Dec 17, 2025
Reality is always more scruffy and frayed than what we imagine.
Let’s start with air travel. Sixty, seventy years ago it was for the elites. Today, access for most has turned it into Greyhound flying buses. It’s crowded for sure and I even got missed being served a meal on an international flight. The brutal capitalism of airline profits puts me, the paying customer, but not the most expensive, at the bottom. I barely made an international flight connecting at JFK because the Boston flight was delayed for some spurious reason. No one seemed upset; except me.
So here I am on a train from Rome airport to Rome Termini to catch a fast-train to Naples. But first, Rome airport. Gone are the days when Western airports were models of efficiency. No more.
( I must stop for awhile. My train is pulling into Roma Termini, ruins on my left and zigzag of tracks and glistening trains ).
Rome airport has installed a ton of kiosks for digital passport verification and finger printing. Unfortunately, few work properly. So we are forced to look for a human who can stamp your passport. The lines, you guessed it, are very long and the electronic passport verification is done by a human who has the magic touch. It reminded me of labor-intensive India except the international airports in India are very well organized.
I always enjoyed the frenetic energy of Roma Termini and the hundreds of trains, the accurate departure boards. Today is a bit trying. You have to know the system. I had everything except the platform number and to locate the train number out of the swirling names on multiple boards is . . . well . . . sweat-inducing. And what else did India prepare me for? Crowded trains!
But it’s Italy. And Rome. And Naples and all that awaits me. Travel is to experience the new; not the familiar.