15-Sept

0330 Rome Fiumicino airport:
There is no concept of time lying here beside the ritiro bagagli numero otto. With the fluorescents always on, no windows around -- as we're tucked in this nook to do our best hiding -- and the constant rhythm of the belt whirring away...throw in jet lag and you wake up with no hint of the time except for your watch that says 0100, 0115, 0200, and so on as you see it more than the backs of your eyelids. The sound slightly resembles a laundry dryer with an article of clothing bouncing around and having its snaps hit the side of the machine. The thunk, thunk, thunk of the conveyor sounds like military footsteps, which it turned out to be when the 0100 flight's baggage and patrons show up at my bedside. I just pulled the bandanna back over my eyes and rolled back into my marble tile corner. If they get the guards, then they'll talk to me. Until then, might as well try to sleep. I lay there in my head trying to construct basic phrases in Italian to explain our excuses/reasons for sleeping in the terminal:

Arriviamo questa notte. Domani caminnarremò a Roma. Aspettiamo per la sole. Lui voglia incontriare suo madre a la mattina. Per favore, possiamo dormire qui per tre o quattro ore più?
We arrive this night. Tomorrow we will walk to Rome. We are waiting for the sun. He wants to meet his mother in the morning. Please, Sir, can we sleep here for three or four more hours?

You might be wondering why this sole traveller is referring to "we", as if schizophrenia set in on day two of the trip. I was picking up my pack at good ol' ritiro bagagli numero otto and I overheard the phrase "last minute couchrequest" uttered  from two people my age on a bench. I outed them as couchsurfers and we banded together. Chris is truly picking his mom up here. They're surfing Rome together. I mentioned how I had just done the mother/son surf. Danielle had already been here nine hours and had been woken by the guard outside. Three random strangers sleeping together at a baggage claim sounded better than one,  so here we are. Not entirely sure we're supposed to be here --as there's no one else in the airport -- but as I ran into a guard patrol coming out of the bathroom in the middle of the night, I decided to be the confident man and walked up to him and asked how much tickets to Rome (as we're 20 miles out) cost, in Italian. He responded, I didn't really comprehend, but he left me/we alone so far, so that's that.