The Back Story

So clearly we left Cairo. I had been jittery. Then again, I’ve been jittery pretty much every time I’ve come to Egypt since 2007, when a guy harassed me in a street for, I think, not being covered enough. So that’s nothing to go by.

The truth is, we were fine and our neighborhood felt completely safe. I think it was a combination of the gruesome images on TV, feeling unsettled in the hotel and hearing about all the families who were leaving. And the jet-lag and worry-induced insomnia. I hadn’t slept for more than 4 hours at a stretch since we’d arrived, and on the day I decided to leave I didn’t fall asleep until 7 or 8 in the morning—I’d been up all night watching the siege of the mosque that the MB protestors had barricaded themselves in.  So not at my most stalwart.

I realized that, but I figured we’d had a stressful summer trying to get ready for the move and, since the start of school had been postponed, I didn’t see much point in sticking around. We could barely feed the kids, between the curfew and our lack of a working stove, and it was only a matter of time before they got tired of being pent up in the house. We might as well take a relaxing little break on the beach, I reasoned. A close friend has an apartment in an Italian seaside town that is nearly always empty.

Nearly being the operative word. When I asked her if we could use it, her concern was that it was too rundown, or that there might not be mattresses there. But that wasn’t the issue, it turned out. No, as the email I received while buckling into the EgyptAir flight to Cairo told me, the issue was that it was rented.

Uh-oh.

Fortunately we’d planned to spend the first night in Rome, so we were okay for the time being. We were in one of my favorite cities in the world and had a bed to sleep in that night, so I couldn’t bring myself to worry. On the train ride from the airport to the city we met a lovely couple from NY who had just come back from doing volunteer work and going on safari in Africa. The boys had a blast telling them what superheroes they looked like.

And then the glitches started popping up. Both my US and Egyptian cell phones decided, for various reasons, to go on strike in Italy, so we’ve been without any reliable way to communicate with anyone unless we have access to Wi-Fi. Next, the hotel—which was fantastic (Hotel Artemide) and where I was hoping we could stay until we figured ourselves out, told me they were all booked for the following nights. The evening reception staff was terrific, though, and assured me they’d help me find somewhere in the morning.

The morning guy was decidedly less friendly (although I later found out he was holiday fill-in and normally worked in the back office). But he booked us into a sister hotel at a reasonable rate and told me everything was taken care of, which was a relief, given my telecommunication challenges. Thus assured, the boys and I set out for a day of sightseeing. We had a delicious lunch and a great time at the Coliseum. We returned to the hotel in the evening expecting to pick up our bags and go over to the sister hotel around the corner.

If only.

Unhelpful morning man had failed to tell the next shift about our little arrangement, nor had he given the sister hotel my name, so when they called later and asked who they were holding a triple room for, no one knew. Understandably, they gave it away. It is, after all, Rome in August.

Fabulous evening people, though, rode to our rescue, booking us in to a hotel next to the Forum, where we went after a nice meal on the rooftop of our first hotel. Hotel #2 was okay but not great and had only sporadic Internet access.

The kids though, were troopers, despite being exhausted and kept up way too late every night by their jet-lagged, insomniac mother. They have both fallen in love with Rome, although I suspect it has much to do with the daily pizza, pasta and gelato as it does with ruins. Although they’re quite good at indulging my talk of ancient civilization and architecture.

It’s day #3 and I’m writing this from our third hotel and our second city: Santa Marinella. After a slow morning in Rome and a line at the train station ticket office that took longer than the trip itself, we found ourselves in Santa Marinella, a seaside town on the coast less than an hour outside of Rome where, after a prolonged search for a beach escape for us, Oliver managed to book us into a basic but lovely hotel right across the street from the water. We plan to stay for another day, or two, or until we can find a room in Rome.