Our week in Rome, or, 7 days of Spring

I wrote most of this post in Rome, and finished it just now home in Germany. I've placed all the phtos at the end cuz there are so many. This is a very long post with only a few mentions of horses.

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The reason we were able to come to Rome was my man has an acquaintance with an apartment here that has been offered to us a long time, and we finally accepted.

I never wanted to come to Italy. I never saw nor heard anything about Italy that make me want to come, and I'm no Europhile. But I do want to see as many nations as possible, and I've been very bad at this cuz Baasha ruled my life and vacations are usually spent going home to see family.

The thing is, if you live in Europe, you've already seen fantastic castles and cathedrals and massive forts and citadels and wonderful cemeteries. I need more than that.

Here I sit in this interesting apartment. I hear my man sitting in the living room watching a channel that plays music videos from the 70s and 80s all day. (The Cure, Depeche, and A-Ha last night). I say odd because it's not been lived in since the 90s, except as a “camping place” perhaps. The calendar says 1999, none of the clocks work, and half the lights don't go on. There's no heat, but thankfully it's 18C out and that's warm enough for me. It is so strange to walk outside and have no temperature change, after snowy, icy, winter-ekzema Germany. Cacti and aloe grow outside, and we get gusts of wind that carry the strong scent of blooming trees and bushes. Nothing is growing in Germany yet, so it's really nice.

There are many shelves of books, all German or Italian, and two in English. One was Charlie and the Chocolate factory, and my man and I both read it yesterday.

I thought it was funny, as he read it, I asked, “Well? Do you like it?” and he answered, “It reads like one of Aarene's stories.” Then when it was my turn to read it, I knew exactly what he meant. The author talks right to you like Aarene does. My man had never heard of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so I thought it was important that he read it. As a schoolteacher, he loved it. Strangely, the same parts disturbed me as when I was 10. Mr Wonka is so callous.

It's become a theme of our visit to Rome. “Get me that squirrel. I want one!” And today, “See that ancient wall? I want one in front of my house! Get me one!”

Then I found a collection of Oscar Wilde in German and read one to my man. Wow, depressing, Morrissey was right.

Today I looked out my bathroom window to the neighboring building's 2^nd floor deck where I saw their ping pong table, lemon tree, garden hose, and a big cardboard box labeled, “FRAGILE.” I snickered and ran for the camera. I asked my man if he would recognize which movie it's from but he just recalls the boy's tongue stuck to the flagpole. I like how they have the same idea as the Australians, with their "screen doors." They have security doors of iron grid that can be locked so you can leave your house door open at night. I want one! Germany has no screen doors of any kind.

The water was terrible. The tourguide said it is the cleanest in the world, but I really doubt that. Different from Germany: public drinking fountains! Just like my home. I couldn't drink the bottled water either, it was so full of kalk (? hard water) our watter kettle was solid white with a chalky layer that chipped, you had to scrub the sink to keep white dots from calcifying for eternity, and it burned my eyes in the shower.  

Also different from Germany, the people are much more likely to  laugh. At the airport, a deli worker spilled a complete dish of spinach and burst out laughing, as I would have done. Our "taxi" driver laughed the whole journey. It was very nice to see happy relaxed people - the locals. Also they tend to be shorter than Germans. I saw many ladies shorter than me.

I'm a little tired of tourists pushing on me. As an American I always give people their space bubble, but that just doesn't work here.

What is funny is being around all these tourists, and a few are German, and they think they can just talk around us and we don't understand. It's so fun to just listen to them complain about the Romans, the city, the traffic. Of course they can do the same and listen to us so it's fair.

Oh, the traffic. I've learned how to 1. follow the nuns and 2. stare down cars so they don't run us down in crosswalks. I couldn't believe it when I saw the horses doing the same, boldly pressing through crowds as the carriage drivers commanded. I think they have nerves of steel. I watched a bay with overlong but oiled hooves glance all around, cotton in his ears as a little mercy. It is NOISY here. The subways are screaming loud and when I ride I plug my ears. We're near a hospital so we hear ambulance sirens about hourly. Apparently there are no noise-laws cuz the neighbor's dogs bark every day for hours.

There was also a grey carriage horse with black legs, mane, and tail. He was insecure, but stood perfectly still as his buddy with a freeze brand got a job and moved off. I think it's odd that the drivers sit back in the customer area of the carriage as they wait for a job. A little girl gave the grey a snack and he lipped her fingers. A boy walked by and touched his face, as if on a dare, and the horse flipped his nose high in surprise, and the boy cowered in fear. 

The apartment is pretty cool, every little crevice is full of some old item. It has a widower/bachelor feel because the bathroom drawer has a hammer inside, and the kitchen has laptop batteries of old, slide mounts, and screwdrivers.

It's so odd to be in a place where neither of us speak the language. Same thing in Belgium. My man and I are almost helpless. However, in Italy, I don't think they force kids to learn English in school, cuz we rarely have luck when we ask, “Do you speak English?”

Like when we needed to buy food, we went down to the bus stop out front and there was an Italian man waiting there. I held up an empty plastic grocery sack (cleverly) and said, “We need a store where you buy food.” He could not speak English but he helped us get on the bus and then physically took us to the closest grocery store. How nice.

Then we stared at all the labels and had very little clue what to buy. We managed: ) I bought salt and eggs and butter and bread, my man got us some salami and cheese so that we could make sandwiches. I couldn't resist buying these packages of pesto and some noodles and feta. The feta here is really good, and that pesto turned out awesome. I don't even like Italian food, but I'm determined to see how it is here. I won't be going to a Thai restaurant here in Italy!

We deliberated a long time over which salt to buy, cuz they only had large amounts and we don't need much for only a week. We decided on some fancy stuff that comes in a grinder. Then as soon as we got home and I started cooking, I shut the kitchen door and discovered, directly behind the kitchen door, was a pantry, with some food, including salt. Agh! Gianni hadn't shown us the pantry. Gianni didn't speak German very well, but he was able to show us how to operate the tricky gas cooking stove, whew: ) I couldn't help but smile as he showed us around this place, cuz I now can recognize the sound of an Italian speaking German.

I got a photo of the tiny cups I'd heard exist in Italy and it's true. They do like a miniscule cup of coffee!

I bought the stinkiest Romano cheese ever – it's in the fridge now stinking everything else up. I was able to find awesome frozen green asparagus, which is great cuz in Germany they prefer big thick white asparagus. I'll make cordon bleu later tonight, which seems to be popular here.

The wine in restaurants was so cheap, a common price was 8E for a half liter (500ml). I was even more surprised to see they take the house wine directly from barrels.

I was shocked to find horsemeat babyfood.

We saw a couple Basilikas that inspire you to pray. Today one smelled like incense, and so, so beautiful and ornate. Some entire families come in and kneel for 5 minutes then leave.

My man wanted to find a geocache outside one basilika and I was annoyed cuz this old Roman guy was begging for money from every single visitor to that church, even the old ladies. I glared and sidestepped and was generally done with the beggars. They are all over Rome, lying at your feet, stretching their arms at you, following you....But then my man came up to me where I sat on this iron railing and he said “Open up our backpack and get the cookies out.” I said, “Huh?” and he said, “He's hungry. He said 'mange' and pointed to his mouth – he wants food, not just money."

I jumped up, opened the bag, grabbed the package of cookies and handed them to my man. I then saw my package of emergency pepperoni sticks that I'd brought from Germany. I shoved them at the guy. He stuffed them into his pocket, and was happy to take a cookie from my man. Then he walked over the rail and sat down, and started eating the cookie. I was stunned. He was just hungry?
 

We're pretty good at the trains here now, I just keep a hand on my purse the entire time, especially when we're packed in like sardines and 4 people's bodies touch mine the entire trip. Ugh. Right now I could use some moments alone in a field of nothing but quiet. Sadly, that is not to be found here.

At every train station as you emerge, enter, and even, following you down the street, are dark-skinned people selling umbrellas cheap. Cheap umbrellas, for this fickle weather. We walked along with rain all over our glasses, and faces, the wind blowing the rain at us sideways, despite the warm temperatures, and I finally said, OK YES I'll buy one. But when they wanted 5Euros for one craptastic single-use umbrella, I said “No.”

Then I dug in my wallet and found 2.50E and said, “That.” The (Indian?) guy said, “No!” I walked away but then he changed his mind and I got myself a crappy purple umbrella, which of course, made the sun come out as we approached the Colosseum.

The Colosseum looked just like I expected. Honestly, after all the pretty churches, pretty marble figures, ornate so and so, I prefer the ruins. I know, it's cuz I live in Europe, that extravagantly carved palaces do not intrigue me as much.

A guard blew his whistle at every single tourist who stepped foot up on the stair to the big black iron gate at this palace, which I found ludicrous. Just ...for pityssake, move the freaking gate to the point where you don't want tourists to step foot with their cameras, instead of employing 2 men fulltime to back people down the 2 steps in front of the gate. Those poor fellows with the useless jobs.

There were guards stationed outside the Government palace. We even saw the changing of the guard! Then the military band came out and played, while the two regiments marched and showed their synchronization skills to the crowd.

We went to a Roman bath/cemetery and I found a cat to pet. A family of baseball-hat wearing Americans was being loud. Everywhere they go, Americans are loud. Also, you can always spot Americans by their looser jeans (boot cut, not skinny/painted on jeans), and white tennis shoes! Also I'm learning to spot American hairstyles too, women's.

In Germany, young people try to emulate Americans with their Converse, Nikes, Levis and baseball hats. But here, in Italy, it seems like the baseball hat has not yet arrived.. Hm.

The cops drive little blue Fiats, which I found funny, and apparently if you've got seniority, you get one of the Alfa Romeos. 

I didn't see a single clean car the entire time. Many had scratches along the sides where they side swipe each other. The gas stations were odd - little booth like things right along the road, where you do not even leave the street to tank. Diesel was 1,70E per liter.

Can you believe there is a 9-11 memorial in Rome? A geocache brought us to it. In the middle of a traffic circle, a nerve-racking thing (there are no lines for the lanes, cars just force their way where they want to go). Two long towers, you'll see in the photo.

We kept passing through a station called Bologne and I kept singing the 2 Oscar Meyer songs I know from my childhood. My man expected the song everytime we passed through. They seem to pronounce it "Bolonia."

The buildings matched in their Mediterranean coloring. Terra Cotta looks great in Rome, with palm trees everywhere. I didn't like the garbage in the streets, and no one would be able to navigate a wheelchair in Rome, the sidewalks were full of holes and loose stones. Different than Germany: air conditioners on all the windows! Even in the busses, and restaurants! Wow. They are a poor people, but they don't mess around with summer heat. The reason there was so much trash - they give away plastic sacks in grocery stores for free, and they do not enforce recycling nor returning of bottles, so bottles were often seen lying around. We get 25 cents per bottle in Germany so we always take them back.

Next to the ruins is a huge oval of beige gravel dug deep into the hillside, where apparently they held horse races. I scuffed my foot into the gravel and wondered if they had different footing when actual horses raced here. My man said that 300,000 people watched those horse races, where today, a group of Japanese tourists ate their lunches on the gravel, and some locals let their chihuauas run on the track.

There are orange trees everywhere, and I wondered if people ate them, until I saw that the lower branches were always empty, and that peels lined the curbs of the streets.

I ate Italian pizza! It is really great. I'm so sick of cracker pizza crust. Well, my first pizza here was a “4 cheese” and it was stinky and slimy and awesome and the crust was ….for me....even, edible!” It was like fine Naan. Crispy outside, chewy inside. That was it.

Then I fell in love with the Italian sausage (called Salsiccia) and learned how to make it, and then the same thing with eggplant parmesan.

You probably will wonder why there's a picture of parrots. Rome also has flocks of feral parrots, just like Cologne. I'm sure Rome's parrots are happier than Cologne's though - it's snowing in Germany today.

Vatican City. I wanted to see this because I know everyone would ask, it's Rome's biggest attraction. The world's second largest museum, it has the world's largest collection. It contains the Sistine Chapel with the famous Michelanglo roof, several Rafael painted rooms, and a long tapestry corridor with tapestries of Bible scenes, and then tapestries of maps made in 1500 or so before satellites, and yet accurate. Vatican city is its own country, actually, and you have to go through a security check to get in. They have their own police, post office, and language - the only country using latin. Our tourguide was great, he would hold up his umbrella so we could always find him. He spoke into a little mic and we had headsets so we could all hear him despite the place being filled with tens of thousands of tourists. 

Our host came on our final day to show us around. It was quite an experience to be with her in her car as she pressed through traffic, and at one point she turned on the CD player and blasted our ears out with Italian opera. It fit the raging traffic quite well. It's like NY – cars fighting, ignoring signals, and pedestrians being run down in crosswalks. Also, the locals walk in the streets, cuz tourists take up the sidewalks.

She told us that the mafia gets poor, handicapped people from other countries, somehow gets them into Italy and then takes a portion of what they earn from begging every day. They tell the poor people where to sit in Rome, give them a paper cup, and let them keep enough to survive on. It's a good deal for both of them, except most of it goes to the mafia.

Our host was so much fun – she laughs a lot (an Italian thing) and calls us children. Like, “Children, get out of the car and go look at that statue!” (She speaks German to us.) She took us to a park and another viewpoint and picked a bayleaf for me off a bush. I loved it when a beggar came to the car and tapped the glass and she yelled at him in Italian. She said she'll give to the beggars, but not when they put their hands on her car. Later she did give coins to a guy who helped us park at a grocery store. The parking lot was so tiny, you really do need help to park there.

On the way to the airport I enjoyed the flowering trees, red poppies, and fragrant air for the last time. Every day I said “When we get home it will be green. When we get home the trees will have tiny leaves. When we get home there will be daffodils.” But no. I almost cried when the plane landed and the trees were black and bare, the ground was grey, and there were still dirty patches of snow.

It's still below freezing at night, and barely above freezing during the day. We had seven days of Spring at latitude 41. Here at 51, we're still waiting.

And it's so quiet at night we cannot sleep!

A few more notes about some of the photos below.....

We had a few near misses with the pope, you can see from some photos what kind of a crowd he draws. In one photo you can see the line to get in to the Vatican's basilika, the line goes along the circular courtyard. By the time we got down from the cupola (552 steps, oh my poor legs!), the line was twice as long. Unbelievable. Yah, going to Rome over Easter is not the hottest idea. All those flowers were for his Easter Sunday appearance.

Our apartment is the yellow one on the 2nd floor with 3 baconies. 

Can you guess which photos I was forbidden to take? I knew I had to try and I got yelled at immediately by a guard. The Sistine Chapel is a place of "NO TALKING, NO PHOTOS!" and you cannot wear shorts or tank tops in there.

I also got a kick out of the Mr Clean in Italy. It is also amusing to me that in Germany, my Mr Clean is called Meister Proper.

Here are some Youtube vids I made from our trip. I had to record an ambulance cuz we were so accustomed to them by the time we left, and a pretty horse in a hurry to follow his buddies - I believe they were done for the day and very motivated.