Donde Esta La Biblioteca? Otra Vez

How do you even begin to talk about Rome? It’s the most astonishing environment I’ve ever been thrown into. Modern civilization seems out of place, like a middle-schooler hanging out at a bingo hall. Although the city has been so many different things over the past 5,000 years, it doesn’t feel like it used to be anything. It still is all of those old places, just stacked up on each other like Kerbey Lane Cafe® pancakes. In Rome the past just refuses to go away.

While in Rome, we did as Diana Battisti did. She was our fourth Servas host and as amazing a Roman as we could have asked for. A fellow vegan, she sympathized with our soya gelato needs and took us straight to her local gelateria. Her and her mom are both passionate, strong-willed, and opinionated women. Diana seems to love every minute of meeting new people, and her presence ensures that conversation will be free flowing and anything but dull. No disrespect to our elders, but it was fun to stay with someone only four years our senior.

You can thank our time in Italy’s capital for the sluggish progression of this blog. I think I forgot I even had a computer as soon as we landed. The first few days you spend about 25% of your time staring, 35% taking pictures of whatever you just stared at, and the rest drinking wine. Aside from the big tourist sites we got to do a lot of ‘off the beaten path’ type stuff.

Diana’s friend hooked us up with a rare guided archaeology tour of some Mithras Temple ruins not open to the public. Either everyone else on the tour was a pseudo-archaeologist amazingly familiar with the complex history of Mithras, or they did a damn good job of acting like it. Lauren and I, however, only vaguely remembered the name of this strange cult from a few drowsy art history mornings. The tour was a crash course, and with the help of some historical context clues I think we got a good grasp on what was going on with the Mithras. Diana even came along because it is so rare to be allowed down below the street level and into what is still an active archaeological site.

Another highlight was ‘La Notte Bianca.’ We lucked out and made it to Rome just in time for this annual ‘White Night’ when everything (public transit, museums, shops, restaurants, bars) stays open all night and all kinds of entertainment is scattered throughout this labyrinth of a town. We accompanied Diana to Trastevere and ate dinner and sipped wine while she handed out flyers demanding the freedom of a bear recently ‘jailed’ by the Italian government for having caused some problems in Austria or something confusing, yet tragic.

Lauren and I met back up with Diana and a bunch of her friends when her flyer shift was over. Our motley crew was comprised of Romans Diana and Sergio, Florentine Elisabetta, Venezuelans Jessica and Daniela, Elba Islander Federico, Canadian Manu, and us Texans. Our first stop was to see a surprisingly young swing band play in a nearby bookstore. Second, an ex-mechanic shop turned bar called “Brakes and Gears” for drinks. Third, a museum to check out some sobering photos by Paolo Pellegrin and some disturbing drawings by Susan Crile. Fourth, a Scottish bar along the river for more drinks. From here we lost some of the crew and Diana, Federico, Elisabetta, Lauren, and I made a hike up one of the seven Roman hills to get a good spot for the 6 AM Sufi dance ritual. The religious dance was all the more enchanting with the sun rising over Rome in the background. It was a night to remember.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 2:27 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.