150 years and new friends

Saturday was spent, after I awoke at 2pm, zipping around on Giuseppe’s scooter at lightning speed. If you think SF drivers are fast, you have not been to Rome. They have their own unique set of rules, not too dissimilar to Paris. Lanes are not all marked. Merging haphazard. Drivers vociferous.

Giuseppe takes me up to an orange grove with a view of the Dome of St. Peter. The hidden terrace with a better view of the city, the Pantheon!!! So amazing. I think I’ll have to stay here the week just to let the enormity of the history I’m standing on sink in. It’s too much to take in all at once.

I am so grateful for the guide. My two hours of studying the phrasebook did not make stick many of the phrases I need to get around. People here are generally nice and patient, but it still feels lame to jump in with ‘inglesi?’, so I do my best to ask questions and communicate in broken and certainly battered Italian. If all I had to do was read what people were saying, I would get more of it, but the ear takes time.

I did, however, navigate alone tonight (Sunday) to a restaurant I’d heard was good, and had a fantastic meal. I asked them to have the chef send out whatever they thought was best, wholly signed on for the adventure. And deliver, they did. Antipasti of roasted and marinated veggies, perfectly cooked octopus –usually not my fave, but absolutely delicious – and some fresh mozzarella with basil and tomato. Next was the pasta with stewed oxtail in a red sauce. Which would have been enough for my dinner, but oh no, I’m in Italy, therefore I must eat until I could not possibly fit one more bite into my distended stomach. Then I must eat one more. There was filet mignon with green peppercorn sauce and a side of amazing slightly crispy roasted potatoes and salad, a limoncello-soaked custardy pastry for dessert, and of course one must have cappuccino. I had to roll myself out for a walk afterward.

I’ve had very limited access to internet here, which is the only thing I’ve lamented. I know I could go looking for an internet café, but there are none in walking distance, and I don’t want to carry my laptop hither and thither, so I resign myself to limited intermittent access to my best resource – which just happens to be the website I work for, strangely enough. With a roof over my head, (my host left for Istanbul today and left me the flat for the week) and enough to see and do spelled out in the handbook he left for me, I cannot honestly wish for more.

Monday was rainy and I stayed home all day. I had internet coming through for a few hours, so I got my requisite check-in on work done. And, joy of joys, got an email from my friend Duncan who is coming to Rome tomorrow! Serendipitous and wholly welcome. I tell him that I can host him, give directions, say we will meet at the flat or at the CS gathering around the corner Tuesday night. I get out to dinner at the restaurant I had originally set out to eat in on Sunday. It was fantastic. Fresh pasta with lobster, truffle oil and tomatoes. Secondi was thinly sliced cooked sea bass on shaved artichoke and lettuce with a lemon dressing. Simple and perfect. Dessert: molten chocolate cake with a hint of cinnamon, chocolate gelato and espresso. Tuesday was sunny and warm. I went to sightsee and, between the Colosseum and the Forum, looked casually to my right as I walked past a snack-stand to see a flash of “pornge” that was my friend and colleague, Cameron. What is “pornge”, you ask? Well, though they sound alike, it has nothing inherently to do with porn. It is simply what you get when a person can only be described as embodying the perfect mix of pink and orange, skin and hair respectively. But the word’s homophonic relationship to porn is not without its entertainment value, especially in relation to my friend Cam, who is better known as Camtastic.

We went on our audio tours together, skipping around the order of the tracks on our iPods so as to stay within experience-sharing distance of each other. Afterward, he was not averse to hunting down a tiny, out of the way restaurant from the guidebook for a killer lunch in the old city. It did not disappoint. Pasta with fresh shaved truffle, wild boar with polenta, and, as Romans do, more food than we really should have finished between the two of us. We walked around old city, through the Pantheon, then went to the Vatican and the Basilica de San Pietro. So many amazing paintings packed into one place. Mass was being said at the time so we got to hear a bit of what I remember mass being like in Latin, though it was actually Italian. Cam has a unique perspective on things. He’s well read in many subjects, most notably in the vein of spiritual traditions, religions, and mysticism. He is also a total nutter with anarchic, yet loving, tendencies. As one may imagine his comments throughout were entertaining and provocative. We looked for and found hidden culty significance in the church artwork.

Made it home just in time to shower and eat a bit then get over to the local pub - the Beefeater - for one of the weekly CouchSurfing gatherings. The gathering itself was bigger than I expected and lots of interesting folks in attendance. I had only been there a few minutes when Duncan showed up. It had been two years since I last saw him. He was tired, but really happy to hang out and have a beer. His friend Paola, whom he’d met in Istanbul a few weeks before, joined us after a bit and she was the highlight of the evening. She was intent on taking us out the following night, for it just happened to be the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification. There were plans for dancing to the bands playing al fresco, having dinner, going to the museums that would be free that evening. Also met a bunch of traveling CSers, many of whom would join us the following night. Ali, from Istanbul – who told me of the CSers sitting his flat in Istanbul who would host me in April, One of whom just happens to be Bri – a CS volunteer I believe I’ve met. With Wednesday came heavy rain so Duncan and I just stayed indoors, hanging out and catching up. Evening came around and the rain let up a bit, so we went to meet the group and see what might still be happening of the celebrations.

A short train ride and short wait at the stazionne, and a small group of us set out to walk downtown to a little café for apertivo – happy hour with free food – and planning. We waited out the rest of the evening’s rain seated outside under a canopy, drinking Prosecco and debating how wet we really wanted to be the rest of the night. But the rain let up, and we walked the streets with just about everyone else in Rome, stopping to watch a huge opera light show, with visuals projected onto a huge ancient edifice. Breathtaking. Beautifully eerie and yet festive. Stilt walkers wandered around, providing another interesting contrast to the crowds, and we marveled at our luck, being in Rome for this celebration. To mark the occasion, the city and its embassies opened the doors to their buildings and museums, and lines of people wrapped around each waiting for the chance to see the official cubitorial splendor and world class art work. We tried hitting a few of them, but decided the night air, loaded with the sounds of Italian culture, was way more interesting than going indoors in the end. We did step indoors for a moment to round out the evening with some of the best gelato available anywhere at Giolitti, where Giuseppe had taken me a few days prior.

The next day Duncan and I were invited to lunch at Paola’s apartment. Note: if a Neopolitan girl invites you to lunch at her house, say YES. Between her regional cooking and the special treats the guests brought, we were in Italian culinary bliss. She had set out platters of antipasti - salted cured meats, bread, and grilled vegetables. One of her friends had made Sicilian meatballs, to go with Paola’s pasta. Another guest, Eugenio, brought sweet wine that his father and friends made, and traditional desserts from his Umbrian village – fried chestnut-cocoa pastries. That’s really only half of the food we were served. There were hours and hours of eating. It was a holiday for everybody, and rainy, so it was a perfect day to stay indoors with good people, learning about their respective cultures. I learned about some of the small village dialects of Italian. And that the mountain towns, like Frascati from whence Eugenio originated, will have dialects different from towns just a few kilometers away as the crow flies. I’d thought those languages would have long been homogenized. Apparently it’s his grandparents’ generation that is likely the last to speak it, though his understands it.

From that lunch to a weekly CS gathering, at a bar for apertivo. Apertivo – a great happy-hour-like concept where as long as you’re hanging out and drinking, you can eat as much of the free food they put out as you like. And it’s Italy, so the food is generally really good. The gathering was a mix of surfers and locals; professional travelers, lawyers, techies and all sorts. People from Italy, of course, France, Lithuania, UK, Australia, Colombia, US, New Zealand, and certainly a few other places. The tall French guy named Johann was especially entertaining, insisting that a group of us who spoke French speak French together, and convincing all of us to go out dancing. There were plans made to sightsee the next day, and lots of warm and friendly faces. Making plans in foreign countries is always interesting without a phone. There must be a locations agreed upon, meeting times adhered to, and if you miss the meet up, you’re basically out of luck. I agreed to a surfer named Marc joining Duncan and I in a square outside the Sistine Chapel at 9am. The gathering kept going strong into the night, with people coming and going. Around 11:00 a group of us finally motivated to head to another part of town to go dancing. Ironically, Johann, whose idea it was in the first place, ended up being the one who had to walk, as he was too tall to squish appropriately into one of the tiny Italian cars. (I would have walked, but had opted to wear heels that night and would not have made it that far in them.) But with us walking to the cars, and the tiny Roman side streets, Johann made it there within 5 minutes of the rest of us. To be continued...

Arriving Roma

Arriving Roma. Somehow the more long plane rides I take, the shorter they feel, and the more I enjoy the time alone, with reading material and music. The flights to Rome were painless, thanks in part to me new headphones that cancel out sound – yay – and to the new music I bought in the weeks before the flight. Shout outs to Cee-Lo Green and Rufus Wainwright for getting me through.

The London airport has mightily comfortable places to sleep if you can nab one of them. Big comfy modern-esque couches and flat couches with no arm rests. I’m not sure why, but it feels funny to fall asleep in public most of the time, but in parks and airports there are different norms. Having slept not a minute on the flight to London (too much to think about, and really, it was way before my bedtime) I wrapped myself around my bag, laid my head on my backpack and slept about three hours. Woke miraculously in perfect time to go brush my teeth and make it to my flight with about 20 minutes to spare.

The flight to Rome was about 2.5 hours, much of it spent reorganizing and clearing out all of the music in iTunes that I never listen to. Not sure why I feel like I’m wasting a resource by ejecting unused albums from my library, perhaps it’s the lingering pack-rattiness I jettisoned years ago from my personality still clinging to my neurons for one last hot second. Bye bye!

There could not have been a more perfect welcome to Rome than the gaggle, or should I say “warren,” of 5 burly men in full pink bunny costumes running noisily past me through the baggage claim and out into the wild. I laughed out loud, feeling like I’d brought a tiny piece of SF, okay, Burningman, with me to Italy.

The train ride and Metro to my host’s neighborhood were relatively uneventful. I did notice that every single person on the Metro had nice shoes. Apparently that is one way Italians fit the stereotype. Very nice shoes. Fortunately, I am rocking a new pair of swanky boots, and did not feel out of place.

My host, Giuseppe, had been waiting for some time when I arrived – plane and train late – but was game for going out. We scarfed some pasta he’d just made, dressed up and went to a small-ish club in the Triangle, where most of the nightlife lives.

Driving past ruins, Colosseum, and down near the center of town, G says, “Oh, I’ve got an old uncle who lives down here, I think we should call him. I take the phone, not thinking about the fact that it’s 11pm, and he says “Look under ‘P”, and I’m scrolling through his phone like, uh huh, “P”, then? And he says, “O”... and I look over to see the Vatican as we pull around the corner. Haha. Very funny this guy. We pull into a neighborhood not far from the Houses of the Holy to go dancing. Huh. Perfect irony?

Parking. According to Giuseppe, we don’t “park” we just leave the car somewhere. That’s how the Romans do it. Maybe you get a ticket, maybe not. We pulled alongside some dumpsters and “left” the car there. Clearly not a parking spot, but hey, that’s how we roll.

In the club: everyone having a great time together. Dorking out. Singing. No drunken sloppiness. Pure fun. American 70’s-80’s funk and disco covers. Awesome band. Diverse crowd of older and younger. I really admire the way Romans party. They really connect with each other. There were folks across the room from each other all doing dance moves mirroring each other, singing to each other. Hilarious and charming.

Pizza at “The Cemetery” afterward – classic Roma. Fried rice ball with mozzerella. Fried squash blossom. Flat, crispy pizza. The place is called the “Cemetery” or something close to that in Italian because the table tops are all heavy marble slabs. Tasty yet macabre. Loved it. Up next: Seeing the sights....