Wednesday 11 June: Arrivederci Gary!

All good things come to an end. Today Gary had an early flight back to the US. We got up about 5 am, meaning an hour and a half after Trastevere went to bed. Fortunately, Gary had packed the day before and we were ready to go pretty quickly. We had a quick cup of coffee in the apartment, and then dragged the luggage down the street to the taxi stand at Piazza Trilussa. Gary was taking one of my huge suitcases back with him, filled with stuff I didn’t need for my last few weeks, as well as a bunch of stuff we had bought as we traveled through Italy. We figured that it would be easier for him to take, since I could help him get it to the airport. We caught a cab and arrived at Fiumicino about four hours before his flight was scheduled to leave. Gary and I both like to get to the airport with lots of lead time, and today it was a good thing we did. After checking the enormously unhelpful bank of monitors for information on departure, and asking at two desks, we found out that we had to take a shuttle to another terminal for Gary’s flight. Once we got to this terminal, they told me that I had to leave, since I wasn’t ticketed, and Gary had to go on through baggage check and security. We had hoped that Gary could check his bags, and then we’d have a chance to have coffee and breakfast together, but it was not to be. We said our good-byes, and I watched until I saw Gary go around a corner. Then the guard threw me out. Luckily, there was another shuttle waiting, and I went back to the main terminal and took the train back to the Trastevere station, and from there caught the tram back to my neighborhood.

Gary’s phone didn’t have international roaming, so he wasn’t able to call me while he waited. He did eventually get through security and baggage check though, with only one bag overweight (the other was eight ounces under the maximum). He had a flight of almost eleven hours to Cincinnati, followed by a wait of several more hours, before getting back to State College after 9 pm. I spent the day doing research at home and checking his flight status. Luckily, that day I was able to piggy back on someone’s wireless. It’s pretty cool how you can now track a flight online and watch its progress on a map.

I finally heard from Gary after he made it to Cincinnati, and then when he got home. After traveling for twenty-four hours, he made it back safe and sound, although tired and jet lagged. He said that the cats were ecstatic to see him! Old Eddie, who thinks that Gary is his mother (we got Eddie when he was about six weeks old, and he’s now pushing nineteen), would not leave Gary alone, and followed him everywhere he went in the house. Erik the Red, who is always glad to see people, did the same. Even Xander, our sociopathic misanthrope kitty, greeted him and let Gary pick him up and pet him! The cats, house and yard were fine, Gary reported. There had been a little problem with a radiator in a downstairs room leaking, but our great cat sitter Jane had notified our friend Amanda, who called a plumber and had the hot water turned off. Gary would deal with that the next day.

I was glad that Gary got home safely, but I wished he were still here. I went back to bed after speaking with him, and tried to get a little sleep before the city began to wake up.