Random Rome: Learning to Live Like Italians

Andalusan Spain: Cadiz, Arcos de la Frontera & Granada

2010-09-09T12:19:00.031+02:00

Arrived in Cadiz after several days at sea....a beautiful, relaxed coastal town with a long history of occupations, dating back top Phoneticians and Romans (Hercules was said to have planted one foot in Cadiz and is the city founder). While in port, classes are canceled , so we spent several days in Cadiz then rented a car and drove to Granada via the white village of Arcos de la Frontera. Andalusia's scenery was beautiful...although apparently hardship is more acutely felt in this region of Spain, which has the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

Cadiz's harbor:

Chandelier in Cadiz city hall:

Meters for electricity in an apartment building entry:

Cadiz rooftops & sidewalks:

Local window paintings in Cadiz:

Goat cheese tapas in Cadiz...

Arcos de la Frontera:

Andalusian scenery:

Below: Around the cathedral in Granada (where Ferdinand & Isabella are buried):

Below: A spice market materializes in the street adjacent to the cathedral.

[View of Granada from the Alhambra]

Alhambra images:

TEACHING AT SEA: 110 days circumavigating the globe on a floating campus

2010-09-04T22:41:00.013+02:00

Yes...we are now a long ways from Italy, but it was easier to revive this blog than to start another afresh. After a year back in the US and a six week summer return to Italy, we've left the USA to teach on the University of Virginia's Semester at Sea program. Danielle is excited to be back on the MV Explorer once again...and so are we. We sailed from Norfolk on August 24, with Hurricane Danielle chasing us all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Seasickness plagued most of us, but we somehow managed to make it through the faculty and staff training sessions and picked up the students, lifelong learners and Desmond Tutu in Halifax. We arrived in the fog, and explored the city in the drizzle on the first day.

[Foggy view from our cabin's deck on the first morning in Halifax]

The first night in Halifax featured a gala ship-board reception for the parents of arriving students--we faculty and staff led them on ship tours, then feasted on a banquet of appetizers and other delicacies in which chocolate was well represented (the abstract chocolate sculptures kept Danielle in hyper-gear until the wee hours of the AM!). Our second day in Halifax was glorious...so we contined our explorations of the city and its historic citadel warmed by the sun.

We set sail for Spain later that afternoon...a seven day crossing, with a demanding schedule of daily teaching beginning on the second day. Crossing in this direction has proven to be more arduous than we'd anticipated, as we are losing an hour almost every day (what Dean David has aptly termed "death by one hour increments"). But the pluses--classrooms with views of the sea, a wonderful shipboard community, lectures, interesting new colleagues and engaged students--all more than make up for sleep loss, as do those early morning moments of tranquility on the aft deck of the ship...

[Early AM on the aft deck]

Several days into our crossing we were re-energized by awakening to find we were passing the Azores (which surprisingly enough, resembled an Atlantic version of "Bali-Hai"),

[One of the Azonres]

The other plus is being on board with not just our little nuclear family, but my mom and step-dad, as well [see below--the shot taken as we began the voyage in Norfolk].

Spring Trip to Spain

2009-04-22T17:12:00.049+02:00

With spring break upon us in mid-March (yes, I'm a little behind...), we decided to split our time between Spain and a Tuscany road trip. Some images and highlights below....

In Madrid we based ourselves at Puerta del Sol, a large bustling plaza in the very center of the city. Our days started at La Mallorquina, a Puerta del Sol bakery cafe that has drawn Spaniards and tourists for generations. The apron-skirted woman is the pastry-shop's icon. (Can't explain why I took such delight in seeing her on the wall each morning...it might be because she was accompanied by all sorts of delicious smells--baking croissants and strong spanish coffee--or perhaps because she is clothed in the colors of the Italian flag).

The attentive purveyors of the bakery's delicacies...

One happy customer:

"Tio Pepe" the iconic billboard that has presided over Puerta del Sol for about as long as the bakery has been in business (this was reputed to have been the first billboard in Spain):

The area around Puerta del Sol is lined with tapas bars and "ham museums"--not exactly what I think of when imagining Madrid's museums! Here is one such ham museum--really just a jumbo-sized cured meat shop...

While the food of Spain merits museum exhibition, ham "museums" were not the only museums we visited in Madrid. We also spent time in more traditional museums, and even spent a morning at the Palacio Real (depicted below):

One newly-finished church adjacent to the palace was especially captivating--light, uplifting and airy, with a colorful ceiling that could have been painted by South Pacific artists.

My last visit to Madrid was as a teen in the Franco era and in my memory, save for the squares and parks around the Prado, the city felt gray. For me, this was a new, brighter Madrid. Some of the plazas in the heart of town burst with color, and the tiled surfaces of some of the small businesses carried romanticized imagery of the past. Even the tackier tiled shopfront murals kept me dawdling behind Peter and Danielle...

SEVILLA:

From Madrid we took a train to Seville for several days. It was the first burst of warm weather in Spain and people were rediscovering outdoor life, strolling, setting up terrace cafe tables, and refurbishing after the rains of winter.

Sprucing up Seville's bull-fighting ring, in anticipation of the start of the new season later in the month:

Side door entrance to the bull-pen area:

Bull-pen:

Paintings depicting bull "types" from the bull-fighting museum (for my bovine & kerbau-loving friends!):

Where matadors pray before the bullfights (a small chapel adjacent to the bull stalls):

Where matadors & fans go after the bullfights:

Around Seville:

:
Inside Seville's Alcazar: A tiled, fountain-filled oasis...

Day trip to CORDOBA:

Cordoba Alcazar gardens...

Streets of old Cordoba...

Exterior of the Mesquita (the old mosque):

Interior of the mosque:

Italian Easter

2009-04-20T17:25:00.010+02:00

Easter season in Rome has prompted a transformation of shop windows. Local bakeries, candy shops and even corner coffee bars and take-away food places suddenly filled with gloriously wrapped egg-shaped delicacies of all sizes and themes. Some dangled from the ceilings like pinatas, as depicted below....

And others crammed the display windows...accommodating all tastes and all budgets

This & That: Carnivale & Garbatella (an interesting part of Rome)

2009-03-01T23:19:00.021+01:00

Although this year's Carnivale in Venice drew record-breaking crowds, Carnivale in Rome appears to be primarily child-oriented. For about ten days before Lent, neighborhood children could be seen at our local Piazza San Cosimato playground tossing confetti and sporting Carnivale costumes (boys mostly in superhero garb & girls mostly princesses). A few children in Daniela's class had Carnivale parties: [below]

Bakeries displayed special seasonal Carnivale treats (cream puffs or fried pasta dusted in powdered sugar), and some other shops and trattorias adorned their display windows with masks or confetti. But overall, for those of us not oriented towards the neighborhood's nighlt clubs, Carnivale in Trastevere was decidedly low key. On Fat Tuesday, Daniela's class wore their costumes to school and paraded over to Piazza Mastai in the afternoon, along with their teachers and older schoolmates (which I missed since I was teaching). However, the previous Sunday we'd visited Rome's Garbatella neighborhood for a birthday party and happened upon a lively little Carnivale parade:
Some watched the parade from the sidelines, while others opted for the comfort of their windows:

The parade ended in a neighborhood square where costumed children threw still more confetti while parents caught up with friends:

The Garbatella neighborhood where the parade took place is a fascinating pocket of Rome. Originally constructed in the 1920s as a planned community for workers and immigrants, its now considered a neighborhood ripe for gentrification. Lead architects Sabbatini and Giovannoni designed low rise buildings with large gardens and public spaces where they envisioned diverse community members could mingling harmoniously. Here are some images:

Many of the buildings have little flourishes that one would not expect to find in workers' housing-- sculpted drainpipes, wrought iron balconies, and decorative urns.

Precepe in our Neighborhood (esp. Santa Maria de Trastevere & San Crisogono)

2009-01-18T22:18:00.060+01:00

Some of my favorite precepe in Rome went up in the churches & schools in our Trastevere neighborhood. On Christmas day we took a mid-day walk to Santa Maria de Trastevere Church & admired the precipe in the portico of the church--a replica of the church itself, featuring scenes of the neighborhood-oriented activities the church coordinates (work with handicapped, immigrant-oriented skills classes, etc.). These are some of the scenes depicted on the S.M. de Trastevere church's nativity scene:

One of the sides of the S.M.de Trastevere nativity scene depicts the annual Christmas day meal that is served inside the church for the poor, homeless, elderly or others in need without somewhere to go on Christmas:

Here is a video that shows more of the church's nativity scene:

The nativity scene at another Trastevere church featured historical neighborhood photos as the backdrop: (click on the image to see the detail)

Daniela's elementary school in Trastevere had two nativity scenes, one a traditional affair and a second display highlighting the historic school building: (click on the image to enlarge)

Finally, the latest in nativity-ware from a little farther afield: the latest trend in Naples appears to be Obama Nativity figures.

Images of Tunisia

2009-01-18T22:18:00.038+01:00

Tunisia is only an hour's flight from Rome, but worlds apart...

Scenes from Tunis' medina:

A quiet neighborhood of Tunis:

Sidi Bou Said, a small coastal suburb of Tunis popular with tourists:

Sousse, a thriving coastal city with a spectacular medina:

El Djem, one of the three largest Roman amphitheaters and UNESCO World Heritage Site:

Outside the Em Djem amphitheater shops target both local consumers and tourists:

Kairouan, one of the oldest Muslim settlements in North Africa (also a world heritage site):

The mosque at Kairouan is an important North African pilgrimage site:
Entry to the Kairouan mosque at dusk:

Treats for sale in the Kairouan medina (the entire medina is a world heritage site):

Hammamet medina rooftops (a medina that throngs with tourist shops):

The sea at Hammamet:

Christmas In Rome: Creches (presepe), Carpets, and La Befana

2009-01-14T17:42:00.028+01:00

About two weeks before Christmas, our Trastevere neighborhood began to transform. Glittering lights and blue stars were strung across the Medieval streets and merchants adorned the sidewalks in front of their shops with red "Queen's Carpets." The windows of bakers filled with decorative breads and creches popped up in all sorts of expected and unexpected places, from public piazzas to school hallways.

Christmas creches, or presepe, are a veritable folk art here. Most families assemble their own Christmas creches, adding to them gradually each year with a piece or two. Piazza Navonna's annual Christmas fair is one venue for creche shopping. Here you can find all you need to make your own creche or, for those less creatively inclined, you can purchase ready-made creche figures. Visiting the crowd-filled Christmas fair at Piazza Navona on a weekend afternoon in December, one would never believe the news reports that Italian presepe practices are now threatened traditions, under assault by an invading army of American Christmas trees.
[Above: Piazza Navona's Christmas fair]

Some of the creche items sold at Piazza Navona show particular Roman twists. note the Roman soldiers and marble columns for sale alongside the creche Madonnas below.
For some families a manger scene is not enough: many construct villages alongside their creches. While some of these villages are oasis-esque, replete with palm trees, most are more Medieval and depict everything from meat vendors and potters to gamers. [See below].

The Piazza Navona Christmas fair is not limited to creche supplies, one can also find multitudes of images of La Befana, the old woman who gives good Italian children sweets on January 6th and poorly behaved children coal (candy coal is also sold at Piazza Navona, as well!).

Venders also supply children's toys...

After a morning of browsing creche items, we did what most Roman families do this time of year--took a break to eat freshly roasted chestnuts.

Not only do families display their own creches, but they are also displayed in most churches and in some piazzas. The piazza and church-based Christmas creches arrived in Rome later than I expected--in mid-December, and the mangers remained empty until Christmas Eve, when baby Jesuses get added.

Soggy Rome: Rains & the Rising Tiber River

2008-12-13T17:49:00.013+01:00

Five plus days of non-stop rains in Rome have slowed life to a crawl. A massive nation-wide strike had been called for Friday, but the Roman portion of it was largely canceled due to what has been declared the worst weather in years. The Tiber river is at the highest level it has been since the 1960s and some of the ancient bridges are considered at risk of being swept away by the rising waters. This morning we finally had a lull in the rains and went out to join the others who were lining the shores of the river, cameras in hand. Here is the Tiber River on the day after it had reached its peak levels:

Here is a shot of how the water normally looks in non-flood level times. The lower lamplit walkway is now completely submerged:

Here is a video i-report, shot in our Trastevere neighborhood last night: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-162314

Italian Fusion Thanksgiving Food & Barcelona Images

2008-12-09T21:53:00.028+01:00

Another quick trip outside the pasta zone...The night before departing Rome, we had an Italianized Thanksgiving meal on campus with the students and a mix of American and Italian families. The Italian chefs' translation of this American tradition into something they could wrap their heads around was worth the price of admission alone. To start with, the chefs could not fathom why a bowl of cranberry sauce was needed on the table from the start of the meal and, feeling the necessity of an antipasta course, they transformed the bowl of cranberry sauce into Italianized anitpasta, pairing it with a bowl of olive oil and adding leafy celery stalks for dipping. A meal without a pasta course was equally unthinkable, so we had a course of pumpkin ravioli BEFORE the turkey and potatoes. Delicious...a tradition I want to adopt! The stuffing and pumpkin pie brought us to new terrain: the stuffing was more like sliced pate and the pumpkin pie was more akin to a flat Italian peasant cheese cake tart. Most of us chose to close the meal with tiramisu and espresso instead!

The next AM it was off to Barcelona...Some Barcelona cityscapes below....

Boqueria Market (vegans beware):

Gaudi's La Pedrera (Casa Milà):

Gaudi's unfinished Sagrada Familia :

Tapas!:

Obama-mania: A bar getting outfitted with new signs, not yet a month after the elections.

Nuns at Work

2008-12-03T00:36:00.007+01:00

All fall, as the olives ripened on the small orchard on Loyola University's Rome Campus, I wondered who would do the harvesting...if anyone. Last week I learned who does the hard labor:

Dusk @ St. Peter's on a Sunday in November

2008-11-18T03:53:00.012+01:00

Some images from a dusk trek to the Vatican with visiting French cousins...

Tuscia Chestnut Festival

2008-11-08T10:50:00.020+01:00

Autumn in the northern Lazio countryside is dream-season for back road-trips...so last Sunday we took a drive that evoked childhood memories of family drives in rural northern California. Our destination: the town of Tuscia, which was holding its annual Chestnut Festival. (The area produces more than 5% of the world's chestnuts).
We arrived mid-day and were baffled to find the town eerily quiet, save for a few vendors selling chestnut cookies, chestnut spread, and home made jams...so we wandering the Medieval core of Tuscia in search of the festivities. Instead, we found some architecture that could have inspired opera sets.

And a bit of evidence of local efforts to tidy things up for the festival...
Finally, we found the chestnut action: indoors in several restaurant "caves" where residents and visitors were partaking in a great feast featuring chestnuts! Moral: For Italian food festivals, it pays to arrive early (or make advance reservations). We had to satisfy ourselves with a jar of chestnut spread and some chocolate hazelnut cookies purchased at one of the half dozen stands erected for the event.
Our images of purchasing freshly roasted chestnuts at various outdoor stands were off target: there were plenty of raw chestnuts for sale, and even a few groups of burly men roasting wonderfully aromatic chestnuts, but these were all destined for the indoor feasters...and not for sale to aimlessly wandering visitors. Even without tasting the roasted chestnuts or partaking in the chestnut feast, Tuscia was impressive.

Barack Mania in Italy

2008-11-06T18:25:00.008+01:00

La Repubblica, one of the main Italian newspapers devoted its first 11 pages exclusively to Obama today and another half dozen pages deeper in the paper. The front page and some of the other pages are below. The large headline reads “The World Has Changed.” And the article in the bottom right corner bears the headline "The End of Autism” (only in Italy would one see such a headline!) and opens with “Barack Obama is the president of the world. Not in the pessimist and impossible sense of emperor of us all, but in a realistic and positive sense, as the man that the majority of humanity wanted as the leader of the most important country in the world.” The article goes on to report on a virtual planetary election held on the internet in which Obama won 94.5% of the French vote, 88% of the Chinese vote, 92.5% of the German vote and 92% of the Italian vote.

Pages 2-3: (click on photo to enlarge)

Pages 4-5:

Pages 6-7:

The Latest Italian Romance: Gondoliers for Obama

2008-11-05T22:25:00.005+01:00

Day of Protest

2008-10-30T23:50:00.015+01:00

Yesterday the Italian government passed a highly controversial law (law 133) drafted by Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini that will usher in massive changes to Italy's educational system. In addition to slashing school budgets, the law will cut the number of teachers per class down to one (currently each elementary school class has two teachers and often a third "floating" teacher) and it will reduce the teaching week from 40 hours to 24 hours thereby posing problems for families without resources for after-school care. Some estimates suggest that 83,000 younger teachers will lose their already precarious positions. The law also eliminates summer school makeup sessions for students who fail classes, requiring them to repeat the entire year. At higher levels, the law will force universities to be more entrepreneurial in seeking funding and will eliminate non-producing departments. Protests have been staged all fall (see my 9/24 & 9/26 blogs) culminating in today's national school/university strike. Thousands and thousands of students, parents and teachers from all over the country took to the streets of Rome, and many ended their protests at the Ministry of Education, which is just a block and a half from our house. Helicopters buzzed overhead, Viale Trastevere (the main boulevard in this part of town) flooded with chanting protesters and the Ministry gates were barricaded by rows of police outfitted in riot gear. Danielle's elementary school was well-represented--some of her teachers as well as parents and teachers from her class gathering this morning to march in the protests. Not knowing what to expect (& beling swamped with work), we kept Danielle home.
But I managed to catch part of the protests in and around the Ministry of Education. The mood called to mind 1960s San Francisco peace marches in San Francisco: chanting students, educators and parents marching arm-in-arm, grand-mother's calling out "Bravi! Bravi!" from the sidelines, the occasional smell of pot, police on the sidelines, music, V signs...

Here are some images from today's protest.

Above: The first student groups arrive at the Ministry a half block from our apartment, as the demonstration begins.
Above: The scene directly in front of the Ministry of Education on Viale Trastevere
Below: Video clip of the demonstration.

Below: In Rome, South Asian street vendors always seem to pop up at the right moment with the right product. When the first drops of rain come down, they can be counted upon to emerge with umbrellas and when demonstrations break out, they materialize hawking whistles.
Below: Speeches and effigies on the steps of the Ministry. 1st image: effigy is of Gelmini, 2nd images is Burlusconi.
Below: By the time the protest was winding down, scores of protesters had adorned the gate surrounding the Ministry of Education with their protest signs.

Istanbul Images

2008-10-19T18:32:00.023+02:00

We took a break from the land of pasta and pizza and spent five days of our fall break awakening to mosque calls to prayers in Istanbul. After all those years of living in Indonesia, Istanbul felt wonderfully familiar yet also different. Here are some images of Istanbul for those of you who'd hoped to find them on Danielle's web page (she was more interested in posting images of the cats she met there).

[Above: The Blue Mosque viewed from the roof of our inn. Below: Elaborate ceiling of the Blue Mosque--I want this ceiling!]

[Below: Istanbul must be the capital of delectable street foods, from fresh pressed pomegranate juice stands to carry away baklava...we were in street food heaven!]

[Below: "You can get anything you want at Istanbul's grand bazaar" to be sung to the tune of Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant"]

[Below: Ceiling at Topkai Palace][Below: Scenes from Istanbul's Spice Market...if only there were a way to replicate the smells...]

St. Francis of Assisi tours our neighborhood

2008-10-07T20:21:00.022+02:00

St. Francis had his annual parade around our neighborhood this past Saturday, replete with a pause at Piazza San Cosimato. Danielle was thrilled by the "parade," though a bit perplexed by the hushed quality of the affair (she wanted to cheer, as one would at a New Year's parade...)

Streetcorner Madonnas

2008-10-04T13:59:00.001+02:00

Streetside Madonnas are a common sight in Rome. Many homes and buildings display sculpted Madonnas, Madonna frescoes, and even mosaic Madonnas. Beneath some are bouquets or candles, and occasionally one will see (usually elderly) Romans pause to briefly bowing their heads as their errands take them past these Madonas. Here are some of my favorites from our neighborhood.

A well-attended Madonna by our #8 tram stop on Viale Trastevere. She is never without bouquets, votive offerings, and even receives the occasional teddy bear:
A lovely old Madonna frescoe overlooks the Piazza San Cosimato market and playground by our apartment:

And finally, a more whimsical contemporary mosaic Madonna a couple blocks from our apartment:

Socializing young protesters Italian style

2008-09-26T14:21:00.000+02:00

This was the scene this AM when I dropped Danielle off at her elementary school. Protest signs, fliers about the upcoming demonstration and school strike two weeks from now, swarms of children on the school steps chanting against the Berlusconi school budget cuts, and proud parents snapping photos of their demonstrating children...American social scientists like to declare schools to be instruments in the training of a docile citizenry, but clearly Italian schools serve to train students in other ways, including in the art of civil protest. At home we tend to have a lot of rhetoric about the democratic process, but we could learn a lot from Italy about what it means to be an active, politically engaged citizenry.

Whats an Elementary School Orientation Meeting without a Little Politics?

2008-09-24T20:38:00.000+02:00

Daneille's Roman elementary school just held an orientation meeting for the parents of entering 1st graders (there is no kindergarten here)--we attended assuming that the meeting would be akin to Evanston's orienting meetings for kindergarteners. The first portion of the meeting went aswe expected: About 25 parents squeezed themselves into the children's miniature chairs and another 30 parents crowded the classroom's perimeter while the teaching team made their introductions and presented an overview of school policies and materials to be covered in the coming academic year. The meeting took a surprise turn 20 minutes in, however, when the topic turned to politics and strikes. For the next 40 minutes the teachers launched an impassioned outline of the school budget cuts and pedagogical changes the new Berlusconi government plans to institute starting next fall. Currently, there are three professional teachers per classroom (two of them are floaters), and the government plans to reduce this to one teacher per class. According to the teachers, this reduction would imperil the children's education, as one teacher could not possible offer expertise in multiple areas of instruction. Within minutes, parents were joining in to voice their indignation over the looming changes. Sensing the level of outrage had become optimal, the teachers circulated a protest petition for all to sign. Then talk turned to the details of their protest plans--they announced the date they anticipated striking and encouraged us to lend our support, as we all dutifully jotted down the info.

For us, it was a lens into a very different way of dealing with frustration over government policies. While parents get riled up about Department of Education changes in Evanston and circulate petitions of protest, political talk is not part of the formal school landscape (petitions are circulated OUTSIDE, in the school parking lots, and political frustrations are never voiced during school parent-teacher meetings). But, as we are learning, this is Italy, where politics and strikes are all part and parcel of formal school welcome gatherings!

Favorite Trastevere Graffiti: Pre-fab & Traditional

2008-09-23T22:43:00.000+02:00

Ground zero for graffiti in Central Rome appears to be our neighborhood of Trastevere. Above is my favorite graffito--these stenciled pig-tailed girls discarding Fascism popped up about a week ago on various Trastevere walls. The two "pre-fab" graffiti below make me smile when I pass them. The musical duck is an icon for a local jazz festival (I think!).

And now for some more traditional graffiti. No wasting of space here....
And finally, the political....a pun on America...

A child-centric world?

2008-09-20T11:02:00.001+02:00

Childhood in Rome has its own rhythms, rhythms that Danielle has rapidly embraced. In many ways, as the stereotype goes, children are the epicenter of Italian life. We cannot walk into a shop without the merchants making a fuss over Danielle. Today, when the manager of a Trastevere pizza-takeaway joint saw me photographing the pizzas in his case, he rushed out from behind the counter to Danielle (who was munching on her pizza slice), swooped her into his arms, carried her back to his station, triumphantly planting her on his stool. There, he thrust a pizza slicer and spatula in her hands and invited me to photograph "la bella Daniela" at work. Grinning, she complied and so did I. Waiters have slipped rings off their fingers for Danielle and strangers at cafes have presented her with fancy glow-in-the-dark sunglasses. The local gourmet shopkeeper gifts her with hand made candies, the cheese merchant feeds her chunks of peccorino Romano cheese and waiters chat indulgently with her about the various books she reads over meals. Yesterday, when we stopped for a late afternoon drink, the bar manager proposed that Danielle have a gelato, which we declined, explaining that she'd already had her gelato for the day. Within minutes he'd returned with a micro-mini gelato cone he had hand-fashioned for her, declaring conspiratorially that this was not a real cone! (When would an American cafe-owner go against parental decisions about their child's desert consumption?).

The child-centric orientations go well beyond gratifying children with food and impromptu gifts. When we take strolls in our neighborhood, strangers will greet her with "Ciao, bella!" or gesture at her and declare "Ch'e carina...," While the indulgent parental side of me would love to think it is because my child is so uniquely wonderful, I know better: people here do this with ALL the small children who pass their orbit. When I apologize to gelato merchants because Daniele is taking too long to make up her mind, causing the queue behind us to lengthen exponentially, the gelato vendors invariable chastise me for rushing her. This is a land where children are constantly reaffirmed and indulged. Is is any wonder Danielle adores Italy and periodically asks us, "Why is everything better in Italy?"

Yet for all the public fuss over children, playgrounds are few and far between in Rome. We are constantly on the lookout for them and, after a little over a month of living in Rome, we've only spotted three playgrounds. For such a child-oriented society, it is perplexing, especially when one considers that most Romans are apartment-dwellers without access to backyard play areas. We are fortunate that we have one playground right down the block from us in Piazza San Cosimato, but it is quite small--not equipped to handle the herds of neighborhood children trying to elbow their way onto the structure at peak hours.

A word about those peak hours...Since arriving in Rome we've been struck by the very different pace at the local playground on the piazza a block down the hill from our apartment. In the early mornings, when the farmers' market is running on the piazza, the playground is packed with children, parents and senior citizens, conversing and watching the sidewalk theatre. By afternoon, the playground becomes somewhat quieter, and the benches surrounding it become home to a higher ratio of street people, along with a few tourists and elderly neighbors. In the late afternoons playground traffic picks up again until about 8PM, when families begin to dine. Finally (at least on summer nights and weekends so far this fall), as Danielle was delighted to discover, the playground starts to fill up once again around 9:30 or 10PM...Here is a shot of the playground taken at 10:15PM, and this was on a slow August night, before all the Trastevere children returned from their vacations! And last Saturday (an unseasonably cold night) when we passed the playground at 10:30 PM, Danielle paused to gaze at all the children on the structure and declared in awe,"Theres lots of action here at night!"I have to mention the playground structure. The San Cosimato piazza playground was redone a couple years ago and, with characteristic Italian attentiveness to the visual domain, they went with playground equipment that is out the pages of a high Italian design catalog--more sculptural art than industrial playground. Gone are the traditional slides and swings, replaced with soaring poles and dangling climbing pieces that are vaguely reminiscent of Alexander Calder mobiles fused with contemporary Italian espresso makers.

The other dimension of childhood that we are just learning about with Danielle's first week of public school is the attentiveness to training children to have the proper respect for food and mealtimes. She came home the first day aglow about how the school lunchroom is "like a fancy restaurant." Apparently they sit at little tablecloth-covered tables and are served lengthy, leisurely meals of all organic food...nothing like the cafeteria trays and 25 minute lunches they are given in Evanston! The institutionalized cultural lessons about the centrality of food start early...

Those celebrated Italian shoes...

2008-08-25T22:28:00.000+02:00

OK...I'll confess, I am only a closet show hound, and my shoe tastes are more geared towards footwear of the White Mountain or Birkenstock variety (or for a real splurge Mephistos). So I did not expect to be captivated by the third Italian product relished by Americans (after gelato and pizza): Italian shoes...But I do appreciate creativity and one tiny shoe store here in Trastevere has me captivated. I go our of my way for a chance to peer in its windows. Abacus shoes anyone? Or how about a bicycle wheel heel? All available for under $200 a pair!

La Bella Figura

2008-08-24T17:42:00.000+02:00

Since arriving in Italy, the phrase "la bella figura" comes up constantly. Before arriving in Rome, I thought I had a fair sense of what it meant--attending to looking one's best, putting one's best foot forward. I had no idea, however, how ingrained "la bella figura" is in everyday life. The first hint of this was in Grado (an island beach resort town on the Adriatic, near Trieste, where we did our intensive language program). At the beach entrance was an enormous and very public mirror, where people coming and going from the beach were stopping to check and adjust their appearance. I flash back to Chicago, where even the beach bathrooms do not have mirrors, or if they do they are made of heavily-graffiti-ed nonbreakable material with all the reflective qualities of a car fender...no, "la bella figura" is decidedly not part of American culture!

As we've gradually come to appreciate, la bella figura pertains not only to bodies, but to presentations in general. The butcher I frequent at the market at Piazza San Cosimato, like other butchers here, is not just content to present you with a pile of sliced salami wrapped in paper, instead he takes the time to carefully arrange all the slices in pleasing little patterns, then folds the paper around it as if it were a little present. Unwrapping lunchmeats and cheeses has never been so much fun!

A Year of Living Calorically

2008-08-24T15:46:00.001+02:00

This space is devoted to random recordings of everyday life in Rome...aha moments when an alternate Roman view of life is momentarily silhouetted, memorable meals that would probably be impossible to replicate in the US, and other passing (and not always penetrating) observations about daily life a la Romana.

This first blog addresses one of the two themes most of us in the US associate with Italy: food, glorious food! Images of food (and places to consume it) are as ubiquitous here as SUVs in Chicago suburbs. And on those few residential blocks where you can't see food, you can smell it. Delicious smells of simmering pasta sauces and roasting meats waft out of the windows of ancient apartments, calling to mind images of my grand-mother standing over her stove stirring her polenta. In our Trastevere neighborhood every block seems to have not only its own cafe where you can grab a lungo (espresso) or a quick pasta, but also its own gelateria--each with its own unique twist. Is it fair trade ingredient gelato you want? Then its Gelateria Fior di Luna for you. Is it the brightly-colored chain offering a variety equivalent to that of Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors? Then it is Blue Ice for you, on the Piazza Santa Maria di Trastevere. Artisanal gelato, made on site? That could be any one of dozens of places in our neighborhood. ..some of which proudly boast of their gourmet, artisanal products in signs that practically barricade the narrow sidewalks (see above), and others which are more low-keyed about their home made products. Our favorite spot is of the later variety--a tiny hole in the wall place we walked by on a daily basis but barely noticed--an unpretentious Sicilian gelateria (Giorgiagel, on Via S. Francis a Rip, just off the Viale Trastevere). There, you can watch the owners laboring over the daily flavors through the back room window, while their female assistant serves up enormous and bargain-rate portions of their 15 or so freshly made flavors...flavors that explode in your mouth. The middle-aged Italian secretary who rhapsodized about this place to us gushed about their chocolate flavor...which I have yet to try--I'm addicted to their marron glace and hazelnut flavors, Peter invariably orders coconut and will add a scoop of fig when it is available, and Danielle is loyal to her combination of limone and mint flavors. The shop has no seating and can barely hold four customers at a time--the owner tries to remedy this by carving out a space next to his car which he parks in front of his shop, leaving just enough room between his car and the curb to slip in four metallic chairs. When the parking police come, he rushes out to his car and pretends to be leaving, until they move on to ticket others...then he strolls back into his shop with an enormous, triumphant grin on his face. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that after two weeks of living in Trastevere, this is the first merchant who has come to recognize us as "regulars" (aside from the Pakistani guy who sold Danielle a purse from his streetside stall and "ciaos" her whenever we pass).

The other food substance universally associated with
Italy is pizza, and we've been sampling plenty of that since our arrival, as well. For me, the academy award winning pizza remains the zucchini flower and anchovy pizza we had on one of our first nights in Trastevere...though Danielle still reminisces about the carry-away french fry pizza she sampled on our first night in Monte Mario...it may have been cold and eaten on a street-corner curb, but for her it was the stuff of dreams (At the take away places, which generally offer thicker pizza, they zip out scissors and cut off a piece of pizza from the enormous pizza pan of your choice, weigh it and bill you by weight..all that is left for you to do is fold it in half like a sandwich and eat--no utensils or tables needed). Peter remains loyal to the Da Poeta Pizzaria, reputed by our landlord's children to be the best in all of Rome (a lot of blogs will second this opinion, and their "da poeta bufalo special", is pretty amazing).

With all the food and food images that abound here in Rome, and all of the eating that seems to be happening every which way one looks, you'd think this would be a society of rotund and Rubenesque bodies...but the other American image of slender, gorgeous and sexy Italians of all ages seems to be alive and well in Rome. While it is common to see people eating double-scoop gelato cones topped with fresh whipped cream at 11AM, those same people are invariably slender, and not necessarily young! Is it that they are fanatically exercising? Nope--we discovered that gyms are few and far between here in Italy, as are morning runners--the American culture of exercise has yet to fully blossom here. But everywhere you look, at least in summertime, there are slender, sexily clad bodies of all ages and they don't seem to be as surgically-altered as they
were in Southern California! So where do all those calories go? Inquiring minds want to know...I need to send all my extra calories to the same place that those skinny Italians are sending theirs!