Roma - Made it!

Living in Europe (and I still pinch myself that I can say that) you get used to hearing different languages all the time.  So it was no wonder that it took me a while to start noticing that the dominant language around me on the train was Italian.  My hands were getting jumpy – they’re ready to play along too and start gesturing.  Phrases like “Ciao Bella” and “Grazi” were on the tip of my tongue.  Welcome to Rome.

I almost didn’t make it.  With all the travel under my belt I really reprised myself today.  I thought I was past stupid, rookie mistakes.  My toiletries were all set up in their travel sized containers in a clear plastic case days before the trip.  My travel outfit was chosen to minimize any necessary removal of clothing at security.  I’d printed out my boarding pass the night before.  Good to go.  So at 15:58, as the train started pulling out of Den Haag Centraal, I gasped.  My passport!  Instant panic.

At the time I was on the phone with Charlie.  He did his job and remained calm, contrasting my frayed nerves.  What to do?  Go on?  Take a chance?  Turn around and risk missing the plane?  Jocelyn.  Jocelyn knows about Schengen countries and the rules.  Call her.

My call for advice turned out to be a call into action.  ‘What would you do’ was met with a ‘Where are you?  Yeah – okay, go back.  What can I do?’  Maybe an excuse to leave work early on a Friday was just what she was itching for but bottom line, it was such a relief to have a friend jump to help like that.

So – I got off at Leiden, bought a new ticket (debated this but had time), caught a train back to Den Haag Centraal with 2 minutes to spare.  I waited 2 mintues for the #9 tram back to my place and checked in with Jocelyn.  She informed me that she was in my house (finally .... after a dash to her home without her house-keys and some back and forth to the office during my time on the train) and was upstairs looking for in my bedside table for my passport.  We had a near miss as I have 2 passports (one has my original Visa to live and work in the NL) and the expired one was in the black case I told her to grab.  She thought to double check and managed to find the valid one further back in the drawer with a little more searching.  Good God!

Then we both hopped into Gigi.  16:35.  Not bad.  Pretty impressive actually.  Light traffic because of school holidays meant that we made it to Schiphol by 17:15.  It was a nice opportunity to visit and catch up plus it calmed me down to talk about other things.

I made it through security with time to kill so I could grab some dinner.  Amazing!  Needless to say, the adrenaline spiked and ran its course and I was exhausted by the time I got to the Caravaggio hotel.  But at least I made it to Italy!