From One 100 Acres to Another

I’m back and almost recovered from jet lag. Had a long journey back to my 100-Acre Sandbox, which took – somehow – four days, including two overnight flights and two long layovers. Go figure.

One of those layers was Rome, a place I’ve visited twice before, once also on a long layover. That day, I ran into some Darija-speaking hawkers outside the Colosseum, who, after learning I lived in Morocco (this was during Peace Corps, obviously), came really close to inviting me over to couscous. They were thrilled some random white chick who spoke their language (albeit very badly) stopped by.

That visit, as well as my previous one, happened to be on whatever day of the week it is the Vatican is closed, probably Monday. When I learned I’d have a 12-hour or more layover in Rome, I figured I needed to head over to the Holy See. Had a blast, although I think I sleepwalked through some of it.

Following Internet directives, I booked my ticket and a bus from the airport in advance, and made sure there was a “store your bag” place at the airport for my backpack. (Best 6E I spent, for sure.) My goal was to hit the Vatican by 1 p.m., but I missed because I missed my stop. I was conscious we stopped, but I listened to the driver and I swear he did not say “Vatican.” I stayed on until the next stop, the main train station, and took the metro back to the Vatican, which sits on a walled 100 acres.

All this came after my first overnight flight, which had been jam-packed. For reasons that I will remain bitter for a long, long time, I had a middle seat for the 9.5-hour flight and didn’t get a wink of sleep. I can’t even remember which movies I watched, but point being, I was pretty tired as I fumbled my way to the Vatican. 

I finally figured out which metro stop I needed, successfully bought one ticket but in the process accidentally bought two, then made my way down to the metro. I was so tired that, watching my feet as I went down the stairs, I saw myself going to miss one. I remember thinking, “You are going to miss that stair and fall,” but I was just beyond being able to do anything about it but hang on to the handrail and hope for the best. I collapsed and I’m just so glad that A. I was on the next-to-last step so I didn’t fall far and B. didn’t break my ankle. No one so much as glanced at me.

After only asking one person, I figured out where the Vatican was and made my way through a maze of tourists as I went to three successive stops to get my voucher exchanged for a ticket, then to get the audio guide and then to get headphones for the audio guide. No idea why those weren’t at the same place but whatever.

Oh, the tourists. It was a Saturday, I think, or maybe a Friday, and the place was jammed. That was probably normal, but I was dodging little tour signs, which varied between flags and flowers or stuffed animals on sticks, all day long.  Huge tour groups. Gosh, on the flight from Atlanta, there was a group that had to have been 40 people.  I snapped lots of pictures (none in the Sistine Chapel – not allowed) but nothing was particularly good because I have the heads of a bunch of people I don’t know in most of them.

But the Sistine Chapel is pretty amazing. I plunked myself down and tried to absorb all the audio from it, but there’s just no way to take it all in at once if you’ve never really studied it. Humanities was a long time ago, and all I remember is Michelangelo, also come to find out, Raphael did quite a bit, too, as did others. (I’m not ready for the test.)

The museum was stunning, though. The ceilings were so high, and all decorated. There was so much incredible artwork, with pretty much each pope having his own collection. My favorite was the hall of maps, which was this long, long hallway with, you guessed it, maps painted in murals down both sides. They were all maps of regions in Italy, and were each huge.

One courtyard had a lot of fun sculptures and, for a reason I didn’t quite figure out, these amazing bathtubs. I really enjoyed poking around but was so tired that I know I didn’t get as much out of it as I would have liked. I’d gotten there around 2:30 or so and by 4 p.m. was physically done, even though I didn’t even make it over to St. Peter’s Basilica.

I called it a day and found a pizza place that had WIFI so I could figure out where my bus picked up. I’d bought a round-trip ticket so even though I missed the drop off I had to find the spot, which was really wasn’t so hard. When I got there, the bus, which came every half hour, happened to be going by so even though it was still only 5:30 or so and my flight didn’t leave until around 11 p.m., I went ahead and got on. I had a great layover, but I was done.

The next flight landed at 3:30, putting me in a hotel at 4:30 a.m. For whatever stupid reason – still bitter – I had to leave the hotel at 7 a.m. the following morning, giving me a night and a half in Amman. I’ve no idea why I couldn’t have just left Florida a day later. (Still REALLY bitter.) In Amman, I crawled into bed around 5 a.m., set my alarm for 10 a.m. so I could hit the breakfast buffet, then went back to sleep until 2 p.m. I didn’t even leave the hotel and only wandered to the first floor for a leg massage, which was wonderful.

Too early the next morning, I headed back to the airport and back to the Sandbox, where I learned I’d head again to Erbil. That’s where I am now and will be for a couple of weeks, which is fine with me. It’s super hot, but it’s a little less super hot than it is in Baghdad. However, since we built the buildings in Baghdad, there’s central AC. There is none of that in Erbil. There are wall units in rooms; that’s the best we can do.

The other two times I’ve been here, I stayed in a TDY house with 5-6 bedrooms. Each room had an AC/heating unit, as did the kitchen and the room with a TV. As soon as you exit the bedroom, a wave of whatever air you were trying to avoid would hit you. This new TDY house is much smaller – 2 bedrooms, and I’m the only person – and it’s the same. I have an AC in the kitchen, which isn’t worth using because it’s a wide open space and I don’t spend a lot of time in there, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. The dining table is in the living room, and the AC blows straight on it, giving me the choice of sweating to death of having cold scrambled eggs. But worse than that is in the morning, when I get up and walk out of the cool room into 95-degree heat, even if it’s 7 a.m. Joy.

Food has been a scavenger hunt. I had a few leftovers from before, so I brought those and will get rid of them, but what I brought wouldn’t last as long as I’ll be up here. I’d counted on the “free food” shelves from the other TDY house.

When I left a month ago, there was plenty of food in there, and there were other TDY people who had planned on staying much longer, so they had tons of it. When we were evacuated suddenly, I knew they wouldn’t have had time or opportunity to take them, so I figured the food had to still be in there still.

So, basically, I looted the place. I went in with my backpack and took unopened packs of macaroni, rice, popcorn, quinoa, olive oil, Oreos, some spices and other random stuff. I left the ramen noodles. After that, I went to the little store and bought eggs, alfredo sauce and juice. I’m still determined to use up existing food as much as I can, so for breakfast I’ve had scrambled eggs and popcorn. It’s really not too bad, but I learned rosemary doesn’t work on popcorn. Definitely go with the chili powder.