The Extremely Mannerist Shorts

Today, for the first time in the near-month that we have lived in this apartment, we had a washing machine incident. Now, the washing machine in the Casa Rolex routinely floods the kitchen, but Ro and I have learned how to handle that situation. No, this situation involved a red dress from the market and water that was too warm for it. Unsurprisingly, this situation also involved bleeding red dye. As a result of this bleeding dye, I found myself the owner of: THE EXTREMELY MANNERIST SHORTS!

These short, which I find myself wearing rather often here in toasty Roma Homa, have been a faded slate blue color for the duration of my ownership of them. Now, however, they are prime example of some serious canjanti. Here is a visual:
(I can't for the life of me figure out why the picture is stuck in this rotation... apologies.)
Now, if you can't see the subtle pink shadings on my blue shorts, I submit for your appraisal exhibits B and C:





















Again, apologies for the strange rotation, I can't figure out how to change it...

Anyway, as you can see, the lovely blue is complemented by a soft pink, creating an ethereal, hyper-realistic, almost supernatural quality for the shorts. These shorts were clearly influenced by Michaelangelo. I even feel inclined to stand around in complex contrapposto whenever I wear them...

But Papa, I'm a REAL Guide!

I think this phrase, inspired in large part by Pinocchio, every time I get a tour. After a period of very many scheduled private tours, I found myself this week back giving public tours, or at least trying to... Roisin has a gift for getting tourists to follow her places, but I think it has a lot to do with the fact that she spends an hour at each site asking everyone she can find. Deciding to try this approach, I spent a full hour with her in Piazza San Pietro this afternoon, asking anyone who looked like they might speak English if they would like a tour. We had decided to stop at 2pm, because starting much later than that increases the possibility that we will not make it all the way to the Sistine Chapel by the time it closes at 4. At five minutes to 2, I desperately asked a middle aged couple standing near me if they wanted a tour, and though they turned out to be from Holland, they said yes.

Great success! My first real recruited tourists! Those ones at the Pantheon don't count, since I was offering them a free tour. These folks paid me for my time. At the same moment I snagged these two people, Ro got a little Scottish family to come with her, so we headed off to the museums, winking at each other and trying to remain professional. The tour was uneventful, and I spoke carefully, since their first language was Dutch. They still got my jokes about Michaelangelo, however, so they were clearly fine in my book. In fact, they were doing quite well until the end of the tour, when the time came to pay me for my services, and they shortchanged me. I didn't notice until I had walked away, but perhaps it was just a miscommunication, since in all fairness the husband didn't speak English as well as his wife. Still, I can't complain, because it felt great to actually recruit tourists, and making a little bit of money is better than making no money at all, especially when everything in the stores is on sale...

Vieni a Casa Rolex

I can't believe I have neglected to post anything for the past week! This has been (and most likely will remain) the busiest week of my time in Rome. I had private tours on Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and today. I had Wednesday and Thursday off from the private tours, but I did all the public tours on Wednesday (not that anyone actually showed up...) On top of this busy work schedule, we welcomed 3 separate houseguests to the Casa Rolex. Roisin and I bestowed this name upon our appartamento after exploring possible combinations of our name one night at dinner. "Rolex" was the eventual winner, beating out "Alesin," or Roisin's inspired suggestion, "Alexroisin."

The first guest was Ro's brother Kevin, who had a few days off from work and decided to come see his sister and visit Rome for the first time. I still haven't gotten over the ease with which so many Europeans decide to journey to the Eternal City. For me, it involves a full day of travel and a trans-Atlantic flight, but as I have been reminded a number of times, it is only a 3 hour flight from Dublin... If I thought I had a hard time understanding Roisin, it was nothing to the blank stare I was typically forced to use as a response to Kevin's conversation. I think I understood maybe 78% of what he said the entire time. Still, from what I could understand, he seemed like a nice guy, and Ro dragged him all over the city to see the sites.

Our second guest was Dara, who stayed at Casa Rolex free of charge, because he let me live in his apartment for free back in June, and because we love having guests. He was here to check on the company and to train me on some more tours for private tours I will have to give next week. Our third guest was Ro's friend Aoife, who came to see Rome and Roisin, and the two of them went to Florence as well. Add into this mix Daire, who I can't remember if I have mentioned, but who is another Irish girl who is friends with Dara and Ro. She lives out in Ostia in the summers, and we stayed at her place last weekend when we went to the beach. Altogether, on top of the tours, we have been trying to do fun things in and around the city, including exploring Faber Beach, a beach in Ostia where you can go sit around little fire pits when it gets dark and look at the stars, after swimming in the sea all day. We of course didn't get to do much swimming, but we did all sit around a fire pit and wish we had supplies for s'mores.

Now all our guests are gone, so I am left with the exciting task of cleaning the apartment...

Mission: The Ultimate Vatican Tour

Mostly, I have been giving the regular Colosseum/Forum, Vatican, and Pantheon tours, but today, I was called to something greater. The mission: pick up two people at their hotel and get them (in one piece) to Vatican City for the Ultimate Tour of the Vatican. The plan: start in the Piazza San Pietro, then cover the walk to the entrance of the Musei Vaticani, the Pinacoteca (including one reproduction of Michelangelo's Pieta), the regular Museum, the Raphael Rooms, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter's Basilica before moving on to a tour of the Castel Sant'Angelo. Bonus points for not killing the tourists along the way. Death from walking through the Vatican for 5 hours, or from listening to me spout information for that long, is a distinct possibility for the unwitting targets of this mission.

Stage one: Picked up the two tourists at their hotel. Targets safely escorted to Metro for crowded train ride to Termini, then successful switch to A Line for ride to Ottaviano. I managed to give some sort of strange history/culture lesson while on the metro (10 points), and sound like a local when suggesting where to buy water bottles for the incredible journey. I mean tour. 5 points.

Stage two: Piazza San Pietro. Thank God there were clouds today. 25 points. Made up the number of saints in the Justice League. -5 points.

Stage three: Escort targets on 10 minute walk from Piazza to Musei entrance. Managed to cover history of Vatican attacks, Swiss Guard, and the last 25 years of Papal history. 15 points. Demonstrated knowledge of more than just Italian history by linking the first two things in that list to Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. 5 points.

Stage four: The Pinacoteca. Gave a short introduction to the Pieta copy, describing the symbolism of the piece and mentioning that this was not how it was intended to be displayed. 50 points. Moved very quickly through Medieval and Early Renaissance rooms, almost caught by guard. -20 points, but +5 for not getting caught. Nailed Perugino works, three Raphael altarpieces, and an incomplete Da Vinci drawing of St. Jerome. 25 points. Caravaggio room. 15 points. Found the Mannerism room, used the word "canjanti." 45 points.

Stage five: The regular Museum part. Having done this part before, I do not get as many points for my successful tour of it. 40 points. Impolitely asked to vacate guide boards for Sistine Chapel by vicious Italian woman wearing a tour guide license. -20 points.

Stage six: The Raphael Rooms. Long story short, I managed to navigate the targets/tourists through masses of other tour groups while still talking about Julius II's political agenda as seen in Raphael's frescoes. 30 points.

Stage seven: Borgia Apartments. Talked about the ceilings. 10 points. Completely ignored 15 minutes of horrible modern art. -10 points.

Stage eight: Sistine Chapel. In (under the wire) at 3.45 pm. Done and Done. 25 points.

Stage nine: St. Peter's Basilica. Finally remembered why Pope Innocent XI's body is in the basilica and not in the tombs. 5 points. Successfully described the vast majority of items in the basilica, managed to convey disgust for the barbaric tendencies of Pope Urban VIII. 15 points.

Stage ten: Coffee break. Thank goodness, because I literally talked myself hoarse in the 4.5 hours that completion of Stages one through nine took. No points. Managed to give history of Fascism and short etymology lesson while walking to Castel. 5 points.

Stage eleven: Castel Sant'Angelo. It is closed on Mondays. -20 points. Talked about it anyway, from the outside, 10 points. Gave impromptu tour of Ponte Sant'Angelo (thank you, Tegmeyer), 10 points. Offered to replace tour of Castel with tour of another round building designed by Hadrian (A.K.A. the Pantheon). 5 points.

Stage twelve: Walk to Pantheon. Gave tour of back streets of Rome, and of Piazza Navona. Remembered that the fourth river on Bernini's fountain is the Rio de la Plata, not the Amazon. Targets doubted my veracity, but I was vindicated by didactic on side of construction scaffold. 20 points.

Stage thirteen: Pantheon tour. Targets are impressed that I have now been talking for 6 hours. 5 points. Targets still appear interested in what I am saying. 10 points.

Stage fourteen: Go home. Mission complete. Total points earned: 305.

The LOst(ia) Weekend

I just realized how long it has been since I posted something here, and I can only use the excuse that I was busy giving tours at the end of last week and then I spent the past weekend in Ostia. Shame on me for doubting it, but business has really taken a turn for the better now that July has arrived. I have started to feel like a real tour guide! I took a break from my newly busy schedule, however, to go to Ostia with Roisin to lie on the beach and have a bit of sun. One of Ro's friends lives out there in the summers, so we stayed in her cabin/bungalow, and spent all of Sunday laying in the sun and soaking up the vitamin D. Not that I don't really do that every day while giving tours...

It was great to be near the water though, and swimming made it feel like a real holiday. I practically immersed myself in sunscreen throughout the day, and so avoided getting as sunburned as Roisin, who came away from the weekend with skin a lovely shade of salmon pink. My exceedingly latent tanning gene has decided to start working, so I actually have a bit of a bronze hue. It is quite shocking.

Time has no meaning in Ostia, because this past week has gone by far too fast for my taste, but this weekend seemed to last forever. It was my lost weekend in Ostia. I am being fed Irish culture by the group of Irish people I now know, in the form of Ross O'Carroll-Kelly, a fictional author of a series of books on Dublin. I read an entire book of his lying around on Saturday, and got up to find it was only 4 pm. We decided to stay in Ostia again on Saturday night, because it was much cooler out there than it was in the city, and make dinner. Somehow, because we again lost track of the time, we didn't end up having dinner until 11.30 at night.

We did manage to get ourselves back to the city in time to go to the Porta Portese market on Sunday morning. The market stretches for about a mile, and sells everything from shoes to bicycles to corkscrews to antique Indian axes. And none of it costs more than 8 euro (5, if you barter well...). I didn't buy anything, because all the stores are in the middle of the July Saldi (sales), and some of the clothes in the market are... interesting. Still, it was a wonderful and relaxing weekend (not that Rome ever causes me stress), and I feel good about doing something besides wander around the Eternal City with my weekends. I will have to work next weekend, so I won't be able to go anywhere (maybe just a day trip to Tivoli or something...)

Sgt Pepper's Band

Tonight after attempting to lure tourists into the Pantheon with Roisin (an endeavor that is receiving stranger and stranger responses, such as: "WHY?!" Well, I am actually asking you if you want a free tour because here at the Pantheon, that means, "would you like to buy some drugs for your children?" Sheesh.), we went for a wander in the area, intending to get some gelato. As we were walking past the newly unveiled Temple to Hadrian, I noticed a great fuss happening in the piazza. At first, I thought that the mass of Polizia meant that something big was happening, but then I realized that there were no Carabinieri present, which there certainly would be if there were any sort of real crime (as opposed to chasing the illegal handbag/sunglasses merchants, which seems to be the sole provenance of the Polizia Municipale).

As it turns out, the Polizia milling about were actually members of the Polizia Band, preparing to play a concert.
I have no idea what their theme was, as they covered everything from Offenbach's Can Can to the theme from Austen Powers. The performance itself, however, was fantastic, because the whole piazza was filled with people just standing and watching them play. Even these two guys in the building behind the band stopped to lean out the window and listen:


At the end, they all stood up and put on their fantastic hat/helmets to play the Italian national anthem:


I mouthed nonsense words, since I have no idea what the Italian national anthem is, but it was fun to participate...

A Strange Occurrence

Today I ventured out from my beloved apartment and looked up to the heavens. Typically, I am greeted by brilliant blue skies and blinding rays of sun. This morning, however, I saw this:


It was this large white fluffy thing, blocking the vicious, burning sun. I don't know what it is. There were in fact a few of them, and I could practically feel myself shivering with cold in the absence of the Italian sunshine. I walked through the city, fearful of this strange omen, and felt comforted when they all disappeared and my skin began to sizzle again...

La Casa

I am finally using the internet in my very own appartamento, and feeling very much at home. We were without internet for a few days, because Riccardo, despite being an engineer, is completely computer illiterate. He types with his two index fingers, and when he came to the flat to install the router, I was able to access the wireless within 5 minutes, but it took him 45 to complete the installation. He then offered to take me on a tour of Trastevere on his motorscooter. Strangely, Riccardo seems to like me, but dislike Roisin, since he never offers to show her the neighborhood. Either way, I am now able to upload pictures, allowing me to finally show off the apartment of which I am so enamored!

This to the left is a picture of the hallway that leads to the apartment. It is on the ground floor of the building, and so I don't have to ride in the elevator, which is smaller than the closets in the apartment. The brown, slightly uneven door is the door to my apartment, and there are Christmas lights that run all around it, which can be turned on and off based on how festive we are feeling as residents. They are off in this picture.


This is my bedroom, which is actually the only bedroom in the apartment. It is very adorable, but the bed is too big for the room. It fits within the bound of the room, but completely prevents the door from closing. Also, I banged my knee on the corner of it while trying to walk from the window to the door. The bruise is fantastic.





This picture to the right is the ceiling of the bedroom, which has a very cool 1920s art deco chandelier. This is not the best picture of the chandelier. The ceilings, however, are the coolest part of the apartment. They are all vaulted, which is something you can somewhat see here. The vaults are curved but not pointed, and made out of whitewashed brick. They are quite high, and probably provide the "freshness" that Riccardo goes on and on about...


This is our bathroom. As you can see, the shower is one and the same with the bathroom, which is a bit of an adventure. On the plus side, the whole bathroom gets rinsed down every time anyone turns on the shower.
























These two pictures are of the living room/Roisin's room/the dining room. The red couch folds out into a double bed, with a new mattress, very firm, according to Riccardo. Above it is an antique mirror that is somewhat distorted, and Riccardo spent more time explaining how much he likes this mirror than he did explaining how to use the stove, for instance.

This is an upright picture of the dining room area, which shows the height of the ceilings, as well as the other cool chandelier in the flat. You can also see a zebra/leopard print chair, which is possibly the most comfortable chair I have ever encountered. It looks horrendous, but sitting in it is like heaven.

This is a close up of the chandelier in the kitchen, which I really love.








This is our kitchen, which is actually quite fitted out, for an Italian kitchen. Our stove is gas burning, and although you do have to turn a switch to turn on the gas (which Riccardo neglected to tell us), there is no need to attempt the terrifying endeavor of lighting the stove. It does that on its own. The two cabinets on the bottom right contain the washing machine and the frigorifero, respectively. You may be able to notice that the second cabinet from the right looks a bit off kilter. This is the fridge, and I spent the first three days in which we lived here trying to fix the fact that the fridge was improperly installed. I managed to fix it last week, but the front is still a bit wonky...

Finally, this is a picture of the washing machine in its cabinet. It is the same size as the fridge, so Roisin and I are very creative about what we buy that needs refrigeration. The washing machine also floods the kitchen, so that is another project I will have to work on in the coming week. This picture also shows the tiles of the kitchen, which are hand painted and beautiful.


Clearly, I am rapturous about my apartment. If you have gotten to this part of the post (which must be the longest post ever), I commend you.

Finalmente a Casa!

We have an apartment! We, now, refers to me and Roisin, my new Irish roommate. She is fantastic, and we luckily have similar habits, which bodes well for the next month. Our apartment, or flat, or appartamento, depending on who you ask, is amazing. The landlord, Riccardo, is a very strange man of indeterminate age. Roisin thinks he is over 40, and I think that sounds believable. He talks to my neck. I can't complain, however, because I have a very serious crush on our new apartment. It is located in the heart of Trastevere, and the area around it is what the Italians call 'characteristic'. I heard this about a number of neighborhoods when I was searching for apartments, but I believe it about mine, since it is vibrant and bright and full of people. These people, amazingly, are actually Italian, and the tourist count is almost nil. We are surrounded by restaraunts and food shops, which are both delicious and inexpensive, as far as I have been able to determine, because there are very few tourists around.

The apartment itself is adorable, and, as Riccardo says, 'very fresh'. It is on the ground floor of a tall building, and opens on to a central courtyard, which is shady and perpetually full of drying laundry. I love seeing the laundry on the line, and plan to do some laundry in our washing machine just so I can participate in the laundry drying activities. The ceilings are whitewashed brick vaults, and are quite high. It gives the flat an old, authentic feeling (although authentic what I don't know) and the whole thing has real character. I have pictures, but I can't put them here, because I am actually using Riccardo's computer to type this post, since the internet in our apartment is not working yet. Trying to converse with Riccardo about the internet was an adventure, but I eventually managed to determine that the internet modem box 'non funzione', and that a new one will arrive... sometime soon.

After making a grocery list entirely in Italian, we stocked our frigorifero, which I fixed using my brute strength last night. For reference, the fridge is the same size as the washing machine, so we are being creative about what belongs in there. Last night, I cooked a gourmet dinner of pasta and tomato sauce with onions. While this may not sound all that special, cooking it in my own kitchen in my own apartment lent the dish a flavor of satisfaction that made a big difference. This is the first apartment that I have really ever lived in by myself, and I fear that no apartment I will live in subsequently will ever live up to it! The only down side is that I have to pay rent...