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...)
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