It was the night before Easter and all through the town, not a room was available, not a single one around.

Here we were, just off the train from Rome and all prepared to crash in our Florence apartment for a nine-day stay.  It was Easter weekend, and the city was packed with tourists and students— the busiest weekend of the year.  Boy, were we happy we had confirmed reservations! 

Confirmed in Italy does not necessarily imply that the agency you are renting from will have your apartment.  It’s not really a commitment.  (Some U.S. hotels are getting like this too, so I’m not picking on the Italians;after all, my grandfather and grandmother were born here.)  In fact, our apartment became mysteriously “unavailable.” “Unavailable”  I suspect meant that 1) a relative showed up and needed a place to stay or 2) the agency could make more money by renting the apartment to someone else.  Regardless here we were, no place to stay, it’s late on the Saturday before Easter, we’re speaking little Italian and totally clueless about what we were going to do next.

Now comes the agent from whom we had rented the apartment.  He had a deal for us—another apartment in the same building.   We took a look.  It was small, dirty, dark and had no Internet access.  We said “No.” This is a big agency and has lots of apartments in Florence—find us something comparable to our “confirmed reservation.”  Well, he couldn’t do that because this was the busiest weekend in Florence, and everything was booked.  His tone suggested we had better take what he was offering or be prepared to sleep under a bridge.

Now Florence is beautiful and had the weather been warmer and not raining, sleeping under the famed Ponte Vecchio wouldn’t have been all that bad.  The Arno was below flood stage. What could go wrong?  Our agent waited patiently for us to cave in and accept his offer.  After all, where would we go.  Two foreigners in a hostile land?  We had paid a deposit, but we had our euros tucked safely in our pockets, so we looked disaster in the face and told him we were VERY disappointed in his agency (italy-accom.com) and that his “solution” was unacceptable.  Off we went, and that was one surprised Brit.  We had no idea what we were going to do next, but it was good to be free of this agent, agency and the mess it had created for us.

I do think God provides social workers with some kind of special protection because as we mulled over our limited options, a little Italian “nona” appeared who was to rescue us from the mean streets of Florence.  I can’t tell you her name or how we met her, to protect her identity, but she just happened to have a recently remodeled apartment that heretofore only her relatives were permitted to use.  It was very clean, bright, well located and cheap, um, relatively cheap.  Nothing is cheap in Florence. 

See our Florence Apartment in this video

Anyway, our little angel of mercy let us have this great apartment for our entire nine-day stay.  She and her husband were wonderful.  We spoke very little Italian, and they spoke very little English, but we got along so well that it was all hugs and kisses when we left.  These Italians are fine people.  (The two people at italy-accom.com were not Italians: the owner of the apartment was an American and the agent was a Brit.)

So there’s a moral to this story.  First, avoid this agency unless you are a VERY lucky person.  Second, always have a backup plan.  It’s not that something might go wrong, something WILL go wrong.  Before you leave your little nest at home, make sure you have alternate emergency accommodations figured out, know where critical services are located like an English-speaking hospital, American embassy (not that they’ll do much for you), and have a WiFi-capable computer or cell phone with you, both if possible. 

I’m glad we treated the Italians well after WWII.  Those of you who don’t remember should know that Italy was an Axis power on the side of Germany during the war.  I can’t help but believe that some of the kindness shown to us by these older Italians had something to do with their good memories of Americans after the war.  They never talked about it, but I think so.

By the way, everyone over here dislikes George Bush.  I think I could live here. 

Call me naive, but I thought I would have gotten a little better reception. Here we are, Americans in a foreign land, 2007 taxes fully paid, wanting to rub elbows with fellow Americans at the U.S. Embassy in Rome.  How difficult could that be?  Wouldn’t we be ushered into a little downstairs cafe for a little cafe Americano, perhaps free brochures, maps, a momento of some kind?  At the very least, some good cheer?  I don’t think so.

The first person we met was a woman with a submachine gun. She was all businesss. ”What is it that you want?” We are Americans, and we would like to visit “our” embassy, look around a little, whatever.  “No, you can’t.”  Well, how do we get in, I asked. There has to be an entrance somewhere. ”There are three entrances, and you cannot enter any of them without an appointment.” 

But what if we had an emergency, lost a passport, had an accident, needed to be flown back to the good old U.S. of A for emergency medical care? ”You need to make an appointment.” When can we make an appointment? ”You need to call before 12:30 because after that the embassy is closed.” This is Rome for Godsake not Rwanda; the embassy closes at 12:30?

I could tell our relationship was beginning to deteriorate, and she was losing patience with my inability to grasp the fact that as an American, I could not simply walk into the American embassy that I considered my “home away.” I decided not to ask if I could take her picture with the submachine gun. I probably would need another appointment.

Interestingly, the other embassies we passed in Rome, while not exactly putting out a welcome mat, did not have the forbidding, fortress-like look of the U.S. embassy. You could tell that our embassy was surrounded by all kinds of security including blast protection, high fences and vehicle barriers worthy of Bagdad.  Are we turning all these embassies into “Green Zones?” Are we that disliked around the world? Something doesn’t feel quite right about all this.