Middle ground

My feelings about the city are very divided. In one instant I am filled with wonder, in love with the piazzas, the fountains, the buildings, the colors, the food and wine and music. But in the next, I am unmoved by Rome. It becomes just another city, perhaps a place to one day live, perhaps not. I think the latter is a defense mechanism.

The one thing that has remained constant for me about Rome has been the language – I know, and knew immediately upon landing in Rome, that I want to one day be fluent in Italian – although that has less to do with Rome itself and more to do with Italy, and my passion for learning to speak foreign languages. That, I think, is the main reason behind my desire to spend a good portion of my twenties living abroad. Also the fact that getting a job in New York after graduation is going to be a bitch, and I don't have the stamina to go straight into grad school.

Living in Rome for four weeks was so different from living in Spain, where I spent last summer. Keeping a journal changed my experience greatly. In Spain I just lived from moment to moment, out in the city, not really taking the time to record or reflect. Most of what I remember from Spain is pure sensation. Joy. Being happy in Madrid, not really taking the time to stop and think about why...Just having fun, I guess, going dancing, eating paella, dragging myself to class at 8 each morning after 2 hours of sleep, siesta in the afternoon, and my personal favorite: botellones, just drinking in the park with a bunch of Spanish kids my age, swapping questions about what it's like to live in New York, and other places I should visit in Spain after I finally move to Madrid. Walking the dogs with Jaime, my so-called “house brother,” who was the perfect combination of summer fling and city guide, who showed me Madrid the way madrileños live it.

Rome, though. It wasn't fun on the same level. It was much more intellectual for me than Spain was – which makes sense, since instead of studying grammar and the basics of Spanish culture before being set loose upon the city, we were reading poems and short stories and personal essays on the city itself, and watching movies that often used the same techniques as stories. Heavier things. We were reading and studying art and then walking outside among it. I was forced to reflect. Or not really forced, maybe, but reading as much as I did, and watching as many movies – movies that were different from the ones I usually watch - sort of set my mind in gear for writing. I hope it sticks with me throughout the year, although I've been back in the states for 3 days now, and haven't written since the flight.

I approached Rome as an outsider, too, which makes a huge difference. I didn't have a local to hold hands with and stroll down the street – although, I'm sure, there were plenty of men at La Maison who would have made the offer to every girl in the class, but who knows how much “touring” would actually have gotten done, then.¹

I don't know if I could live in Rome. It's too big. I realize this seems ridiculous, as I'm currently a few miles up in the air heading back to New York. But the size and scope of Rome is different from New York. New York, like Rome, is large and crowded, and doesn't have the benefit of piazzas and open squares and places to sit and read and drink on every corner. There aren't as many outdoor cafes. But it just feels different. Comfortable and mine. The MTA, though frustrating and wildly overpriced, is fantastic in comparison to Rome's metro system, of which I still don't have a thorough grip. And since I'm from New York, I don't feel the pressure to see all the tourist locations in the city – I can walk past the Empire State Building without blinking an eye, and Times Square just serves to irritate me. I avoid it at all costs.

In Rome all the landmarks, all the must-sees are separated by miles of heat and winding streets. And there is such a pressure to see things, to visit and revisit ancient ruins again and again, to feel that history and culture and myth as often as you can, otherwise you're just wasting your time. The history in Rome is rich, and I appreciate it and want to learn more of it, don't get me wrong. But it's also overwhelming. The past is so ceaselessly present, it makes it difficult to contemplate living in Rome. How can you live in a place and not feel overshadowed by all those years and all those extraordinary lives lived? There is so much to Rome that it must take an incredible effort to live there. Perhaps the Romans themselves are just born into this atmosphere, they drink it from the fountains, they walk sure-footedly across cobblestone, maybe they don't even feel it. But I can't relax in Rome without feeling guilty – like every moment I spent at a bar or at the beach, or just sitting inside and watching TV for an hour or so, is a moment I'm wasting. A moment I should be using to learn, to read, to study things that anywhere else I don't feel particularly drawn to: philosophy, religion, architecture, art, the minute particulars of history. I like all these things, although I usually don't have discipline to read philosophy, and art has never really moved me. Until, of course, I came to Rome.

I'm high strung. Perhaps its the New Yorker in me. I'm constantly thinking, worrying, wondering, and I sometimes need a moment to unwind, to occupy my brain with simpler things, to look out my window or take a walk and see fountains just as fountains, statues as statues, a city as just a city instead of symbols for thousands of years of people living and dying and fighting and building. In Rome, if I have a simple moment like that it dissolves almost instantly into guilt – how can I just treat this city like any other when the whole Western Civilization was more or less founded here, and the history of Christianity too? How can I spent a single moment not reading or writing, striving to become like those ancient people who knew so much without all the resources that I have, that I squander?

I prefer myth to history, and I couldn't read those huge textbooks about the Roman Empire that were left in the dorms, filled with laws and decrees that I couldn't get my mind to sit still for. But I did read the entire section of The Aeneid in the packet, and read the Homeric poems to all the female goddesses – a Greek work, sure, but the Romans took their gods primarily from the Greeks so I think it was applicable.

I wish I was the type of person who could spend hours and days doing this, but there's a part of me that likes the mystery of not knowing, and I don't want to spend all my life inside, reading other people's words. Part of the reason I felt so drawn to the fountain of Dea Roma is because when I first saw it, I thought she was Minerva, and that the male statues next to here were Romulus and Remus – that was my interpretation. I later found out that it wasn't Minerva, but Dea Roma – which, actually, was more interesting, anyway, but still...I'll always remember my first impression, and how I thought, “I'm sitting with my back to Minerva right now...” and wondering what it means to turn your back on the goddess of wisdom and war.

Rome baffles and dazzles me. The only time I felt like I owned even a small piece of the city was the night I took a short walk by myself, to Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps and Popolo. Also maybe the last night we were there, dinner in the ghetto, wine in Campo de Fiori (our own Italian botellon) and then sitting at the Trevi Foutain at two in the morning. It was almost empty, at least by Trevi standards. We didn't look like Romans by any stretch of the imagination – we spent at least a quarter of an hour throwing coin after coin into the fountain and taking ridiculous pictures, but still, I felt at home there, wishing the polizia would leave so we could jump in the fountain, or that I could incite the thirty or so people who were hanging around to just rush Neptune for an impromptu dance party, Carabinieri be damned...it's just a fucking fountain, dude, it's made for jumping in.

Unlike Trevi, there are some places in Rome where the police have just given up. The fountain by the Spanish Steps, for example. I saw a guy fall headfirst into that fountain the first week in Rome. There is always such a mob of people there that the rules no longer apply – nothing can keep people's feet out of the water, because either they've just picked there way through a crowd down the steps, or are preparing to hike back up. But there are other places where that kind of experience of Rome is just not allowed. Trevi is off-limits, you can't even fill up your water bottle there without risking a 170 euro fine, and the Carabinieri must take their breaks at Piazza del Popolo, because they're always there too, although this doesn't stop tourists from climbing the lions around the obelisk.

The Vatican, though not technically Rome, is the worst perpetrator of them all. The piazza, which should be open, at night is filled with barricades and chairs and the Carabinieri cruise through all the lanes of the newly made maze slowly, lights off, sneaking around until someone sets a toe out of line. Then the lights flash on and the blow horns are out, and young German tourists are being manhandled out of the square. It's all a part of the self-important Catholicism of Rome that just sits awkwardly in my mind – how can this city built on pagan gods and wine rituals be so stuffy now? The Pieta stands out of reach in St. Peter's – you almost have trouble seeing all of the heart-breaking detail in Michaelangelo's work, because the statue is kept behind a plate of most-likely bulletproof glass. Guards yell at the two hundred tourists filling the Sistine Chapel, clapping their hands and intoning “No foto, no foto, no foto” or alternatively hissing and bellowing for quiet in this supposedly holy place. I don't know what bothers me more, the waves of people, or the hypocritical ceremony afforded these places – places that you have to pay 20 euro to get in, 50 if you want a tour – that should be open to everyone, because doesn't everyone have a right to them?

And so the biggest thing that I'm taking away from Rome – although I've learned a great many things, not just about the city, or Italian, but also about traveling, and about people (and dealing with people – because I've never had a roommate before, and that was an experience in and of itself) – I'm taking away this confusion, this dichotomy: Rome as Janus, the god of two faces, wonder on one side and complete normality, banality almost, on the other. Just any other place to live, but an awesome, mythic, wonderful anyplace.

1Roman men really just don't appeal to me, at all. Mostly I find them to be such incredible disappointments: these supposed romantics and sweet talkers are just overgrown and hairy babies, spoiled and expectant, silly, impressed by expensive looking girls (that's the only way they'll talk to you, otherwise they just grope and buy drinks), bad dancers, using marriage proposals as pick-up lines, and much too free with their hands.

***

I thought this was appropriate.

Janus:

He was frequently used to symbolize change and transitions such as the progression of past to future, of one condition to another, of one vision to another, the growing up of young people, and of one universe to another. He was also known as the figure representing time because he could see into the past with one face and into the future with the other. Hence, Janus was worshipped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as marriages, births and other beginnings. He was representative of the middle ground between barbarity and civilization, rural country and urban cities, and youth and adulthood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus

Not the best source, but it serves its purpose.

Dea Roma

I.

I think the Piazza del Popolo became both instantaneously and very gradually my favorite spot in Rome. The statues here aren’t as ornate as at the Trevi Fountain or Piazza Navona, but I think this works in their favor. There is never the crush of bodies in Piazza del Popolo that these other places are plagued with; never the desperate attempt to photograph everything: a seven year old smiling with gelato dripping from his hand and onto his “I heart Roma” shirt, a newly engaged couple kissing in front of the Neptune’s lion, hidden in the center fountain, the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, at Piazza Navona. People snapping pictures before, if ever, actually looking at things.

The lions that surround the Flaminian obelisk in Piazza del Popolo were placed there in the 1800’s, a strange adaptation to the central structure, which is well over 2000 years old. They are supposed to be in Egyptian style to compliment the hieroglyphics on the obelisk itself, Ramses II, brought to Rome by Augustus in 10 B.C. It originally stood near Circus Maximus; now it is positioned behind me as I sit at the foot of Pincio Hill.

It is not the feral and masculine lions that fascinate me about Piazza del Popolo, nor is it the blatantly phallic obelisk, castrated somewhat, in my opinion, by the cross that Catholic Rome placed on top of it.

Instead, whenever I visit this piazza I sit by the fountain of Dea Roma. She is the only figure standing upright in the tableau, holding a torch high, tireless, broad shoulders and hips, strong calves – strong enough to stand poised through centuries, shield at her side. At her feet the she-wolf suckles Romulus and Remus in infant form. On either side of her lounge two male figures, Tevere, the river, and Aniente, about whom I can't seem to find much information. This doesn't bother me: it is the goddess who holds my attention.

“Roma” signifies strength, and because of this she is the patron goddess of the once-mighty Roman empire. She is the she-wolf, and like all women she is sometimes seen as virgin, as mother, as whore, her image and meaning always twisted to fit the needs of men in power. But who is she? There is barely any information about her, although it does seems like she actually was adapted from the Greek Athena, Athens’ patron, and the Etruscan goddess Minevra, from which the Romans stole the name “Minerva.”

I have sat by the Fontana Dea Roma at various times during the day and at night, wondering who she is.

I visited her in the late afternoon, my feet in the fountain, cooling off from a day of walking on hot stones, of tripping and nearly falling because the cobblestones are uneven, but what a waste it would be to walk through Rome with my head down.

I stared up at her as the sun was beginning to set and the heat from the day was finally starting to lift. I sat between the three churches that surround the square, two in the south couching the "trident" that leads into the center, and one in the north by the Porta del Popolo, where Nero's remains had to be buried on holy ground to keep his ghost from wandering. The churches are all Santa Maria’s: Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Santa Maria de Montesanto, Santa Maria del Popolo - more virgin goddesses.

What does it mean that ancient cities -Rome and Athens - so historically patriarchal, have chosen female figures as their patrons and protectors? And why must they be virgin goddesses? Why was it that the only women with power and influence in ancient Rome were the Vestal Virgins? Why is female power so closely related to virginity?

What is it about sex that makes a woman dangerous, so that having sex weakens and domesticates her, while abstaining entirely makes her powerful? Is it our ability to bring life into the world that makes men feel so threatened – and if so, why is it that this thing that is so mysterious it should be sacred and revered then twisted and deformed; sex as sin, an act that makes a woman a whore if she is not married, and confines her to the role of “mother,” and “wife,” ceasing to be plainly and miraculously “woman” anymore if she is.

I wonder if it really matters in the end anyway; if, ultimately, the labels men attach to women really carry any weight.

As the sun sets, the bells from all the Santa Marias start to ring. For the first time in my life, I think, I hear real church bells. At the church in Bayside the bell sounds are all from recordings; the tower in St. Robert’s is empty, or if not, the bells are still and rusty from neglect. But when the bells begin to ring in Piazza del Popolo, they ring loud. I feel it on the air and under my skin and I am perplexed because I’m not really religious anymore - I don’t understand where this feeling comes from.

It reminds me for some reason of being a little girl and going outside to play on cloudy days, shouting at the sun to come out so that I could stay there longer and sometimes it did. And when I was older and too shy to yell for the sun in the courtyard outside our apartment, singing softly under my breath for sunlight, a little pagan girl although I had just made my First Communion, so sure the sun was listening even if I couldn’t see the chariot.

Bells always sound like they’re calling you somewhere, but I don’t know where to go, so I sit still and watch her, occasionally catching the quick silhouette of bell-skirt moving out of the corner of my eye, feeling the sound pulsing across the square.

II.

It is quiet in the piazza in the early morning. It is almost 2AM and I have washed off the day, my hair still damp from the shower, a soft chill settling on my skin now that the sun has been gone for hours. I have my feet again in the fountain, which seems colder than usual in the absence of daylight. The impossible heat of Rome has finally broken. My right leg, practically from my toes to a few inches below my knee, is swollen to maybe two times its usual size, the result of being tackled FIFA style during an amateur soccer game. It’s been almost a week – six days, actually – since I was so thoroughly destroyed playing soccer, the second game I’ve played in maybe twelve years, and it seems that my leg is only getting bigger and more unfortunate looking. Because there is no ice in the St. John’s dorms, I have hauled myself out of the campus and, instead of visiting a bar or a club crawling with Italian men, am finally visiting a more legitimate site in Rome for the ice cold water and the opportunity to write.

There are sanitation workers circling the square, spraying water down and sweeping it up in large trucks. Sometimes they whistle when they pass any female stragglers in the piazza; mostly they leave us alone. A car with two Carabinieri drives by. They ask, in Italian, if I’m going to bathe in the fountain. I say no, and they laugh and drive away. I wonder what would happen if someone were to light the torch that Dea Roma is holding somehow. I think that could perhaps that could be a love story, something short and sweet, but dismiss it as juvenile and cliché, or maybe as a story I am still too shy to write.

I think of where I have been today. In Rome there are lions in the walls. I wonder what they are watching for, they even haunt the Jewish Ghetto with expressions so fierce and human I think they must be gods or spirits invading even this part of the city, where there are no figures on the walls, no Atlases holding up balconies strewn with flowers, hibiscus, nuova guinea. They do not peek or stare but watch, always with the same untiring expression, with warnings, all teeth and eyebrows.

There are gods in every stone. I must have seen hundreds by now; every corner, every fountain, regardless of how many crosses are placed on top, no matter how loudly the bells ring; bells which sound eerie and ancient anyway, older than the churches they ring from, beckoning people to cool, sacred places inside. I never listen in church, not to the priest at least, but instead to the echoes of chanting and song and people breathing and restless babies. There are hundreds of churches in Rome, temple ruins and ancient gods, but I return to Dea Roma.

I feel surrounded by the age of this place, the heat and the color. I exist in some fine line between the oppressive knowledge that there is more here than I will ever understand, and the comfort of knowing that at least subconsciously, I can feel it. I am within it. I am connected to it just by breathing.

Everything in Rome is moving. The air dances like a harem girl, captured and transported along roads that still exist now, the same as they did then, whenever “then” is…centuries ago, millennia maybe. Tomatoes strew on cobblestone in Campo de Fiori when the market is closing for the day. Uneven streets that demand you walk slowly if you don’t want to fall. People are moving, cars and bicycles, dogs trained to sleep on the street and look as thin as they possibly can, babies pre-programmed to beg in the hot sun and stone before they can even speak, tourists from a hundred different countries surrounding the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain, the majestic atmosphere that is emitted somehow by Bernini’s fountain in Piazza Navona. But Dea Roma stands still, silent and proud, familiar to me in a way that I don’t yet understand, and perhaps never will; Dea Roma in this female city, endlessly and always a mystery.

Roma musicale

Rome at night is filled with music.

I sit and watch a couple playing music in Piazza Navona. He is improvising, lanky legs crouched on a closed guitar case. She is sitting crossed-legged beside him tapping away at a bongo. Sometimes they are out of sync, but she just looks up and smiles. Someone takes their picture. They don’t notice.

On the other side of the square reverberate the notes of an electric bass: competing music from an outdoor café. I walk to the center fountain and sit at the feet of a river god. Notice for the first time a lion creeping from beneath the statue, ferocious and frightening even in his stillness and stone.

It is cool now, cool as Siena, but I like it after the incredible heat of Rome in the first two weeks. The heat in Rome, from the buildings that breathe easy, perched on top of other, older things that wait, gasping and impatient, beneath the ground. Heat from the cobblestone that blankets these things and trembles above them. Heat that surrounds and sometimes suffocates: this is my explanation for the way my throat constricts as I stand before fountains and statues, or inside churches – because I am not the type of girl who cries because of art, or who is moved by supposedly holy places. Heat. All I have to do to relieve it is sit still in a piazza, by a fountain, and breathe. Touch the water, thread droplets through my hair and on the back of my neck, in the right angles of my elbows, behind my knees, and wait patiently for a breeze to come.

I move on, out of the piazza along Via del Rinascimiento, make a right at the fountain in search of Via del Corso. Stop at the mysterious Mighuitti, who is actually Marco Minghetti. A politician maybe. Sit down and pull out a map. It is dark now, but as crowded as it would be on St. Mark’s Place.

The map means nothing to me. I don’t know what direction I am facing, and I’m fairly certain conclusion I have come to is wrong.

I double back to Piazza Navona. I have this theory that if I follow all the signs from landmark to landmark, I will somehow make it back to the dorms. I will walk the city into my head, like Elizabeth Bowen. I decide to test this theory. Back along Via de Rinascimiento. Another arrow informs me that I should make a right and head to the Pantheon. Va bene.

A map inch through a wide alley and a flood of tourists later – young Americans, high school age - and I am there, the Pantheon looming gray against a now-violet sky, inhaling the orange of the street lights and returning nothing. It is massive and dark. There is scaffolding propped up against the right half of the building, at once ruining the effect with its suggestion of fallibility while simultaneously making the building more imposing somehow. The scaffolding is skeletal, flimsy, and the Pantheon looks still more solid behind it. There is still magic here no matter what time of day – walk into the Pantheon in the morning and you are bathed in light that streams through the dome. It turns all the Virgin Marys into ancient goddesses, virgins, mothers, queens and sorceress-whores, all powerful. At night the building is stoic in the middle of the square and stragglers wander slowly out.

At the bottom of the steps a French jazz band plays. Another woman drummer. A trumpet, an alto and bass saxophone, a banjo and a strange instrument that looks like a combination of high-hat and xylophone, I can’t tell in the dim light and through the crowd. The leader, bass sax with dreadlocks, Birkenstocks, counts off in Spanish, then in Italian, and entreats the audience to join in. Uno, due, tre…PO! We are supposed to shout on po. The reply is half-hearted but the band doesn’t care, and Dreadlocks takes a solo, using lips and fingers to make the bass sax squeal and squaw in registers higher even than the alto and trumpet.

Up the Via della Pantheon, in search now of Giolitti, as long as I’m here. I know where I’m going, again, although the city looks different at night, and I have never been here alone. Champagne e pompelmo rosa. I say, “Buona notte” to the cashier on my way out, a different woman each time but somehow also the same. Always in her fifties, tired, sometimes brought a drink by one of her camrades at the bar, also working late, sometimes not. Rarely makes eye contact. This time, though, she looks up and smiles at me and wishes me a good night as well. It is a good night. I am in Rome, alone at night and not lost or afraid. I make it without a problem to Via del Corso, an endeavor which two weeks ago left me wandering around in circles for forty-five minutes.

I plan on walking past the Spanish Steps to fill my water bottle and stop to write, but I am distracted by my gelato and notes of tango springing up with each step I take. The streets are less crowded now, but still peals of laughter echo and the rolling R cymbal percussion of Italian speech obscure the distant song.

I am expecting music to accompany each landmark on my way home now, sinking into this city with each step I take, paying almost no mind to the drivers, waving at them, grateful but composed, for once, when they decide not to run me over, and receiving nods in return instead of impatient shouts. I’m strolling and relaxed, picking my way across cobblestones, nimble even with a swollen ankle. I’m eating my gelato neatly, tart grapefruit exploding on the center of my tongue, burning the way real citrus would. The champagne tastes like bubbles and New Year’s Eve.

I pass a poster of a blond and bronzed goddess, a model, coy smile, breasts bare, right out on the Via del Corso. A small English boy covers his eyes and grabs his mother’s hand. “Did you see that unsavory pict-cha?” he asks. “Did you see it?”

This is perhaps my favorite moment of the night, but the tango picks up again and I follow. Maybe two blocks more and I feel my steps in sync with the music. I’ve taken tango before, briefly maybe three years ago. Something about five beats. Shift your weight. Look your partner in the eyes and follow. Don’t anticipate, just respond.

The woman ahead is dressed all in black and holding a black and white polka-dot parasol. Pencil skirt, modest dancer’s heels. Thick black straps off the shoulder. Shorn bleached blond hair, pixie. Red lips. She tangos alone, the sidewalk wide enough at the moment to allow her to do so. Weight shifting, eyes half closed and head tilted up to the waning moon, feet dragging slowly between beats. I want to ask to tango with her, but as I approach she straightens up and turns her head to me, slowing down to let me go by. I walk up the steps of a church to leave her room to continue dancing.

The Obelisko Flaminio is ahead of me now, the Palazzo Venezia behind in the distance, inexplicably lit up turqouise and acqua. Music rides in waves south down Via del Corso, hitting buildings like a pinball machine; some kind of pop. The street opens up like the mouth of a river into the Piazza del Popolo and I am intercepted by a Bengali man holding 2 long stem roses. It is the end of the night for him, he says, he’s closing up and tries to pawn the roses off on me like he’s going to give them away for free. I’ve seen this before during the day, watched them stride up to unsuspecting tourists and shove flowers into camera laden hands, and then pursue, palms up, a euro. My rose seller assures me that he has change, and I’m distracted because to my left Michael Jackson is dancing to Billy Jean. The flowers are in my hand. I almost reach for my coin purse, wanting to climb the fountain and refill my water bottle again and watch Michael Jackson dancing, sequins and all. I hand the flowers back and the ingratiating smiles disappear with the man, who stalks a less frugal victim.

I climb the fountain. Only the balls of my feet fit on these steps, and the water splashes up my arm again. I step down carefully and sit with my back to the obelisk, still warm from the day, watching Michael Jackson dance. In ten minutes the concert ends and people rush to take pictures with him. A member of the Carabinieri , shorter than Michael, breaks up the din. Flashing lights ebb and people disperse.

On the east side of the piazza at the foot of the Pincio, Dea Roma stands with her torch held high, lit by light reflected in a shallow pool, the same pale yellow as sunlight, I notice, even though the sky has deepened now from violet to navy.

I walk across the piazza, up the stairs and out into the street. Music floats up endlessly from under the bridge across the Tevere. I feel water on my arms and face, tiny droplets, almost imperceptible as it begins to rain.

Siena

Today I learned more about travelling than I ever have in my entire life. Along with three other girls from our Film/Lit group, I decided this Saturday would be the perfect day for a trip to Siena. We thought it would be simple: an hour and a half or so on the train, some wandering in a different Italian city, some dinner and gelato and we could pat ourselves on the back for being experienced world travellers. Cultural legionaires. At least, that's the impression I had. How very wrong was I.

My time in Italy seems to be broken up into two very distinct experiences: the wonderful and the ridiculous. Seeing beautiful architecture, sometimes from 2,000 years ago, sitting by fountains of old emperors and older gods, walking through ancient churches, roads, and port cities: all this is wonderful. Interacting with modern Italian men, getting gypped at the supermarket and then attempting to explain in outraged broken Italian, and being unexpectedly stuck in Siena overnight pretty much all fall into the category of ridiculous.

Let me start by saying that it doesn't take an hour and a half to get to Siena. It takes closer to four hours. And when you leave at 12:45PM, you won't have much of a day trip, that's for sure.

We arrived at Siena around 5PM, ate a much-needed pasta dinner and wandered a bit with Farhanna, visiting the Duomo and Piazza del Campo before she had to head back to the train. Then Mary and Bianca and I decided, in a completely arbitrary order, to do the things we would need to do in order to stay overnight in Siena. We bought emergency clothes and contact lens solution (and shoes for me, since my ankle is now swollen to roughly the size of a melone because of my soccer injury). This endeavor took far longer than it should have before we realized that it would perhaps be wise to look into booking a hotel for the night.

The first two hotels were a bust. The reception at Il Piccolo Hotel de Palio, which looked so promising (read: cheap) because the hotel was only rated 2 stars, was closed by 7:30, although the English sign on the door said they should have been open until 8:30. (The sign in Italian, however, told the truth and informed us after much confusion that reception actually closes at 7:30.) We arrived at eight, nearing desperation and mystified by the cryptic sign on the door directing guests who had already booked their rooms to enter a "secret code" on a keypad next to the entrance in order to get in.

Our second choice was, if I remember correctly, Castel d'Oro, a shady looking venue that you enter through a sidestreet/tunnel awash in green light cast by the sign proclaiming "albergo" at the mouth of the cavelike entrance. Somewhat surpringly, this hotel had no vacancies, but the man at the front desk gave us a map and quite helpfully pointed out where we could find plenty of other hotels.

The third hotel, Hotel Meuble "La Toscana" de Germano Mazzini, right off the tiny Piazza Tolomei, was the charm. We reserved a room for two, assuming the third would be able to walk right up with us anyway under the pretense of "visiting" and thus we would save a couple of euro. The man at reception was named Carmine, who loved Bianca's surname and mine (Neptune and Tesoro, respectively), and asked if either of us sang. When I replied that I did, he asked me to sing him some Celine Dion. He also informed us that he was getting into singing again after thyroid surgery, approved of my tattoo and nose ring, and was inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech and John Lennon's "Imagine." Figuring this boded well for us, we decided to stay at La Toscana for the night. Upon leaving, Carmine took our room key back from us, saying that we could pick it up from the desk when we came back later that night. This should have clued us into the somewhat suspicious nature of the hotel, but we had already paid and were itching to see Siena at night, so we paid it no mind.

We wandered through the center again, grabbing a drink at The Dublin Post, where Joann, or Italian culture prof, used to work when she lived in Siena. We explored Piazza del Campo some more, sitting by the Fontana de Gaia (underwhelming after all the fountains in Rome) and enjoyed some Sienese gelato (cioccolate fondente e riso e vaniglia!), and waited in vain for the jazz concert that had been advertised on billboards that we saw on the walk from the train station.

Around 11:30 we decided to call it an early night and get some rest before touring the city in the morning. Unfortunately, Carmine's shift ended at 10PM, after which he was replaced by an evil little troll, who wouldn't even let Mary in to use the bathroom. When she offered to pay for a room just to have a place to stay for the night, he declared that to be impossible since she didn't have her passport on her (neither did Bianca and I when we booked the room, but Carmine let us get away with just using our driver's licenses). Evil Guy seemed content to let Mary sleep alone in a piazza somewhere, even though it was about 20 degrees cooler in Siena than it had been in Rome.

Eventually, Mary stayed with a friend of Joann's - a French guy named Flo (I don't know how to spell his full name) - who, luckily enough, was living in Siena for an internship. We treated him to breakfast this morning - capuccini, cheese and meat platters, and bread - following which he showed us around Siena, taking us to the Duomo, the Museo del'Opera, the mysteriously empty crypt, the baptistry, and - most fantastic of all - a panoramic view of Siena from the top of the museum.

Things I've learned about travelling this weekend:

1. Day trips start early in the morning. Like at 8.
2. Research train AND bus schedules, decide which is best (in this case, taking the bus would have served us better)...and then DO THAT.
3. Make hotel reservations FIRST, and research the hotels so you don't end up with a PREPOSTEROUS TROLL MAN AND CURFEW. The man was actually waiting for us outside the hotel at 2AM sharp, which was when we told him we would return. If Mary hadn't caught up with Flo by then, we would have had to ditch her at Campo to get back to our hotel in time for that asshole.
4. Bring contact lens solution and a change of clothes anyway, so you don't end up spending about 40 euros unnecessarily.
5. And, most importantly, plan yo' shit out. It saves time and money and keeps your blood pressure at safe, healthy levels.

Jewish/Roman Cuisine

Today, for the second time during this trip, I went to a Jewish/Roman restaurant and had some Kosher Italian food...probably only the third or fourth time in my life that I have eaten Kosher (the other times were in Bayside at Ben's deli in Bay Terrace).

After a strenuous hike up the Avantine Hill - a hill which is not very steep, provided you don't destroy yourself playing soccer and then go out dancing the night before - we took a bus and a tram to the Jewish Ghetto, where we ate lunch at a restaurant I believe called Ba'ghetto (which means "in the Ghetto").

Some new things I've learned today: There are 2 types of Kosher restaurants, either meat or dairy, since the two can't mix. It never occurred to me that you would have to have two entirely separate restaurants for this but well...duh.

I ordered tagliatelle in meat sauce and was heartbroken when I couldn't put any parmigiana on it - but the pasta was done to perfection and the meat was also delicious - cooked long enough to soak up all the sauce, and tender so that I didn't even need to used a knife to cut it, it just fell apart into bite-sized pieces. It made me miss my mom's cooking, since the meat had the same texture as her world-famous beef stews but at the same time it was almost like a little piece of home...found in an incredibly unexpected place.

There were also halal-ish foods like falafel and schwarma...and, my personal favorite, carciofi alla giuda, or Jewish style artichokes, which are fried artichokes...amazing! I had this in conjunction with carciofi alla romana, a more vinegar-y appetizer that was boiled instead of fried. I have come to the conclusion that artichokes are my favorite vegetables.

Jewish/Roman food is an interesting combination and 100% new to me. I don't think I would have tried it except for Leora (our resident Jewish history professor and patient teacher/explainer for someone like me, who knows next to nothing about Judaism) and Leat (my lovely roomie, and also a Kosher-keeper), so it's really fantastic that even in our small group there is so much diversity...a friend of mine was in Rome in January and he told me he got bored of Roman food, even though he was only here for a week. I'm not even close to bored yet, because on top of trying Jewish/Roman food, yesterday I had some sushi, and we found a Chinese place to go to as well, and an Argentine place near Campo di Fiori (soon, soon!).

We also cook our own meals in order to save money. Yesterday I made sausage and peppers (pictures pending) and Leat made white fish in veggies and spicy paprika, and Joann (our Italian culture and language professor) made fried eggplant in red sauce. Tomorrow, we're cooking again! So all around I've just been having a pretty awesome culinary experience.

And I like the simplicity of standard Roman fare - just some salt, olive oil, garlic and onion, nothing to fancy or too big or too heavy, plenty of wine, and a great deal of walking afterward, with fresh fountain water to cool off when you need it. It's a good way to live.

Why I'm bound for the third circle of hell

At last, much belated, is the obligatory Christina Food-gasm Entry. Mostly pictures because, very fittingly, I must soon depart to the mercato to buy yet more food. Yesterday, the roomie and I were shopping for our weekly sustenance, buying perhaps too much, when we got into a lot of trouble with the cashier. Per accidente, we gave her 90 euro (the confusion caused by paying together, but ah well) when the bill came out to 70-odd. Instead of giving us back the extra and the change, she rang it up at 80 and (inadvertantly, I'm sure) gypped us out of 20 euro. Then she tried to make us feel like we were crazy, and the woman behind us in the line was griping out silly American girls. Whether or not we can speak Italian, that particular sentiment was understood. Vafanculo to you too.


Long story short, I had to summon all my powers of Italian (which are meager, but it's a good thing I've been going out drinking and dancing and speaking to all shades of guido-men, I suppose) and in the end we were given our 20 euro back.


Very nerve-wracking. They had to open up the cash register and count and recount the money, but luckily I learned the word "spiegare" and was able "to explain" in my own hybrid language of Spanish, Italian-pronounced-Spanishly, and desperate sign language.


So, without further ado, some food porn:

Best gelato place in Rome.

To date, I have sampled:

nocciola (hazelnut),

aranciotta (orange-chocolate),

limoncello/pera (limoncello and pear),

mela verde/melone (honeydew and cantaloupe)

and

mango/pesca (mango/peach.)

It's best to get 2 different scoops per cone.

Sorry, no pictures of the gelato. I don't let anything come between me and my gelato.

Kosher Gnocchi as served at Nonna Betta in the Jewish Ghetto.

Kosher artichoke lasagna.

Kosher omelet.

And my personal favorite, kosher risotto with formaggio and radicchio.

I'm getting hungry just looking at it.

Funghi e mozarella pizza.

Thin crust.

DE-lish.

I've done some cooking as well, but photos of that shall be up later. Improv-Italian Cuisine! Tonight we'll be preparing a 4-course dinner consisting of sausage and peppers, fish (for the non-sausage eating variety), and perhaps some eggplant or fried zuchhini, and, of course, pasta, il primo piatto!

As for now, I'm off to sample some Roman sushi!

Guardate a Roma!

There's a lot that I want to cover because everything about this city is so breathtaking. I've been spending my days walking in unbelievable heat up and down the streets of Rome, visiting the tomb of Augustus, the temple of the Vestal Virgins, the Lion's Mouth that was in Roman Holiday, eating artichokes in the Jewish ghetto. Today I played soccer for the first time in about twelve years, so tomorrow when we tour the Colosseum, I'm going to feel like my body is falling apart. I'm learning Italian as I walk through the streets, writing down words and the definitions they present - on menus: colazione, pranzo, centa, contorni, carciofi, nocciola (my favorite flavor of gelato); at the supermarket, balsamo (for conditioner, which they sell in the supermarcato), asparagi, basilico, pomodori, arancia, pera, uve...And I'm teaching myself Italian. Yesterday I memorized the conjugations for regular verbs that end in -are. I took Italian the summer after freshman year, and it comes back fairly easily. I know that this is a language I one day want to speak fluently, because the official version of Italian, at least, was derived from literature; Dante, in particular. I wish all languages were derived from literature. It would be like the entire English language was based off of the work of Shakespeare, or so my professor said.


Mostly I spend my time sitting by fountains with my feet in the water and the sun on my back. There is a perfect breeze in the piazzas, you can feel it if you sit still enough, it is as if the statues of deities beckon the wind to them. Even surrounded by people in the Piazza Navona, I felt quiet and at ease and close to things so old and yet so solid and perfectly formed. I can't believe I'm here.


I did a better job of describing all this in my journal, so I'll post that up later. I also have a lot of research to do. In the meantime, however, here are some of the things among which I now live:

Dea Roma at the Piazza de Popolo

Mausoleum of Augustus

View of the Piazze de Popolo, from the top of the Villa Borghese, at night.

Being tested by the Lion's Mouth. My soul is pure, because he didn't chomp my fingers.