Last Free Day

I swore a couple of days ago that I would be thinner when I returned to the states. I am no longer so sure. I'm still working hard out there, every day, walking and sweating a lot, but today, I'm not sure how far I actually travelled, how much work I actually did.
Today I went to Ostia Antica, the other buried city. The one that isn't Pompeii. 
First, I got breakfast. First time one of my hotels had a complimentary breakfast and I could get moving early enough to do something about it. Of course, it wasn't in the actual building I was staying in, so I had to wind my way through Navona to a different hostel to find the rooftop where a continental breakfast was available. The food was all right. I ate too much of it. 
The view - like every view here - was good. 

I was thinking how Spider-Man would have a tough time in this town.

Then I checked out of my hotel, and heading my last lodging in Rome, a place just a block or two from my first.
The last hotel is in the touristy part of town, but it's near Termini, the big train station, the one that'll get me to the airport, and the one that'll take me to the ghost town. 

This is not a bus, by the way. This is foreshadowing
for a later public transit element of this story. 

To get to the train station, I picked up a 24-Hour MetroPass.
Why didn't I do this before? 
All this walking around the city that I've loved and has made me think this is the greatest place on earth (barring New York, of course; you know I love you, New York, don't ever change, I'll never leave you again, New York, please forgive me, New York, PLEASE!) could have been easily avoided had I bought a Metrocard sooner. I could have just been tooling around the city, taking buses, the Metro, I could even take the light rail to Frascati and Ostia Antica for the same price. What a fool I was! What a sucker!
The bus was daunting at first. A guy came up to soon after I boarded and talked to me in Italian.
"English?" I asked meekly, as is my wont.
"Ticket?"
"Oh!" I pulled it out, showed it to him, and he pointed me to the apparatus. I fumbled with it, then he showed me how to use it. Then he started walking around the bus, and I noticed the Polizia patch on his black outfit. At the next stop he'd pulled three guys off, presumably to write them tickets.
I got to my new hotel, dropped my bags, and used my new magic card to head down to the Metro, then to transfer to light rail, and in an hour, I was a couple kilometers from the Mediterranean, at Ostia Antica, in an entire city that never stopped being classical.

I mean, obviously, it stopped at SOME point, right...

There were no tour guides provided here, but there was an audiotour I could rent, with up to 60 different spots identified of interest. In the three hours I was there, I only scratched about half those spots. There's a lot to see. 

There's also a lot of paved stones that tend to hurt sneakered feet. I can't imagine how sandals fared back in the day. Again, how this empire survived as long as it did shocks me. More power to the Romans - and the Greeks before them. More power to 'em. 

While walking the dead streets, I came across an ampitheatre. Not the first I've seen here, and not the first I've had access to. This was empty but for two people, though, and I was reminded that there had been an open mic on Thursday that I'd only heard about on Friday, and so I would have no opportunity to perform live in Italy. But this would perhaps be my best opportunity to perform for the dead. 
I needed something I had memorized, of course, which cuts down on the material, since I never learn my new poetry (too much of it), and I haven't done any of my old stuff in a while (see above). But there's a really short piece from the end of high school that I still could pull off, if I thought about it...

I did.

Cat do not give a shit.

There were a couple of people sitting there while I had recited, but we weren't the only ones. It seems like a lot of these sites have been adopted by cats. One adopted me for a minute. Just came up to me and started looking for affection, even going so far as to come into my lap. I guess no one does any of the local cats any harm at the site. 

In some of the historical fiction I've read about Ancient Rome, they talk about the Egyptians, and how well they treat cats. I guess the tradition just moved over a bit. 

Of course, eventually, he just nipped and me and stalked off. Why would I expect anything else? But it was good to get a little affection after a performance. It's been a while since that's happened, in any country at all. 

I had thought that Ostia had suffered a similar fate to Pompeii, with ash giving a sudden stop to its life, but it looks like atrophy and decay ended the city's life. Somehow, I think that makes this image even more poignant, how nature fells us all, whether with man's help or harm, over decades or centuries, we're all gonna go eventually. Brick, tree... it doesn't matter, however long you've got, you're gonna fall eventually. It sounds fatalistic, but it could be seen as just the opposite. Anyway:

I am a fantastic artist.  

I had three hours. It wasn't enough. But three hours was also incredibly exhausting. This week has worn me down quite a bit. My back hurts. My legs ache. I am an old, withered man, and am so happy I have a MetroCard, so I need never walk anywhere ever ever again, ever. 
As I walked through the dead city, I found a fairly dead part of town, where I heard and saw virtually no one. I walked to the second story of a building, and heard planes overhead and the corner of my eyes recognized life, but I was mostly alone in the necropolis. What can I say? I was inspired. I wanted to do another video, so I decided to come up with something new. I put something together than I figured I could memorize and recite, a feel-good pop ditty to keep the world humming: 

It's called, I decided afterwards, "Before the Leap."

I pretty much felt I was done after this, and slouched my way back to the railroad, to transfer to the train, to trip back to the room, and write down something like this. 

But after I wrote this, I realized that I bought a train pass for the day, and I still had Euros that weren't gonna do me no good in NYC, so I went out again to shop, to eat, and to get on public transportation.

I couldn't find a train or a bus, but two out of three ain't bad. A caller (I've used this term a couple of times; I mean a hawker, someone who's trying to convince me to do business with an establishment) tried to convince me to go to a Chinese Restaurant, and I was intrigued.
"Is there anything," I began, already doubting the line of questioning "that is special about Italian Chinese food that would be different from American Chinese food?"

"Chinese food is Chinese food," he said. I think he was trying to make the sale, but it really wasn't helping. 

I tried to explain: "Like, I had Chinese food from India, and it's very different than Chinese food from America."
"Oh! Well, you could have noodles. That's, that's spaghetti, so..."

I sighed. "I'll look at the menu. Maybe I can see something.

There was a pineapple and nut rice that looked different to me. I thought it was worth a shot.

It wasn't worth a shot. The look of the place was pretty typical of third rate Chinese places. I'm pretty sure I got charged for the fortune cookie. I did like the fortune, though. 

Uh huh. 

 I don't think I got lost on the way back to my hotel at all.