Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: Italy Part 1: Getting There

I never really did a comprehensive travel report of our recent trip to Italy. Since this site is supposed to be a storytelling blog, and I kind of want to record the details of the trip so I have them when I’m all senile and what not, I figure this is as good a time as any to start jotting it all down. This will be in multiple parts, with pictures when possible. Today will just be about everything that went down before we actually got to Italy.

I’ve wanted to go to Italy for a long, long time. It’s been my dream vacation for as long as I can remember. Robin and I talked about doing it for some time but we never really had the money for it. Last year, however, I got a hefty bonus, one that was enough to cover airfare, hotels, and rail passes for close to two weeks in Italy for Robin and I, and instead of doing what I always do and put it into savings, I booked us a trip.

We booked our airfare before we even knew where in Italy we’d be going. Ten nights, roundtrip from Dulles to Rome, that’s all we knew. We tried to get discounted tickets but all of the flights had impossible stopovers – either less than one hour (in Heathrow – impossible) or greater than eight hours. We decided we were adults, now, approaching 30 with money in the bank – let’s get the flight we wanted. So we booked roundtrip on British Airway for a little but more than the discounted fares we were seeing. Of course, the week after we booked it British Airway had a sale to Rome that would have saved us around $200 per ticket. And, no, they wouldn’t give it to us retroactively. And thus begins the circumstances behind our decision to never use British Airways again. The rest will unfold along with the story and, of course, “never” means “never…unless there’s a great sale.”

We had to pick our cities. Our initial idea was Rome, Venice, and Naples. Robin wanted to spend some time on the beach and I was willing to lie out in the sun as long as Peroni would be present. Whenever we told anyone our plan, however, they’d always say, “Naples? Naples is a dump.” On the recommendation of several friends we decided to go with Florence. Good wine and cheese – that’s why I wanted to go to Italy in the first place.

So we booked hotels for the three cities – three nights in Rome at a hotel near the train terminal, two nights in Venice right on St. Mark’s Square, three nights in Florence at a hotel near Ponte Vecchio, and two final nights in Rome at a hotel near the Pantheon.

Plane booked. Hotels booked. I purchased first class train fare for Robin and me, so we can go from city to city. We weren’t being stingy with this trip at all. It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip as far as we were concerned and we wanted to make sure it had the potential to be as fantastic as it could possibly be.

Everything was ready to go. I scheduled my vacation time at my job, we got the pet-sitting taken care off (Robin’s friend watched Becky while we were away and the cats had a sitter). I made sure James Powell knew what was coming up and what needed to be done for Postcards while I was away.

We bought our DK guidebooks. One for Italy and one for each city we were going to be in. We bought a new suitcase since we only had one medium sized bag and neither of us wanted to carry our large suitcase around. We looked into renting a car while were in Florence so we can get out to Chianti on our own schedule but realized we needed to start planning for that particular aspect quite some time ago – special licenses or something to that extent. We got the vacuum sealed clothing bags, an extra SD card for the camera, some new clothes that fit comfortably, and new walking shoes so we don’t spend the evenings complaining about our feet hurting. We researched the mass transit and cab situation in all of the cities we were going to, we picked out some good restaurants and sites that we absolutely had to see, and we researched the local wines so we knew what we had to get and what we had to bring home with us (answer: Chianti).

We were ready to go – we had everything we needed. Almost.

About two months before we were about to go to Italy I decided to propose to Robin. We’ve been together for eight years and, honestly, I’ve run out of excuses. She definitely wanted to get married – she no longer answered that question with, “Eventually.” Eventually has come. It was time.

So I started asking around. I looked at local jewelry shops, saw what they had. I knew Robin wanted something that looked or was antique. She wanted platinum, too. And that’s basically all I had to go with. There weren’t a lot of great options in DC. One dealer, however, pointed me towards several jewelers that make rings like the ones I was looking for. Two of these places had online storefronts and friendly customer service people and I found a ring I liked at each of them. One of them was out of my price range and one of them was not.

Now…I had a book coming out. I had an advance coming to me which, truthfully, was essentially already spent between creators, designers, editors, agents, and marketing. But…technically…I could scrape a little bit out of my company’s share of the money and that would, in essence, get the other ring, the nicer one, into my price range. So I decided to wait…

And wait…

Advances, well, they can get delayed at times. And that’s exactly what happened with my advance. Two weeks to go before the trip and I still didn’t have the ring. I wanted to take advantage of this trip so I ordered the smaller one. It was still a gorgeous ring. Edwardian inspired platinum, a nice rock in the middle with little diamonds on the side. I had to pay for express sizing and express delivery but it was worth it – I wanted to propose.

I had a plan. For some reason, I thought Venice had a Faberge egg thing. So I bought a ring box that looked like a Faberge egg. I was going to pretend I picked it up from a cart or something, open it up, surprise! I planted it! Imagine my surprise and frustration when I found out Venice had nothing to do with Faberge eggs. At least it was a nice ring box, I guess…

Literally the next day Robin and I are at our favorite Italian restaurant in Georgetown for my birthday. During dinner Robin drops a subtle hint. She says, “You know, I think it would be romantic to get engaged in Venice.”

Now – I was rip shit. RIP. SHIT. Who says something like that two weeks before the trip? If you wanted to hint at it, there are much more subtle ways of doing it without risking completely ruining the surprise if it was, indeed, going to happen. So, I lied. I lied hard and took advantage of the fact that she can’t get mad at me on my birthday. I told her I don’t think I want to get married, yet. That I thought we still have some issues we need to work out before making that commitment. That with the book coming out I can’t divert my attention or money to a wedding. I laid it on. And she bought it. And I might have paid for it during the weeks leading up to the trip but at least I had my surprise.

The ring took a while to get to me. I called the jeweler a week after ordering it to make sure it was shipped to me. The jeweler took this very condescending attitude and told me that they realize they need to get it to me before I leave on my trip and that if there’s anything wrong they’ll call me. On the Wednesday before my trip (we were to leave on Friday) I still have not received my shipping notification or my ring. I called the jeweler up to see what was going on and got the same snooty customer relations woman. She said, “Like I told you, Mr. Rodriguez, if there’s a problem we’ll call you.”

I told her that I was leaving in two days and I’d like to have verification that the ring has at least shipped. She reluctantly put me through to shipping. I gave shipping my information and they put me on hold. Five minutes later they get back on the phone, apologized their asses off, and promise me that they are shipping it over night right now. I wanted to get the customer relations lady back on and give her a piece of my mind but I figured it wasn’t worth getting upset over – at least I’ll have the ring.

The ring didn’t come to my job until 4PM Wednesday afternoon – I was getting nervous. But the receptionist brought it into my boss’s office while I was meeting there with another coworker. They made me open the ring right there, I showed it to everyone and they were all pretty excited. I left work shortly afterwards and went home – ready to finish packing and get moving.

I reserved a town car to take us to the airport the next day. The guy picked us up and headed out to Dulles – the two of us were so ready to go. We checked in, checked our bags, and had dinner at the Gordon Biersch in the airport. I excused myself and said I had to go to the bathroom. I went to call Robin’s father to ask for his permission to marry his daughter and, of course, get the answering machine. I needed to get his cell phone, so I text messaged Robin’s brother to get it. He, of course, gave me the wrong number. I texted him to give me the right one and went back to dinner so Robin wouldn’t get suspicious. Her brother sent me the right number and I called her father up and, of course, got his voicemail. I went back to the table.

Five minutes later Robin’s father called me. I excused myself again and told Robin it was Josh Fialkov on the phone – we were finishing up a pitch that he had to get out while I was gone. I answered the phone, Robin’s dad asked what’s up, and I asked for his permission to marry his daughter…

Silence.

After ten seconds or so I asked “So…is it ok?”

He gave me an enthusiastic “yes” and said how happy he was and told us to have a good vacation etc, etc. I apologized for asking so late, but I didn’t want Robin’s mom to find out because she can’t keep a secret. He understood. Recharged and ready to get engaged, I go back to the dinner table. Five minutes later, Robin’s mom called me. I excuse myself, again, saying it was Josh, again, and answered the phone. Robin’s mom asked if everything is alright because I left a message. I told her not to worry about it, I wanted to talk to John, and I’ll talk to her later. She said ok, likely knowing what was going on, and wished us a good trip.

We boarded the plane and took off. We drank some wine, ate some snacks, watched some movies, and slept for a while. When we woke up we were close to London. The plane landed and we made our way through the nightmare that is Heathrow. Brushed our teeth, got some coffee, and walked around the airport a bit – sampling shots of scotch and watching the flight board for any updates.

On the plane to Rome I went through the guidebook a bit and practice my Italian. It was a nice, short flight to Fiumicino airport. We could hardly contain ourselves as we lined up to get off of our plane. Several minutes later we were in the airport – ready for our trip.

And that continues next time.

Labels: travel

Italy Part 1: Getting There

Monday, June 04, 2007

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