Yesterday

I wanted to post this last night, but then my wireless connection left me and there was no alternative but to wait until today. But I wrote the following last night.

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I'm on my way to overcoming jetlag, by having a caffé this afternoon instead of taking a nap. I woke up kind of early, had a bathing experience, and then left the house at somewhere around 9. Having no plans until a 3:30pm appointment at Marymount with the headmistress, I decided it was the perfect day to go to one of my favorite spots in the whole city, the Orange Garden on the Aventine Hill. On the way, I stopped at the Ponte Milvio market for some raspberries and cherries, and then since I got the 32 bus to Risorgimento to pick up the 23, I stopped for some pizza bianca to accompany the fruit at a hole-in-the-wall pizza a taglio between Piazza Risorgimento and St. Peter's Square. At that point, I had to go to the bathroom badly, so thought it would be a good idea to go to the public bathrooms at the Vatican. Having noticed the unusually large crowds, I immediately remembered it was Wednesday morning, and hence just used the restrooms and did not stick around, for multiple reasons. Speaking of the Vatican restrooms, I am reminded of a moderately ribald haiku I once wrote, that I did not realize the complete genius of until I was thinking about it today: ah, the things that rhyme with "Holy See". I should dig it out -- my mom and I had a good laugh about it at the time, and it gave me another few good laughs this morning.

Having escaped the zoo that was the Vatican, I carried on to Trastevere, where I was recommended the fantastic book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian -- having declined a serious book, the young Irish bookseller recommended this one, and wow, I could easily identify with large parts of the book, which was also quite hysterical and featured several laugh out loud moments. It was kind of like the movie East is East meets the book Everything is Illuminated, but above all, funnier than the two put together.

However, the best part was finally getting up the hill and sitting here:

That’s St. Peter’s straight ahead, and there are not many people there. I read, went over to the fountain to rinse off the raspberries and refill my water container, watched people go by, and watched some vivacious Roman cats play in and out of their cute little tent.

After, I went into the church next door, which is one of my favorites in Rome because it really is very unique and very old and was not renovated much in the Renaissance, Baroque or Rococo into some flowery monstrosity: Santa Sabina. Unfortunately, the photo I took was blurry.

Following that, I decided to head back north, got a 95 bus straight into Villa Borghese and found a bench there for a while before getting the 2 trolley and another bus up to MMI.

My meeting with the headmistress of MMI was very nice, she’s exceptionally busy but gave me a lot of time and we had a good talk. In many ways, she can most definitely understand my life experientially, since she’s basically familiar with every school I’ve gone to, obviously especially MMI. Comparisons odious though they may be, many were made between MMI and VA-DUQ, although of course it could be said, and I would say definitively, that there is no comparison between MMI and VA-DUQ. Marymount is the best international school in Rome, definitely one of the top in Europe and even the world, and has an IB program that VA-DUQ should kill for. We discussed the general lack of education surrounding the IB program, which exists often at MMI just as it does at VA-DUQ and obviously as what recently happened in Upper Saint Clair. I think she’s got a terribly difficult job. There are very impressive plans for building and developing MMI, but even with money I don’t think that the Italian/Roman bureaucracy should be underestimated. I hope everything is successful for them, it’s a great school and a great community.

After I got back, I went out with Alessandra to walk the dog, Zoë. We were gone for we think about an hour and a half, and I learned many Italian vocabulary words having to do with ticks (zecche) and their removal, which should evidently be done with olive oil (of course!) and not tweezers.

Later in the evening, we all watched the first part of an Italian movie, La Meglio Gioventù, and were also flipping back and forth to Viaggi di Nozze (Honeymoons), which had some similarities technically to Best in Show. It takes me back to the first Italian movie I saw without subtitles, the tear-jerking epic Cinema Paradiso.

Final good news, I have begun to get a bit of sun on my face and arms, so at least I no longer am completely nearly translucent and … pasty. The Roman summer is here.