The Wheelchair Nomad: Rome, Italy ♿
Go to Rome they said… It’ll be fun they said… My first “real” international trip. I don’t count the cruise 2 years prior. I didn’t even have a passport then. But now it’s time for my first stamp! Excited and wide-eyed I rolled off the plane, (hashtag wheelchair life lol), my friends and I grabbed our luggage, I go outside, take a deep breath and my first words on European soil… “IT’S HOT EH HELL”😂🤣 . It was like 85 degrees and it was only 9am!! But nonetheless we head to the hotel and let the adventures begin!
Being black in a European country was an adventure within itself. People randomly walking up to us in restaurants and saying random rap lyrics…. “My friend My friend… I got 2 phones... I got 2 phones *In Kevin Gates voice*” lol. But being black AND being in a wheelchair, you would have thought Julius Caesar himself came back from the dead the way they were staring at me!! My friends and I would laugh and joke around and say “we should stare back and see who looks away first” lol
My disability presented a few issues while we were there! For example, Rome’s definition of “wheelchair accessible” is having stairs with some old lift like contraption attached that would move up the rail. Kind of like those chairs old people put in their house when they can’t walk upstairs anymore. The Vatican, my hotel, several restaurants, all had these weird lift things … Two things wrong with this idea… since I am paralyzed, I am always in my chair. So, I would have to transfer over to the rail death trap seat, someone would have to carry my chair up the stairs, then once at the top I would have to transfer out of it back into my chair. The entire process would take like 15 minutes… this is virtually impossible to do after leaving the nightclub at 3 AM on 2 for 1 Long Island Iced Tea night🍸😂. So my friends decided that was too much and just carried me and my chair up the stairs. They had to carry me up and down these stairs every time we left or entered the hotel.
This process was hard, but my friends and I have this “we are just gonna figure it out when we get there” type of attitude! The glass is always half full! Positivity can be found in any situation! Whenever we came to an obstacle regarding my wheelchair, we would just figure it out! We were just happy to be four black 26-year-old Memphians with the funds and opportunity to go to Rome, Italy and experience things most people from where we are from will never see!! Go to Rome they said… It’ll be fun they said…THEY WERE RIGHT!
Disabled travelers tips!
My tips would be:
1. First tip, those cobblestone roads and step San Francisco like streets are no joke. Luckily my friends were in shape. They would take turns pushing up those mountains they call streets. They would complain every day that their legs were tired and I would simply reply, “AT LEAST YOU CAN FEEL YOUR LEGS.. NOW PUUUSSHHH!!!” lol…
2. Second tip, ask the hotel to send you a picture whenever they say they have an “elevator” or say they are wheelchair accessible.
Think of a lesson you learned when you were abroad
I learned a lot of lessons in Rome but one of the biggest is how bad we eat in America. Literally like 90% of everything we ate was fresh!! From the Bruschetta to the lobster pasta to the cannoli. Funny story, we are at a local restaurant hanging out and eating bruschetta when my friend takes a bite and immediately spits it out. The waiter asks what’s wrong and my friend replies “These tomatoes taste like dirt.🤮” The waiter responded “They are fresh. I picked them this morning in my garden. Americano no like fresh??” I was crying laughing!!!! We are so used to processed food that fresh tastes nasty lol.
