Disappearing Acts, Escape Artists

It has been four days since my last post, sorry to keep you waiting, or this is me apologizing to myself because I haven't written anything. Either way, I will welcome myself back after the longest week in recent memory. It started with beers and goodbyes, as I sent Justin off to the United States for his seasonal retreat to make money in a country with money worth less than the Euro, or the Canadian dollar for that matter. Anyway, when the tourist season starts anew Justin will be back, hopefully pockets full and fingers ready for typing out fresh stories about adventures as immigrants.

I thought I was going to be by myself on a long haul trek through the Roman winter, one known more for its lack of tourists, in my case tourist revenue than its harsh weather. I was just about to miss Justin when, two things happened. Thing number one: Sabrina, Isabella, and Giorgia called, pissed as all hell at the blog Justin wrote about them, making me think that if girls who can't read English can understand our blog enough to be mad at us than the rest of our readership must think we are ridiculous assholes without a good thought in our collective heads. Thing number two: Brandon, my former roommate, and WWOOFer (willing worker of organic farms) would be arriving in Italy the day after Justin left. This left me no time to prepare for him, write a blog, think about Italian ragazzas hating me, or pretty much anything else.

Brandon arrived a little after noon on Thursday morning in typical Brandon fashion, meaning without letting me know when he would be arriving until the moment he arrives. I got a phone call from Brandon directly after making pancakes upstairs in Jordan's apartment. Brandon called asking me if I wanted to get lunch, because he was at Termini, and wouldn't be able to leave for at least an hour because he was washing his clothes at a laundromat we used to frequent when we lived in the area together two years ago. I let him know that I had already eaten, and that he would have been more than welcome to join us if he had sent word about his arrival. I decided to meet him over at the laundromat, because Via Tor Pignatara isn't the easiest place to get to in Rome, and Brandon spent his tenure in Rome either in Trastevere or Termini, and not much more. The boy never made it to Saint Peter's or the Vatican, and he was here for more than five months. I work at the Vatican, and he still missed it this time around.

When I arrived, Brandon and I gave each other enthusiastic hellos, even though I had seen him three weeks prior, when Justin and I lived in Marino, that's just how we are, overly enthusiastic about seeing each other for no reason at all. Not for seeing Basilica's, but for seeing my smiling face Brandon seems to travel half way across the world. We bought two of the worst espressos we've ever had, just because the barista was cute, and caught up on what is most important, stories about girls, traveling, punk rock, and past adventures.

As I mentioned before, Brandon has a typical fashion associated with his arrivals into Rome. His failure to communicate with me when we first encountered in Rome two years ago had me on the brink of thinking I was a paranoid schizophrenic. This requires reintroducing Brandon, and as with the majority of my stories begins in Philadelphia.

I was taking Italian 101 at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, in preparation for my semester in Rome. The class room was packed with students, about ten over capacity, and the only things I learned that semester were that fat girls with Musical Theater and Fibers majors wanted to learn Italian, and that Carla Weinberg our professor hated the Euro because she can "no longer afford to buy leather shoes in Italy." No alphabet, no numbers, no ciao even though our book went by that title. Nothing. I scanned the room, looking for some sign of intelligence and found Brandon. He sat in the back of the class, and just drew little doodles and made snide remarks from time to time, the kind I wished I could get away with, but he was an actor, and I was at the time an illustrator or sculptor, I wasn't quite sure.

One day Brandon and I each stayed after class to tell Carla that we would be studying abroad in Rome. This is where we formally met, totally by chance, because we both asked the less than helpful professor for help. We each learned that the other would be in Rome and decided instantly that we should search for an apartment together. We exchanged phone numbers and that was pretty much it.

I spent the rest of the semester skipping that class, because it was pointless and I had already learned who I was going to live with. Brandon and I had coffee one time after that and discussed logistics. He would be leaving for Italy in June, arriving in Rome, scope out a place for us to meet at the train station and then WWOOF his way around Italy until I arrived in August. Perfect, everything was settled.

The rest of the semester played out, and on the last day of school I meet another guy going to school in Italy the following semester. His name is Garrett. Garrett, is two years older than me, but he is in my major, and he will be studying at the same university as me. How a department of less than twenty people can neglect to tell us that there will be someone else studying in the same foreign country as the other is totally beyond me. I meet Garrett playing kickball on his last day of school in America ever. I immediately tell him about Brandon, and then call Brandon to schedule a meeting about the three of us getting a place together.

We meet at Garrett's house, on a really shitty block in South Philly, exchange flight information and prepare to see each other the next time on August 11th 2005 in Rome.

I arrive in Rome a little bit late, I am supposed to be the last of the three arriving, I figure that they will be patiently or maybe impatiently awaiting my arrival. I arrive at Termini Station, and realize something Brandon neglected to mention. Termini is FUCKING HUGE! There are over twenty front doors, and thirty tracks for train arrivals. The visual clutter of advertisements and the sea of different nationalities give Times Square a run for its money.
I search for two hours, book bag on my back and rolling suitcase in my hand. I took a break to find something edible and decided right away that I wanted to go home. The food by Termini is terrible, and there are pickpockets lurking everywhere. I signed into my email account see if either Brandon or Garrett had emailed me. Neither had. I decided to take one more swing through and if that didn't work I would find a hostel with internet access, so I could make contact with them eventually.

I didn't find them. I did find a hostel, and it was filled with ugly girls, so I decided I would sit by the computer and wait for two guys. Guys I didn't really know, and wasn't sure if I even liked, but they were my only link to home, and I wasn't going to let them go for anything in the world.

After another six hours, six emails, and six people behind me waiting to use the computer. I decided that my connection to home. Brandon and Garrett, the two guys I had met a few times. The guys no one knew about, never met my friends, never hung out with and never responded to my emails, were never going to be real. I decided that they never existed, considered myself crazy and decided to go drink my brain away in the Eternal City. I found a pub crawl and signed up, I really found two hot, really hot German girls and followed them to the pub crawl.

I got drunk on the Tiber River at some shitty bar for tourists, and my drunk mouth rambled off my new story about how I was a schizo to these girls, and that I invented my two potential roommates. I asked them if they wanted to live with me, as I could no longer be able to afford the rent of for a three bedroom apartment as I was in actuality only one person, with two imaginary friends, that didn't even like me enough to make the trip over the ocean with me.

I think I thoroughly freaked those girls out, because I took the bus home alone that night, stumbled into my hostel bed and slept in my clothes on top of my bags. I woke up in the morning to find my guide book had disappeared, maybe I had imagined that too. My last ditch effort to restore my sanity was to check the internet again. Nothing. That was it, I was truly crazy. I went to stand up, when I got a feeling I should hit the refresh button on my browser.
There was a new email in my inbox. It was from Brandon, the subject was "OH FUCK I SUCK!"

To be continued...