I can't believe I haven't written a full update since last Tuesday. Pazzo!
Let's see, what's happened? We had Pat's Greek group over for the first meeting. That was fun - I made a make-your-own Greek salad bar and we drank wine and ate dates for dessert. Then we all walked down the hill into old Trastevere and to celebrate a classmate's birthday at the fountain in piazza Santa Maria di Trastevere. Drinking cheap wine and talking long into the night, then a steep uphill walk home.
Thursday was another walk all over the city for me, only to have random tourists from New Zealand show up to our house at 11 PM. They had apparently rented our place online too - a personal fear of mine in our digital world. Aside from calling the landlord for them and pointing them to the pay phones and cabs nearby, there wasn't much we could do. We felt really bad for them but it's not like we could have them stay with us.
Friday I relaxed at home after a worried, sleepless night. We went out to Piramide for a party at some of Pat's classmates' place. On the way we stopped into Perilli for Roman food. I had pasta and Pat ate meat and artichokes but we needed more food so I ordered some stuffed zucchini. Glad we got them - they were the best thing all night. The party was fun but a little frantic when someone's friend showed up so wasted even the cabbie we called wouldn't take him home. Eventually they got him out of there and we stayed until 4AM.
Saturday was relaxing and cleaning up the apartment. We went out to a local place for dinner nearby - caffe Quatro Venti. Minor blackout at the restaurant. Shades of things to come.
Sunday we were up bright and early to meet everyone at the train to Ostia. Very early... But the train was fine and it was a nice sunny day. Walking around Ostia Antica with P's class was interesting, but of course I took off on my own often enough (as exidenced by the 876794 photos from that day) whenever the Latin overwhelmed me.
After the tour we took the train out to the seaside with some of the class. Apparently the old Ostia used to be the port, but sediment has built up over the years and now it's miles inland. The coastal area of Ostia is gorgeous. We brazenly walked onto a private beach and swam for about and hour in the Mediterranean until sunset. Amazing. Especially after a hot day wandering the dusty ruins.
We all took the train back into Rome and went out for Chinese food together. Honestly, even if it wasn't the best meal of our trip, I'd been craving something different than the ever-present Italian and Roman fare. Plus, giant cheap Chinese beers. We grabbed the bus home and slept well in our sun-sand-Tsingtao exhaustion.
Monday began much more relaxing. I grocery shopped, cleaned up the apartment and did laundry in preparation for our first houseguests. But around 7:30PM the lights went out. Hmm, another blackout, I figured. But around 9 when the lights hadn't come back on and my upstairs neighbors had power, I knew something was up. I'd already tried flipping the circuit breakers and nothing had happened.
Patrick was at class and then picking up his friend Graham and his brother at the train station. So I found all the candles I could, made dinner (bucatini all'Amatriciana) and hoped they could figure it out. Of course our landlord wasn't home and hadn't returned my increasingly concerned phone messages. Eventually (their train had been delayed), P and the guys got home and we ate out on the deck by candle-light. Really funny eating messy pasta and salad when you can't see - they were great sports.
I called the landlord again and finally got ahold of her. She came over with conciliatory limoncello and showed us the main switch to reset the circuit breakers. Outside out gate on the street - which is of course crazy since now I know I can just walk down the street and flip anyone's power off. Oh well, now I know to turn everything off when using the dishwasher.
Tuesday we all got up early and took the bus to the Vatican. There's an English language free tour every Tuesday morning. We met some clasmates on time because a nun on our bus took us on a Vatican shortcut through a parking garage. She was so cute - from Poland and so happy to help us. Next time we go to the Vatican we're going to try to find her in the gift shop she works in to thank her again. We went through security and into St. Peter's for the tour. Our guide was nice but a little quiet so it was hard to hear her over the bellowing cruiseline tour groups. St. Peter's is huge, but she was right that the architects tried to keep the scale of everything large so the church itself would feel smaller.
After the tour, we, with our houseguests, came back to our neighborhood for lunch at a beloved little wine bar. Turns out their lunch special includes a glass of wine which means my tasty pasta was only 2.50 - crazy. We'll be going back.
We walked back to the house & Patrick left for class. The rest of us napped and got gelato nearby before they headed out to sight see. I relaxed, made dinner reservations and when Pat got home we walked down to take the bus to meet them at Piazza Navona. The bus took forever to come but we ran into a friend from class and his girlfriend, who's visiting for 2 weeks. Finally the bus came, we met them and walked over to Ristorante Antonio. It was really good and very generous of them to take us out. I had tagliatelle with wild boar sauce and Pat and I split lamb chops. The waitress brought us free prosciutto too - a very meaty meal. We walked back through Trastevere, but no one we knew was at the fountain so we trekked uphill home. We ran into another friend but it sounded like nothing was going on. Thank god - we were all exhausted.
Today we're having the Greek group over again for dinner. Pat and I went shopping this morning - 3 kilos of sausage, 4 kilos of penne, 4 bags of salad greens, 6 cans of tomatoes for the gallon of sauce. I'm feeding an army tonight (well, 17) so I made sure we'd have enough food. If not, the 3 kilos of wine or 10 kilo watermelon should help.
