Italy--Day Two. Friday August 27

Today, we walked our asses off in the heat.

Tip: when it's hot, you can't carry too much water. When it's about 90, I like to have 1.5 liter per person, at least. Buy your water at a normal grocery store, in advance, never from the ubiquitous snack wagons parked all over Rome. Carry a backpack and carry the water in it, along with some snacks, and you'll save some money.

The center of Rome, where we stayed, is full of tourists but also filled with really high-end big-name designer stores, the names of which always escape me---that fashion shit goes in one ear and out the other, with me. I remember a store filled with purses costing thousands of dollars----that kind of silliness. But mixed in with that, down the side streets, are ordinary stores selling ordinary things to the people who live in the area. We found a grocery store we visited a couple of times, so we could stock up on water, cheap wine, and stuff to gnosh on.

Our hotel, with the flags on either side of the entrance.

These tiny trash trucks are everywhere and seem most active at night. We saw dozens of them the night we arrived, somewhat fewer of them during the day. They can easily navigate the narrow streets and alleys.

We walked down to the River Tiber, which was tree-lined and (on our side) filled with welcome shade. Along the way I snapped a number of pictures....it was hard to go wrong. Anywhere you pointed your camera, you found something interesting.

How this bust of Tommy Chong dressed as a mystic got on this building, I have no idea.

Along the Tiber. I think this is some kind of high court building. Vatican in far center background.

This bridge is the Ponte Sant'Angelo, with beautiful statues of angels spanning its length.
The building in the center is Castel Sant'Angelo. This bridge dates from 134 AD.

But the I-40 crosstown bridge in OKC, less than 50 years old, is crumbling. Go figure.

 A beggar on the bridge. She just knelt there like that, perfectly motionless.

St. Peter's Square. Somewhere inside lives Joseph Ratzinger, AKA Joey Rats, AKA Il Papa.

Another view. Impressive architecture, ridiculous religion.

Swiss Guards. Insert your own caption here.

The line to get inside St. Peter's Basilica stretches from left to right in this pic.
I know it's really famous and there's a great ceiling in there and all, but no thanks. We walked on.

If I may discuss one of my many quirks: I've had enough of churches. I can admire the craftsmanship, the architecture, the history (well, not so much the history, which usually bores me shitless), and the quiet beauty of the interior, assuming there aren't 75,000 tourists standing around inside. But there often are a lot of tourists standing around inside, and more or less I get the feeling if you've seen the inside of one of these monstrosities, you've seen them all. All of them are way over the top, extraordinarily garish, and kitsch almost to the point where the boss of Disneyland would gag. Sorry. That's just the way I feel about it / them.

These things, on the other hand, are part of what makes Italy really cool.

I just love these tiny trucks; I guess it comes from watching old films on TV,

and my utter hatred of huge wasteful personal automobiles.

For Will: we came to a square crowded with people. This girl sat against the wall, reading.

I love Italian design. Cool knife rack. Mafia inspired? Modcon, any ideas?

This guy bought a bunch of fruit from a stand and washed it beneath one of the many public fountains.

The Pantheon. Famous oil-painting guy Raphael is buried in here.
It's a domed structure, the dome having a hole in the middle through which the sun shines.
Pretty impressive architecture / engineering; it's the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.

Not just an ordinary hole.

The ceremonial "handing over of the submachine gun."
Not up on my subbies, but it's likely a Beretta. 

Stopped for lunch. Had bruschetta and this pizza, neither of which sucked.

And now a word about the Roman public transportation system. You can get tickets for the bus in the tobacco shops, but they were closed for the mid-day break. You can't buy tickets on the buses themselves. So again we said "Fuck it," and just jumped on a bus, hoping not to get busted. Which we didn't.

Another thing: none of the buses we rode in Italy ever announced, via audio or visual cues, what the upcoming stops were. You just had to know, or be lucky enough to see the name of the stop when it comes up, or ask someone, or memorize the fucking schedule. There's a lot of things to like about Rome, but this bullshit of having to guess where the fuck the bus is at any given moment ain't one of them.

Our illegal bus ride complete, we found ourselves in the part of town featuring numerous archaeological items of interest.

 Part of the Forum Romanum.

Hey, look! It's the place where Bruce Lee killed Chuck Norris in their epic
on-screen battle, as featured in "Way Of The Dragon." AKA the Colosseum.

 Joking aside, the Colosseum was awe-inspiring. You can go inside but we didn't want to...we never got closer than maybe 150 meters. It was enough just to look at the thing, rest under what little shade we could find, and try to imagine the place devoid of tourists, devoid of souvenir stands, devoid of vendors hawking overpriced snacks, and wonder about people capable of building a structure like this. And wonder why such people weren't hired to build the I-40 crosstown, or my Tercel.

The Open Door Bookshop. I bought an Italian-English dictionary in here. An old British lady sat behind a desk reading, a fan blowing on her, an ancient dog laying at her feet. Neat place for books in Rome.

We stopped for a drink after visiting the bookstore. Sitting there, I shot this pic of these two young lovers. Very romantic. And I thought, in my romantic way: A year from now he'll be leaving his wet towels on the floor, and she'll be yelling at him about it, and he'll consider sticking an icepick into his own ears to deafen himself. Isn't love magnificent?

I'm at least partially in agreement with this sentiment.

Sign outside a restaurant in Rome.

Just...Rome.

We wandered around until 6 or 7. It had been a hot day and we were very tired. We found a bus stop and tried to make sense of it---which of the several buses would take us where we wanted to go? B asked a man about 70 if a certain bus went near the Spanish Steps. (B speaks decent Italian, but rudimentary.) 

No, signora, this is not the way...it will take you in circles....you need to catch the streetcar, then transfer to this bus, then...

Then the old guy basically said: Tell you what---let me just walk you over there and get you situated so you can get back to your hotel without a problem. We protested but he insisted, walking with us several blocks to a streetcar stop, telling us where to exit, and which bus to transfer to! Perfectly charming. Along the way B and the old guy had a little conversation. He was very friendly and helpful, which was a characteristic of the Italians I was to become quite fond of in the coming week. Very nice people.

I whispered to B, asking her if I should offer the guy some money as a thank-you but she said the man would be insulted. Instead we sincerely thanked him, shook his hand, and wished him a good evening. He waited until we were on the streetcar and waved goodbye to us as it drove away. What a great old man he was.

On the way home we found a small grocery, bought some stuff to eat in the room, and had a nice "picnic" supper while Rome did whatever it did on a hot August night.

Italy--Day One. Thursday August 26

The Italian fun started on the flight to Rome, when we sat behind and next to a group of five young Italian men in their 20s. A guy several rows ahead was trying to shove an overstuffed piece of luggage into the overhead. There was quiet murmuring from the Italians surrounding us, who were watching this madness with growing interest. I don't speak Italian but here's what I think they were saying, with my attempt to duplicate the melodic sing-song nature of Italian:

"Hey! The suitcase is too biiiiiiiiiig!" "He's nevvvvvvvvvver going to maaaaaaaaake it!"

The guy was expecting the bin to expand to meet his suitcase, instead of trying to creatively squish the overloaded thing into the bin. He tried two or three times. The Italians were getting more excited, like it was a sporting event. "Put it in diagonnnnnnnnnnaly!" "Pray to the Virgin for a miiiiiiiiiiiiiricle!" "He thinks because his tiny dick fits everywhere, the suuuuuuuuuuuitcase fits everywhere!" Laughter.

It's like they were making fun of guy and cheering him on at the same time, muttering under their breath all the while. This accompanied by much gesturing---fingertips together, back of the hand out, the hand wagging forward and back, or hands held open, palms up, together with a shrug. The universal "WTF?" gesture.

Finally the guy got the suitcase into the bin. The Italians actually gave a little cheer and started clapping. One of them had a tattoo on his arm, in English: Only can God judge me. Does that include English syntax?


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Rome airport is huge. Expect a long wait for your luggage. We waited about an hour.

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Then a long walk to the train that goes from the airport to the Termini, the main train station in Rome. It was dark by now and there was nothing to see. The train was about to leave, there was a line at the ticket machines, so B just said "Fuck it," and we ran for the train. Sitting there ticketless, I wondered what the penalty would be when the conductor caught us, but though we saw him, he just walked through the very crowded train and checked no one's tickets.

Here's something to know about Rome's Termini: it's fucking huge and fucking busy.

To get to the subway connecting us to our hotel, we had to walk 1.5 - 2 kilometers, up and down and up again and down again steep staircases, schlepping our luggage. It seemed like a forever walk! All this inside, of course. Finally we found the right train, got off near the famous Spanish Steps, and were walking through the center of Rome, crowded with people even though it was about 10 and still kind of hot. Cobblestone streets and hardly any traffic----that part of town has been closed except to locals and even they have restrictions, it seems.

We stayed at the Hotel Forte, a lovely old place down a rather dark alley in an area known for artists who have lived on the Via Margutta through the years. I guess it was originally an apartment building, with a winding staircase up three or four flights. They'd installed an elevator in the center of the staircase but I preferred taking the stairs during my visit. I can use the exercise.

We walked out to explore. The streets were full of people and thankfully not full of cars; just a few taxis sitting around. Tourists everywhere, and guys trying to sell stuff to tourists----roses, souvenirs, etc. We found a place to eat and had a decent but not noteworthy meal, then more strolling, where we came upon this:

Trevi Fountain. Crowded as hell even at midnight. Watch La Dolce Vita sometime.

Walking back toward the hotel, we came again upon the Spanish Steps. People congregate here for various reasons. The vendors to vend, the cabbies to get a fare, but the people just to look at this beautiful structure, or sit there and drink a beer or bottle of wine or meet new friends. 

I overheard snippets of conversations as we climbed the steps. "Then I went to New Zealand and worked on a sheep farm for a while..." This from a young American woman talking to a dreadlocked European, him probably wondering: When do we get to the part where I get into bed with her? Or: "I'm not sure Obama will get a second term, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a second beer." Laughter from the other young Americans (?) sitting there...

There were several cops standing around or parked at the bottom of the steps in case things went nuts. Which they didn't----everyone was having a good time.

The bottom of the Spanish Steps, looking up.

About the middle of the Spanish Steps, looking down.