The Eternal City

Pictures of our adventures in the Eternal City may be found here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/media/set/fbx/?set=a.10150158494564333.299236.796519332

Rome is definitely the closest thing we have to Minas Tirath, the White City. If I were going to be called home to the clear ringing of silver trumpets, surely this would be the place for it. Guilaine and I have been based in a teeny tiny apartment in the heart of the old city for four days now, and we have another three until we take an overnight train (read: adventure!) to Paris to meet up with Papa Andre. Four days is practically no time at all - on Rome's vast time line it is not even a perceptible blip, so you can imagine how we've been scurrying around trying to see as much as possible.

The very first thing we did on our first morning was go on a run to get a lay of the land. This run brought us west across the Tiber (so many important dead bodies have been dragged from its depths since ancient times!) to the base of an impossibly steep hill. We paused to look at each other doubtfully, and then charged ahead, breathing like fatally wounded rhinoceroses by the time we reached the top. The eastern view was breathtaking and well worth the trouble. We turned and continued at random (having long since ditched our map), going in more than one circle and dodging between the cobbles and many off-leash, city-sized dogs. Finally we found the Aurelian Wall, built in the late 3rd century, encircling the old city. It cast a long shadow in the mid morning sun, and our sweat chilled in its deep shade. It took us down the hills (one of the seven hills of Rome??),  past complacent moped-riders, splashing fountains and old grannies, and right into Saint Peter's square. We were a little shocked to find ourselves under the huge, recognizable dome - we had been so preoccupied we didn't even see it coming. We stopped running and walked reverently across the square, flooded with tourists in disorderly lines, all orbiting around the massive fountain, whose gentle splashing was lost amid the roar. No Pope sightings, but we will have another chance tomorrow when we take an official tour of Vatican City.

Runs have definitely been a highlight for us- it is a great way to see the city. We've also taken some walks of epic proportions with notable destinations: the Appian Way and the catacombs, for one. The Appian Way is an ancient Roman road on the outskirts of the city, still paved with cobbles as big as your head. The fields spread out from this artery, colored with poppies and wisteria growing off the trees in veils, but don't be fooled. Underneath is an expansive network of tunnels, the halls of the ancient dead. We went into the catacomb of St. Castillo, final resting place of popes, martyrs, saints and lots of normal dead Roman aristocrats.

Other highlights include the Forum and the Colosseum- both were worth wading through the humanity and patiently refusing to buy parasols and fans from pushy peddlers while we stood in the ticket lines. It was amazing to think about how long these ruins have survived, but also somewhat sobering to realize how much reconstruction and salvage work had been done on them- kind of like the existential question about the old, patched pair of trousers (if you eventually replace every inch of fabric with a patch, are they still the same trousers?)

We also went to a Roman bath, which Guilaine enjoyed as a spa experience, and I enjoyed as a historical experience. First you spend an hour alternating between room temperature and 100% humidity rooms, and they give you this nice soap that is supposed to open your pores. That part was nice, and the old men in barely-there swim suits gave me the double advantage of feeling very modest and also very authentically ancient (I think their topic of conversation might have even been authentically ancient Roman: politics and women). The second part of the bath involved getting scrubbed down with a brillo-pad sort of sponge by this very intense woman who looked like my middle school gym teacher (her necklace even looked like a whistle around her neck) and then plunging into a freezing pool. On the plus side, my skin was so raw (radiant?) when I came out that I managed to make sustained eye contact with a gorgeous Italian man getting off his moped- a flirtation method Molly Obrien has been trying to teach me since 8th grade.  Mi dispiace, non parlo Italiano Signore Moped (sorry, I don't speak Italian).


While all the main events are pretty exciting, the filler time is actually probably my favorite part of the experience so far. Guilaine and I have been keeping well-hydrated with cappucino and fresh blood-orange juice. They don't do take out coffee here in Italy, you just stand at the coffee bar and have a quick drink in a real cup. It is so much nicer that way! And allows for better human interaction. Gui's Italian is so good we usually get to participate in some pretty telling conversations about Americans:
"Ah, mama mia! These Americans are crawling all over the place! And none of them even try to speak the language!"
"Ah, I'm sorry..."
"Why should you be sorry, eh? How are the pastries? They are new today..."
"Very good, I like the cream ones"
"You should have had the marmalade, the marmalade ones are much better..."

This works as long as I don't open my mouth and blow our cover, Gui just has to explain what is going on in a whisper, and I just nod and beam at them all and say "grazie" very quietly, like I am to shy to talk. The food is really stellar, especially coming out of England -I repress a shudder when I compare the fresh pasta and sweet tomato sauce with the tin-can beans on dry toast. The ingredients here are very simple, but fresh. For dinner tonight I had pasta with cheese and pepper. It was so delicious I almost didn't have room for gelato (almost). The market is worth a mention too- there are probably many in Rome, but there is one in particular close to our apartment that takes up the whole piazza, full of flowers and fresh fruit and crazy-shaped pasta.... we got a little box of tiny strawberries after our run this morning. They were all no bigger than my thumbnail, and sweet sweet sweet, with the little white blossom petals still clinging to the stems around the top.

That is all I have time for right now, yet there is so much more to Rome than I've said here. It is a bustling, vivid place, full of traditions as strange and old as the pagans, but also sights as common as a policeman (carribiniere) flirting with a group of "lost" lady tourists. As vivid and lively as it is, I am still incredulous when I stop to think how this city thrives on decaying ruins, surrounded by miles of catacombs, where the ancient dead sit enthroned.