FIRST WEEKEND (prima fine settimana) Friday (venerdi) isola tiberina (tiberina island) Well, since I stayed up all night trying to get this Italian journal started, I ended up sleeping in until almost noon. That's fine, actually, since, as I said, I am creeped out and bothered by all the strange sounds outside my place at night. I am convinced constantly that there is a burglar, dressed like the one you see in The Sims game, standing just outside in the garden. I figure once I turn off the lights he'll come in and get me. I know, I am full of imagination, but I did decide it was time to arm myself by relocating some common kitchen items to secret locations in the bedroom. Either they will protect me against scary cartoon styled Italian burglars or I'll be able to really frighten some kinky boy in bed one day! I woke up and did this little perl project for a few hours (good to make more money in a day than I spend!) and that was enough to make my already tired eyes want to bleed. But then I went online to check email and ended up chatting with Marco. As expected, he is out of town like the rest of the Roman population, so I remain clearly on my own to fend for a social life. After a shower I decided to go try to dig up something to do in the city today. Figured I should trek over to Trastevere and see what the story is with the only theatre in Rome that shows movies in "VO" - versione originale - also known as "in English." Was a rather long walk and I debated taking the buses instead but then figured I should save that adventure for later on. No need to do everything all at once! After a small diversion whereby I followed some cute Italian dude into a stationery store (I do legitimately need "bustas", a.k.a. envelopes) I got to the Tevere river. This is a key part in getting to Trastevere. You see Trastevere means "across Tevere" - so crossing the Tevere river is what it's all about. While crossing the river I decided to take a couple pictures. The first is the one above, of Tiberina Island, which is where a hospital is, and has been, for a bazillion years. The bridge that connects that island to Trastevere is quite pretty, no? The other picture, below, shows the Tevere dam under Ponte Garabaldi. (The bridge I took to Trastevere.) As you can see, it is circulating trash and nonsense, which I found rather funny to watch. It didn't smell or anything, but it just amused me for some reason to see all that trash floating around, trapped in the river like that. (And while I stood there taking this picture, I amused some Vespa-riding boys when the river wind swept up my extremely flowy and lightweight skirt a little more than I expected!) As you can see in the picture, and also to my amusement, there are some wacky Italian dudes fishing next to the dam trash. I guess Italian fish like to watch the trash too which makes that a good place to go trying to catch them! tevere dam pasquino cinema Alright, so I crossed the Tevere and made my way to the Pasquino cinema. As I said, this is the only movie theatre in Rome that shows movies in English. (Apparently some other cinemas occassionally project one or two times a week something in English but that seems rather complicated to sort out. I did ask at the Warner cinema at Piazza Repubblica and found that they were showing Farenheit 9/11 in English once a week - but I already saw that and I certainly don't want to give Michael Moore the support of my Euros - he already got my dollars!) At Pasquino this week are showing three films. Something in Italian with no subtitles (which I can get at any cinema in town), and Starsky & Hutch and Wrong Turn. I already saw S&H and don't care to see it again, even though Owen Wilson is pretty damn hot, and Wrong Turn looks and sounds extremely stupid (even in English!). Since I am not quite that desperate yet for American entertainment, I decided not to see a film afterall. (This is probably a good thing because the guide book I have here infers that the cinema houses in Rome are not air conditioned - with just a few having a roll-ceiling to make the temperatures bearable. Since the Pasquino was charging only 1euro per film, I suspect that the lack of air conditioning is the reason and so I am happy to wait unti a more suitable time of year to trap myself inside an old Roman building without windows and doors.) santa maria trastevere square Alright, so with my quest for movie entertainment defeated, my stomach demanded I eat something, and when in Rome, eat gelato! Unfortunately the shop I stopped at did not have my favorite flavor, pineapple, so I settled for blueberry (because I've never had that one before) and I parked my little self on the steps of the fountain at the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. This is the same square that I went to my first night in Rome when Marco took me out. I remember that everyone congregates here and I enjoyed sitting there at a completely different time of day and with absolutely nobody else around. Now, even though I am sure the piazza is more populated in the evenings, the fact that Trastevere was so absolutely, completely devoid of inhabitants convinced me that everyone really and truly is out of Rome until mid-September. I think I saw like maybe 2 dozen people in total the whole time I was there - which is freakish! Imagine walking around Soho for an hour or so and only seeing 2 dozen people. You'd think something was up, right? Well, here, in Rome, you're right. The sun is up and so everyone has moved out. Crazy! offerings at s.m. trastevere Figuring I might as well take this opportunity to check out the "chiesa" - a.k.a. church - I stepped inside Santa Maria in Trastevere. (Smart thing is that I have learned to wear little white tshirts when I go out and so I roll the sleeves up to my shoulders when I walk around and then I roll them back down again when I go inside these churches with their no-bare-shoulder dress codes.) As with all the other Roman churches, the place is amazing. Gold guilded ceilings, tons of gold tiled mosaic artwork up front and lots of little naves with decorations, statues and whatnot. The picture to the right here shows one of the strangest things I have seen in a Roman church. This is a statue and it is labeled "for offerings" but instead of money going into the collection box, it seems everyone has left a note with some sort of prayer or request or confession or something on it. I tried to make out what any of them said (without being disrespectful or prying, which is rather difficult since that is exactly what snooping on church notes left for God is) and the only one I could see said something about "merde" - which I think means murder, but I'm not sure. Yeah, so maybe this is where all the murderers of Rome come to leave behind little notes of confession? I don't know. I did decide that I should probably leave though, just in case my suspicion was correct and I was interrupting some insane axe murderer from achieving redemption. Yeah, so I left. Then I walked home. Even though I did not head out til 4pm or so, I made it back home at 6:30 and was rather sweaty, grubby feeling and relatively tired of walking around. I am quite thankful not to be a tourist who has to go out constantly, as I had to do when I was touring Europe in June. Instead I came home and am writing this now and reading and debating if I go out again or not. On the one hand it is a waste to stay inside on a Friday. On the other hand, even the Santa Maria in Trastevere church had notes posted everywhere saying that they weren't conducting services again until September 7 or 10 or something. So, seriously! Everyone is gone! If the Catholic churches of Rome have stopped doing services, you know it's a serious sign that the people just aren't here. It's like that movie last year where everyone got some wacky disease and the characters woke-up and were running away from all the zombie wolf blood-sucking creatures. Fortunately I have yet to confront any zombie wolf blood-sucking creatures - but if I go out tonight, I may be risking it! Oh well. Will decide later. For now, I am going to upload this and get back to my real life. Night & Day (Notte & Giorno) quirinale tunnel Last night I decided against wandering all the way to Piazza Navona or Campo Dei Fiori (a girl has to save something for later, right?) and instead decided to just go grab a bit of 4 cheese pizza again and hang out at the Fontana di Trevi (see day one). To get there I have learned that the fastest way is to walk through this traffic tunnel under the Quirinale, which we all know by now is the presidential palace. As you can see from this picture, this is one long ass tunnel. It was sort of scary for me to walk through there, but it is well-lit and this is Rome, not New York. I grabbed my pizza and soda and sat down, this time on the left side of the Trevi Fountain (gotta spice things up somehow don't we?) and watch the fountain and the people for a while. Was very crowded when I arrived and I was highly amused to watch everyone throw coins into the fountain and pose for pictures together. Not too many hot guys to be found (I have been told by my friends on the Rome community on Orkut that Romans don't go to bars to meet people like they do in New York. Of course, coming from NY, I could tell them that New Yorkers also don't really do that either!) So I decided to play it safe and avoid the blood-sucking wolf zombie population by just having a quiet and early tourist evening at the fountain. Yeah, as if! Certainly someone has to talk to me - I am a flaming blonde girl in the middle of Rome who is staring at the Fontana di Trevi! A couple tourist type guys wandered my way and sat nearby, but none really talked to me. Finally I went to put my right hand down on the pavement ledge where I was sitting and I hit upon some dude sitting next to me. He was not sitting there before but, because he stuck out like a sore thumb, I knew that he was sitting back some for a while earlier. Alright, I thought. So he has come to chat me up. Let's make it difficult. The funny thing about this guy is that he is dressed like an Italian version of "Where's Waldo." He has big bold black frame glasses on. He is pretty much bald but has a reddish-orange hair colored goatee. And he is wearing bright orange parachute style pants. Yeah, hard to miss, right? Well beyond that, I swear he was also out on the path when I was walking to Trastevere earlier. I think he is my "Where's Waldo" stalker! I swear he was at a bar on the Piazza Venezia at the very least earlier in the day. (I have a good memory - especially for strangely dressed oddballs - and I remember when I first saw him I thought to myself "hey, that guy has pants like Jesse's.") Anyhow, so I met the Where's Waldo Stalker at Fontana di Trevi. While I tried to make it difficult for him to talk to me, I admit that since I haven't really talked to many people here so far, I decided to not be completely rude. We talked about "La Dolce Vida" and the scene filmed in the Fontana di Trevi. We talked about Americans being a bunch of pig-headed morons (with me contributing that last bit, not him.) We talked about people in London who drink too much and always go to fancy restaurants (since he lives in London, although he is Italian.) So, yeah. We talked and all the while I scoped out the local tourist action. (Not much to report, obviously.) After 2 hours I decided to head home and go to bed. (Honestly, I had to pee and figured it'd be quicker to go home than to try to go somewhere nearby and sort all that out.) So I left my Where's Waldo Stalker - But, of course, he gave me his email address. His real name is Simone (pronounced Italian style as "See-moan-ay"). I haven't mailed him - but suspect he will email me (since that is all I gave him. I am not inclined to share my Italian phone number since I lack caller ID and don't want to deal with unwanted telephone conversations unexpectedly.) Fine enough to have made a friend - and, just like me, a rather odd interesting bird at that. new flowers in the apartment Today I have done pretty much nothing. I wokeup very early, at 9am, to some morons drilling and pounding on the wall behind my bedroom. I think they were trying to fix the elevator, but I don't know. I would have liked to have gone out and yelled at them but I couldn't quite figure out how to say "Cut out the racket you bloody morons! It's 9am on a Saturday!!" in Italian. Instead I reluctantly wokeup and decided to finish last pieces of that perl side project I've been working on. Once that was done, I showered and decided to run to the grocery store. Not the small simple one up the street but instead the fancy one, named "Elite" on Via Cavour. I figured since I only needed some snacks and nonsense for the week, and since I had nothing else to occupy my time, I could wander around trying to make out Italian grocery product labels for a while. I couldn't figure out which bottle was laundry detergent (versus bleach versus drano versus tile scrubber) so I decided to buy the Woolite looking bottle labeled "Benetton" for my laundry. (Someday I'll do laundry, not yet though!) I also got more milk, cereal, cheese, fruit and tons of snack crackers and bread sticks. Also got some Kinder chocolates - for a special treat! All together, almost 30Euros! That is sort of a lot - which means I am being hesitant about going out tonight for a full-fledged pizza dinner as I had planned. After I got home, I read my "Your Life as Story" book for a while and then decided that my apartment needs some flowers. Since there is a little flower stand up the street, I decided to go and procure myself some pretty smelling items for my place. (This is also called "procrastinating writing.") I got some purple African violets, some red pretty things and some little white pretty things. (I don't know what they are, sorry!) So I put them out and then did my first writing project. (In the picture above you can see Mao sitting on the ledge, and my garden, and the new violets, and the bottle of wine that I've been drinking!) The book told me to write a story of my life as if it were a fairy tale. So I did. Then it told me to write a letter to a grandchild or some other important kid figure in my life. So I did. It also had a little bit on how you can compare your favorite childhood fairy tale to yourself. True enough, I thought as I read that. I have always loved Alice in Wonderland and my life is certainly full of me falling down one rabbit hole after another. Of course the stupid author of the book said her favorite childhood story was Cinderella and then lamented for pages on how women cannot sit around waiting for their prince to come. This meant nothing to me as Alice never had a prince come to her aid. She just hung out with a bunch of wacky people at a tea party. Yeah, totally my life! Insane people and lots of drinking! Okay, so I guess the author has something to what she's saying afterall. (If you are a friend of mine and reading this, I would love to know what your favorite childhood fairytale is - so send it to me!) letter recipient Of course, while doing this, I decided to drink some of the wine I bought on Tuesday. And, as genealogy dictates, once I started sipping some wine, I didn't want to stop. So next I decided to finally write a letter to a certain someone. This is a letter I have been meaning to write and send for months now but kept putting off, finally telling myself it was something to do while in Rome. And that is what I did today. I wrote one draft of the letter and then reread it and edited it and then rewrote it as neatly as I could. (The picture to the right is a picture of the person I wrote the letter to, but none of you will recognise this person, so don't worry about it.) Next I reread the letter a few times, all while drinking more wine. Then, satisfied, I addressed the "busta" (envelope) and put the letter inside. I did not seal it, of course, because I will surely reread it again and again before I actually post it on Monday. But that is what I've done with my day. I intended to go out and have that pizza dinner tonight, but it is almost 8pm and I am pretty much soused on that whole bottle of wine and I am thinking it'd be better for me to go and read Middlemarch some more and take a nap. Maybe I'll go out - but after spending 44Euros on groceries and flowers today, it would probably be best if I put a hold on the pizza meal until tomorrow. Plus, as it stands now, if I go out, I'll certainly drink more and meet strangers and eventually those zombie wolf blood-sucker types. Will best wait on that! Sunday (domenica) Last evening was a quiet evening in. I fell asleep after updating you all and then wokeup to Rod ringing me from Boston around 10:30pm. Sat up trying to find a gym in my neighborhood, searching online for almost two hours. There is a great site, mondofitness.com and it has a search feature, but I couldn't figure out the neighborhoods it listed. Instead I kept searching and looking until I identified two to go investigate on Monday. the pantheon's big hole other holes in the pantheon Wokeup today rather late, grabbed a shower, some cereal and then headed out on the town. (After I did some writing assignment! I am battling the procrastination yet!) Wandered around and found my way to the Pantheon. I visited the Pantheon back in June but decided one can never get enough Pantheon, so I went back inside. This time they had moved the construction they are doing to a new area, to the side where Raphael is buried I believe. I keep meaning to buy a fresh copy of Angels and Demons so that I can wander Rome and follow the story and see how true everything in it actually is. I may wait and do that with my mother when (and if) she visits. She'd get a kick out of that I bet! Anyway - as any of you with any history knowledge might know, the Pantheon has one big hole in the ceiling. That is called the "occulus." What I bet you did not know is that the Pantheon has other holes besides its occulus! It has all these little holes in the floor in the middle to allow the rain water that comes in through the occulus to drain out. Neat, right? This gives me a new goal: To stand under the occulus in the rain someday! That'd be pretty rad if I was standing inside and getting rained on. How often does that happen? And intentionally? And inside a super old famous Roman temple? Yeah! Exactly! Not that often! Next I made my way to Piazza Navona where I decided I would read more of Middlemarch. Found a nice bench on the south end and read for a while, although a lot of tourists and street-vendors were swarming around me and distracting me. After three chapters I wandered down to Campo de' Fiori. campo de' fiori Now Campo de' Fiori is the place to be, besides Trastevere, if you want to hang out with the "young people." It also has a bunch of bars totally intended for English speakers. The one I mean to check out at some point is The Drunken Ship. Reviews tell me almost everyone there speaks English. Sure enough, when I spotted it in Campo de' Fiori, I recognised it as the place Marco brought be back in June. (Props to Marco for really doing a good job of touring me around that first time!) Unlike June, however, there was actually a little market happening in the square. That is what Campo De' Fiori is also known for - with "Fiori" meaning flowers. In the mornings there are apparently lots of vendors selling fruits, vegetables, flowers, etc. So far I have not been awake in the morning to witness this for myself, but I will assume it is so. Today, however, at 4pm, the market shown was all setup. They were selling old jewelry, some clothes, scarves, household decorations and even bread and honey. I bought none of that as I had my heart set on a big pizza all to myself! After all that talk, having a big pizza all to myself is exactly what I got. I sat at a little cafe outside and had a "funghi" pizza and diet coke. Came to 9.80Euros - plus I left 1Euro tip. Even better, I only ate half this time, so I brought the rest home for dinner. As I type this, I have my oven warming that second half up right now! (I had to turn the gas back on, figure out how the Italian stove worked and light the pilot light! Good thing I had practice with all this in Australia where the process was relatively similar - although back then Evan and I had no hand-held lighter so we often lit and tossed matches into the stove until it finally started working! Was quite a funny game we played, all for fear of exploding ourselves accidentally.) So that's my day. Not very eventful. I wrote another important letter when I got home and I am hoping to continue reading Middlemarch. I am finding that book to be on-and-off interesting. When things happen, I really get into it. However there are a number of boring chapters where almost nothing happens and it is tedious to get through them. After reading the same book for almost 2 months, though, I am ready to move on! So I must finish Middlemarch already! Oh, and in case you were wondering, the statue in the middle of Campo de' Fiori is of a monk named Bruno who was burned at the stake for saying that the sun did not revolve around the Earth. This was almost 100 years before Galelio (did I even get close to spelling that right?) said the same thing and was imprisoned in his home for it. My, how times change! << back to where it all began... Content & Photos © 2004 Laura Laytham, laura@girlsaresmarter.com.