This is going to be a quick update on life, because I don't have any pictures of my last week to remind me of details. Anyways, here goes.
Sunday morning I got up and walked down to Trastevere, lugging a bunch of stuff I wanted to be brought back to the States with me. I arrived down there just as they were getting out of their taxi, which was nice. The apartment they chose to stay in is very nice, and totally, totally gay (not that there's anything wrong with that, as the fine folks at Seinfeld remind us). Plenty of pictures and sculptures of naked dudes, lube in the drawer next to the bed, smells fabulous. Not fabulous as in smells good; fabulous as in, well, you know. Again, not that there's anything wrong with that; gay is the most accurate description of this apartment. The interior decoration is fantastic. How stereotypical.
Anyways, I then led my parents on what I'm sure they thought was a death march. Up by the Pantheon, up Campus Martius, down the river to Castel, down to Baffetto (it wasn't open, so we had a drink at Abbey Theater) My dad did not bring a jacket and was cold the entire time, my mom was somewhat tired and fairly angry at my dad for not bringing a jacket. I mean, they had just gotten off the plane. Anyways, we ate at Baffetto, and they liked it. We then headed back to Medag to crash.
The next morning, I do not recall what went on. Oh, it's all coming back to me (this was 2 days ago. Dear God). We shared a nice, long break at Bar San Calisto, which may be the nicest neighborhood bar in all of Rome. And it's my parent's neighborhood bar. Anyways, danishes and cappucchinos were shared. I then showed my parents JCU, and they hopped on the computer for what may be their only shot at the Internet while here. From this point, I again cannot recall what exactly went on that day. I know I was in class from 2-5, and we ate my mom's birthday dinner at Rivadestra, a restaurant down Via della Lungara. It was excellent food prepared in the way nice restaurants prepare food (my favorite was a wierd lasagna which was actually broccoli, a sauce, some big crackers instead of pasta, and excellent sausage), but for a reasonable price. After that, we crashed.
Tuesday my parents went up to the Vatican Museum while I was in class. Afterwards, we went up to Medag to show that off. That was followed by a stop by Old Bridge, as I brought my laundry down to the apartment. I had class from 5-8, and then we walked around looking for Bar Sant'Eustachio, which allegedly has the best coffee in Rome. It was near the Pantheon, and we had little trouble finding it. It was good coffee. We followed that with a tartuffo (chocolate "truffle") gelato at Tre Scalini on the Piazza Navona, which was delicious, but perhaps overpriced.
Yesterday is my long class day, and my parents spent most of their time on a death march in Pompeii. We finished the day in Trastevere, eating down the road at Antica Pesa. There were a bunch of photos of movie stars on the wall there, and it certainly seemed like a place where the beautiful people hang. We were a little underdressed in our fleeces and jeans. Anyways, the food was good too. My parents fell asleep really quickly after we got back.
It's rainy this morning. That may screw with our plans to go to the Borghese Museum. We shall see.
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A blog documenting my trip in Rome from August 2007 to January 2008
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Welcome all. If you want to contact me outside of the blog, my two email addresses are jmcginni@nd.edu or mcginnis_james@hotmail.com.
Photos can be found on Facebook. I will also link to those occasionally on here.
Photos can be found on Facebook. I will also link to those occasionally on here.
Blog Archive
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2007
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October
(19)
- News and Notes
- New photos
- The US Embassy... and stuff
- EUR
- Notre Dame Kids!
- Scavi tour
- More help from Mom
- Color me irritated. I walk all the way down to Tr...
- Helping with the memory reconstruction
- Parents and Pompeii
- Parents are here
- A summary
- Cinque Terre
- What is the deal with breaking glass?
- Quick update for the people here. Sunday was very...
- Paris Part Deux: I like crepes
- France trip, part un: The Premiere
- Roman Holiday
- Assisi Retreat
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October
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About Me
- Jamie
- I am a senior at Notre Dame, about to graduate in December. I am applying to law school this fall, so this will be a little different for me.
4 comments:
You are such a good son to look after your mom and dad so very well
Oh, Jamie, you were such a wonderful, wonderful host---but I was counting on a daily account of our days, as my feeble brain is losing that short-term recall thing. (Not having an internet connection in the apartment was the problem with last week's posts, as Jamie stayed there with us. Although John Cabot University was only six minutes away, most days he didn't have a spare thirty minutes to get there to post--it was mid-term week, and he was packing in the tour time.)
We'll have to sit down and reconstruct our days. So---
It was just incredibly perfecto to get out of our car from the airport at the corner near the apartment on a sunny Sunday morning, after our lovely travel day that included lunch with Bentley Andrews in Reston during our layover at Dulles, look down via Luciano Manara, and see mia Giacomo striding up the street! Such a sight for a mamma!
And you are right---that is one gay apartment--not that there's anything wrong with that, as long as the male figure does not offend, because it was a huge decorating motif. And the Blessed Mother. We strongly suspected that going in, and it has a major upside---we had shampoo, conditioner, nice soap, an iron, the washer, laundry racks---and three different ways to make coffee! Lots of books, comfortable sofas, and the three vases of flowers that Vincenzo offered to arrange and Dad accepted.
I've never slept in a bed that had so many pillows--and this from the mother whose sons have at least four pillows on their beds. He has one sumptuous bedroom--fabric covered walls, draperies pooled on the floor, Venetian mirror,canopied bed---.
Once I unplugged the frangrance things in the sockets all over the apartmento, it was all OK by me. He could use better lighting for eyebrow tweezing, but that's about it.
OK, after the apartment orientation from Monica (our "guardian angel", who is Vincenzo's assistant in his business) and Sabina, who translated for Monica, we freshened up and hit the streets for our private tour of the Romans' Rome. Staying in Trastavere was absolutely the right thing for us. Besides allowing Jamie to be just minutes from school, it showed us a slice of life we are far removed from in Charlotte--anywhere in this country, actually. On the block our apartment sits on was the bakery that is in the basement of our building, a fishmonger, a fruit store, a shop that sells high-end candies, teas, coffees, honey, and other dry goods, an optician, a fresh fruit and vegetable shop, a tobaccharia, a pet store, an Italian-equivalent of Williams-Sonoma, and ten other shops. The neighborhood--the city!--is block after block after block of the same, with a place to get prepared food in every third shop! If I hadn't seen people leaving the supermakato one evening with bags in their hands, I'd have wondered if Romans ever eat in.
As Jamie has alluded to (Death March Day One),we walked everywhere we went all week, except one Metro ride and one taxi ride to the Termini on the day we went to Pomei. Shortly after we hit the street Sunday morning we were in the middle of a huge flea market a few blocks from our apartment--the famous Potre Portese. It's like a lower-end Metrolina, mainly clothes-based as far as I could see, with the street jammed with smokers, stretching for blocks along a street that parallels VIale Trastavere, the main street that leads away from the river through the neighborhood. I do think there are some areas where the furniture is sold that we overlooked, but the smoking was really bothering us there, so we worked our way down a side street and crossed the river to the Ghetto, one of Jamie's favorite areas.
And I can see why--it reminded me of the North End of Boston, or at least the North End 28(!!!) years ago, when people would sit on the stoops and hang, and kids played in the street. Since it was Sunday, much the same was going on there, with three generations of families enjoying the gorgeous fall day. We had lunch at a tratorria, where we ate some of the classic Jewish appetizers--fried artichokes, fried salt cod, and a fried stuffed zucchini blossom. (Certain theme here, with the frying. Makes what were cheap foods more palatable---and they were fabulous.) Had more food too--and sorry that I do not recall what. It was very good though. Some days Jamie comes over for lunch, as there is a bakery there that is a find--had a wonderful fruit-bread type thing, and a great little chocolate biscotti.
(Seeing where Jamie's food obession genes come from? How else would we peasants have survived those famines, if we hadn't packed it one when we could????)
More later.
lam
I'm trying to remember more about Sunday---Dad and I are wondering when we went to Largo Argentina to see where Caesar was killed. We were at Trevi fountain that day--it was so crowded. Remember Dad kept floating the idea that Sunday in Rome is especially crowded because all the tourists have arrived and will be there a few days before heading out to the other places? And we took a break on the steps of the Senate building, which undoubtably has a fancy name and is in a named square. I know we walked through some square with the designer stores--which were all closed.
And when did we walk through Campo Fiorno? We were at Piazza Novaona a couple of times.
Did we do all that on one day??? I do know that pizza at Bufetto was worth the plane trip over. Fun to sit outside at the tables along the street in the evening, sharing the table with the cigarette smoking lady and her fellow, enjoying the vino table, rosso. Fantastico.
OK, now to reconstruct Tuesday, October 16th to the best of my ability.
I know we had a tour of the Vatican Museum at 10 and Jamie had class, so I am quite sure that we would have had our coffee at Bar San Calisto, our favorite neighborhod place to hang. I do believe that was the morning that Jamie and Barry discovered that one could purchase a chocolate cream filled croissant, if one was so inclined.
Drank our cappacinos with the locals, then Jamie pointed us in the right direction after we got to JCU and we walked to the far north side of the Vatican property to meet the tour guide from Context tours, who was the same young woman who guided us at the Palatine and the Forum on Monday.
She did another great job, adding enormously to our appreciation of what surrounded us, as well as cutting some long, long lines by just asking guards to "be reasonable." Sounded good to me!
The Sistine Chapel was totally transformed from our visit 22 years before.
St. Peter's is beyond spectacular. I could spend a week there alone. To stand on the spot Charlemagne was coronated...
We went down to the tombs as well, and then out into the sunny afternoon to meet Jamie--who rang us on the phone seconds after we entered the square. For some reason, he was free for the afternoon.
We met and headed towards his apartment in the Medag, with the plan to eat lunch at Dino and Tony's, a local restaurant that Dan's sister had found during her time in Rome a year or two earlier.
Delicious food---and lots of it! Jamie and the owner chatted in Italian about what would be good, and we sat back and feasted on the result.
Then to the apartment, walking through the closed remains of a huge open market that sells from early in the morning til one or so. Some of the stall owners were closing up, and a few were still selling--the florist and a cheese shop were open for business.
A few more blocks past them to ND apartment building, which is one of many in the residential area.
I was surprised at how nice it was-no student ghetto living for these students. And very clean too--they have maid service, but it was neat as welll, and the kitchen and bathrooms were amazingly well kept. Bedrooms too.
I think Jamie had to get back for his evening class, and we went back to our apartment and I did some laundry--yes, mainly my son's, which he carried from The Medag to the apartment in Trastavere---and read. Since we had no washer, I found the the drying rack and opened the doors to the terrace and the windows to allow a draft to the work.
After Jamie got back from class, we headed to the Piazza Novona to look for some light supper, which ended up being an incredible triple chocolate gelato one of the places on the Piazza sells that we shared while sitting on the rails around one of the fountains.
Life is good!
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