Hidemi’s Rambling No.456

by Hidemi Woods on February 24, 2013

MusicMarketplace.com

***** 88th Planet Project *****

We took an Alitalia flight to Italy. It was a bumpy visit from the very beginning. I experienced the scariest landing in my life, in which the plane took several sharp dives during the descent under the perfectly fine weather and made me scream repeatedly. It landed with a couple of powerful bounces on the runway and while I was pale and near to crying, other passengers were cheering and applauding. We looked around tourist attractions such as the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, the Catacomb, and the Mouth of Truth that I stuck my hand in and I later realized had been a manhole lid of the sewer. We entered the Vatican City by showing our passports. Compared to Rome where I saw many old brownish buildings, it had luxuriously gorgeous buildings. Our hotel in Rome was an old small one. It had a hard wood floor instead of carpeting, which looked like an apartment rather than a hotel. By then, I had been unable to pack all my belongings into my small bag anymore as they had been somehow grown day by day. I conceded defeat to my mother that my plan to travel smartly with small baggage was a mistake and the war was over. We bought a suitcase at a bag store near our hotel and walked back. There were numerous horse-drawn carriages for tourists around the city and I rolled a new suitcase along the streets covered with droppings. Back in the hotel, I was short of fresh underwear and needed to do the wash. In the room with underwear hanging from a clothesline, I felt as if I had lived in a dilapidated tenement. I opened the small wooden-frame window and the stench of horse droppings rushed in. Next morning, the roar of the street cleaner woke me up before dawn…