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.

Perche si dice "parla come mangi"?

New city, new blog. I've been in Rome for the past three days, and although I haven't yet visited the center (instead opting to spend some time at the Piazza de Popola, first to watch the incredibly pleasing results of the World Cup and then to just sit among fountains and statues and write) I can say with certainty mi piace Roma!

I don't have too much time to write at this juncture, because in half an hour I have to get to class - we are finally going to take a walk into the center and follow some of the places Princess Ann explored in Roman Holiday.

So for my first post, an explanation. What dose "parla come mangi" mean? I first read this phrase in Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love and unlike most idioms in a language foreign to me, it did not go straight out of my head. "Parla come mangi" means "speak the way you eat" and upon further research in yet another TimeLife Cookbook Series cookbook, this time for Italian cuisine, I discovered that authentic Italian food is simple, natural, and just plain good. I haven't yet had the chance to do too much exploring in this area, as yesterday my roommate and I enjoyed our own version of Italian food - pasta with funghi, pomodori, basilico e olivos (mushrooms, tomoato, basil and green olives) - and sauteed aspargi in limon (you can figure that one out) - but today perhaps for lunch I'll see what Real Italian Food is all about.

So, in an endeavor to live the idiom, I am going to eat simply and attempt to speak simply and directly, instead of my usual rambling and run on sentences (and endless parentheticals...can she do it??)

And because an Italian of course defines the idiom much better than I can, here you go, an answer from Sandro:

Per mangiare, tutti procediamo allo stesso modo, come madre Natura ci ha insegnato: semplice, naturale, senza finzioni, condizionamenti "intellettuali",concessioni alle mode del momento o del passato: esattamente il contrario di come, spesso, ci si comporta con la parola. Di qui la sollecitazione del "parla come mangi" ad una maggiore naturalezza espressiva.*

My translation (based of a knowledge of Spanish and some fledging Italian half-remembered from 2 or 3 summers ago, and also Google translator): "To eat, everyone goes about it the same way as Mother Nature - simple, natural, without "intellectual" conditions, without worrying about what's in style at the moment or what has been in style in the past: exactly the opposite of how you comport yourself with the word. Thus, whoever uses the idiom "parla come mangi" has a more natural way of expression."

Yes, yes, I know my translation sucks. I'm going to take Italian again in the fall.

*http://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080813085416AAEDrrJ