EveryDayIsPizzaDay

Italian Markets - links to the countryside, lifeline to fresh local produce, pleasure palace

2009-10-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

A Roman Afternoon

2009-08-19T05:32:00.001-07:00

I found this in my journal, dated Rome, 10/26/08:

After seeing a Picasso show at the Vittoriana, also known as The Typewriter, we are sitting in a bar in a narrow street in the Jewish Ghetto. A massive swarm of birds is in a frantic state in the trees above us, calling and lifting and landing and lifting and spinning. We keep hearing thunder, harbinger of a rain that never comes. The sky gathers dark. The Hare Krishnas in their temple take up the chant. Bins of chocolate in the shop across the way twinkle with their beckoning shiny wrappers.

Demonstrators from the anti-Berlusconi march begin trailing past, heading home. They push strollers, they are young and old. Their banners read Un Altra Italia E Possibile. Another Italy is Possible. I grin at them as they pass. The famous Jewish fried food place is all booked for the evening. As I wait to ask, I hear the manager on the phone: 2 million people in Rome, what do you want me to do? Not possible, not for this evening, he replies when I ask and I am disappointed but more pleased that I've managed it in Italian and he didn't switch instantly to English and it was an Italian conversation.

We wander slowly, thinking we'll head to the home neighborhood for pizza, when we come out into Piazza Matthei, its sweet little fountain of four ragazzi riding dolphins and reaching over their heads for four turtles that crawl into the fountain's upper basin. An enoteca that opens to the piazza has tables free and salads and other light fare. We make up our minds to sit and eat. Our placemats tell us it's a chain. I struggle to overcome my foodie disappointment when I see that one of their outlets, in the town of Asolo, is located on via Browning.

So I laugh at myself, relax, order a glass of Prosseco, and -- of all things -- a casserole of potato and wild board ragout, topped with cheese. The guys, having had panini at the bar, order salads. And we're all happy, head home to watch Superman (the first Christopher Reeve one), on the laptop, eat Torinese chocolate we'd bought at the shop across from the bar. I fall asleep over the movie (who remembered that it was so slow??), bail out, go to bed early.

The morning dawns clear and bright. I write on the terrace as the garbage truck grinds its way through the neighborhood, the fountain in the carabinieri station across the way tinkles endlessly, neighbors put away clean dishes from last night's dinner... the neighborhood is blessedly quiet. Sunday morning at last.

Visit from the Brooklyn Crew, and Venice

2009-04-28T08:47:00.001-07:00

April seems to bring nothing but showers in Torino, but our month has been enlivened by a vist from Sarah's sister Katie and her family. One day we trudged through the rain to Trattoria Valenza, as authentic a Piemontese place as we could desire, in the Borgo Dora section of the city. Here we are hanging out with the owners, who treated us to all the rowdy hospitality they're famous for.

Grace and Sam got Italia hats at the nearby Porta Palazzo market before lunch.

After our happy meal.

We closed down the place, so one of the owners was ready for his own meal.

Dads with the son-owner in the middle.

Then, in search of sun, and the ineffable, we headed to Venice for three days.

And here it is!

About to take a gondola ride.

Katie on the gondola.

Ahh... La serenissima (at least on the boat trip - Venice otherwise was a madhouse - mobbed with tourists).

The apartment! Katie has a friend whose parents have a place - half the crew stayed here.

Venice and the Seven Dwarfs.

One of the few trees in the city.

The sweet side canals, my favorite part of the city.

Ben's carnevale mask.

Heading home on the train, with pea pod art. (Peas bought off a boat moored in one of the canals.)

Birthday Party - Ben Turns 11!

2009-04-08T09:08:00.001-07:00

We celebrated Ben's 11th birthday with a party -- first at Parco Valentino along the River Po, and then back at the apartment. Here are some photos.

A favorite Italian park activity: rent the pedal thingies.

The Parco Valentino, looking east across the swollen River Po.

Jean-Yves, who came with Ellen and kids from Switzerland for the weekend.

Simone, one of our new Turin friends, professor of Gastronomic Sciences... with wine bottle in foreground.

Birthday boy drives the pedal thing!

Jennifer, Tom's colleague at IUC and mom of Alberto.

Supercilious Tom.

Jean-Yves and Ellen enjoying the sunshine.

Alberto, Julien, Ferdi in the back seat as they're about to take off in the pedal thing.

Ben's soccer skills have really improved since coming to Italy.

The crazy Italian cake...

Birthday boy ready for cake.

Anouk and Sarah unwrapping the cake.

The cake, with marzipan race cars. Even though it's very clearly for a kid, the bakers still soaked it in rum. Cultural differences or mess up? You be the judge.

And finally, a 15-second video that places you right in the birthday action with the boys:

Weekend in Rome

2009-04-08T08:49:00.001-07:00

Bees, symbol of the Barberini family, powerhouses of the Baroque period in Rome, at Santa Maria di Aracoeli.

Random medieval tower - that's Rome...

At the Colosseum.

Pintoricchio fresco, Santa Maria di Aracoeli.

Maze with white geese at the Villa Doria Pamphilij, a park where we had a picnic.

Ben as Austin Powers at Trattoria Monti, celebrating his 11th birthday!

Cosmati floors - 12th century or so, Santa Maria di Aracoeli.

Michelangelo's Moses, with horns, San Pietro in Vincoli.

We had a fabulous weekend in Rome recently, seeing sights we'd missed in the fall, visiting with friends, luxuriating in the chaotic pleasure that is the crazy-ass Eternal City. Some pics....

Paris in the springtime

2009-03-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

A few quick pics from a recent trip. All the usual fabs: climbing the stairs of the Eiffel Tower; meandering through the neighborhood of the Marais, where Tom lived in 7th grade; terrific food; the Louvre; Notre Dame; more good food.

Atop the Eiffel Tower

Near Notre Dame

Tom and Ben at Notre Dame

Ben and Sarah at the Louvre

Ben's amazing appetizer at L'Ardoise, a Slow Food recommended restaurant near Place de la Concorde

Ben atop the Eiffel Tower

Tower flashing - really!

Scooby Doo - or his cousin - at the Louvre

With Caravaggio, at the Louvre

Just back from Switzerland, still missing Rome

2009-03-12T05:42:00.000-07:00

Medieval church, with tower and Baroque facade

from Sarah's notebook - January 2, 2009

Switzerland for Christmas – almost like a stretch in the US, only everyone speaks French: supermarkets, SUVs, malls. The huge supermarkets gleaming with products. I came home with oatmeal, peanut butter, crackers… maple syrup, even! An entire wall of yogurt. Ellen told us she couldn’t park illegally even for a minute, or she’d get a ticket. That’s Europe, she said. Not Italy, we answered, where cars cram into every available spot, even corners, blocking pedestrians – you have to walk detours around them or wedge yourself through, if you can.

I miss Rome, horribly. My niece Anouk gave us a calendar for Christmas she made with photos from her October visit. The photo for January is a view from our roof at night. It’s a bit fuzzy and distorted, giving it an impressionistic air, all the more charming. I sit and stare at it, here in foggy, freezing Torino.

How to describe it? No way. I’ll just spend my life trying to get back there. How – when it all seems a cliché? Even though it’s not, people really live there and live their crazy lives there, as they have for thousands of years. The lemons hang ripening over the high walls of the convent along one of Rome’s oldest streets: Clivo di Scauro. Follow it under the Arco di Dolabella (my guidebook says, built in 10 BC) to the church of Santi Giovanni i Paulo, wealthy brothers, converts to Christianity, who were martyred after they gave away their possessions to the poor. Rising above the massive tufa blocks of a Roman temple is one of Rome’s characteristic medieval bellow towers: seven stories of brick, with colored glass disks embedded here and there. At each level, a narrow pair of Romanesque arches. Beside the tower a Baroque façade to the 4th century church inside. And below it all, an excavated Roman street, complete with houses, shops, and temples.

Back on the street you pass under several narrow brick archways. You’re walking on Roman paving stones now, diamond shaped and worked by feet and carts and cars for centuries. In the rain they can be slippery, treacherous. Still headed downhill, off the rise of Celimontana, the street arrives at another small open area, filled with flowering bushes and green. In the center, a grassy island contains a bust of Mother Teresa and over the weeks you see nuns from all over the world in her distinctive white habit, trimmed in blue – here are the Roman headquarters of her order.

Olive trees line the road now – one day a woman is picking them into a normal 21st century plastic bag. Through the trees you spot the southern end of the Palatine Hill, the posh district of ancient Rome, across a busy avenue below. Another church rises up a lovely flight of stairs on your left. It has a portico and courtyard you can glimpse from the street. There’s more traffic here than on the Clivo di Scauro above – though still not much by Roman standards – and you have to be careful, hug the edge of the street, as there are naturally no sidewalks.

Cutting down a grassy slope brings you out at an unidentified triumphal arch, fenced off, which gathers trash week by week, until one day you pass and spot that it’s been cleaned out, only to begin gathering its plastic bottles and discarded slippers anew. You’ve emerged now from your idyll to one of Rome’s most massive and chaotic intersections: two huge avenues, eight or more lanes of traffic. Two crosswalks get you 2/3rds of the way across, but the last requires a dash through Rome’s famous traffic; somehow the planners have stranded pedestrians midway.

But the Circo Massimo is to your right – site of chariot races and source of our word, circus – the western side of the Palatine rises above it: here is the emperor’s palace, where he could watch the races without leaving home. Arches, ruins, but still visible the outlines of this excess and wealth.

FAO to the left and Circo Massimo in front, from the Palatine Hill

Directly in front of you, the 1970s excrescence of the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organization, where Tom worked for three and a half month and where Ben and I are heading for our Italian class, to use the free internet, to rent DVDs and books from the staff coop library, to visit the travel agency, to have lunch with Tom on the rooftop terrace with views across the city taking in all we’ve just walked through, plus the Terme di Caracalla, the public baths, to the south, the Colloseum, bell towers, church domes, including, across the city, the dome of St. Peter’s, and in the center of it all, disparaged by Romans and tourists alike, the Vittoriana, the Typewriter, the Wedding Cake, which celebrates the glorious 1870 unification of Italy. Rome.

Fourth Day in Turin, Missing Rome

2009-03-12T05:31:00.000-07:00

Partial view from our kitchen and living room

from Sarah's notebook, December 19, 1998

Two solid days of rain and clouds and cold. Then on the third day, yesterday, I wake in the darkness, make coffee, go to the bedroom to give Tom his cup, hang out and plan the day a bit. I go back to the kitchen after the sun has come up and discover, all across the back side of the apartment – 180 degrees – a view of snow-covered mountains. Glistening. Sparkly pink in the early light. We try to photograph it, but it’s impossible to capture.

In the afternoon, when Ben and I return from a meeting with the preside of the international public school we hope he’ll get into, we sit on the balcony and gape. The sun is warm enough we can luxuriate in just our sweaters. The sun makes me drowsy and I go catch a quick nap on the couch, the very top of one of the mountains visible even from my prone position. Then it’s back out to see the orange glow of the sunset.

We are blessed with views this trip. Because of the height (and the money that buys the height, of course) – if we were one floor lower we would not see the mountains. As it is, a skyscraper is going up right smack in the middle of our view, one of only two in the city, it seems. Wrapped in protective plastic, it’s ick. But it feels mighty ungracious to complain of this one inch that’s blocked, out of 20. My mouth stood open all afternoon in astonishment.

Funny, though, of course it made me think of our view in Rome, though it’s nothing like it. The intimacy of the centuries in that city. The medieval church towers still rise above the surrounding structures. There’s a jumble, but not an erasure, not a crowding, in our old neighborhood, at least: Monti and Celio. And other parts of the old centro.

Turin from across the River Po

Tom says Turin is like living on Via Corso in Rome, all up-scale shops. And some streets are. But there are side streets with funky boutiques, even if they are too expensive for us as well. Via Garibaldi, the pedestrian street, is like the Corso of Rome – Unfortunate, as it’s the most convenient way for us to walk. But we can find the hidden treasures, I know. Ben and I spotted a medieval church tower almost lost behind a Baroque façade. And who knows what’s inside. But the overall effect of the colonnaded streets and avenues is very appealing here, the 1882 cafes, the pharmacies since 1912 with their Art Nouveau wooden cabinets and trim. The chocolate shops. The piazzas. The mountains.

Sunrise reflected off the mountains

Favorite Uses of English in Italy

2009-01-29T03:26:00.000-08:00

Bar-Cafes:

Willy Bar

New Personal Bar

Good Times Bar

Sorry Bar

Diplomatic Cafeteria

and all-time winner of EveryDayIsPizzaDay prize for best cafe name: Ham & You

Other Items:

Foxy Toilet Paper

Stuffer Yogurt

Fatina Snack Peanuts (which we pronounce Fat in a Snack)

Of course, we can't possibly complain, as we mangle and lay waste to the beautiful Italian language on a daily basis. Tom asked an attendant in Ben's school, "Can you go to the bathroom?" and I told the cheese vendor at the stall in the market on our street that I would buy his mozarella on "the last time" (rather than the next time, as I intended). Apocalypse, anyone?

Inauguration Day at a Torino 11-year-old's birthday party

2009-01-26T04:29:00.000-08:00

We watched the inauguration on CNN on the large TV in the living room. It came via their internet cable, as the Sky satellite dish was malfunctioning. So there were frequent stutters and misses both in the picture and the sound. Moreover, a dozen or more Italian 10-year-olds were rioting through the place. At the very moment that Elizabeth Alexander began her lovely poem the kids brought out their noisemakers and began blowing – in celebration of the birthday boy, the inauguration, or for the sheer joy of making the loudest noise possible.

Read the account of the whole evening at my other blog here: http://sarahbrowning.blogspot.com/2009/01/inauguration-day-in-torino.html

A few notes from my journal of the past month

2009-01-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

Second day in Torino (12/16/08):

All of Day One it rained. And was dark. Ben and I bought fruit and salad things and cheese, salami, and bread at the outdoor market downstairs in front of our house. We unpacked. A geometer came by to measure our apartment and declare it large enough for our little family, and thus hasten our Family Reunification Visa. In fact, the apartment’s immensity continues to confound us, as we turn into a bathroom or livingroom instead of the kitchen. We rode the little toy Metro to Tom’s office and checked our email, bought train tickets to Switzerland for Christmas. We had a drink in a bar/café. We shopped at a supermarket called Crai, but managed not to cry this time over laundry detergent, the single most frustrating product in Italy. We checked each other once again for lice.

We watched Italian television, a version of Deal or No Deal that we could follow. A dubbed Fred Astaire movie with no dancing. We’ve been promised better weather.

Our third apartment in four months and I am beginning to understand the rhythm: It takes a week or so to get used to a place, to find its pattern, discover what’s missing. Here: bedside lamps, salt and pepper shakers, kitchen garbage can, an espresso maker that doesn’t express itself all over the stove. We are making our way, slowly.

Our last night in Rome, mid-December:

It’s been raining steadily and sometimes torrentially for five days. We went out last night to try to eat at a restaurant in our old neighborhood where we had had a terrific meal on our first night in Rome. But we didn’t know the name and arrived at 8:30 pm, the worst time to try to eat without a reservation on a Friday night. The owner couldn’t seat us until 10:15, so we went to Pepito’s for pizza instead.

After dinner, we walked across the massively swollen Tiber under a full moon rimmed by a thin halo of cloud. The raging water covered the sidewalks of the quais on either side, engulfed trees halfway up their flailing trunks, and came to within 10 feet or so of the arch of the bridge. Eve says barges had gotten stuck under the bridge by Castel St. Angelo – it was in the New York Times.

Having started out on foot, we decided to walk home under the auspicious full moon, including a detour up the quiet, demure Aventino holl where Tom and I stayed on our first visit to Rome in 2007. I was directing us toward a little park of orange trees with a marvelous view across the city, but sadly the gate was locked. So we had just another beautiful walk through nighttime Rome, a fitting farewell. It was midnight when we got home. Tom extracted a splinter from Ben’s finger (Ben had leapt into the air in Aventino to swat the spine of a plant that was jutting out from a raised garden above our heads, a plant that turned out to be a cactus. “One of the stupidest things I’ve ever done, Ben said) and we fell into bed.

Assisi and Spello, early December:

View from Rocha Magiore

Assisi rooftops

Tom was in DC for job interviews and Ben and I went to Assisi, home of St. Francis of Assisi, and the equally lovely neighboring hill town of Spello for the weekend with Eve and Nigel and their girls. On day one, in Assisi, we visited a medieval castle, Rocha Magiore: serveral towers to climb, a long low-vaulted passageway, very narrow, that the kids along not knowing where it went, the excitement of it sheer length and mystery. Ben says it’s his favorite thing in Italy so far. He’s sorry Tom’s not here to share it with him. He wants to visit every room, every tower, every corridor, to be sure not one spot is missed. The views from the towers are spectacular, churches and towers on hillsides across the valley. We see the jumbled town of Assisi and the Basillica below.

Hiking in the mist

The next day, in Spello, Nigel went off hiking by himself and Eve and I took the kids for a walk. Up a paved road that turned to gravel as it climbed out of the town through olive groves. We were bundled against the cold and fog in our hats and gloves and coats, thinking we were just giving the kds a chance to run a bit and giving our own legs a good stretch. But after a bit it happened: We spotted blue sky ahead and emerged out of the dense fog into the sunshine and gazed down into the wide valley full of fog and up at the mountainsides around us. We took each other’s pictures and ate snacks and lay down in the sun and soaked it up.

Olive trees, mist, blue sky

One tiny town emerged out of the fog in the middle of the valley like a fairy castle. Snow dusted the near mountains like powdered sugar on a sweet cake. We ate chocolate.

Back in town we bundled up again, though the fog was less dense now and we could even glimpse a little bit of the fabled Umbrian views down the cobbled streets. We stopped at the central stage for the Olive Oil and Bruschetta Festival going on and listened to a hipster band as they introduced one another and noodled a bit on the accordian. A smattering of other observers stood with us. The band joked about being so pleased to be here in Spello for the Bruschetta Festival, which we took to calling Toast Fest. As he was being introduced, the lead singer threw himself to the ground and thrashed, threw his tambourine into the air.

Napoli/Naples, late November:

Napoli street shrine

An incredible city: the centro is a rabbit warren of narrow winding chaotic working class streets, many supposedly pedestrian but motorcycles and mopeds race along them, charging crowds, the drivers helmetless, with their 4-year-olds riding shotgun. The two main streets of the centro were mobbed with Italian church-visiting groups and families out for Christmas shopping or simply strolling. Many were eating on the street – sfogliattelli, a flaky pastry cone filled with sweetened ricotta flecked with orange peel and cinamon, rum-soaked dough balls topped with whipped cream and, the one we tried, nutella. We spotted a crowd eating what looked like fried dough at the county fair and asked what it was: Pizza fritta, deep-fried pizza. Warm and light, not sweet, stuffed with a mild ricotta.

Napoli's narrow streets at night

I loved the feel of the city – at this time of year there were very few non-Italian tourists and very little in general that worked hard to cater to tourists. “Compared to Napoli,” I told Ben, “Rome is like Disneyland. Let me never again complain about the dirt or chaos of Rome.” Gritty is the word the guidebooks use, and I suppose it works: trash piled everywhere, every building covered in grafitti. Some rooms of the city’s main museum, which contained all the treasures taken from Pompeii, and some taken from Rome, had explanatory notes typed on index cards on 1970s typewriters, in Italian only, of course, now faded and yellow.

Two views of the Bay of Naples from Mt Vesuvius:

The gaping maw of Vesuvius' crater, and, of course, Tom, Ben, Sarah

The Villa Borghese

2008-11-26T06:32:00.000-08:00

Romans stroll about, smoking, or ride crazy on pedal carts – the sheer chaos of the place. Wild excess of the palazzo – every room decked in late Baroque frescoes, every niche filled with sculpture, the ancient, the Baroque, the merely kitsch. Italian Unification heroes on massive brass horses. Buses barreling down the avenues, dodging the pedal carts. The whole park is the massive grounds of the Borghese palazzo; really obscene wealth in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The equestrian grounds, the Piazza Siena, are a long oval filled with sand and some kind of fibrous fluff, wool or cotton, that keeps the sand down. At one end theater steps climb the hillside. As the sun sets, people sit on the stairs in the last rays and smoke, read newspapers. Children play baseball in the piazza, Ben joins in, it’s all Italo-American goofiness, surrounded by crumbling 17th century glory. Later, Ben rents a pedal cart that’s low to the ground, red, a go-cart almost, and races his new baseball friends down the paths, dodging giggling four-year-olds, driving each other off paths like squat chariot racers in Hollywood movies.

I go for a stroll, find myself on the edge of the park, a promenade on a steep cliff overlooking the Piazza del Popolo and the city. The sun is setting behind the dome of St. Peter’s, a military orchestra is playing something not very marshal, something quite charming, in the piazza below. The rooftops are tinged pink, and a murmuration of starlings is diving and weaving across the sky. We have decided to stay in Rome an extra two weeks.

- by Sarah

Election night in Rome

2008-11-06T07:40:00.000-08:00

Ben is the only child. He has begged to be allowed to come and after first saying no (as his Evil Twin emerges when he is tired), I relent. After all, what is more important to his future: A good night’s sleep so he can be alert for a one-hour Italian class and some math out of a workbook or witnessing the most historic presidential election of our lifetimes? I am so glad we are all here together – and our friend Eve – and the sweet interracial couple from Ohio who sit next to us – and the other wondrous folks in the room – and the thousands dancing in the streets of DC – and the millions celebrating around the world.

You can read my full posting on our wild night in Rome over at the other blog: sarahbrowning.blogspot.com

Woo hoo!!!

The Duomo

2008-11-04T05:55:00.000-08:00

Blog Entry—Ben Browning

As you know from the last entry, last weekend we went to Orvieto. It’s a small city, with 22,000 people, just north of Rome. Pretty much all of the city is made out of tufa, a volcanic rock that’s incredibly soft. It’s so soft, that I can’t believe the whole city hasn’t fallen down by now. And not only is the city made of tufa, but it’s on top of a tufa mountain! Because we didn’t have a car, we took the funicular, a cable car that runs straight up and down the side of the mountain. So when we got off the train, we bought our tickets and went up the funicular. We wandered around on the medieval streets until we found our hotel, and after we settled in there, we went to the first tourist destination, the Duomo.

This mind-blowing cathedral was started in 1290 AD, and was not finished for another three centuries. It was originally started in the Romanesque period, but carried on into the time of the gothic churches, so you can see a little resemblance from both periods. But mainly, the façade. Starting at the bottom, there were four huge 30-foot-tall panels of bas-relief, with scenes from the Bible. On the 1st panel, there were scenes about Adam and Eve, and then at the top of the panel, Cain and Abel. On the 2nd panel, there were some other Old Testament stories that I didn’t recognize, with something about King David. On the 3rd panel, there was the life of Jesus, and finally, the 4th panel, heaven and hell. The part about hell was awesome. There were devils smashing people’s faces while double sided snakes and dragons attacked two people at once. In heaven, people were just sitting around, which really looked like eternal boredom, not eternal bliss. I mean, if they were relaxing in sun chairs, then I’d understand. Anyway, above all of this, there were a few (not so interesting*) frescos, (*only by my opinion) surrounding a circle of anonymous sculpted heads, and in the middle of all of these, the head of Jesus.

On the sides of the church, the stone pattern was striped, black and white. The pattern continues on the inside of the church, much simpler than most of the basilicas and other churches in Rome. Part of the gothic style is pointed arches. The arches in the Duomo must have been built in the Romanesque period, because they are not pointed. The ceiling isn’t that interesting. Ugly cross-hatched boards cover the ceiling, most likely a restoration. But the floor is something. Another amazing mosaic floor done by the Cosmati family, complete with a cool M.C. Escher style pattern right in front of the altar. There is also a stained glass window visible as soon as you walk inside.

But probably the coolest part about the inside of the church is the chapel on the right. Here’s some pictures:

As you can see, this chapel is really cool. There were scenes about the end of the world, where God kills everyone and they all get sorted: they go to heaven, or they go to hell. There were scenes of people emerging from the ground. Pretty much all of it was about the Last Judgment. After we went to the Duomo, we ate lunch, went in this cool place called underground Orvieto, and then we climbed up a tall tower. I’ll tell you about that in my next entry. Bye!!!!!!!!

In which our blogging resumes

2008-10-22T06:59:00.000-07:00

From our terrace.

And again...

Apologies for the long silence. Ben and I just finished three weeks of intensive Italian classes at a school called ItaliaIdea: three hours a day, five days per week. Plus homework! At the same time, Ben started tennis lessons two afternoons per week, after Italian class. So suddenly, we found most of our time spoken for.

It was a bit bizarre for me – except for the occasional poetry workshop, which doesn’t really count, this was my first time in school for over 20 years. Imagine my surprise in actually finding the class fun! My French (and four years of high school Latin) came in handy, plus a classroom ethic that encouraged improvisation rather than perfection. So I would try a French word with an Italian accent and 9 times out of 10 would be pretty close. I can now say such useful phrases as, “No, I don’t like Bush, I hope Obama…” and “We are returning to Rome this evening. May we leave our bags here for the day?”

It was a long stretch for Ben each day, but he did marvelously. He is a perfectionist of the first order, and so has all the irregular verb forms memorized, even when he can’t remember what they mean. Now, we both need to find ways to practice, practice, practice.

Our class was an interesting group: an accountant in her 20s from Chicago whose fiancé is here studying art; an oil engineer from Venezuela vacationing in Italy and using part of her time to study the language; a graduate student in finance at one of the US universities that has a Rome outpost; and a sweet 17-year-old half-Italian barber from a tiny village in Wales. He promises to do some creative barbering on Ben, perhaps a thunderbolt above one ear… We’ll post pictures if it comes to pass.

The same day we started class, all of us suffering horrible colds, we moved to our spectacular new apartment in a little neighborhood named Celio, next to the Colosseum. The 12-foot ceilings are a great antidote to the head-cracking garret of our first month and we have beautiful composite marble floors and two bedrooms. No more living room sleeping for Ben. The real highlight of the place, though, is the palatial terrace, with views west and a gorgeous sunset every evening. From one corner, and from the living room desk where I now sit, we can see the Colosseum. From elsewhere, medieval church bell towers, the back of the Palazzo Venezia, some random ruins, trees, rooftops. See sunset photos… From our bedrooms, now that the days are shorter, we have lovely sunrises over the back courtyard and a tiny peak of the back of the statues on top of San Giovanni in Laterano, one of the great basilicas of Rome and home to the papacy until it moved to Avignon. When it returned, the popes moved their headquarters to the Vatican.

We’ve continued to have gorgeous weather – too hot, the Romans say, but we benefit, luxuriating in the sun and eating all our meals on the terrace. I’m sure the cool weather will come soon, but in the meantime we get all the advantages of Indian Summer. The tourists are still here in hordes, especially it seems, large groups of middle-aged Germans, following a guide with a red scarf on a stick or, in one instance we saw, a tiny wooden Pinocchio. Living by the Colosseum of course we see them in greater number, but the residents of the neighborhood still seem to be primarily Italian and the café/bar downstairs is mobbed with elderly Italians playing the lottery every evening.

A couple of translation joys: A sign inside the elevator of the building housing our Italian class: “Please get up over three persons. Thank you. The Direction.” And on a menu posted outside a Trastevere restaurant (whose blackboard says, “We are against the war and the tourist menu!”) “Chicken breast milk and lemon.” Ew, we said, until we remembered that chickens are not mammals and do not suckle their young.

Ben will be posting about our recent trip to Orvieto. Gorgeous! On the way up we shared a four-seat with the Italian women’s karate champion, headed to the world competition to defend her title, her last year, she told us, as she’s now 34. On her cell phone she showed us a photo of her scoring a point against her instructor.

More soon – so much to catch up on!

Food and more food

2008-09-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

Trastevere chcocolate shop... yum.

And now, a bit of a gastronomical report. Saturday we spent in the old section of our neighborhood, Trastevere. It is made up of winding, sweet narrow streets and tiny piazzas, furniture restoration shops, dark and narrow, boutiques, and countless pizzerias and trattorias. We had determined to have a real restaurant meal for lunch and scoured our multiple guidebooks. Apparently seafood is a Trastevere specialty so, debating between two places, we asked advice of Dermott, who owns the English-language bookstore, Almost Corner Bookshop. He nixed them both and recommended instead Belli, named for the 19th century Roman satirist GG Belli, a Trastevere native who wrote in the Roman dialect.

Despite the local name, however, the Belli owners are Sardinian; who might know seafood better? And we weren’t disappointed: muscles in butter and garlic to die for, with the addition of small red hot peppers to sharpen the flavor (Ben’s favorite!); “Sardinian noodles” with mushrooms in an artery-clogging cream sauce; a lovely simple turbot with slices of fried potatoes and a lime to squeeze over it (who thinks of lime in Italian food? The Sardinians, apparently…); a seafood salad of squid, shrimp, and green olives, also in lime; and finally, though it was listed as a main course, a grilled plank of cheese doused in a rich flavorful honey. All washed down with large steins of Sardinian beer (and bubbly water for Ben). Street musicians, a cool breeze, the spectacular St. Maria in Trastevere church with its 11th century mosaics right around the corner…. Sigh.

Other unusual foodie items so far: pizza with zucchini flowers, anchovies, and fresh mozzarella; rice gelato (tastes like rice pudding!); and a fantastic flaky pastry horn filled with hazelnut cream. Haven’t tried the potato pizza yet, which is everywhere – saving it for the next time we need to carbo load. Given the restaurant prices, we’ve been eating in a lot, enjoying the fresh produce that is so much in abundance at the moment: mammoth heads of lettuce and nutty arugula, red and yellow peppers (haven’t seen many green ones, interestingly enough), sweet carrots, and tomatoes of all sizes and varieties.

Big news on the domestic front: Much as we like our garret, it is just too small without the large balconies we thought we’d be enjoying (instead they can hold one chair, if you angle a bit and don’t stretch your legs). So, thanks to Eve and Nigel’s excellent relations with their new neighbors (our new landlady lives in their building), as of October 1, we will be moving to a 2-bedroom apartment with a gorgeous, huge terrace with a view of the… Coliseum! Stay tuned for reports from the great Roman outdoors.

And more photos!

2008-09-19T07:05:00.001-07:00

The Circus Maxentius on the Appian Way, looking just like the early 19th century engravings of ancient ruins... all this right in Rome, on the 118 bus line.

Ben and Hazel on the ancient Appian Way.

The lies come spilling out eventually.... (Actually, it's the sun - how cool is that?)

The Bocca della Verita has already done its dastardly worst!

Run out and rent Roman Holiday, if you haven't seen it lately!

Fountains everywhere -- the water is delicious. This one needs no caption: we call it Fountain of the Balls.

Scroll down for Ben's most recent -- on the omnipresence of mortality in Rome...

Ben on Death, Roman Style

2008-09-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

What you are we used to be;
What we are you will be…

My Mom and I were with our friends, Eve, Olive, and Hazel, in the crypt of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception when we read this plaque. We were standing in front of an amazing display of bones that came from the Capuchin monks. The monks lived from 1528 to 1870. The bones were in all sorts of arrangements, including chandeliers, wreaths, altars, cherubs, and even the grim reaper! We couldn’t take pictures in the crypt, so we got a post card with a picture of the grim reaper on it.

A few days later, we were with our friends again, this time Eve’s husband Nigel was with us too. So was my dad. We were at the catacombs of the Christians that dated back to the third century. They were just outside of Rome, because the Romans didn’t let the Christians bury themselves inside the city. So after listening to a long but interesting description of the catacombs, we took an ancient staircase down into them. It was made from a volcanic rock called tufa. Although you would think that the Romans would have attacked the catacombs, they did not. It was considered a taboo, which is basically something that is forbidden. But we didn’t see any bones. They were moved out of the catacombs by the Barbarians in the 5th century, when the Roman empire fell. It was still cool, though!

Video Comes to the Blog - Baths

2008-09-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a big day and Tom's first day of art-architecture-antiquity in Rome (since we'd spent the first weekend going to 1. the beach and 2. the flea market). First, we went on our own to the Terme de Caracalla, the remains of massive baths from the second century. I'm posting a movie here. It's not in the least bit fancy, but it will give you a sense of the enormous size of the structure -- some of the arches are 98 feet tall! There were huge soaking tubs and swimming pools, all the rooms decorated with mosiacs and statues. The statues were all plundered by the Farnese family in the 16th century and ended up in a museum in Naples (due to the marriage of a Farnese to a Bourbon king -- ah, Italian history...) but there are bits of the decorative mosaic on display at the site, along with complete floors. I'll get some photos up once the movie's done loading.

(I look extremely peeved at first... please ignore this bad behavior and concentrate on the antiquity surrounding me...)

We later joined our terrific new friends Eve and Nigel and their girls Olive and Hazel for a long walk around the ancient Appian Way and a descent into early Christian catacombs. Ben is planning to blog about the catacombs for his next entry. I can say that the Appian Way area is lovely -- open parkland of rolling golden hills, a few working farms, ruins here and there, lizards, paths, low mountains in the distance. We finally have the beautiful fall weather we were promised -- warm sun, cool breeze, lots of light. Phew!

A few more photos from Roma

2008-09-08T06:19:00.001-07:00

Statue of St. Cecelia in the church of the same name, 17th century, by Maderno. He even includes the hack marks on her neck...

Hadrian's epitaph - to read the English, see Ben's entry below.

The castle!

These suckers are heavy! At the Castel San'Angelo.

Goofing it up over lunch.

The drain inside an ancient basin in the crypt at St. Cecilia's church.

Italy Blog entry #2 – Ben

2008-09-05T08:25:00.001-07:00

The view from our apartment!

Ben and the catapult

On our second day of exploration, we changed our plans due to the need for a cell phone, since there is no phone in our house. We were planning to visit a church full of mosaics, but since we were on the wrong side of the neighborhood after our visit to the cell phone shop, we ended up going to Castel Sant’Angelo, built as the mausoleum for the emperor, Hadrian (138 AD). He built his own since the other one where the other emperors were buried was full. Can you imagine building an entire castle just to bury yourself?! The mausoleum of Hadrian, renamed Castel Sant’Angelo in 590 AD, was renamed when the pope at the time suddenly had a vision of an angel floating over the castle. It was during a parade to pray for the town. The parade was to hopefully end the long wave of plague, a disease brought over from rats with fleas.

It was mobbed. The bridge leading to the castle must have had 300 people on it. As we entered the castle, we walked up a long windy ramp filled with display cases on the left. There were sections of the original tiles that lasted nearly 2000 years. 1 tile had popped out. I picked it up to take home as a souvenir, but put it back. The last thing you want to do is misplace ancient stuff in Rome.

We finally got to the burial chamber. His epitaph (which he wrote himself) was carved into a stone plaque on the wall. Translated into English it goes something like this:

“Vague, wandering soul
Guest and companion of my body
prepare now to descend to places pallid
rigid and bare
your play at last has ended.”

Then we entered a room full of statues and carvings of Hadrian and some other people. In the room next door a video was showing about old Roman and Egyptian stuff. It was in Italian, but we could understand pretty well.

We walked up some steps and came to a bar with a balcony. We got a bottle of water and enjoyed the nice view of Rome. Then we walked up another set of stairs to the terrace. What a view! We could see the river, the coliseum, the Vatican, and all of old Rome. The pope lives in a big house.

Lastly, we went back to ground level and checked out the cannonballs. They were from 138 AD but the catapult was from some time later in the medieval period. We splashed our faces with cold water, filled up our water bottle, and caught a tram back home.

In which Sarah and Ben begin to blog...

2008-09-05T08:19:00.000-07:00

Ben and Sarah hope to post dispatches about our Italian lives every week or so - maybe more frequently, maybe less...

Here is Sarah's first entry, below. (We forgot to put photos on our flash drives to bring to the Internet place, so they'll have to go up tomorrow or whenever we're next on. Sorry!)

We arrived in Rome four days ago. We expected to be living on the edge of Trastevere, an old funky neighborhood with winding medieval streets, ancient cheese shops, English-language bookstores, and masses of tourists. We find ourselves a bit further out than we thought we’d be, and on a broad, noisy avenue of mostly ugly, recent, 9- and 10-storey buildings. We have to take a tram up to Trastevere proper and our neighborhood doesn’t have the quaint, old quality we had hoped for.

However, there are several advantages: Most everyone in the neighborhood is a Roman, rather than a tourist or a student. And the prices are MUCH more affordable. While we’ve been startled by prices at the places that cater to tourists (13.50 Euros for two beers and an orange soda at an outdoor café about $20), we’ve been pleasantly surprised here in the ‘hood. Shopping at the local supermarket is an especially salutary experience: A massive head of very fresh lettuce for the equivalent of 75 cents; a large package of coffee for $2.25. (Tom says food is subsidized here; of course it is in the US, too – but only the crap that can be made from corn syrup: soda, Twinkies, and the like.)

We’ve had delicious cheeses, olives, and salamis from delis; fresh pasta from across the street; gelato to die for in our own freezer, left behind by the previous tenant (with the exception of chocolate with hot pepper). We’ve had two dinners out – a nouveau place our first night, with creative fish and pasta creations, and an excellent neighborhood pizza place last night, called Pepito’s. We keep heading out too early, though, taking the Romans at their word when the sign says that dinner begins at 7:30 pm. Instead we’re told to come back at 8 or 8:15. We’ll adjust, I’m sure, but in the meantime our American stomachs complain.

The biggest challenge so far is struggling with the language, followed closely by the intense heat. Ben and I have had long days of schlepping around the city on excursions, unable to find the right bus stop, overshooting our stop once we get on, and generally wearing ourselves out in the heat. We have seen some terrific sights, though. Our first day: The Church of St. Cecilia, built over the 2nd century home of this saint who was martyred for her beliefs. First she was locked in her caldarium (where they heated the water for the baths, presumably) to suffocate. Instead she sang for three days, thereby becoming the patron saint of music. When she didn’t die in all that time, they hauled her out and chopped her head almost off. Again, she wouldn’t die… and was left out on the street in agony where eventually she bled to death. A marvelous statue by Maderno (1618) shows her body as it apparently looked when it was disinterred in 1599, hack marks and all.

There is also a stunning 10th century mosaic above the apse; a 2nd century crypt that still shows Cecilia’s baths and the sarcophagi of later centuries; and a hard-to-find 13th century fresco by Cavallini in the singing porch above the nave. Our guide book said to ring the bell to the left of the church door. There was no sign, just a bell and an intercom. So I rang the bell and when I heard a woman’s voice, called back, “Fresco? Cavallini?” and was immediately buzzed in. There, just inside the door, was a little office from which emerged a tiny, ancient nun, who requested another 2.50 Euros each from us. When we admired a collection of hand-painted greeting cards, she announced proudly that she had painted them all and they only cost one Euro. There is no way to refuse a nun in a situation like that, especially when it reminds me so thoroughly of my English Auntie painting greeting cards to sell for 50P for the restoration of the roof of her village church. So we are the proud owners of a nun-painted card.

A few other tourists had joined us in the church proper and in the crypt but we were the only ones in the singing porch, admiring the technicolor angels. It was a peaceful way to begin our Roman sojourn, especially compared to our next day’s visit to Castel Sant’Angelo, the belly of the tourist beast. Phew!