Welcome to Rome

Well, have really stocked up on great coffee now – haven’t slept for days. Welcome to Rome.
Actually, here’s how I arrived. After my very comfortable Aer Lingus flight from Cork (including some all-important inflight shopping and Pringles*), we land at Rome Da Vinci airport and are met by immediate chaos. It seems Sunday nights are busy nights for arrivals here? Or is it just me?
I feel that I have some reasonable experience as a traveller but never have I witnessed the complete shit-fight (excuse the French) to get through immigration.
There was literally a mob of people – I would venture easily a thousand – waiting to go through immigration. There’s the EU and the non-EU (that’s us) – and no-queueing system – so just this massive great lump of people not really moving. Why? Because, half of the positions are closed. Hmmm.
So, we get into our respective blobs and, about five minutes later, while we’re corralled there clearly not moving, about another 200 people arrive.

Their blob tries to merge into our blob and the Italian tempers start to fray. Yelling ensues and much gesturing ensues...to no avail, of course. The merge is inevitable. Like water seeping into rock.

Us non-EU types are looking pretty tame, and we’re moving even slower than them because, I assume, we get asked questions at the end, such as “How long are you staying in Rome?”. “What is the purpose of your visit?” Yada yada yada.

Even so, I'm a little concerned - there are so many of us.

So, there’s a youngish, tallish, Italian-ish looking guy in front of me. I look at him closely – jeans, t-shirt , backpack, sneakers, calm...and flight centre documents. “You an Aussie?”
He turns and grins, “How’d you tell?”
Great – I’ve got my “protector”.
He doesn’t know it, but I’m sticking to him like glue till we get through this mess. He’s come from Ireland too, where he was visiting friends and now to Italy to visit family. Again – great.
Like a human slipstream I stay behind him, not too close, but just close enough to feel a bit more certain in the mass of human sprawl.
When I finally squeeze through and make it to the counter 45 minutes later, the glamorous Roman just stamps my passport and smiles. Welcome to Rome.

*I only eat Pringles on airplanes.