I am in Rome, on the second day of 42 in Italy.  Today the sky is blue and I am completely exhausted.  But I keep walking.

Rome can do that to you.  It is like there is some invisible propeller pushing me forward.  Some people might like to start a trip in a quieter place, but I like the energy.  I like the propeller.  I also like to sit in cafes when I am exhausted.  It is this balance that keeps me going much of the time.

Anyway.  Yesterday I got in so early that most Italians were not even awake yet.  There should be a law that prevents airplanes from landing after midnight and before 7 AM, I do not care what continent you are on.  But the travel gods were smiling on me, and my room at my inexpensive B and B was ready!  So basically I slept until the mid afternoon of my very first day.  Whateves, I have been to Rome before and also, I have six weeks.  So who cares. You know you are tired when you can sleep through the sound of jackhammers.  Go with it.

Once I got up and out, about 3 PM, I just started walking… and then all of a sudden the Colosseum was in front of me.  That always happens in Rome… that thing is everywhere.  So then I got a bee in my bonnet to go to this bar I went to with my friend Lisa on our first trip here, but I think it is a restaurant now.  Or I could not find it.  So I ended up in some little wine bar. White wine, proscuitto, melon… the sky was blue but when I saw a couple of guys walking down the street with sacks of umbrellas I knew rain was coming.  Sure enough, all of a sudden it starts to rain.  What to do?  Have another glass of wine, of course.  There was a gay couple at the table next to me from somewhere in America, and they had been gone maybe 45 minutes when the server found one of the guy’s wallets on the ground.  He had dropped his wallet… no doubt that one will get blamed on the horrible street crime in Rome, of which I have seen exactly niente (Not that I have never seen crime here, because I have, more than anywhere else. Just wondering how many things get dropped not stolen.  Right?)  I looked all afternoon for a pink shirt to tell the guy his wallet was safe at the wine bar, but all the pink shirts I saw had Italians in them.

Then I walked back… and changed my clothes and walked another 45 minutes west to meet with Italian craft beer aficionado Andrea Turco.  We met at Open Baladin, a bar with many Italian craft beers in the bottle and by the tap.  This place is cool – all kinds of trippy rooms to sit in decorated like your grandma’s grandma’s house.  (Yes, two grandmas, I am not that jetlagged.)  So we had a beer there and then went to a restaurant in Trastevere called Bir and Fud, which serves Italian craft beers and some really great food.  The place was packed and we ate a lot of starters and then a pizza and drank more beer.  I was not tired anymore.  Trastevere on a Tuesday night.  Packed beyond belief, people everywhere, drinking outside the bars, in the streets.  I love Italy.

Today I woke after enough sleep but I think I have some kind of weird postponed jetlag, so I get out and try to walk it out of my system.  Ended up at the Colosseum again (that freeking thing is EVERYWHERE) and was hanging out on the street looking out over the Forum when a gladiator tried to pick me up.  Well, not a gladiator but a guy dressed like one.  His name was Luca and it took him about 35 seconds to find out where I was from and how long I was in town for.  After a two second pause, he then asked if I wanted to go have a drink later (no grazie) or maybe then, a pizza? (No grazie.)  Come ONNNNN… (No grazie.) After another two second pause he ciaoed me and went off to greener pastures.  Ah Roma… I get older, she stays exactly… the same.  It was not even 11 AM.

I walked and walked… back up Via Cavour, and then I knew exactly what I needed.  First, a plate of pasta.  Then, a salad.  Then, a nap.  (I did not put wine in this sentence but lets face it you guys all know how I am.)  I went to a place called Trattoria Monti near my B and B that I had read about on slowtrav.  It was me in there with a whole bunch of Romans, mostly businessmen.  Some businessmen in there were drinking Italian craft beer!  Viva la Revolucion! Oh wait that is Spanish.  Sorry.  Someone please tell me there is a craft beer revolution going on in Rome, in Italian.  I cannot seem to get my languages straight these days, mostly because I do not speak any of them.  Even my English kind of sucks.

So then… it is 7:30 and very beautiful here, but I have been to Rome before and I have already seen the Colosseum and could have had sex with a gladiator, so tomorrow I will go somewhere I have never been: Naples.  I love, love, love going to places I have never been before.  (Now that I think about it, I have never had sex with a gladiator.)

The propeller is behind me again.  Gotta go.  When I write again, I hopefully will have already had the best pizza I have ever had.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 10:52 am and is filed under Italia 2010. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.