There is a time in the visiting of every town when that town all of a sudden becomes home to you, even if briefly. That time, for me and for Rome, was about 10 minutes ago. Walking on the Viale Trastevere with the trams going by, at night which is a different Viale Trastevere than it is during the day.

It was a pretty stellar day, too. Met Steph near Piazza Navona for coffee. Before, I had the most kick-ass whole wheat cornetto filled with honey, walking down the street trying not to trip while totally concentrating on the pastry. After coffee with Steph, I went to the San Luigi di Francese church to see the Caravaggios so that Colleen will not call me totally lazy when I get home. Went over to the Pantheon and then back over to Trastevere to eat a long, long lunch with Nancy.

I thought for sure it would be nap-time after this, but Tony Polzer called so I went back over the river to hook up with him. He took me to the most fantastic, cool wine bar called, of all things, Nick’s. Mi Dio! I had SUCH a great time in there… we had four different wines served by Lorenzo, totally cool tattooed bartender guy, plus snacks like the best mozzarella di bufala. I had a great time with Tony, Lorenzo, and the other guy working at the bar who kept doing impressions of the fish vendors at the Catania fish market for me. I am, for sure, going back there tomorrow. It was AWESOME.

Eventually I left to go eat pizza with Eric Lyman, a journalist who lives here who I was suppose to be hanging out with, but then the Pope died so now he is working all the time. He took me to a pizzeria that is like a 50’s diner, with guys wearing those paper triangles on their heads. Some interesting stories were exchanged, plus since he was getting phone calls from various fact-checkers about the funeral on Friday, I learned many things about the Pope, the funeral, and some other wacky stuff.

It was a really great day. Tomorrow will be my last. It always happens… you start to get into it, and then you have to go!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 at 1:50 pm and is filed under Tales from a Strange Land. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.