Rome: Week Two

Leonardo da Vinci invented the flippers, as I learned at an exhibit in the city last week. This portion of the museum was not interactive, unfortunately.

This week was very feverish and strange. I became unreasonably sick last Sunday, and spent most of the week in the hospital, pharmacy, or apartment. I read most of the Game of Thrones series (that has been released so far.) I am on book 5, and I am learning about dragons. After that is completed, I will finally finish three books (that I started and never finished, which is essentially a crime): Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, and Cryptonomicon. My goal is to have all three of these finished by the time that I re-enter the United States. Otherwise, I have failed.

Tomorrow, I will start going to all of my regularly-scheduled Italian classes again. I will eat gelato every night, because gelato is a cure-all. I started with this regimen yesterday--I had tiramisu, crema della nonna, and pistacchio siciliano.

Yesterday evening, I bought Una Lettera d'Amore (an Italian pastry called a "love letter")  at a little shop near my apartment, and I ate it, because I wanted to be made of love letters. Or at least one love letter. And now I am!

And late last night, I went out for the Notte dei Fori (the Night of the Fora), which was fascinating. The ruins were lit up in strange ways, and the Fori Imperiali was as crowded as Times Square on New Year's Eve, and there were stiltwalkers and singers and protests and all sorts of things and people. When I was walking home past il Colosseo, there was a group of guys sitting around its base, playing bluegrass on their guitars, which reminded me of home. I listened to them for a long time; it reminded me of my 4th of July in China a few years ago, where there was also unanticipated bluegrass.

There were peculiar folk about, as you can see on Stage Right above.

My dinner tonight was an enormous canolo (I can't bring myself to artificially pluralize it... cannoli... ahhh god it is vernacular but it burns) and a cappuccino. The cappuccino was a horribly touristy move, but I couldn't help it--I really like evening cappuccinos. I really like Italy. I like the fountains at the end of every alley, and how you can drink the water from the aqueducts, and all of the different colors of pasta.

Next weekend, I am going to Florence. And then, I want to go to Thailand! But I won't. Or will I?

(Probably not.)