Infestation

This week, I discovered something in my apartment that makes the cockroach, the mouse, and even the legendary cockamouse look like a welcome guest instead of a terrifying pest.

I should first explain that the bathroom of Casa Rolex is very... European. I don't know if I have mentioned it before, but whenever someone uses the shower, the entire bathroom gets wet. There are some who think this is akin to cleaning the bathroom, but I think it just makes everything damp and moldy. Apparently, however, this kind of environment attracts certain kinds of visitors.

I killed an enormous bug in there a few weeks ago, so when Melissa (who just got here today and is visiting for the week) announced after her shower that she had killed something in the bathroom, I assumed it was another one of the large, ugly, roly-poly bugs. Not so; it was something much more sinister: a scorpion.

No one believed her at first, but after being assured it was dead (very dead), everyone went in to have a look for themselves. Thankfully, it was more of a baby scorpion than anything else, but it was about 3 inches long, and I could not be more thrilled that a tough and seasoned New Yorker like Melissa was the one to see and destroy the monstrous beast, as I can't guarantee that I would have stayed to fight it.

I am more perplexed by the sudden appearance of a scorpion in Italy than I am surprised by its choice of my bathroom as a residence. I mean, this IS a really nice area, good restaurants, convenient transportation, new appliances in the apartment... But last time I checked, Italy was not on the list of scorpion habitats. I sincerely hope that this one wandered out of a pet shop or was someone's rogue pet, but just in case, I am bleaching the entire apartment tomorrow morning.

Neighborhood

I think I might be a local. This comes not from any sudden improvement in my Italian skills, nor from my dressing habits (which remain haphazard and clearly American, despite my best efforts), but from my experience at the coffee bar this morning.

It has been a busy week, with lots of morning tours. These, of course, are only feasible after a cup of coffee, so I have been making regular requests for 'capuccino e cornetto' in the bar on the corner all week. This morning, since part of my tour for the day was going to be in a car (as opposed to walking), I decided that I would just get a cornetto in the bar. However, when I walked in, the barista smiled at me and immediately started making me a capuccino.

I am pretty pleased to be recognized around my neighborhood, and the people at i Suppli, my regular lunch stop, are starting to prepare my suppli when I walk in the door now, long before I am near enough the counter to order it. The other side of that coin just occurred to me now, though: maybe I should 1. try to look less like I need coffee in the morning, and 2. try a different lunch place for once! Both of these seem unlikely, though, as it is the coffee that makes me look awake in the mornings, and those suppli are the best I have ever tasted...

More Italian Fashion: Accessories

Last night, while wandering around Trastevere, I found myself near Piazza Trilussa, which tends to attract large numbers of Italians. This is because it is not only in an area populated by wine bars and restaurants, but it has the one thing that attracts the bella figura more strongly than anything else: a staircase. Not just any staircase, but a wide and shallow staircase that faces the piazza and leads pretty much nowhere. The Spanish Steps are the prime example of this, and in the evenings, the beautiful people congregate there to see and be seen.

Piazza Trilussa's steps are not quite as glamorous as those in Piazza di Spagna, but they nonetheless attract many stylish locals. However, I am seem to be much further behind the trends than I thought, because last night there was a woman standing with her friends with a rabbit in her purse.

I'm familiar with the concept of tiny dogs that fit in your large handbag, but this woman was carrying an enormous white rabbit. I watched and waited for a while, but she made no attempts to perform any kind of magic tricks with it. I am forced to conclude that this bunny is her new take on the lap dog, but as a trend, I think I'll give it a pass...

Subliminal Messages

Today, as I was walking home from work at the Vatican, I passed the public telephones just outside Piazza San Pietro:


I think they are trying to tell me something...

Gladiatorial Fashion Advice

The piazza between the Forum and the Colosseum is full of men (and now women!) dressed as Gladiators and Centurions. I've written about them before, which will have to be enough of a description, since I can't take a picture of one of them without having to pay them €20 for the privilege. Suffice it to say that these are grown men and women, who sit out in front of the Colosseum all day in ancient armor, somehow making a living by yelling 'I kill your husband!' at pretty women.


Dara and I were walking out of the Colosseum today, and sure enough, one of the centurions (he had metal armor, as opposed to the gladiators, who have leather armor) started heckling us. 'Hey, bella, you take-a the picture!' he shouted at me, 'Nice picture to take home!' When I smiled and continued walking, he decided to try a different tack. 'Oho, jealous boyfriend!' he called, enough to make Dara turn around and laughingly say 'Si, yeah.' This pushed the centurion to new heights, because he looked at Dara, and said, 'Hey, you, you change-a your shoes! Those are good for Chinatown, not Roma!'

This was enough to reduce me to helpless laughter, and make Dara suddenly very aware of his plain black sneakers. I'm not sure you could call them sneakers, actually, because they wouldn't be any good for running, but they lace up and are flat with a rubber sole.

Getting fashion advice from a man in armor was a new experience, made all the more ridiculous by the accoutrements of the centurion uniform. It is not just armor, but also a helmet, which comes with one of two type of plumes: plumes that used to be a feather boa, and plumes that used to be a broom. This centurion wore the former. The ridiculous showgirl nature of his helmet was complimented by the tiny miniskirt he wore under the armor. I think these skirts get shorter and tighter every year, or perhaps the gladiator-reenactment business is suffering this year, and they all have to borrow skirts from their girlfriends. In any case, the skirt was tight and tiny, but the centurion seemed to be making the most of the gladiator sandal trend, because his shoes looked fairly well made.

The hilarity of this situation is fully appreciated, although Dara has put those shoes back in his suitcase...

P.S. I apologize for the possibly insensitive manner of recording this conversation, but this centurion had the most stereotypically Italian accent I have ever heard.

City Sound

Every city has a sound. It's more than just a noise, and certainly greater than the sum of its parts. Cities are different; Dublin sounded like buskers and rain, a lazy, happy sort of sound, but Rome sounds like people, talking, singing, selling you something, greeting each other. Perhaps it is better to describe it as a song, or a symphony, since it has tempo and rhythm, and every once in a while, a long solo.

Rome's song starts early. This morning, it began as my alarm clock, which is never a good sound for a symphony, but it quickly moved past this jarring intro to the gentle swish-swish-splash sound of the man cleaning the courtyard outside my window. While more soothing, this sound was nonetheless louder than the alarm clock, and the quick brushing sounds got me out of bed.

The movement of the morning is a larghissimo, absolutely, especially at 7am. It is not until the thick silence of the apartment is replaced by the sound of the espresso machine that this piece begins to move into the allegro phase, a transition that takes a long time, but is marked by the traffic solo and characterized by the heavy application of one of my least favorite instruments, the bus horn. The traffic solo is punctuated by cobblestones, which alert the listener that this part of the symphony (in Rome, at least) is prestissimo, the fastest part of the day. Actually, any bus ride is a reprise of the prestissimo traffic solo, and it is strong enough to induce actual fear on the tiny side roads. Despite having tiny roads, Rome sees no need for tiny buses.

Off the bus and into the Forum, we move to the adagio, my slow and stately tour route. It takes 2.5 hours to go through the Forum and Colosseum, so this is a long movement, and its main instrument is my voice, which thankfully gets the rest of the day off. I think some of my tourists might prefer if this movement were andante, at a walking pace, but I love the Forum, so it stays an adagio. Lunch is slow again; meals are always slow here, and the afternoon is much the same. Here there is actual music, not just the sounds of the city: one of my neighbors has a baby, whom she sings to sleep every day for his afternoon nap. She has a very nice voice, although her musical selection is... eclectic. Sometimes baby hears the Beatles, sometimes he hears Italian pop songs, sometimes he hears O Sole Mio, the unofficial National Anthem of Italy. Mostly, though, she sings 'My Heart Will Go On.'

The evening is my favorite part of this song, because it is the allegro grazioso; a bit fast, but graceful, full of the sounds of wine glasses and people talking, with the occasional ragazzi solo (the ragazzi are louder than anything else I have heard in Rome, including the building equipment and the Metro). This lasts long into the night, and seems to suit Rome best, because it includes almost all of the instruments except for the traffic.

It is easy to see Rome as a living, breathing thing, because nothing in it ever seems to stop. My apartment is quiet, with a little courtyard, but I can hear seagulls and someone's washing machine and the faint hum of Italian television coming from the second floor, punctuated by the occasional un-muffled Vespa speeding past the building, or one of the metal shutters being opened or closed. Every city has traffic, and birds, and washing machines and inhabitants, but in Rome these noises aren't just noises, they're the soundtrack of the city.

Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes

This is the second birthday in a row I have been fortunate enough to spend in Rome. Last year, I was flying from the States to Rome on my birthday, but this year I managed to make it over a day early, to get rid of some of the jet lag and to just crash in Casa Rolex. Dara, who you loyal readers might remember from last year's posts as the head of the tour company and il mio ragazzo, decreed that on my birthday, I would get to dictate what we did all day.

Unsurprisingly, I chose to do my favorite thing: fa una passegiata. That is, I went for a walk. A loooong walk. I live in Trastevere, which feels very central, even though it is on the opposite side of the river. We walked from the apartment to the Pantheon, past the Aventine hill and the Bocca della Verita, which Dara had never visited (shockingly). We each stuck our arms in, and were allowed to take them out again, which is a good sign. From the Pantheon we walked towards the Forum/Colosseum area, through Piazza Venezia. This piazza, frequented by me since 2007, has finally lost its dreary (if familiar) construction barriers, and the center of the square is now a beautiful area of grass and lounging people.

Other changes were in store for me, though, and some of them less welcome. Calling Rome 'The Eternal City' is fitting in a thousand ways, but there are some changes which just don't seem to work here. Take, for example, the horror that greeted me in the Forum. The oldest part of Rome, this little valley represents all that SPQR really means: temples and basilicas and arches from the Republic through the Empire, defying the passage of time and continuing to stand as momuments of the Senate and People of Rome. These ancient ruins are now accompanied by some modern scupture, most of which seems to represent very fat women curled up into balls, scattered thoughout the Forum. I don't know how long they have been there, but I hope they leave soon. It is wrong to put modern things in the Forum, it is like putting a baby bonnet on a wisened old philosopher, or covering your grandmother with glitter.

In slightly better news, the Soprintendenza is using some brand new radar/scanning equipment to survey the area of the Forum and Palatine. While this seems to have resulted in some annoying (and sometimes useless) path blockages, it is exciting to see archaeology in action. It is clearly a result of the weather damage sustained by some of the protective roofs a few months ago, because they have blocked off the whole area in front of the Curia Julia, where the Lapis Niger was found. The site is surrounded by clear glass barriers, though, so we can all see the excavations.

In the end, the changes in the Forum, both the exciting ones and the frightening ones, are not enough to change Rome herself, and I feel fortunate to be able to mark the passage of my own years by the steady continuation of this city.

And We're Back!

After a year long absence from this blog, I am making what I hope is a triumphant return to Rome and to a second aestas mirabilis, my second summer of wonders and miracles. As perhaps you can deduce from the last few posts on this blog from last year, I have been mostly in Ireland since leaving the Eternal City last summer. It was a wonderful year, but it feels just right to come back to Roma Homa, a city that somehow still feels like home.

Perhaps this feeling is aided this year by my return to another familiar location: Casa Rolex! Though Roisin is not my intrepid flatmate again this year, I think the name of the apartment has stuck. In planning this trip, I knew I wanted to come back to Casa Rolex, but this of course meant reconnecting with my Italian landlord, Riccardo. I can't remember if I ever mentioned him before, but if I haven't, let me tell you a story to give you an idea what he is like.

Back in April, I emailed Riccardo to see if Casa Rolex might be available for a longer rental period than last summer (3 months instead of 1). I was very friendly, saying he might not remember me, but that I rented the apartment before. He sent me back an email that said, "Ah, Alessandra, how could I forget you, lovely blonde girl! " For those of you who don't know me, this is made all the more amusing by the fact that I am not, nor ever have been, blonde. At least I was not wrong when I thought Riccardo was talking to my neck last year...

I am not so sure that Riccardo has noticed that I am not blonde yet, but he is at least a good and honest landlord. Casa Rolex was sparkling clean when I arrived, although the comfy chair (hideous leopard print but outrageously comfortable) was conspicuously missing. The most amusing change to the apartment, however, is the method by which one enters it. It is an old building, and the doors are all thick wood with metal reinforcements. My doors are opened by a large key, which is strong enough to unlatch the heavy metal bolt. This year, however, the key doesn't turn as well as it should, and now to open my doors, I need nothing more serious than a credit card. Not because it costs any money, but because I slide the card between the doors, pushing the bolt to the side, and push them open.

Riccardo has promised that someone will come to change the locks tomorrow or sometime (he is very vague), but I frankly can't tell how they would replace the lock without replacing the doors as well. I'm sure that will be an adventure, when (and if!) it happens, but until then, I will continue to break into my own apartment with a credit card, and hope none of my neighbors notice...