much effort to be polite. Still, the young whippersnapper might have made allowances for anxious middle aged foreigners.
It was dusk when I arrived in Rome. My hotel was extremely basic but well located only a couple of blocks away from the station. Once I settled in I set out again to take advantage of the only free time I was going to get in Rome.
It took less than half an hour to walk to the Colosseum, it’s very impressive even at night.
There are boards up everywhere, the city is getting a lot of work done in preparation for next year which must be some important anniversary of something, I’m not sure what.* I tried walking around the forum but got stuck a couple of times when my route was blocked by renovations.
I walked in a giant loop, I think I managed to avoid all the other most popular landmarks without even trying. There seems to be more excavations and Roman ruins than in previous times I’ve been here. I wonder if it’s nerve racking living here, you never know when the government is going to turn up to dig up your lawn or worse.
I bought a takeaway focaccia for dinner. I looked briefly at the tourist shops but I’m loathe to weigh myself down any further tbh. I did notice that the 2025 hot priests calendar is just reusing the same photos from last year. In fact I’m certain they are the same ones from when I was here 15 years ago. I guess that means these guys are now luke warm at best.
Repacked my bags and early to bed.
*the Pope has decided it’s a Jubilee year