1/27/19: ttfn

Saturday morning, Alessandra and I had to make our good-byes, and really I can’t recommend the Room Mate Luca hotel in Florence highly enough. I took a train back to Rome and at one point the scenery was like a whiff of New Zealand with the stone pine trees of Italy and that put a smile on my face.

Back in Rome I did a little shopping, some walking around, and then stopped for a glass of wine and some people-watching under a heater at this little café I thought was on a pedestrian-only side street but no, in fact, cars were occasionally going by and man I wish we could get away with shit like this at home! My glass of wine came with three little pastries and while I didn’t really want them (I am SO. FULL.) one of them looked like a lemon-tart thing and I am a sucker for those on occasion. Turns out it was some kind of tiny pizza and wow that thing where you expect sweet but get savory? Yikes.

I am remembered (my phone helpfully autocorrected this to “demented,” and wow thanks, could do with a little less judgement there) at the River Palace—by Giorgio at check in, by Albert the porter (who (creepily) remembered the room I was in last week, ugh, Albert, even if you DO remember, you don’t have to tell people that), by the cheerful bartender, and by the indefatigable waitress at my fave spot, who remembers my order perfectly but sneakily tries to get me to take a 1/2 liter of wine instead of a 1/4 (which is like 1.5 glasses, mother, don’t worry). She also remembers “no bread” and points at her head proudly: “See? I remember!” This nice lady has decent English though I think she doubts herself, and so cannily she has learned just the numbers zero through nine so she can announce a total without having to get involved with all the pesky stupidly organized other numbers. So, dinner was again “one-four” and I find it so charming every time.

Today, Sunday, the forecast called for rain in the afternoon so I decided to take a bus to go stalk around some catacombs and then investigate the Appian Way. I was pleased to discover that buses here also have a published timetable and complete disregard for that, just like home. Google maps made me nervous when it suggested a different bus route each time I checked it (which is more than once, I’ll admit), but each route started with the same bus, the 160, and in the end I decided the 160 to Navigatori and a walk sounded better than transferring at the Circo Massimo because I assume here, as at home, the fewer touch points with public transport, the better. I bought a ticket from a nice man in a kiosk by the bus stop—“Ciao, Bella!”—and then I settled in to wait. And wait.

An aside: Ciao means hello as well as goodbye, apparently, and prego means basically anything you want it to. Grazie is pronounced with a lot more letters than appear in the actual word, which I’m cool with, but it looks much nicer written, as I’m pretty sure phonetically it would be “GRAT-zee-uh.”  

Back to the bus stop: I was joined at one point by these gentlemen, and the man in the fancy suit has an XL Peroni in his pocket (zoom in) so I snuck a picture, then he took it out and had a slug and I am pretty sure there is no open container law here but if that were truly the case I would expect to see a lot more drinking in public so maybe it’s just enforced on an ad hoc basis, like if you need an XL Peroni at 10 am on a Sunday, then go with god, sir. 

The catacombs I wanted to see were open, conveniently, from 9-12 and then again from 2-6, so I was really hoping to make a pre-noon tour so as not to have to find a place to lurk for two hours until the burial grounds reopened because even I don’t want to be THAT weirdo. The 160 bus came, finally, at 10:47am, though I had awaited it since 9:58, naively believing it would be there at 10:04, as promised. Or 10:30, as promised next.

I read something recently about sunk costs and how often idiots like me will double or triple down on something that is not showing returns, including, for example, waiting for the 160 bus; we assume that because we have invested X time, we may as well add Y time, but in fact we should just give up and take the goddamn Metro because waiting more than 45 minutes for a bus is more than 30 minutes too many and my fingers are quite cold typing this. As I waited, I was asked for directions several more times including twice in English and for the love of Pete, Rome, I don’t work here. 

Once the 160 finally arrived and I got on board, the thing where you are supposed to present your ticket is, naturally, not in service, so we all just ride for free. I watched as more people boarded the bus and notice that no one even pretended to try to pay. The bus was stupidly noisy and cold and there were no announcements or other indications of stops—at least in NYC the drivers will mumble unintelligibly—but I guess you get what you pay for. I finally stumbled off at Navigatori, resolving not to take the bus again if I could avoid it. (Though it was an extremely scenic ride.)

Lesson 5 showed up today, a nice reminder that Google does not know all. The “good” catacombs take a MONTH-LONG winter break, though Google thought they were open, so I had to hustle back to the next-best option—lucky I was in shouting distance of like eight different, closed catacombs so I was glad to make it to the only open one, the Domatilla catacombs, and though it was already 11:34, they took down the closed sign to let me pay 8 euro to join an English language tour that had just begun.

Fun facts about these catacombs:

• They were originally built as the tombs of two martyrs, and while our guide admitted these two dudes are “not very well known” (at all) these days, they made it into the (extensive) statuary around St. Peter’s square so...famous enough?

• The original church dates to 380, and martyr is from the Greek for “witness,” which I did not know and found quite emotional to consider.

• These catacombs have four levels and 11 miles of tunnels with 150,000 tombs, though only 2,000 remain intact and untouched—the rest were emptied long ago.

• Rome is full of catacombs because it is built on something called tufo stone, which is highly compressed volcanic ash, which is very stable but also very easy to dig in. 

• We looked at a fresco that is 1600 years old and our guide told us we can always identify saints Peter and Paul because Peter always has curly white hair and a curly white beard while Paul “is the stylish one.” I admit I am not up on what was stylin’ back in the day but apparently it wasn’t Saint Peter.

Post-catacombs, I had done some extremely cursory research and learned the Appian Way is closed to traffic on Sundays and is supposed to be a lovely walk. I took a wrong turn, of course, but helpfully the sidewalk ended so I was forced to check my map and turn around. I finally found the Appian Way—and no, the irony is not lost on me that I’m in Rome and can’t find the road most famous for leading there—and it turns out to be a death chute, with cars speeding by and passing each other and no sidewalk to speak of. The 118 bus does run along this route so if it happened to come by (it will not) as you were edging along, your back pressed to an admirably ancient wall, you could try to get out of the death chute that way, otherwise you just have to keep going because there are no exits from this funnel of terror until you get to the end. Did I mention it was also raining?

Can you see this insanity? That’s one car passing another on two-way road and go ahead, let me know where YOU think the sidewalk is. 

Once back in the warm embrace of wifi I discovered I was on the “wrong” part of the Appian Way and so I walked for like 50 miles (approx.) through the funnel of terror when all the lovely sights and experiences of the nice Appian Way had been accessible if I had just made a right-hand turn, not a left. Alas.

I was cheered slightly when I saw this.

SPQR basically means “the government of Rome” and it is stamped on a lot of things, including a shit-ton of tourist souvenirs, but the capital police really took it to the next level, adding the lady wolf who supposedly raised Romulus and Remus and wow I hope they don’t have to wear that badge on their jackets or anything because that’s just…a lot.

I’d been out and about for six hours and walking for more than four of those, so I stopped for a quick slice at the Alice pizza joint across from my hotel which reminded me of the last time I had pizza in Rome, when I stopped for a slice on my way to looking at Keats’s grave, and though I had been assured it was “blanco,” I got two steps away from the “pizza in a box” kiosk and discovered immediately that there was some kind of (very) pungent FISH on that white pizza. FISH. ON PIZZA. I understand it is probably not the done thing to come to Rome and complain about how they do pizza but holy smokes, Rome, please stop putting FISH on it.

It might be time for this cranky old lady to go home, especially since the thing that made me happiest today was stumbling onto this street sign.

I forget what diseases you get from subsisting entirely on pasta and cheese and wine, but I probably have all of them, so, again, heading back to NYC and the notion of “green” “vegetables” isn’t a bad idea. I will surely miss the f*ck out of this country, including their casual disregard of traffic laws (if those even exist), and the way they manage to cram art and beauty and history into every possible corner, so this, Italy, is not good-bye—it’s just ttfn.

Finally, a story from Friday night: there was a small bar in my Florence hotel, so small that you had to ask at the front desk for someone to be paged to come serve you up a drink. Friday night, I walked up to the front desk, clutching my computer as per my evening routine, and the desk clerk looked at me and just said “Bar?” and I believe I have commented before on my ability to create a routine wherever I am. “Yes,” I said, “and thank you.”

Andre was on bar duty Friday night and he was in a story-telling mood so I didn’t get to take my glass over to my usual spot to do some keyboard banging but was instead regaled with tales from his life and adventures and despite all manner of differences between us we had discovered a shared sly sense of humor and in the hands of a master I am an excellent audience.   

Andre told me about working on a cruise ship and for Club Med for 23 years and my goodness he had some stories I am not at liberty to repeat here but we were laughing so loudly I am sure if the ceilings weren’t 20 feet high someone would have called to complain. He also told me the story of how he came to leave Club Med, which had been a hard decision for him but one he knew he needed to make—for 23 years, his only address had been the office he worked from in Paris, and he needed a place to call home. His boss tried to talk him out of it but in the end was supportive and, Andre told me, before his boss would let Andre leave the office for the final time, his boss reached into his desk and brought out a key. He handed it to Andre and said, “Take this, so you know you will always have a place to come back to.” I am pretty sure Andre told me this story because he had sized me up and knew that I, too, would well up at that line and so the two of us regarded each other with tears in our eyes and just because I don’t like most people doesn’t mean I don’t like some people and I’m putting Andre on the some people list.

As much fun as Andre had in crafting his hilarious stories for me, none of us storytellers can make up the goose-bumps feeling we get from telling a real story that really has changed our lives. I have had a couple of those experiences and gotten to tell those stories, the way Andre tells his story about the key, and then recently I won the grand prize: someone I worked with a long time ago told me I was one of his stories. According to M. he had been on a panel at a professional event recently and afterward, a little old lady stopped him and asked how he got his start. My name came up as having played a (very small) supporting role along the way and the little old lady told him to write me and tell me so and so he did and THAT is a feeling I won’t lose sight of anytime soon. It is always lovely to be given a nod of gratitude, perhaps especially when it comes years later, and so those of us who are little old ladies should go around inserting our noses into other people’s business and those of you who aren’t should write your thank you notes anyway, without needing a little old lady to nudge you along: there are only some many of us, and we can only do so much. 

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