my 5-day vaca to roma with blake was just...priceless. that city is my happy place, my heart, my favorite thing about earth (other then annabelle).
god, what did we even do? what do you do in roma? blake and i walked the city, sipped espressos, made friends, saw the sistine chapel, ate fantastic food, laughed constantly, contemplated higher powers, considered catholicism, made campari a regular fixture (as all good romans do), had lessons in roman slang, spent a bit more money then we had, and sang moulin rouge love songs, as promised, to the wonderful antonio.
i thought blake was going to have a heart attack around every turn. the city took his breath away, as it does mine, every time. and the italians are just so so wonderful. they are alot more...chatty then i had realised. they are very sweet and encouraging and eager to talk and help. and more then that, theyre just cool. blake and i decided that even the sort of sleazy ones were awesome, with they fancy levis and cigarettes, and its just such a joy and a privledge to be in so different a society, with people so genuinely foreign but absolutely relatable.
i'm just so frustrated with my italian. i want to speak it so badly, but i have such a hard time understanding it when it is spoken to me in a regular pace. my brain still tries to grasp at each individual word, conjugating and translating, and by the time im through figuring out what was said its been like, 5 minutes, and whoever it is im talking to just starts speaking in english. i need to get some tapes or something, or just refuse to be pampered by the always-kind italians and force them to just speak to me in italian and leave it at that. i dont think i realised how badly i would want to know the language, how desperate i am to be able to actually speak to these people. my respect for italians overall is enormous; my respect for their culture grows everyday. and at first i wanted to know the language because its was beautiful and fun, but now i want to know it because i want to know IT. whatever IT is. i want to know it all, all about everything.
on sunday night blake and i had a roman fashion shoot. i lugged that amazingly ridiculous copper-sequined shirt of my mothers (the one she wore to fancy dinner parties around 1986)all the way to rome in my purse (sacrificing space for other, more practical clothes i.e. sweaters). blake had brought his fancy camera and tripod to europe with him, an endeavour i admire him for. i let him take the reigns as photographer for this trip, and his shots were great. anyway, sunday night i got all dressed up in that shirt and we went around rome, me posing this way and that, blake taking shot after shot. the quote of the night was "people think im marc jacobs and youre a starlett", because, with the tripod and my bizarre shirt, we looked like professionals, and people were stopping to watch us, staring at us, clearly thinking that we were doing something important (we were!). we got shots in campo de fiori, the pantheon, the trevi fountains, etc, and by the end of the night i didnt feel so much like i did in kindergarten at the thanksgiving play, i felt kind of free and excited, and we had such fun just roaming the city documenting ourselves.
monday we went to the sistine chapel, which, of course, was terrific. i remembered the actual SC, but not that fantastic hallway that leads to it, full of all those painted maps of the different regions of italy. now that i know the area a little better, i found the maps fascinating! how could they even conceive a visual so acurate and lifelike? i found udine and had blake take my picture pointing to it.
in the mornings we would wake up in antonios glorious apartment, and hear the sounds from the street and see the sun shining across the yellow stucco walls of the building next door, and no matter how late we had been out, we got up out of bed bright and early. we woke up happy there, excited for the day, and i would literally walk to the window, and stick my head out, and say "buongiorno, roma!". then wed go out, and have a coffee, and take a walk...
in the evenings we cooked in antonios kitchen...the first night i made indian food with spices that i had bought at the market in venice. the second, we very frugally had left overs.
i took blake (like, every night) to the cookbook bar, which is full of wonderful roman boys who make my heart flutter. blake and i would hang out for hours, discussing politics and cinema with the romans, being goofy and singing songs and watching the locals and tourists alike walk the tangly, cobblestone streets of trastevere. the owner of the cookbook bar, alessio, who is a licensed somellier and a roman by birth, was so, so incredible to us. he recommended places for us to eat (sadly, when we went to the restaurant, it was necessary to have a reservation, at least for tourists), and told us all about the mafia, and introduced us to all the friends of his who straggle into the tiny bar throughout the night. we had such fun in trastevere, that without even trying wed suddenly find that it was 3am, and everyone else in the streets had gone home, and we had the place to ourselves.
antonio came back to rome from siene monday night, which was really exciting because hes fantastic, and i wanted blake to meet him. we took him out to dinner at a little restaurant in the jewish ghetto, where we had fried artichokes (note: sheryl! friend artichokes are the best. we will make some immediately upon my return to suwanee. so excited!) and linguine with clams in manner of john gotti and a house wine from montepulciano. the streets of the jewish ghetto were quiet and sparse and dark, and it felt very authentic and roman. the last night i cooked dinner at the apartment, which is something that i promised to do for antonio as totally-less-then-adequate repayment for his kindness. i made chicken breasts stuffed with marinated carcioffi (artichokes), blue cheese, and parsley, wrapped in prosciutto and lemon, cooked in white wine, parsley, and butter...i served it with pan tossed zucchini and oricchiette with arugula and frech tomatoes. antonio ate all of his dinner, which was wonderful- i love boys with big appetites.
antonio is so increidble, i really cant get over what i gift he is, how fated finding him on craigslist has been. hes so genuine and smart and peaceful, and he loves books and music and history, and hes one of the sweetest people i have ever known. we took him out to the cookbook bar, which was fun, and we ran through the streets singing 'blue moon'.
my flight for venice left at 6:30am this morning. blake and i stayed out in trastevere till 3. i was suppose to leave the apartment at 4. at 5am, blake rolled over and said, "um. its 5. dont you need to go?". silently, not in a panic what so ever, i got dressed, grabbed my bag, and left the apartment. it was still pitch black outside. i ran full speed to the taxi stand on via emanuelle, exclaimed "Ciampino! molto tardi! pronto!" to the taxi driver, and that man drove like a bat out of hell through the night streets of rome, going probobly 75mph, making it to ciampino airport in record time, but still managing to swing me by the colluseum, which was lit up grandly in the pre-dawn light. best taxi ride of my life, despite the sadness that comes over me everytime i leave that city.
so now i am back in udine. im trying to not sink into gloom. i do love it here, but roma...roma! anyway, simone and the wonderful friends i made at the pizzeria down the street make this place worthwhile. theres work to be done, and my italian course is finished on friday (??)and blake and i will go to slovenia this weekend, and then on suday i am going to a barbq at simones parents house which will be great.
i love you all...