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.