Italian Hours

My departure from Rome is fairly imminent now; just one more full day, and then a dreaded Travel Day, separate me from my honeymoon. It's rather strange not to be headed straight home; for one thing, I actually have to do laundry tomorrow so that I can have all clean clothes for Spain, and if I've figured it out correctly I should only have to do some minor underwear and sock washing (for which purposes I have a plastic baggie of powdered laundry soap, which looks a lot like coke). That's also if I don't spill something on myself, like the pesto-laden green shirt that I'm going to try and re-wash yet again tomorrow, or the (silk) skirt that received a bath in Caitlin's spilled beer.

Tonight was our last meal at home, because tomorrow we're having lunch at an osteria near the apartment and then a fancy farewell banquet. Two of my roommates are 'foodies,' and as such have insisted on cooking elaborate and delicious meals this past month--ratatouille, an entire roast chicken, various Spanish dishes Caitlin learned from her home-stay family, etc--but honestly, give me a pot of pasta, with a huge dish of fresh grated parmesan and a container of ricotta, some wine and bread, and you will have a happy camper. They were kind of horrified when I explained that we ate very similar meals for four months on end in Florence! But tonight we did a simple dinner, fortified by the about ten pounds' worth of salad left over from last night's pizza and make-your-own-salad party, and it was really excellent.

Part of me is certainly ready to leave Rome, but I really failed to anticipate how much I would enjoy living here. I expected it to pale in comparison to the Florence, but it was the reverse. Rome is, as my roommates point out, incredibly noisy, dirty, and covered in graffiti, but it's also one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen. It's alive. Everywhere you look, Rome is bursting at the seams with trees and plants and greenery; even its weeds are dainty little red-headed blossoms. Florence had precious little of that, mostly confined to parks and cloisters, not emerging riotously over walls and down the embankments of the train stations. Of course, Florence's small size also precluded the kind of rambling districts that Rome can offer.

I think what a lot of what I retained from previous experiences of Rome was a sense of the deathlike stillness of the ancient ruins, the sterility of an endless series of marble facades, in comparison to Florence's milder palette and unpretentious medieval streets. Now, I think of the glory and warmth of that same marble against the blue, blue Roman sky. I think of walls overflowing with those purple flowering plants; I think of climbing hills and seeing unexpected, sweeping vistas of the cityscape; I even think of the ubiquitous water fountains, gushing some of the sweetest water I've ever tasted. Now it's Florence that makes me think of stillness; nothing in Rome, it seems, stands still for very long.

There were things I missed about Florence, though, I have to admit. There's something nice about being able to cross a city in half an hour, and something even nicer about living a block from the Accademia, and stopping in the see the David before going to the grocery store. The sprawling size of Rome meant that I had less of a chance to develop any real familiarity with particular areas beyond our neighborhood and the area near the school. Then there was the shocking lack of Milka in this entire freakin' city besides the Conad in Termini, and of course, the profusion of Vespas, which are ridiculously loud--there should be a noise ordinance against them, or something. Despite all this, Rome wins out in my mind, on the basis of a combination of grandeur and sheer vitality. If I may draw this sketch to a close, I will simply say that I find this city truly deserving of the epithet "Eternal."