Weekly Favorites 5/10/16

My birthday week has entailed a lot of planning, lounging, and eating as we work up to the big day Friday. This weekend Edoardo and I are going away to Umbria; I am so excited to get out of Rome and experience FALL in the countryside, with the amazing food and wine in this beautiful region. But today I wanted to share a moment from last night, on my way home from work.

The bus system in Rome deserves a blog of its own. The experiences I've had on ATAC are as crazy as they come and I don't care if you spend an hour waiting for your SEPTA train or saw some guy dressed up on the T in Boston, nothing can compete with the things I've seen and had to endure on the buses in Rome. Waiting 20-45 minutes for your bus to come is expected at this point, as is the need for a plan B, C, and D for when A falls through. But one thing that really irritates me is the attitude of Roman bus drivers. There is no pity or compassion if you're lost, asking for help, or late for work. They sit in the front and ignore you with headphones on, 100% of the time. Which makes my encounter last night so incredible. Yesterday was my last night of work for the pubcrawl and I left the club a little late to walk to my bus. As I was walking, I looked at the time and realized that actually, I was going to miss my bus (which is scheduled to depart at 1:52 but really leaves at 1:49). So I started running. And as I was running alongside the only bus that can get me home and that only leaves every 45 minutes, thinking about how I would have to wait until almost 3 AM to catch the next one, a miracle happened. The bus driver slowed the bus down and motioned to me to stop running and get on the bus, all while laughing his head off at the sight of me sprinting in the middle of the night. I hopped on, found a seat, and gave him the most heartfelt, out-of-breath, "grazie," possible.

It was a pretty extraordinary moment in an ordinary day.