I opened my eyes to a dark room. The sound of traffic was sporadic out on the street below our apartment windows. Wondering what time it was, I turned on the bedside light and slipped on my glasses. The watch on my wrist showed ten minutes to five in the morning.

A flood of emotions washed over me. Today, my daughter Tammie and I would be traveling back to the United States. I felt sad that our wonderful vacation was over; looked forward to returning home; was nervous about taking a taxi to the airport; dreaded the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean; and realized that after waiting for hours in various airports I’d be totally exhausted by the time we arrived home.

Slipping out of bed, I padded into the kitchen to make tea. As the water heated, I prepared for the day. Tammie’s alarm clock went off by the time the tea was ready. Uncharacteristically, she immediately got up. Our plans and responsibilities for the day that lay ahead were affecting her as well.

With our luggage lined up by the door of our apartment, my daughter and I took turns checking all the rooms to make sure we wouldn’t accidentally leave anything behind. Earlier, I had washed the dishes and put them away, bagged up the wastepaper baskets, and hung used bath towels neatly over the edge of the bathtub. Satisfied with our efforts, we pulled our luggage out into the hall and locked the apartment one last time.

When my daughter and I arrived at the Rome airport eleven days earlier, we had taken a train to the city, then rode the Metro to a station close to our apartment, then walked the two blocks to our destination pulling wheeled luggage. For our return to the airport, Tammie and I agreed that taking a taxicab was a better plan. The ease of doing this outweighed the cost.

There are taxi stands all over the city of Rome, where taxi cars line up and wait for passengers. What I didn’t realize is that if there is a taxi stand nearby, a passing taxi driver is not supposed to pick up someone along that street. To do so is worse than stepping in front of the line at Starbucks because he would be taking income away from those who followed the taxi stand etiquette.

The Via Crescenzio taxi stand was only a block from our apartment. As Tammie and I were about to cross the street to get there, a taxi pulled up next to us and offered to take us to the airport. We were happy to get a ride so quickly, and relieved we no longer had to pull our luggage over bumpy cobblestones. The driver got out and put Tammie’s luggage into the trunk of his cab. Before he could put my suitcases in, a driver from the nearby Via Crescenzio stand approached shouting angerly.

I didn’t need to know Italian to realize the taxi stand driver was ticked off. The driver holding my case angrily shouted back. Understanding some of what was being said, Tammie let me know what was wrong. We awkwardly stood by as the taxi drivers sorted their issue out with much shouting back and forth. Finally, the first driver put my case down and removed Tammie’s suitcase from his trunk. He got in his vehicle and drove off and we followed the taxi stand driver to his vehicle.

The day spent traveling was long and as tiring as Tammie and I knew it would be. When we arrived back home, it would have been early morning in Rome. In Minnesota, it was only nine in the evening. Our feet dragged as we followed a series of signs leading us down hallways and escalators to find transport home.

A long line of taxis waited for fares outside the exit doors at the airport. We boarded a vehicle at the head of the line and after only a short ride, the driver pulled up in front of Tammie’s house. Our day had started with a taxicab ride, and it ended with a taxicab ride. Happily, there was no drama surrounding our second ride.

Cabriolets and Taximeters

Being a farm girl from Central Wisconsin, I didn’t know a thing about Taxi cabs. My first question was, “Why are these car rides for hire called taxi cabs?”

What I found out was interesting. Before cars were invented, horse drawn vehicles for hire were called ‘cabs’, which was short for cabriolets.

When ‘Cab’ companies started to use automobiles, they put devices called taximeters in each vehicle. Taximeters measure how many miles the passenger rode. The drivers used this information for how much too charge for the ride.