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?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
Inauguration Day at a Torino 11-year-old's birthday party
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
Read the account of the whole evening at my other blog here: http://sarahbrowning.blogspot.com/2009/01/inauguration-day-in-torino.html
Thursday, January 22, 2009
A few notes from my journal of the past month
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:
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 rooftopsTom 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
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Villa Borghese
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
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
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Election night in Rome
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!!!
You can read my full posting on our wild night in Rome over at the other blog: sarahbrowning.blogspot.com
Woo hoo!!!
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
The Duomo
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!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
In which our blogging resumes
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!
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!
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