traveling with friends

Everyone classifies their friends, into neat little groups to keep things simple. There are your friends from home, your friends from school, your friends from Spain. But beyond geographical distinction, there are your soccer friends, your Project Runway friends, your Lost friends (or friend, in this case). But still, one more category, perhaps the most important category: friends you can travel with. Yes, you may think you can travel with just about any one of your friends. After all, it's vacation! Time to relax, and who better to do it with than your friends? Well, there may in fact be many other people who are more qualified travel partners, if Rome is any example of the darker side of travel. Perhaps it was doomed to bickering as Miguel and I arrived on a flight after all the trains to Leo's house had stopped running. I mean, really, who wants to go home from Rome after 8:45? So, maybe it was the hectic last minute scrambling that started everyone off on the wrong foot. Or, perhaps it was the divergent itineraries. Miguel wanted to hit everything on the map, Leo wanted to do the opposite of whatever Miguel wanted to do, and I just wanted to eat anything that looked Italian. Day 1 started with two different plans, two different directions, and ended in two different opinions of what had happened. Put these three people in a small house 45 minutes outside of Rome...with ONE bathroom. If I had thought to bring a videocrew, we would now have a fantastic telenovela, or be three people and a hot tub short of Spain's first Real World. If I thought living with four other girls and one bathroom was difficult...there are no words to finish this sentence, to identify the anguish. I had no idea that guys need at least an hour to get ready. As the tug of war continued, arguments flared, and not in the passive aggressive girl way that I'm used to. There were no bitchy notes, or talking behind backs. Seething wordlessly was not really an acceptable method of combat, nor was heavy sarcasm. Unfamiliar territory, indeed. To keep the peace between the intense name-calling and ridiculous bet-making, I resorted to the old stand-bys: pastries. If your mouth is filled with delicious baked goods, can you really do anything but eat? And also alcohol. Surprisingly enough (or not really surprising at all), we got along great when drunk. The power of Italian wine. As agreed on by the group, this trip could have used more alcohol, more tranquilizers, more pastries, and less attitude. To move on, I can think of only one appropriate phrase: fugehdbowdit. Or something like that.