Monday November 2, 1992 - Rome, Italy
Woke up at 5 AM to the sound of one of the more spectacular lightning and thunder shows I’ve seen and heard in a while. I had planned to get up early anyway so I could call Carol at home. So, it turned out to be good timing (8 PM Pacific time). I managed to dial home and was amazed when Carol answered the phone considering she was on the opposite side of the globe. The connection had a time delay of about 2-3 seconds which caused some confusion at first. I already felt like I had been gone for a month so it was nice to talk to someone familiar who could understand me. I ended up not sleeping much the rest of the night and got up at 7 AM and went down and had a free continental breakfast. The FAO building didn’t open until 8:30 AM so I spent some time writing postcards before walking over to FAO (pronounced F A Oh). Much to my surprise, the FAO building was closed for a national holiday! There were several guards at the front desk where you check in and they told me I should just take the day off because it was a holiday, and no one was there. It turned out the FAO building where I was to work was 5 miles away from the main FAO United Nations building. Normally you could take a shuttle bus between buildings but since it was a holiday, the bus wasn’t running. I was finally able to get in contact with one of the people I was supposed to work with, but he confessed he didn’t know if anyone, including the project manager, K.D. Singh, would show up for work. Not to be dissuaded, I decided to walk to the other FAO building using directions given to me by the guard and a map of Rome. As to be expected, after getting about halfway, it started pouring rain and I was forced to hide under an old Roman bridge and wall that circles old Rome. I finally made it to the FAO building and as luck would have it, K.D. and most of the other crew were there. The office where I would be working looked somewhat like most government furnished offices where people aren’t too concerned about appearances. I was happy to find out that most everyone also understood and spoke English, although K.D.s’ English was a bit rough. I ended up talking most of the day with K.D. and Paul Howard about what my job would be for the next month. Paul was also a Forest Service employee who was on a one-year detail. Once done, I walked back to the hotel and found out the hotel decided they would only charge 100.000 Lire like they had originally quoted.
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