Today, in the State of Rome

Today's room, I noticed, had a tiny washer in it, so upon waking, I decided to take advantage. There wasn't detergent in the apartment, so I just used shower gel. Really, I figured, a little soap and water on the clothes would leave them better for traveling. 

I don't know why I assumed the tiny washer was actually a washer/dryer. It was just so compact; I figured it was made to do both. There was no evidence to support that hypothesis. 
So there was a half hour to check out and a load of wet clothes laying out in the room. 

"This is not the worse thing I have done," I said, eating the rest of yesterday's leftovers. "I have eaten brains. Instead of entrails."

With my half hour left in this place, I decided to look at the church down the block. There was a big Italian sign out front reading "Dream," but it turns out, it had a twelve Euro price tag. Unnecessary. Like many, it looked like a real old building. 

I took my bags the five blocks over to the new place, where they let me store my stuff until my room opened up. Then I decided to wander about again. 

Here's the view at the intersection on my latest street. 

I went back to old stuff town, Via dei Fori Impiarali, where I spent so much time getting my groove on yesterday. 

I figured I would see some other of the exhibitions that I missed after sundown, but while on line, a tour guide offered a package deal, including a view of parts of the colosseum that Michele and I didn't get to see before. 

The colosseum ends up a little humdrum on day two. It's still a wondrous work of architecture and craft, but I was much more interested in the stories Diego was telling than in looking at it. 

The view from the Arena floor was pretty cool, though. 

Afterwards was the stuff I was more into: the Palatine and the Roman Forum, the Imperial Palace and the burial place of Nero. 

Old stuff, man. 

It was an English speaking tour group, so we could converse, but we didn't. I asked Diego a bunch of questions without being annoying (according to me).

It took hours and it took a lot of walking and it took a toll on one of the elders in our group who, it turns out, was not a native English speaker. She was coming in from Milan. 

"To do Italy right," she confided as we walked slowly down one of the many many cobbled roads the republic constructed a couple thousand years ago, "you cannot spend a week."

"I know, right?" I said, coining a phrase for a brand new generation, "I need a year here. I wish I had time to be bored on these streets. Man, what a prize that would be..."

The tour was great. Whatever I said about wandering the streets of antiquity yesterday? Double that, when you've got a guide. Diego was imperfect. Like a lot of ESL folk, there were a bunch of stalls and "uhs" in his speech, but his information seemed good, and I couldn't catch him in any factual inaccuracies (not that I studied up b fore coming out here, dammit). I got a lot of good information, a lot of good views. I asked a lot of good questions.

The tour lasted well into the afternoon, which meant we got kicked out of the Forum at closing time, which was a bummer. I would have loved to have spent more time there, but I probably was the only one.

We took a group photo, which makes it look like I had friends, and I got a couple of peoples' emails to send them the shots. 

It was kind of nice to speak to accented english speakers - some of them were hot. 

Afterwards, I had to dash the mile back to the hotel to get into my room, take my wet clothes out of the bag, make plans with Michele, dash to the Metro to head to the Termini only to miss the train to his mountain village. 

I stuck around Termini for another hour, trying to figure out the intricacies of Italian and a foreign transit system (like the MTA is easy) letting Michele know I was late, and thinking about all I'd done. 

It's been a good day so far. What could possibly happen?

So now I'm stuck on the top of a hill in a rain storm in the middle of a roman night, slightly drunk, with a pile of leftover I don't know what to do with, vaguely lost, hoping to someday get the rest of the way home. 

Perhaps this will be a compelling story, if I don't die of consumption. What is consumption anymore? I knew this the other day...

It's not really an interesting story from there to here. It took me a while, but with native help, I got on the train to Frascanti and met Michele in the 25,000 town center that he calls home. 

He took me to the bar that he frequents, where everybody knows his name, but nobody really speaks English. They've heard his poetry, and don't get it any better than I do. 

After a bit he gave me a tour, took me to a friend's restaurant, got me drunk, and then I headed back to Rome. 

Ambling back to the hotel in a misty midnight was not the best laid plan of this mixed up man. I got lost in neighborhoods ive been visiting most every day. I seem to have just decided to visit the colosseum again, though it may well have been a full mile out of my way. 

A short cut took me up a hill into the rain storm, but luckily I seemed to have found myself on somebody's estate, so I was in a good position to wait it out. 

It was one thirty. 

Ruins I discovered in the dark. 

My carbonara was getting cold er. 

But the rain let up, and I only walked another theee quarters of a mile in the wrong direction before I cursed Michele for my own damned incompetence and got back to my room at two in the morning. 

This was going to be an early night. 

Tomorrow's gonna be something else.