When in Rome, do as the Romans do
The thing with travel—to make it work, to make it actually happen—is to plan ahead with reckless abandon. You don’t know what will happen in the future, except that you will grow old, your knees will give up on you, and you will eventually die. So book an overly discounted ticket months earlier, free up your calendar, and see what happens.
My college friend Jef and I did all of the above. I’d last seen him in December 2024, when Manong and I went around New Jersey and explored New York City—that “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.” Jef met us in San Antonio, where I attended a breast cancer conference. He drove us around Texas, and we met some of his family. I tell him to this day, Texas is my favorite state, a statement he finds fascinating, understanding, perhaps that pretty much of the United States remains unexplored territory for me.
I remember I was in between rounds, and he was at work in Dallas, when we made a video-call. This was in 2025. As with many of my friends, who think the same way as I do, we both came up with the idea of meeting halfway, somewhere in Europe. He did his graduate studies there; he is conversational in Italian and Spanish and French. How he learns languages quickly, how he managed to get straight unos in subjects many UP freshmen failed in despite spending the night playing table tennis in the basement with me instead of studying, are proofs of his brilliance. His face and voice brightened up, “I know a lot of good places there.” Soon, Manong would move to Sweden to do his graduate studies, and we decided he could join us in the tour as well.
The tickets were booked. Immersed in the daily routines of clinics and classes, I saw the email reminders for the upcoming trip to Rome as a kind of a reward, a beacon of hope for the future. I hadn’t been to Rome, but it was the closest city to Naples, which fascinated me more. Naples is where the characters of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet lived and breathed. I prayed that the trip would push through. Weeks before the trip were flight cancellations because of the war in Iran.
During a brief layover in Abu Dhabi, which is geographically closer to the Strait of Hormuz than my home, a fact that led me to more intense prayers for safety, Jef sent me a photo of Manong eating carbonara in a Michelin-rated restaurant near the Airbnb that he had booked previously. (Jef asked us where we’d like to stay: in the city center, or in a typical Roman apartment, where real people lived? We chose the latter, “Gusto ko ng real.”) Jef said it was so good, meaning the food, possibly my brother’s company. I would meet them in about eight hours: a six-hour flight to Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport, then immigration, the luggage counter, and the Leonardo Express that would take me straight to Roma Termini, the central train station.
Jef asked me where I was. I said I was near the Swatch store, a few meters from the turnstile. He said I must have walked passed him.
There I saw him—my dear old friend and brother of many years—smiling, walking towards me in a blue shirt, shorts, and Islander slippers, how he had looked when we ate breakfasts together in Kalayaan Hall or walked to AS Lobby in 2004, with no care in the world that the people who were passing by were in tailored suits and shiny shoes in typical elegant Italian fashion. He remained unchanged and untouched by time. His boyish laughter could be heard in the entire hall when I said something piercingly witty. So much has changed, and yet, as he and I would realize, we are still the same people.
He asked me what I’d like to do in Rome. I said I hadn’t thought about it, so much so that I got worried I’d be asked for an itinerary during the immigration check. He mentioned coffee in a pasticceria, a walk around the Vatican, a visit to the ruins, a hike to the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, and many more, interspersed with comments about where we’d eat and have coffee. He assured me, “We’ll figure it out.”
My college friend Jef and I did all of the above. I’d last seen him in December 2024, when Manong and I went around New Jersey and explored New York City—that “concrete jungle where dreams are made of.” Jef met us in San Antonio, where I attended a breast cancer conference. He drove us around Texas, and we met some of his family. I tell him to this day, Texas is my favorite state, a statement he finds fascinating, understanding, perhaps that pretty much of the United States remains unexplored territory for me.
I remember I was in between rounds, and he was at work in Dallas, when we made a video-call. This was in 2025. As with many of my friends, who think the same way as I do, we both came up with the idea of meeting halfway, somewhere in Europe. He did his graduate studies there; he is conversational in Italian and Spanish and French. How he learns languages quickly, how he managed to get straight unos in subjects many UP freshmen failed in despite spending the night playing table tennis in the basement with me instead of studying, are proofs of his brilliance. His face and voice brightened up, “I know a lot of good places there.” Soon, Manong would move to Sweden to do his graduate studies, and we decided he could join us in the tour as well.
The tickets were booked. Immersed in the daily routines of clinics and classes, I saw the email reminders for the upcoming trip to Rome as a kind of a reward, a beacon of hope for the future. I hadn’t been to Rome, but it was the closest city to Naples, which fascinated me more. Naples is where the characters of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet lived and breathed. I prayed that the trip would push through. Weeks before the trip were flight cancellations because of the war in Iran.
During a brief layover in Abu Dhabi, which is geographically closer to the Strait of Hormuz than my home, a fact that led me to more intense prayers for safety, Jef sent me a photo of Manong eating carbonara in a Michelin-rated restaurant near the Airbnb that he had booked previously. (Jef asked us where we’d like to stay: in the city center, or in a typical Roman apartment, where real people lived? We chose the latter, “Gusto ko ng real.”) Jef said it was so good, meaning the food, possibly my brother’s company. I would meet them in about eight hours: a six-hour flight to Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci Airport, then immigration, the luggage counter, and the Leonardo Express that would take me straight to Roma Termini, the central train station.
Jef asked me where I was. I said I was near the Swatch store, a few meters from the turnstile. He said I must have walked passed him.
There I saw him—my dear old friend and brother of many years—smiling, walking towards me in a blue shirt, shorts, and Islander slippers, how he had looked when we ate breakfasts together in Kalayaan Hall or walked to AS Lobby in 2004, with no care in the world that the people who were passing by were in tailored suits and shiny shoes in typical elegant Italian fashion. He remained unchanged and untouched by time. His boyish laughter could be heard in the entire hall when I said something piercingly witty. So much has changed, and yet, as he and I would realize, we are still the same people.
He asked me what I’d like to do in Rome. I said I hadn’t thought about it, so much so that I got worried I’d be asked for an itinerary during the immigration check. He mentioned coffee in a pasticceria, a walk around the Vatican, a visit to the ruins, a hike to the Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II, and many more, interspersed with comments about where we’d eat and have coffee. He assured me, “We’ll figure it out.”
On our way to Baldo degli Ubaldi, where we’d be staying, he said, “Oh, and I’ve made reservations to Romanè, where Manong and I had dinner. The carbonara with guancale—so so good!”
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