Rome is Melting

Oh. My. God. It. Is. Sooooooo. Hot.

Thank goodness KK and I have done this city already. We don't have to feel guilty about spending the better part of the day inside. We walked around a bit downtown yesterday, got some lovely gelato and sat at the Piazza Navona and watched the people and talked. Three different guys came up to us, trying to "use our finger", i.e. so he could braid a friendship bracelet using our finger as its anchor point, tie it around our wrist and charge us 5 euro. They all had the same schtick: after we said no repeatedly, they would ask us "meow?", making fun of us I guess, and then KK and I would say (in unison, inevitably), "we are not cats!", and then they would be like "calm down, relax", but at least they would leave us alone. Annoying buggers.

After some more walking, we found the Abbey Theatre Irish pub, which had AIR CONDITIONING, so of course we had to stop in for a pint. I had some Harp - I've put myself in training for Ireland's beer. So that was nice and cool and cave-like.

Some more walking later, and we finally decided to eat dinner, circa 10 pm, like the Romans do. I had a salad!! And wine! A BIG glass of wine. Like a fishbowl big. And I drank it all - mommy taught me to never waste. I think I was leaning on KK a bit after that, weaving down the street. Somehow we were at the exact opposite end of the city from our lodgings, and getting back was a bit tricky, because it was night bus time, which are different from the day buses, so eventually we found a bus that went to Termini, the train station, and got on. KK caught a cab home, and walked very fast back to my hostel. End of Saturday.

Currently, we are both hanging out here at my hostel because it is hot as.....fill in blank. We have tickets to hop on the Archeobus at 3pm, so go see some catacombs (underground, cool places!). Then who knows. More air conditioned pub? Who knew an Irish pub would be our favorite place so far in Rome. Like I said, I'm glad that we have seen it all before so we dont have to worry about fighting the crowds and the heat to do something like the Colosseum. 

Another Pile o' Rocks in Rome

Soooo, what did I say yesterday? That I wouldn't go see another pile o' rocks? And what did I do today, just to drive myself crazy? Went to see a pile o' rocks, of course! Complete with church, another one of my "don't want to go into another one!" things. So I got two in one - piles o rocks and a church. Which had no redeeming value except that it was out of the sun.

Moral of the story: if you're in Rome, skip Diocletian's Baths, unless you are a really big bath nut. You will see plenty of things like the baths in other places, you don't need to bore yourself witless by adding this to the itinerary. Ignore what the guidebooks say.

It's 90 degrees here. HOT. I don't need hot water for my shower, even if they did have it. Give me a coooold shower and I'm happy. I have a "frozen water" guy that I go to every morning now, these are smart people - they freeze and sell full plastic water bottles, and they're the only people in the city I've seen that do this. I will happily give my left arm for cold water at this point, sawed off with a blunt spoon, its that hot. Seriously, whoever thought backpacking through Rome in July was a good idea should, well, go backpacking in Rome in July - with no shower!

Today KK came!!! Too bad I got myself all turned around on the metro and was 30 minutes late in meeting her. But I finally found her hotel and the only logical thing to do at that point was to sit in hotel and enjoy the AC, which they claim was on, but I am not so sure - I am still sweating, ew. And I found ants crawling on me while I was laying on her bed. Now we are out cruising the city. YAY KK!!!!

We did the only sane thing travelers can do when its this hot: get gelato and sit in a piazza to watch people. Piazza Navona is perfect for this, because it has fountains at either end, and sitting by one gives you the illusion of it being slightly cooler there. And gelato never tasted so good! Really should learn what all the flavors mean, since they are listed in Italian...on second thought, maybe not, I could be eating something like worm flavor!

All the artists were out on the piazza tonight, making for a festive air as the tourists wandered among them and some got taken for ride. Do they really think this is original art? I mean, did they not just see it in a souvenir shop on the other side of the piazza? No? Ok, well enjoy. I guess if you like it, buy it. Meanwhile, I will continue to feed my two gelato a day habit, mmm stracciatella....

Getting out of Rome - Ostia Antica

On my own in Rome, what to do, what to do?  I've already seen most of the city on our last trip here last winter, so I decided to get out of town to a place called Ostia Antica, which was the port for Rome back in ancient times, and was preserved by the mud that silted up the Tiber River. One of my guide books compared it to Pompeii, but I think the only thing to two places have in common is that they are super old.

Pompeii was so much more interesting than Ostia. Pompeii had actual buildings, and you could tell what they were - Ostia had half-buildings that used to be warehouses (photo at right). So uninteresting that your eyes just slide right over them. I don't understand how some archeologists can get some excited when they dig things like Ostia up, it's so repititious and mundane. Hmm, kind of like everyday life.

Photo, below: mosaic on a bath floor. Ok, this is cool, but there's only so many ancient mosaics you can see before your eyes cross permanently!

However, for a day to get out of the city, Ostia wasn't too bad. Quiet, birds and flowers, old piles o' rock. The biggest triumph of it all was taking the metro to the regional train all by myself, and back again.

Ok, one cool thing was all the graffitti on the trains. And for that matter, in every public space. But really, graffitti artists here take their work seriously, and they turn out some pretty amazing stuff, very colorful and original. I can see why the authorities don't clean it off the trains - they look so much better with the paint on them!

Photo, right: awesome graffitti on the trains