The Pittsburgh Mafia, et. al.

This morning, I went to Marymount, to see a few people again and to visit a bit. It was good to see everyone again, I don’t know that I would ever want to relive high school again, but at the same time of course I’m not going to forget that part of my life, because it was very happy and very, very good for me at the time.

I talked to a few teachers, the new PR/alumni relations guy, and I have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon with the headmistress. She’s also from Pittsburgh, and evidently there are so many people there now from Pittsburgh or with Pittsburgh connections that there is talk, half-joking, half-serious, of the Pittsburgh Mafia at MMI.

After leaving MMI a little before noon, I headed over to the Vatican to mail a card. Since I was over there, I made a stop at the famous Bar All Brothers, where I had a very refreshing Nastro Azzurro and also the remains of an equally refreshing strawberry frappé. It was too late in the day for a cappuccino. There were quite a few Americans there, and it was so strange to hear the All Brothers speak English, which they do quite well – although all I heard was limited to some people picking out ham and cheese sandwiches. Of course, it was wonderful to see them, to pick up where we left off, which generally is me saying I’ll be back soon, I just don’t know when, so see you next time I see you.

This year is the 500^th Anniversary of the Swiss Guards, and there was an interesting exhibit in a small hall right off of St. Peter’s Square. The uniform is traditionally attributed to Michelangelo, but there was something there that says that now they think Raffaello designed them. Additionally, whereas yesterday I was thought to be Polish, today I was spoken to in German as I got my ticket. Go figure. People wonder until they hear me speak Italian, maybe?

After that, I wandered around the Campo Marzio for a while, and I hit also Piazza Navona and the Parliament, both of which I was trying to avoid due to the throngs of people everywhere. I think I ought to wake up early and walk then, when it is still cool and breezy and there is no one out yet. People will be happy to know that all of the bureaucrats involved with the Italian Parliament were out eating ice cream this afternoon in full force.

Earlier, as I was walking by Castel Sant’Angelo, I was thinking about where all of the people who sell the knockoff bags, sunglasses, belts, dancing Minnie Mice, etc live. It turns out, they either live in apartments on the outskirts of town, 10 to a room, or nearby to where I am, in houses where they have shifts, like 6am-noon, noon-6pm, etc to be in there. Also, there are definite countries where these men come from, and most of them are pretty good people, so it's unfortunate that they have such hard work. At the same time, there are always rich people, and they are kind of very visible in Rome. Even just being at Marymount made me feel a little guilty, because it’s such an oasis of privilege in an otherwise unprivileged world. In the whole nurture/nature thing, I think that there are intelligent kids who can’t get a good education, ever, and then there are not-so-intelligent kids who have an amazing education offered to them (paid for them) no problem. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

There are big economic issues here, and Italy is perhaps the most expensive country in Europe right now. This is mostly due to a gigantically scary amount of inflation in these few years after the introduction of the Euro. By gigantically scary, it means that in some cases, prices have doubled, and it does not help that the dollar is struggling so much right now. There are many businesses closed here that were formerly quite successful, just from what I can tell. However, I would also be inclined to blame at least some of it on Berlusconi, the great friend of our dear president. A while ago, one of my friends sent me an e-mail that had been forwarded around all of Italy and most of the world. The message discussed how Berlusconi, as part of his campaign, told Italians that they were making more money now than they were five years ago – but he told them the figures in US dollars. When you figure out the exchange rates, which the author of this message did, it turned out that in fact, Italians were earning on average much less.

At around 3 this afternoon I started back up the Cassia, which right now does not seem like such an arduous journey as I remember it, but that could easily be explained by my current excitement about being here again. I took a nap, a huge luxury after the last month or so at SHU this semester, and went outside with Ilaria as she studied for a literature exam. She’s in liceo classico, and so besides studying Latin and Greek, she has an oral exam tomorrow in ancient Roman literature, but already translated into Italian. It’s of course not easy, and when I asked her what she thought of it, she told me that they’re always telling them that it will open their minds, and sometimes she believes them and sometimes she doesn’t.

Overall, a happy day. It's generally very hot here during the middle of the day -- nearly time to revert to Mad dogs and Englishmen mode.