As far as my days go you get three in one post this evening , lovely readers.
Three for the price of one, which reminds me of Hustle, which makes me feel a) jealous of everyone currently enjoying Lancaster’s freshers week, and b) sad that I’m unlikely to be going back anytime soon. And also a smidgeon of, c) i.e., for goodness sake! Look outside remember where you are! The colosseum is ten minutes walk away you fool, you can practically see it out of your window! IT’S BETTER THAN BEING IN ELEMENTS.
However. I hope you’re all having an amazing time; I already miss being a student.
And with that I will begin recounting my week... scroll down to read Monday & Tuesday first :)
Wednesday 5th October
After yesterday being so exhausting, I decide to relax a bit today. I write this blog whilst in bed before breakfast, then sat up my laptop in the hotel reception. Still not really sure where the best place to Skype is –neither reception nor the Bellomo’s apartment exactly offers privacy.
I email Geeta about the buddy system for Katha, so hopefully this will be set up soon.
After a bit more blogging, it’s time for me to find my way to Largo Argentina to meet Aaaaashley from Detroit for lunch.
***
Finding the bookshop where we are meeting is actually pretty painless, and I arrive with forty minutes to spare. Sit by the centre of the square, which is full of ruins and as far as I can tell from the information provided has been burnt down and rebuilt and burnt down again numerous times over its long, long history. A monk walks past, on an Iphone. This is a sight I can honestly say I never thought I’d see, even in Rome.
Have a wander around the square and find what is possibly my favourite Roman discovery yet, a shop setting vintage art calendars, notebooks and huge embossed hardback books with titles like ‘A Celebration of French Women’ and ‘Vogue: Collections Through Time’. There is a large selection of books on art, particularly Warhol, Kandinsky and Jack Vettriano. Resist the urge to buy the entire shop, but think I shall definitely be making a trip back there on payday. Every visitor to Rome with a mild interest in art should look it up; it’s called Arte 5 and can be found on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, just off Largo di Torre Argentina.
I meet Ashley and her friend Laura (also from Detroit) and we go to a cafe for lunch. The only way to describe the place would be ‘rustic’ –our table is so wobbly that the trays hardly balance on it, and when we move to a less precarious table Ashley moves her chair backwards, the leg disappears from under her and when I look up down she has fallen into a grate. This is not a good start, but the food (stuffed tomato, patatas bravas, roast veg salad) makes up for it – just about.
After lunch we go to an oriental shop on the corner of Largo di Torre Argentina, which sells everything from incense and joss sticks to children’s toys. I buy a pair of shoes (11 euros!) and then we go our separate ways; Ashley back to work, Laura to Palazzo Venezia, and me to attempt to find the bus stop on the other side of the road (it’s harder than it sounds).
***
Alberto is on B&B picking up duty today, and there is a noticeable difference when they come out of school –they’re calmer, less whiny, more in the mood for doing as they’re told. We go to the orange garden, where we buy freshly roasted chestnuts from the most Italian looking old man I’ve ever seen, and I teach Bene a clapping song –the old classic ‘A sailor went to sea sea sea’. She loves me for a few minutes, so much so in fact that she absolutely will not let her friend Olivia near me to learn the sailor song. A then I throw her (empty) juice carton in the bin and she has a fit; for the rest of the time we are in the park I am shot filthy looks, and then she won’t hold my hand on the way back to the car. Cest la vie. I hold hands with Bea instead, who is behaving for once better than her sister.
***
In the car, Alberto’s views on gender come out again (yesterday he stated the classic, ‘men are only interested in balls and women. Girls, they like everything –I have to buy Barbie and Spiderman!’ I’m pretty sure he meant football.) Today, he bemoans Italian women drivers, because, ‘They have no awareness of the space! They stop, and start, and stop. My wife, she drives like this, and she puts the children’s jumpers on and blocks everyone’s path!’ Pause. ‘I think it is only Italian women. Not all women.’
After bathtime (thankfully not too horrendous tonight) Bea draws me a picture of a watch, demands that I cut it out, and then attaches it to my wrist. Dinner is salmon, and then I end the day with a three-way Skype with two of my very favourite people, Katy and Melissa. Was so, so good to speak to them – massive love.
Exhausted now and still need to post this so shall sign off,
xxx
Tuesday 4th October
This morning requires me to go to the police station to declare that I am here. ‘If you are a terrorist or a drug seller they will come quickly,’ Alberto tells me as we leave the hotel.
‘Because,’ Lidia adds, ‘terrorists always travel with the right documents and always declare themselves at police stations.’ Hohoho, nice bit of sarcasm in the morning is always welcome.
Whilst we are waiting for the police to scan my passport and satisfy themselves that I am not a terrorist/ ‘drug seller’, we head across the road to a tiny boutique to ‘look at boots for Beatrice and Benedetta’. It is a veritable baby Monsoon, full of beautiful, miniature sweatshirts, boots and woollen dresses. Lidia spends a lot of time carefully examining woollen knitwear and winter boots, before selecting two jumpers, both of which are stripy and French-looking. She buys boots too –she doesn’t like them, she tells me, but at 15 Euros down from 70 it doesn’t matter. And they are real leather.
She then points me in the direction of the Asian market (well, we are in Chinatown) which sells all manner of foods and clothes. I can’t pretend that I’m wholly impressed with it – the area is dirty and the market reminds me more of Queensgate in Huddersfield than anything we found in India.
Afterwards I sit in Vittorio Emanuele II Piazza for a while before heading back to the apartment for a lunch of breaded whitebait (a whole school of it), and tomato salad. Alberto apologises for the whitebait –it is ‘a cheap fish, but healthy’. Won’t believe me when I say I actually like it.
Decide to head to Santa Maria Maggiore after lunch –Lidia has asked twice if I’ve been, but I somehow left it out of yesterday’s church tour. It’s an interesting church, and it was good to see Bernini’s tomb, since from what I’ve read he was responsible for building half of Rome. It took a while to find –if anyone is ever looking in the future, it’s actually a plague on the floor in the righthand corner at the back of the church.
***
B&B have gymnastics after school, and then it’s the already painful ritual of bathtime, then dinner –meatballs, pasta, spinach – and then the obligatory five stories before I’m free. Bea is a little horror tonight, and after I make her perform the collected bedtime tasks that she feels are beneath her – putting pyjamas on, brushing teeth, etc - she collapses onto the sofa, gives me a filthy look, and says quite plainly, ‘England es ugly. Roma es boootiful!’
Bit uncalled for, but ok.
Too tired to Skype wench as planned, which makes me very sad.
<3
Monday 3rd October
This morning I decide to dispense with the map and go for what I will freely admit is a fairly aimless wander. My first destination ends up being a church on Via Merulana. After many attempts, I fail to find out what the church is called. It’s clear it isn’t one of Rome’s major basilicas, however, just from its size, and the fact that I am almost the only person there –no Japanese tourists, amazingly. An old man is sat in the pew opposite, reading a Bible with a magnifying glass and looking mildly perturbed. A monk a grey cassock is also floating around (not in a ghostly way –he’s just walking up and down the pews), and a male cleaner is hoovering the floor. The church is pretty ornate, as per Catholic tradition. Frescos depicting the Virgin atop clouds are all over the walls. A programme on the seat in front of me reads ‘Messa per la cerimonia di inaugurazione del busto del Beato Jacques Desire Laval’ – 2 Ottobre 2011. ‘Guide for the ceremony of inaugerization of the bust of beatified Jacques Desire Laval’ –I’m guessing? This ceremony must have taken place last night, but I can’t see the bust in question anywhere.
I can feel a sneeze encroaching in my nasal passages. Is it blasphemous to sneeze/ blow your nose in church?
As I am trying to leave, brilliantly through the wrong door, the cleaner stops hovering for a second and blesses my soul.
I head up the hill, taking a few photographs (yes, I like buildings. Especially when they are pink and covered in green ivy) and after a few minutes reach the remains of part of the city wall, which has a line of vespers parked in front of it. So far, so Italian.
Next I find myself in front of another church, which seems to be more of a tourist hotspot. Middle aged Japanese are flocking around in abundance, ‘oooohing’. When I go in I discover that it contains the Holy Steps. My ignorance of religion comes into play here, when I see that there are large numbers of people kneeling on the steps, apparently in prayer. I then realise that they are climbing the steps on their knees –because Christ (reputedly) ascended the steps on foot, every visitor thereafter must do so in a respectful manner. So, on their knees.
I decide to skip this ritual, and come to sit in Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, a large, flat expanse of grass in front of (do you see a pattern emerging yet?) another church. This one is emblazoned with, amongst sculptured dedications to various saints, the words ‘Cristo Salvatori’ – ‘Christ the Salvation’?
Inside, I learnt that it is San Giovanni in Laterno, known as ‘The Pope’s Cathedral’. It is filled with massive statues of the saints, imposing alters, and has an extremely intricate plated gold ceiling –as per.
Leave and head up the Viale Carlo Felice, a long and alarmingly straight (Roman, then) road, that has at the end of it what I expect to be my final church of the day, that of Benedict XIV. It is a lot darker and more sinister inside this one – I can hear a sermon or prayer of some kind going on behind its hallowed walls. Once again I try to get out of the wrong door (why are churches confusing me so much today?) and once again am blessed by the guard.
Next door is the Museo Storico dei Granatieri, which sounds more like my kind of place – unfortunately it is only open between 9am and noon, which is exactly now. I decide to head back down Viale Carlo Felice and stop for a drink/ quick read at a cafe on the corner, before making my way back to the apartment for lunch.
***
Whilst waiting for the pasta to cook I spend a while researching and planning my various Roman cultural outings for the next few weeks. I am most excited about the Jewish quarter and the art galleries and shopping around Via Guilia. Alberto tells me that he has never seen a pink laptop before, and then makes an oh-so-witty remark about whether I need to rub stones and twigs together to make a fire before it will turn on? Well, haha. Yes, I’m full aware that my laptop is a monstrous dinosaur from way back in the dark ages (of 2008). Chill out please. I prefer to think of it as retro.
He then tells me that he likes a bit of Nabkov himself, and recommends the Stanley Kubrick version of Lolita. So laptop bullying may be forgiven.
At 3.45pm we set off to pick up B&B from school, which Lidia says is on Aventine, the ‘poshest’ of Rome’s seven hills. The houses certainly are luxurious, and the school is unbelievably cute –kindergarten consists of two green chalets, both decorated with the Italian flag. We collect Bea, and she sprints off to find her sister –who squeals in delight and runs out of the classroom (I think before the lesson is finished) when she sees us.
Rome’s famous ‘Through the Keyhole’ is just opposite the school. It’s on my list of things to do, so I’m glad it can be ticked off now. It consists of a hole in a large door, set into a wall. Looking through, you can see a very straight path through orange tress that leads directly to St. Peter’s Basilica. B&B climb all over the doors, whilst I take this in.
On the way to the orange garden we stop at two more churches (this must be some kind of record). One of them, the San Alessio, is a popular location for weddings –it’s so rustic, I can see why. The other, San Sabina, Lidia tells me is possibly the oldest church in Rome. A board outside reads that the date isn’t clear, but has been predicted as some point in the early 5th century AD.
Onwards to the orange garden, another of Rosa’s recommendations. The view is amazing, taking in the Tiber, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Jewish Synagogue as well as the ‘toilet of Rome’ –a large white building, which whilst being impressive hardly fits in with its surroundings. No one seems to know what this building actually is. In July Alberto told us it is where Romans go to honour the unknown soldier, Lidia doesn’t understand the question and keeps saying it isn’t considered historical because it was only built in 1900, and a sign outside says it contains the National Museum –which also doesn’t align with the museum’s location on Google Maps.
We don’t stay at the garden long because none of B&B’s friends are there, so after a quick stop off at a bookshop (Dickens, Wilde and the Brontes translated into Italian - wow) we go to another playground. B&B occupy themselves sufficiently for a while, especially after they find a listening horn that means they can yell at each other from opposite ends of the climbing frame. The ‘Hellooooo Loooosyyy!’/ ‘Hellooooo Bea!’/ ‘Hellooooo Loooosyyy!’/ ‘Hellooooo Bene!’ routine goes on for quite a while.
Back at the apartment it is bathtime, which I will say as little about as possible, apart from that I was fully unaware of how 5 year olds could switch between being angelic and weepy and bratty back to angelic in such a short space of time. After this ordeal the storybooks come out again –they are marginally weird tonight. A picture book designed to teach English does so by putting pictures in place of some of the words. Fair enough, if the pictures weren’t so obscure that even I couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. ‘Harmonica’ and ‘hacksaw’ are not essential vocab words, in my opinion. But still, not as weird as Little Yellow and Little Blue (nothing is).
xxx
No comments:
Post a Comment