I had a 24 yo staying here until 8am this morning. Her flight arrived at 1:am, Wizz from Rome and she only had 3 nights, 2 days to breeze through the city. She is from NYC, but has lived for 2 years in Buenos Aries with her father. Mom is in NYC. In between times, she has stayed long term in Italy with other family and then Israel with still more family. Israel is her next stop where she will work until November.
She is bright, lively and motivated to return to Turin to an academy that offers a Masters degree is Slow Food. She wants to do the food journalism track, but is into cooking, so asked if she could cook here.After the go ahead nod, she went to the Great Market to her delight for shopping and carousing, returning with a big bag of food having survived the language barriers. She could not find a soul who could speak to her in Spanish, English, or Hebrew, so she had to work that body with sign language.
She was fun to have around, chatting away, but for a young person, I had to really talk up the sights to get her out after 6pm. Finally, I convinced her the Castle district was magical after dark when they stop charging for the Fisherman's Bastion walkway. She went and thanked me.
Last night I did the hard sell on going to a pub. Having just been, I was pushing Instant; it is close and I thought it would be her style. By 10:30pm, I was extracting her body from the apartment to the balcony pointing the way to the elevator. Shortly after, the other guests and I went to bed. I knew she would not be out too late; her taxi to the airport was at 8am. By 12:30, she was breaking down the door trying to get in. Now she had come and gone multiple times and knew the keys and worked the keys, but they must have turned into little pumpkins at the stroke of midnight, because she was clueless on how to get in the door.
Before a neighbor offered to scream at her for being so stupid and waking the building, I threw on a robe and rescued her before heading back to bed myself. I could not get to sleep for the longest time, but finally managed when I heard knock, knock, knock. Of course this wakens me, so I am now wondering who the idiot is that is banging on a door at 3:00am. Knock, knock some more, it continued for minutes making me wish someone would let the person in or just tell them to get lost. Are the Jehovah's Witnesses working at these hours of the morning? By that point, I was counting the minutes I had left to sleep before the alarm went off; all of the sheep took off for greener pastures or were scared off by the knocking. With the sound escalating, I am really wondering why neighbors have not formed a lynch mob yet to storm the source. Then it occurs to me. My young guest is out on the balcony attached to the small bedroom, which has not handle on the outside. If the door closes, you are stuck out there. I know from experience. Back on with the bathrobe, then rush into her room without announcements, so as not to wake the other guests. There she was plastered to the glass panes waiting for a knight to come save her from her fate. Well, I was good enough considering the circumstances. I really don't want to know why she was out there in her nightie and I am trying to flush the memory from my mind. We never discussed it further, but she said she would return. Maybe when she does, we can recall the incident and have a laugh. In the meanwhile, I may have to go into protective custody around the neighbors.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment