MOVING DAY
19/09/23 – MOVING DAY
I sleep alright until about 3am when I wake up in a panic. I felt wide awake as soon as my eyes opened and attempts to sleep afterwards weren’t very successful. The feeling I have is one of complete disbelief. It feels like an ordinary day, not the day I move to another country. I say goodbye to my dog four times and give my granny a big hug and a kiss. Then we’re squashing my luggage into the boot of the car and I’m getting my last few glimpses of home. Its dark when we leave the house. The streetlights are off and the village is asleep.
Arriving at the airport carpark with the sun beginning to rise, a sensation comes over me and I think it’s the feeling of excitement, but it’s not excitement like I know it. Once we park the car, our first mistake makes itself incredibly and offensively heard. Suitcases. For eight-months worth of luggage you want easily movable suitcases that could glide through the airport with just the pressure of your pinkie finger. These suitcases are nothing of the sort. My appreciation for the 90s vintage aesthetic wears off long before we reach the end of the 50m walk to the airport bus stop. I would attempt to describe them, but the truth is these artefacts belong in a museum and the 21st century person wouldn’t be able to comprehend the illustration. Having reached the airport and gone through security, we stop to eat breakfast at an overpriced Starbucks and try to kill the time before boarding. Then sooner than I had expected, it’s 8:15 we’re making our way to the gate.
After a peaceful flight, my first view of Lazio appears through the window. Browned and shrivelled from the heats of August and July, Fiumicino looks like it belongs on the equator. A blanket of beautiful umbrella pines coats the spaces between houses while their terracotta tiled rooves blink up at me. I didn’t realise how unfamiliar the landscape would feel.
In the airport we manage to acquire our first mouthful of Italian cuisine. My dad and I stand at the counter and try not to annoy the stony-faced baristas while feeling hyper-aware that my Italian will not be at its peak performance. We manage to secure the goods and vacate the counter, with the slip of an accidental ‘merci’ echoing through our ears.
The confusion of tickets and which ones require validation enflames my nerves and once again I feel embarrassed at my failure to interact with the station workers in Italian. Nevertheless, we manage to get both ourselves and our suitcases onto the train and soon we’re heading into the city of Rome. Apartment blocks, gas holders and graffiti glide past the window and I can’t tell if its more similar to London than I thought it would be or less. Arriving in Termini we go round in a twice circular search for metro tickets and finally find what appears to be the only working ticket dispenser in the building. After a slow 30 minutes of waiting in line, we buy a weekly pass and finally start to edge closer to the neighbourhood in which I’ll be spending my first few weeks. As we descend the steps and round the corner, four other empty and glistening ticket machines make themselves visible.
By this point it’s 4pm and the metro is busy. I feel like a nuisance with our bulky cases, but I happily distract myself with a horoscope reading on the screen attached to the ceiling of the carriage. When we arrive at Basilica San Paolo, we stop at the first bar and have some gelato while we wait for our apartment host to let us in. It takes an ital-glish phone call and a lot of miscommunication before a smiley Italian woman appears at the entrance to the building and I sigh in relief. The apartment was lovely and all the better for not turning out to be a scam.
We buy food for the week and order a pizza on our way back from a small pizzeria a few doors down. Very soon its bedtime and I’m lying in my sofa-bed trying to comprehend what’s just happened.
