17-Sept

You know the best part of having a solo vacation? The availability of change. Take, for example, the fact that I'm currently in Israel. Who saw that coming? Okay, so I'm still in Rome, but that sounded a little more sporadic. Before I even started my epic walkabout, I changed it. I was supposed to start with a little 20 mile jaunt from the airport to Rome, but circumstances arose that sounded like opportunity. After sleeping in the terminal --well, it was more like pretending to sleep for the most part; you saw that the last entry was written at 0330 -- I had two new friends who, while American, are fairly constant travellers like me. One came from New York City originally, but has been in Israel and decided on a spontaneous trip to Italy to visit some other friends. The other is from Eugene, Oregon, but has been all over lately, Germany most recently I believe, and is possibly heading for a semi-permanent move to Cairo after this. Chris never found his mother at the airport. We've lost contact with him for the time being, so we'll never know if she made it. Danielle's friends showed up a day later than planned, so that made for an interesting time of not greeting anyone at the airport.
Forgot I was writing about change. Sorry about that. I decided to hang around the airport with my new comrades, so the idea of starting a 20 mile walk after lunch didn't seem like a proper idea and I took the bus into town with Danielle. Yes, it's true. I started my walk by not walking. However, it was a well-executed maneuver that resulted in a good friend for my travels --she'll possibly be doing some of the walkabout with me -- and I saved her from spending another night in the terminal. Because her friends had the dates wrong, the room they had booked was for the next night. My couchsurfing host, Vita, who happens to be amazing, was more than willing to take us both in and the three of us had a great time, including Vita having a few friends over for a pasta session. Truly, it was another example of happenstance friends. The three that came over had known each other for ten days after meeting at a fire juggling retreat on an island off Sicily.  One was a local animator/jumping stiltwalker that Cirque hired for some local media promotions. These are things I can't make up.
I realize talking about people without pictures can test the imagination, but Vita's laptop doesn't have a photocard reader and the photo I took of Danielle looks like this (http://media.city-gates.org/3crosses/galleries/3/photos/123560647846f9f0b6d691e4-4908-l.jpg), so just keep imagining.
For my days of staying in the same city that should result in less walking, I don't seem to follow that idea. I think I did about 12 miles the first day and somewhere in the 17 mile range yesterday. You'll be happy to know that I've pretty much covered the city more or less. Historical Rome (the touristy one) is as expected, with the ruins, architecture, and such. I'm not discounting it, just saying that there haven't been major surprises. Good place, good people. However, Vita lives outside the main region, so I got to see less-than-expected items last night, such as the man holding a bus hostage by standing in front of it, banging on the windshield, and yelling angry things. The bus driver put his warning flashers on and was sitting on the phone, no doubt calling his supervisor, the police, or both. For those more interested in the historical portion, however, plenty of culture there (obviously). In a 7 hour portion of my walking yesterday, I saw an operatic ballet rendition of Odysseus being performed next to some ruins, a classical piano concert going on in some other ruins, lots of buskers in the piazze -- mostly Piazza Navona...
The big walk starts tomorrow, but that's still a day off. Let's see what mischief I can cause before then.

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In side notes:
1) The advantage of change is that Vita said I could stay as long as I wanted (within reason) and since I'm having fun with my new friends, I'm staying in Rome an extra day.
2) Using a European keyboard is quite challenging. Lots of extra characters available and I can never find the common items like apostrophes, colons, quotes, and slashes. Don't even get me started on the @!