Bella Roma!

After working for a whole week I decided I needed some time off, so I went back to my favorite place, Rome. I arrived on Saturday evening, got to my house and dropped off my things, then headed to my friend Gerry's house for dinner. Of course I was late for dinner but when I arrived Maria had the lasagne waiting for me, followed by the second course of meat and salad. They also had another American guest that night, an English teacher from the school where Maria works named Tony. We had a nice meal and spoke a little English this time, but I don't think I'm needing to speak English just yet, I'm still feeling ok with the Italian, although I don't feel that I'm speaking it very well yet I am understanding it a little better and want to stick with it.

The next day I met Gerry at the train station to go to a motorcycle show on the outskirts of town. We got there and there were plenty of people and motorcycles. I was hoping to see a lot of new models that I've never seen, since there are many different models in Italy that we don't have in the states, but despite a few differences it was pretty much like the last show I went to in California, and not really exciting. It was fun to get out though and spend some time with Gerry.

The next couple days were spent catching up on some things that needed to be done, like washing clothes, which I never look forward to, not to mention it takes all day for the clothes to air-dry, then everything is hard and loose fitting. I also started jogging in the park next to my house. The weather turned nice and the days were sunny, so it was nice to get outside and work up a sweat.

I finally managed to get out and see the historic center of the city and see some of the main attractions. It was nice to see these things again, they're always amazing to see no matter how many times you see them. Rome always feels so good to me. I've literally had dreams about the moment I found myself here again and it was overwhelming, but now I'm awake and really standing here, surprisingly I'm not overwhelmed at all. I think it's because I always knew I would be here again.

I spent a couple other evenings with Gerry after he got off work, and I even cooked one night and invited the Russian girl staying downstairs at the house, but towards the end of the week I started to get a little bored and was feeling a bit lonely. I honestly didn't feel like doing much, maybe because I've been on the go non-stop since about three weeks before I came to Italy and this was the first time I didn't have something that I had to do. Maybe I needed a break I guess, but I was in Rome, so I made sure I went out on my last night there. I went to my favorite place to spend an evening, Trastevere, which is the part of town that you find across the river outside of the city center, as the name suggests in Italian. It was Saturday night and there are always hundreds of people in the streets, hanging outside of bars and restaurants and having fun with friends, it's a great atmosphere. I went to a restaurant that I'd seen the night before called Cencio' la Parolaccia. I don't know what the first part means, but parolaccia means "bad word", so I was interested to see what was inside. I got to the door and told the lady I wanted a table for one, so she opened the door and hollered to the back if there was a table and they waved me in. I entered the room, it was crowded with people and there was basically an isle down the middle for me to walk to the back, but first I was greeted by a short stubby guy holding a microphone and entertaining the crowd. He made sure everybody saw me come in, then made a comment about me eating alone and poor guy or something like that as I passed by. Then he asked me where I was from and when I said California he got all excited and said "CALIFORNIA!", and everybody seemed to like that, then he continued to lambaste me as I walked to the back of the restaurant to take my seat at an empty table for eight. I sat down and they just started to bring me some food, there was no menu, it was just a fixed price menu. I started with an antipasto of cured meats and cold veggies, then a plate with two types of pasta, folled by another plate with turkey, pork, chicken and sausage, plus salad and bread, and the beer and wine was also included, which was good because it all cost 45 euro. After I got seated the guy on the mic hollered back to me "California how are you!?" I said I was good, then he asked me if I spoke Italian, I said I did a little, then he followed with a rude coment and went on to something else. I couldn't understand what he said, but I know the word culo when I hear it, and everybody laughed again. With me not at me, right? Not long after I sat down, more people came in and they seated three Roman girls with me at the table, then filled the rest of the seats until the place was full. One of the things they do different in Italy is that they will sit strangers right next to each other at the same table, often even if there are plenty of empty tables available, it's strange, but you get used to it, and it's a nice way to meet people I guess. The girls were young, one of them was having her 19th birthday, and neither of them had ever been to this restaurant before. The waiters wasted no time in embarassing them too and they were quite surprised by some of the things that were said. Unfortunately I couldn't understand everything so it took some of the fun out of it, but I still had a great time and I'll definitely go back, but only after I've improved my Italian enough to talk back.

Overall I had a nice time in Rome, even though I feel as though I could have done more with my time there, I think I just needed a rest. But enough of that, I now have a couple days to find an apartment in Florence before flying to Belgium....

Ok here's a new thing for me, video.  Click the link below to watch it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJj6ikFcSws

(tastes even better than it looks)