A Long Monday

This morning I was up before 7am, which has not really happened since I arrived here. I was out of the apartment quickly, and off to get to John Cabot as soon as possible, because I wanted to add a class to my schedule, and I also had class scheduled for 9:30am. I got a bus quickly, and about a mile and a half down the road, the bus got rear-ended by a car, which took out the back driver’s side corner. We all got out and waited for the next bus, because nothing was happening quickly, and the drivers had to exchange information. Not really the bus driver, but the driver of the subcompact Alfa Romeo who took out the tail lights. I finally got down to the Lungotevere, onto a 32, and I had a coffee at Piazza Risorgimento. Here, I will digress and swear that there are two price lists, one for if you speak Italian and the other if you don’t. This is covered up by saying that you have to pay extra for table service, but I think after some research it would become a little obvious. Just as I had finished my coffee, which took less than a minute, I got onto a 23 and headed to Trastevere. It’s only about a 5 minute bus ride from Piazza Risorgimento (Vatican) to John Cabot in Trastevere.

Once I got there, I went straight to the Registrar, because while at SHU we have all of our scheduling available online and we can modify it ourselves, at John Cabot you have to do it in person. Since today was the first day of add/drop, I wanted to get there asap because I’ve heard relative horror stories from the old days regarding registration. I ended up fifth in line, which was not bad. After adding Caravaggio and the Carracci to my schedule, I went to the classroom where my morning class is to take place, and saw that the class will not start until next Monday. At that point, it was before 9:30am and I had nothing to do until 4pm.

I acquainted myself with the library, found a Graham Green novel I’ve yet to read (although I think I may have and just forget), Stamboul Train. My name is yet to be put into the database, so the librarian held my id card until I brought the book back this afternoon. Before I forget and leave John Cabot for a while, I must add that I saw one of my former MMI classmates there, and many others I recognized. It seems that many of the Italian kids go there, and there are different hypotheses, but it is an interesting factoid nonetheless about the John Cabot demographic.

In search of a bathroom and some adventure before lunch, I walked over to Piazza Venezia. I saw that there was an exhibit about Stendhal (Henri Beyel) in the Vittoriano, and so I went through the maze that is the complex, trying to avoid the kitschy militaria of the Risorgimento. The Italians love them some Stendhal, and he did write wonderfully about Rome. Arguably, as in the case of many others, his work sounds much better in Italian than it does in the native language. They had lots of interesting artifacts, like letters addressed to him in different Roman palaces and his passport when he was the French consul at Civitavecchia. It seems that he did not spend much time in Civitavecchia, but rather in Rome and the countryside – back when Monte Mario and the area around Ponte Milvio were the Roman countryside. It was a small exhibit, but very interesting, and also free entrance.

Following toilette signs, I ended up on one of the terraces of the Vittoriano, and after finally finding the restrooms, which are actually in a corner of Santa Maria in Aracoeli, I also found a million Italian fieldtripping third graders who had beat me to the punch. Since that was not happening – mostly out of concern for Roman sewage systems in areas where there is both a ridiculously high concentration of tourists and also what I would imagine to be not-quite-modern infrastructure, I took off in the direction of the public restrooms at the far side of the Colosseum. First, however, I happened into the exit of the large and very good exhibit of Modigliani portraits. It was another lucky free entrance and very informative and appealing to an art history nerd like self.

As a result, I traipsed through the Forum, took a picture for some Spanish tourists and around the Temple of Vesta I really sincerely began wishing my mom was with me. If she knows one aspect of Rome that I don’t know well, it is where to go to the bathroom. However, in some ways, I also think she may have done the same thing I ended up doing.

At the Colosseum, I got to the bathrooms, and got mixed up in the middle of a very boisterous crowd of German women. There’s a glass little room there in the middle of the men’s and women’s rooms, and I watched the Italian cleaning lady eating her pizza Bianca and watching these German women wait. At this point, I was rather annoyed, so I walked over to the Metro and went to Termini. In seconds, I was there, paid my €.70, and was … relieved.

Why do I share this? The reason is multifold:

· The route is yet another example of how it’s not always quicker to go from Point A to Point B in a straight line. In fact, it was more like those Family Circus comics they used to have, where Billy would take some crazy route to do something otherwise exceptionally banal.

· Elections are coming up next Sunday for Rome, and one of the suggestions for incumbent Walter Veltroni is to make some more public restrooms to accommodate all of the tourists he’s brought into the city.

From Termini, I got on a 175 bus and for lunch decided on an Aventine Secession, yet again. I’m a creature of habit. I had some leftover homemade pizza from last night and fresh, cool Roman mineral water. As I ate, I watched tween French fieldtrippers engage in the centuries-old mating ritual of splashing each other with water, the more enthusiastic ones ending up drenched. I would present the hypothesis that, if in fact the Pagan Slavs came from the Celts, then somewhere along the line, the Gauls got mixed up in things too, after what I saw today. I read Stamboul Train for a while, but I really couldn’t get into it, even though I was kind of interested in the character development, which is surprising for me and Graham Green entertainment novels. The more I think about it, it seems I’ve read it before.

After eating and being rather uncomfortable on the benches without back support after a while, I walked down the hill to the Municipal Rose garden, which is spectacular and lovely. There was a man reading a book about Buddha, and I watched some Gypsy/Roma parents being parental with their two young children.

Deciding it would be a good idea to get back to Trastevere, I went further still down the hill and waited for the 3 tram outside of the FAO headquarters, and in Trastevere I picked up the 8 tram to get to Piazza Belli. Besides a rather long wait, it was uneventful. In Trastevere, I sat and read some more in the shade on the steps of a preschool. Finally, I got back to John Cabot and had a bit of a wait after I returned Stamboul Train to the library, because I said I would, and I couldn’t take it out since my name apparently wasn’t in the database yet. There are lots of nice places to sit outside there, and I had some time to listen to some music, hide behind my sunglasses, and watch my colleagues interact and be American.

My afternoon class begins at 4 (ends at 6), and is taught by the same teacher who I took AP Art History with at MMI. He’s an excellent teacher, and it was great to be in class with him again. Listening to the lecture, in which a lot of the time he put things into their Roman context, I realized how much of what I once knew has become latent in me and also that I forgot my Touring Club Italiano Rome guidebook, so I may pick up another one. It’s got every single little obscure thing in the city in it, and is a fantastic reference book, besides being very small and convenient to carry around, unlike most guidebooks. We’ll be doing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday classes in the classroom, and then on Thursdays meeting at different places in Rome to look at the art first hand.

It took me 45 minutes on the 280 bus from Ponte Sisto to get to Piazza Mancini to get the 301 back up here. In all, it took me 1hr 15mins to get back this evening, but it was not bad as I had the great pleasure of listening to Cavalleria Rusticana for most of the journey.

Since I was mostly disgusting when I walked in the door, I mostly took a shower straightaway and now I feel much better. It was like the feeling one has after getting off the NYC subway times 30. I don't have to wake up tomorrow, but I think I'll be going to bed soon.