Just like a Slattery

The first thing that happened was we overslept.

Oops.

Our taxi driver got us to the airport just in time and we went inside to check in only to find that we had to back outside and get in a short bus and go somewhere else to find a Delta counter.

Italians are so whimsical.

Then we had to get back on the bus and go back to the first terminal.

Did I mention those whimsical Italians?

I bought a ring in Florence, so I had to go through customs. I also had to go through security twice.

Then I had to go through security three more times once I got here.

I had something else, but I forgot about it. Mercifully nobody checked, or I’d be posting from an Italian jail right now.

Our flight was full, but because we are lucky, lucky, lucky, we got on anyway. In business class.

In business class, the seats recline ALL THE WAY and they serve you smoked salmon and filet. On real china. And you get a comforter. You actually get everything you can stand, and more.

I actually felt like we got back to Atlanta faster than the rest of the plane did.

Once back, we hightailed it to Curry Honda, where I had left my car for an oil change and a brake job and they delivered us to MARTA. Free parking for 12 days!

Then it was off to the AT&T store to replace my stolen phone.

If you’ve been following along, you know that Siri and I have had a somewhat contentious relationship, so we have broken up. It’s just as well, because we were on the verge of attempted dual homicide, and I’m not so sure I would have won.

The first song on the radio upon getting in the car was “I Won’t Back Down,” and then Grimace and I were driving through Ansley Park back to the house and there was my good friend Theo out walking home. Two excellent omens!

After all that, I went up to my DF Jennifer’s to retrieve my bad little dog, who I think might have wanted to stay with them. She has fallen in love with Jennifer’s husband Kevin (but haven’t we all fallen in love with Jennifer and Kevin?). Here is the thing about going to Jennifer’s: it’s like going to your own house, only it’s cleaner and somebody brings you something to drink and they treat you like you’re the most important person in the world.

And now I am settled in at home again. Except the empty suitcase is still in the living room floor and I have odds and ends to put away.

My first match of the spring tennis season is this Sunday, and I picked up my new shoes yesterday. I’m ready.

I miss Rome, but I’m glad to be home. I missed my chirren and my dog and my friends and my car. I had a wonderful time, and I’ll be going back. But it’s good to be here just as Atlanta enters its prettiest time of year.

I have been exceedingly blessed in this life to have seen many things and to have met many people and to have been many places.

Today we went to the Sistine Chapel, and the grease is right.

I was expecting it to be a small chapel, set off by itself, and for the two fingers touching to span the whole thing, but it’s not like that at all. It’s huge, and the two fingers are no bigger than anything else in there.

But it’s just stunning.

I’ve seen pictures, hundreds of pictures in hundreds of sizes, and they don’t do it justice.

The colors are so vibrant and even from however far it is to the floor, the detail is just incredible. It looks like the people are going to leap off the ceiling at you.

I have read The Agony and The Ecstasy, and I know Michaelangelo’s history, but I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. I just wasn’t.

When you get to the Vatican Museum, you walk through what seems like miles of galleries of statuary and tapestries and mummies (who knew?) and vestments, to the point where you think you’re never actually going to get to see the ceiling, like it’s all some big tease the Pope’s got going to keep you busy and off the street for a few hours.

The ceilings all the way through are works of art by other people – artists and architects and carpenters, and the floors are mosaics of what has to be billions of tiny pieces of stone and tile. Sometimes it’s just too much external stimuli.

But that Sistine Chapel, man, it was worth slogging through it all to get to just that one huge room.

Yesterday was exhausting. Grimace climbed to the top of the Duomo. I went to a yarn store that was like warehouse where you couldn’t touch. They brought out color books and swatch books and you told them what you wanted and they ran around gathering it up for you.

They don’t sell row counters here. I have no idea how they keep up with where they are.

When it was time to leave Florence, we went Santa Maria Novella and bought our train tickets and found our platform like good little Americans, only it was the wrong platform and we nearly went to Lucca. We missed the train to Rome, but apparently they’re used to that sort of thing, because they just gave us more tickets and sent us on our way.

In less felicitous news, we were supposed to move to another apartment at about 5 on Sunday, driven by the owner of this one, since we had to stay an extra day. We have not paid for the extra night.

I got an email this evening that we would need to check out Sunday morning at 9, and we were to take our SHEETS AND TOWELS AND LUGGAGE across Rome on the bus to the new apartment, and to please let her know that would be fine.

It is not fine.

I went and spoke with Cenzia, who owns the tabacchi we frequent, to ask her how to respond to this, since I’m a bit verklempt and am liable to go right through this keyboard and burn Alessandra with my fingertips.

She advised me to wait until cooler heads prevail and send her a note that we are on holiday and will be happy to check out at 9. And that we will not be transporting dirty laundry across Rome on a bus.

Meanwhile, Cenzia will call and see about another apartment for us elsewhere.

I tell you, I was fit to be tied.

But after all, I am in Rome, and we do have friends here who will help us.

No idea what’s on our plate for tomorrow. We’ve hit the high points and now we’re coasting, hanging out, checking out Rome.

Still damn lucky.

they did not magically dry overnight on the charmingly termed “clothes horse.”

Grimace very graciously went over to the Hard Rock Café and got me a lovely sweatshirt (with a front pocket! and a hood!).

I have felt like a jackass all day long, but it was either that or something with The Who in glitter.

Due to our Double Charlie Foxtrot, we missed our appointment at the Uffizi, but did go see the David. Looks just like the one outside the magistrate building, and the trillions of tiny ones inside all the stores.

Actually, I have seen the David before, and I was shocked to find that it wasn’t glossy, because it sure looks glossy in pictures.

We roamed around the city for awhile until we were both stumbling and came back and took naps. These Italians might be on to something; taking a rest made a huge difference in our outlooks.

For dinner, we went back to the Hard Rock. Sometimes you just need an American hamburger and to watch videos on a giant screen.

Tomorrow we head back to Rome on the lovely train with our still slightly damp clothes. We love it here, but we miss our nabe at the Pantheon.

All I know for certain is that when the clothes come out of the washer/dryer, they will not be the same as when they went it.

Turns out that not only do I not speak Italian, I don’t read it either, even when I know roughly what it’s supposed to say.

Because the washer, you see, even though it’s a Whirlpool, is a European one.

You put your clothes in there and pull out a little drawer with three unmarked slots and you pour in an indeterminate amount of detergent, and then you guess where to turn the dial.

And then it locks shut.

I had the foresight not to put my pants or brassiere in there, but if all doesn’t go well, I will be seeing the sights in those and my red nightshirt tomorrow.

Lorenzo, who runs the place, is a very nice young man who looks like a long-haired cross between my friend David Dowd and David Copperfield. I don’t want to have to call him for such a matter, but I will, of course.

The Hard Rock Café is right around the corner and I’m dying to go. It’s not like I haven’t been to other Hard Rock Cafés, but for some reason I just want to go to this one. Maybe get a t-shirt. Because it’s just so cheesy.

You know what else is right around the corner? A gigantic carousel. And a lot of pizza. And Japanese people. Lots of Japanese people.

Once we got here, we walked over to the Baptistry (surprisingly sparse in there), and then roamed around the city until dinner time, which we had at what appeared to be a hole-in-the-wall joint, but suddenly an egg on a pizza seems perfectly reasonable. We met a nice couple from Yonkers, of all places.

After that we went to the Ponte Vecchio to take some pictures, and now we’re at our lovely Florence apartment, where I’m sure I’m shredding the clothes in the Whirlpool.

Tomorrow is the Uffizi and the Accadamia, perhaps a little shopping, maybe the Hard Rock Café.

That’s the lyric that keeps running through my head.

We spend a lot of our time taking pictures of other people with their cameras. It seems to make them happy.

We also spend a lot of time talking to strangers.

Today was the Colosseum, which is my favorite thing after the Pantheon. When I get there, I feel like I do when I’m running errands I get to the thing I was trying to remember where I was actually trying to go.

There weren’t over many people there, since there was actually a marathon in Rome today and we were walking the opposite direction of the course, toward the end of it, in the street, where previously it was utterly terrifying to even be on the sidewalks.

We had lunch at the place that’s directly beside and below our windows, and dinner there, too. One of us should have brought a pedometer, because we walk and walk and walk and walk, then stop for a snack and walk some more. The piazzas begin to run together.

Tomorrow we head to Florence for three days, where we’ll check out the Uffizi and The Accadamia to see Venus on the Half Shell and The David, and Santa Croce, and The Duomo and the Baptistry doors. We might go to the Hard Rock Cafe, cheesy as that sounds, for an American hamburger.

Everything here is on such a grand scale that it’s kind of hard to take it all in, but we both did finally admit that we spend so much time running up on the Pantheon that we’ve stopped feeling compelled to take pictures of it every time.

We’ve made some friends here in our neighborhood, people who know our names and are happy to see us coming. It does not suck to be us.

It is a myth that all Italians in big cities speak English.

My feet were sweating in my socks today and by the time we made our way over to St. Peter’s (successfully on a bus and a train) and traipsed all over Vatican City and around the church (il Papá is doing okay, if you were wondering), the soles of my feet were burning like hellfire.

Just outside the walls of the Vatican is a little shopping area and there were two little chihuahuas just sitting outside a store. We stopped to pet them and a gentleman came out and started talking to us.

They were his dogs, and they’re trained to be off the leash – just the sweetest little things, and he takes them everywhere. One of them wandered off  and he walked over and said, “Would you get back over here?” Then he came back and told us, “Rocco is deaf when he feels like it.”

There was no way I was going back the way we came, so we got a Mercedes (!) taxi with a Very Hot Taxi Driver (just like a young Tony Danza) to take us back to Piazza Argentina, where we happened to know there was a Chinese restaurant (okay, but not great), and our favorite pharmacia, Dr. Grossa’s, where I could get something for my aching feet.

The three women in there (one of whom told me just this morning that they don’t have hairbrushes and she doesn’t know where to get one) don’t speak any more English than I speak Italian, but we managed to convey between ourselves that I needed something for my burning feet.

One of the products is for soaking, but here in our apartment (straight up a bunch of stairs, in case you don’t remember) we only have a shower.

They conferred among themselves, and finally happily proclaimed, “Oss on toilet, feet in bee-day!”

I don’t remember the last time I was so tickled at any proclamation. We all giggled and I paid for my things and left.

It has been a glorious day here, and I am now seated on the lid of our giant rectangular toilet with my feet in the giant rectangular bidet, full of hot water and green salts, typing. I didn’t even know bidets had stoppers and hot water!

Neither of us have used the bidet for its actual purpose, because we can’t figure out what to do afterwards, other than maybe shake.

St. Peter’s is amazing and huge. There are actual preserved bodies of popes in there (pictures to follow), wearing their Prada house slippers, and the statuary is incredible, as are the paintings and floors and ceilings.

The people watching is prime, and I remain amazed at the things people will put on – I’m convinced they don’t mirrors and electricity.

There are a lot of Scotsmen here in kilts – there are some kind of games going on here. The Scots lost, but they’re taking it well – they feel that they’re the best at being the worst. They’re so cute I want to bring one home with me.

You would only believe the light and how blue the sky is if you saw it for yourself. It’s like I’ve been picked up and set down in a painting.

Everyone here is just so nice and so helpful. I love it here.

Tomorrow is the Colosseum (really, this time). Then Monday to Florence for a few days, then back here for a few more days.

Time to drain the bidet!

So, hey. There’s a marathon in Rome today.

Yesterday we slept until nearly 1 in the afternoon, then went to our little piazza for sandwiches and drinks, then to the tabacchi for bus passes and cappuccinos. Those bus passes are pretty amazing, because for cheap you can use them for everything. Plus Cenzia, the woman who runs the place, speaks wonderful English, knows everything, and we’re her favorites.

Then we took a train to somewhere we didn’t mean to go, but got to cross the Tiber (hi, Dr. Franklin!), got some pretty funny directions to the Colosseum (You keep going straight on this street until you see some ruins on the right. They’re huge and decrepit, just a mess. Then you’ll see a big white thing. They call it the wedding cake. It’s obnoxious. Just make sure you keep that on the right and keep walking. The Colosseum will be straight ahead. You can’t miss it. It’s big.), and walked about a trillion miles, got on a bus going the wrong way because we thought it would take us to Piazza Navona, then got on another wrong bus to Piazza Navona, and finally ended up walking there. We kept ending up back at the Pantheon, which is actually our neighborhood.

We were trying to get to Trevi Fountain, but it kept eluding us. I’m convinced it’s on wheels. We did finally eventually get there, but honestly. There were hundreds of people there, many of them Bangladeshi trying to sell us roses or take our picture for us. We dropped in on a mass, where a priest sitting in the back got a phone call with a Guns & Roses or something ring tone, causing us to dissolve into giggles.

Dinner was back at the tabacchi, and was fantastic.

We spend a good bit of our time at the apartment sitting in our window, which is about 100 feet above the cobblestone street, so we could eat it any just any second.

Today’s agenda is the Colosseum, Palatine Hill, the Forum, and The Vatican. It’s chilly out this morning. I should check the weather before we leave, because coming back is a bitch – to get to our apartment, it’s 56 steps straight up.

Arrivederci!