Tube stops: Flaminio, EUR Magliana, EUR Sao Paolo, Piramede, Manzoni

MAXXI, MAX Factor & Mozal Tov!

Life has returned to normal in Rome, that is, the students have returned from their looong holiday breaks and the clanging of pans, banging of doors and dragging of chairs (not to mention laughing girl's Latin-American tribute band) have returned to my cosy quarter in Tiburtina. I have been spending my days with house mate M, who came back a few weeks ago, asking if all was ok when the frustrated shouts of a cabin-fevered student reached my ears. A fifteen minute break and the smell of glorious cabonara filled the marble-floored flat.

I had booked my flights to head home for another mason's meeting, and was planning to spend the weekend anticipating some dreary wet September weather - which lasted for about 3 hours one afternoon: it's now October and short-sleeve shirt temperature! Instead, I headed off to the MAXXI, Rome's leading contemporary art gallery, and was scribbling notes for my other art blog (watch this blogspace), when I got a text from Pi: an invitation to a mystery party in EUR! Senses buzzing, I sailed through the exhibition on Gio de Dominicis and wound my way back to Flaminio to get the tube.

The MAXXI: all you need is David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly and some crystal balls...

Fast forward through a well deserved power nap (I'm clearly getting old) and I dressed up to head to Sao Paolo to meet Pi & boyfriend Ri. One slight error. Rome loves Pauls - every man, son and dog might be called Paolo and when guessing which tube you might need to get to, remember there might be a few with this famous name. The police eyed me up suspiciously, trying to look inconspicuous in my waterproof jacket (read anorak) and shaved head. Hardly Baader Meinhof material... A call, and a correction and I head along two stops before being met by Ri. Seconds later, I'm heading to a party in an unknown location on the back of a scooter. A roman aspiration has come true - I am fearing for my life and seeing Rome at 40+ miles an hour - I could get used to this!

The party is rocking: Pi & Ri, with their friends who speak English (Thank God! too many "devo's" and "posso avere's" for even an English ear to put up with!) The setup: a pretty famous film director in Rome is a friend of Pi's. This is his massive roof-terrace on what must be pretty much the best looking flat I have EVER seen: all, modern breakfast bar, sliding doors onto terrace, bamboo garden trellis effect and currently filled with the about 60 beautiful persons. Comparisons to London are made and London is found wanting. Pretty soon, we're all entranced as the infamous Max (the host & director) puts on his own version of the X Factor: a panel of (disagreeing) judges, performances by "Lady Gaga", "Kylie" and others, interrupted by film shorts about a straight guy who realises that in order to win back his girlfriend, he needs to become gay. Even with my lack of knowledge of Italian gay slang, these shorts were so funny - all the creation of Max, clearly a compere par excellence! A fantastic bloody night thanks to Pi, Patron St. of Expats!

Interlude: five days in London: eating, catching up with Antipodean friends who live too far away (sorry Scott!) sleeping (too little), red wine with old friends and a long chat with my brother-in-law, dancing, dancing, dancing, feet aching, dancing, dancing, lodge meeting, Brothers!, lunch with Lou, old housemates reunion, rehearsing, writing, and back on the plane....

Back in Roma-ville, I realised I was on borrowed time - the coagulation of a level of wine in my body that I haven't been used to for a while was leading me towards a gratingly bad cold. My arrival into Fuimicino lead me to bump literally into Zeke, who appeared to be a Abercrombie & Fitch model, lost amidst a sea of battered baggage and lost New Zealanders. 6ft 5 (I note the additional inch to my height), sporting shaved sides of his head and a curled pate, I motioned that this guy should get on the bus to Termini; I was heading to Ostiense. A second later, sitting on the same bus as me, this pillar of Yankee exuberance is offering me mountains of white Toblerone and explaining that he is, despite ALL appearances, an orthodox Jew studying Hebrew and Jewish History in Israel. His voice boomed down the bus as he balanced a D&G pince-nez on his nose (the arms having broken off long ago.) I brace myself for what could be a clash of cultures taking place with the short, compact space of a mini-bus.

We arranged to hang out that evening at his hostel over on Via Merulana, but due to Z not having a mobile phone (did I hear Amish not Jewish?) , I missed him by half an hour. The next night proved successful: upon arriving at the hostel, and greeted by a grumpy old man pointing to the 'No guests' sign, I found Z with an off-the-shoulder blue tshirt with Hebrew writing on it, stubbled chin, and seemingly not quite on the planet - a hard night the night before. I whisked him off to Angelina, where we dodged the expensive aperitivo and bagged reasonable drinks from the restaurant downstairs, meeting our awesome waitress for whom I had to translate Z's attempts at chat-up lines. Two women eating next to us became friends - Z seemingly being able to speak to anyone & everyone - and gave us their aperitivo tickets.

We finished the night by stuffing our faces full of pasta, tuna, crostini, pastry parcels of spinach and cheese before smoking and admiring the crowd, putting the world to rights from our differing vantage points. We agreed to meet for coffee the next day but it never happened... with only six days in Rome, you have to make the most of it. And I'm pretty sure I know all about that now :)

Sol supastar

Tube stops: Colloseo, Tiburtina FS.

It's August - hot, hot, hot, Summer-time.

The landlord, on one of his unexpected visits with his wife - the previous time, I came back from food-shopping to find him changing the light fittings with no shirt on: it took me a few seconds to realise I wasn't being burgled by a member of the Italian cast of Auf Wiedersehn Pet - warned me that in August, nothing happens. Nada. Purgatory. Thou shalt not find a single Roman within the city walls.

Posso avere uno cappucino...anyone? Hello....?

And he's quite right: everyone is on holiday. The streets, whilst not being void of civilians, have a strangely hushed atmosphere about them. As the streams of sweat run down my back, there are less quizzical stares as if to suggest I shouldn't, as a human being, be able to contain so much water in my body. I even felt moved to visit a shoe shop on the Via Corso to equip my feet with a more suitable form of footwear for the day-time - my trainers identifying me as legal alien in the first few seconds of contact with an Italian native. All that remains is my wild beard and the hair starting to grow longer on my head - soon, I could pass for bello.

But why this wild savage appearance, I hear you ask? Well, with my flatmates at home for the Summer - leaving the flat empty - I've become a hermet, filling my days with learning about Western Esotericism, Renaissance Magic and the Cabala. I'm not training to become a wizard (yet) but these are deliberate connections to what I love about Italy: a city that beheld one of the greatest leaps forward of our civilisation, when man decided to take a rational decision about what to believe, what to follow, what to study and analyse and how to be a sceptic. An intelligent, scientific, independent animal.

Primavera: "It's Spring time, for Hitler" ... and philosophical enlightenment.
These kids knew how to party.

Locked up in my ivory tower, writing for a website every morning to keep the euros coming in, days sometimes pass when all I hear are the echoes of a mildy abusive relationship taking place between a couple a few feet from my window, the (now melancholic) sound of Abba being played in a student's flat (if no-one's dancing, or around to listen to it - trust me, 70's disco can be sad) and the barking of the dogs belonging to the white-trash couple on the first floor. Maybe I'm becoming an ascetic monk, relying solely on internet music for inspiration. Maybe I'm wearing my bed-sheets around my person, pretending to be Giordano Bruno (not yet) or I might have found the time and peace to write the book I've been dying to, for ages. First though, a new blog, about esotericism. If I'm dreaming about it, I certainly need to be writing about it. Watch this blog space.

Go on, you can say it. The resemblance is remarkable.

So, half an hour from now, a good friend will be arriving in Italy to break the spell and much chaos will ensue. A trip is planned to the supermarket to stock up on booze as well as a trip to my favourite beach to sweat out those deadly party toxins. The silence will be broken with portable speakers and conversation. But just in case someone's curious as to what will be going on in my ivory tower, I'll leave my new curtains just slightly ajar for the neighbours.

I have a little too much privacy now, a gift from Mrs. Landlord.

Gatto on a hot tin roof

Tube stops: EUR Magliana, Trastevere (overland), and almost split between Bologna & Tiburtina, Cristofo Colombo, Ostia

Summer has arrived and landed it's extremely over-sized bulk all over the Capital and being an Englishman, and therefore having a God-given right to talk indiscriminately about the weather for a good half hour, I feel righteous in my needing to let off steam. Literally. Like my travel-sized iron that *just* about makes my work shirts crease-free.

A great suggestion for keeping cool there, Google, but how do I
attach it to the inside of my face?

The heat makes people do crazy things and after half an hour of trying to explain what the phrase "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" means to P, I realised that everything is made simple in the heat. People snooze, talk less, arguments simmer down (rather than boil up) and laughing girl and her comrades-in-arms has been notably silent. Although I also put this down to the fact that someone might have simply pushed her out of the window (one can only hope.)

My classes at work are starting to die down for the Summer break now: my small-talk with the students has revealed quite a few good spots to visit around Italy, if I want to indulge in horse-riding, surfing and mountaineering. I half expect Rome to be full to the brim with party-goers in August, crazed ragazzi hitting the bars and having a festa in the streets but I think this is my projecting: as I will have less classes, that's exactly what I'll be doing. Someone has to do the drinking for the Romans, surely?

But the lack of people is proving fortunate. Donna and I took to the beach this weekend and for a moment, it seemed like we would never leave. Lying between the slumbering forms of exhausted middle-class couples, sculpted gay couples parading along the shoreline and the cries of the Indian refreshment sellers, we lay in the water and chatted, watching people pack up and leave until it was Shangria-time. Beside a shanty-town bar, playing chilled out beats and serving fried calamari and gamberi, we found nirvana and our conversation slowed to an absolute stand-still as we watched a fat, heavy pink ball of sun-light slip lazily into the ocean.

I quite forgot my troubles of the previous week where I faced the full front of the crowd-mentality of the Romans who were barging past each other to get out of the roasting tin-can tube car and ended up pushing me into the famous gap between the train and the platform. As I hung, knee-deep in empty space, hearing the beeping sound of the tube doors trying to shut, a wave of nostalgia hit me, and I longed for the sound of an announcer asking people to "mind the gap". My version would have been a bit stronger but I was soon hoisted back onto the train and was carried, shoeless and therefore fashionably disgraced to my next stop.

"Mind the gap between civilisation and your dooooooooooom....."

Donna and I, our minds erased by the utter tranquility of the beach, picked up our things and headed to the bus stop, only to realise the last bus had left at 21:28 (I will never forget those numbers.) What followed was a 2 hour walk down the row of beaches in Ostia at night, finding at drowsy restaurant secluded on the sands and asking for a taxi. Fortunately, whilst being drilled to pieces by tiger mosquitos, we were given a lift back to Rome by a kind waiter who was trying to learn English. It may be the holiday season soon, but students are everywhere.

A dramatisation in four parts

Tube stops: Trastevere (over-land), Piramede and what would have been Flaminio...

Now that I'm not so bamboozled by the quick-fire sing-song of the Italian language, I've had a chance to look out of my window into the inner courtyard of our tower-block, and open my ears to inflammatory conversations at noon and late at night and listen to the walls reverberating with arguments, rhetoric and a right old telling off. This isn't just the land of opera but the land of the soap opera.

I was pulled away from streaming my millionth episode of Ugly Betty a while ago by S & M's invitation to a lofty peak and the chance to sample what is quickly becoming my favourite meal: aperitivo (or "ape" as Pi calls it.) No, I'm not relying on liquid lunches to get me through the heat of the day, I just enjoy the (endless) buffet that comes included with the tipple. And no better place to get stuck in than at the Gambero Rosso headquarters near Trastevere, the home of classic gourmet food, freshly featured on one of the most watched foodie tv shows in the country. The decor was tv studio gun-metal scaffolding and display cabinets, with mini-escalators ascending into the heavens.
Perched on a open terrace overlooking the chinks of light and abstract outline of the capital at night, Prosecco in hand, we soaked up the silence. Only when we had drunk our fourth glass did the conversation turn to controversial debate: Dan Brown and the secrets of the supposed bloodline of Jesus. Once or twice, I casually turned round to check that I hadn't insulted a nearby emissary of the Vatican, catching instead the proprietorio having a sneaky fag in the shadows of the veranda.

As I get back to my cubby-hole that night and tried to drift off to sleep listening to the sound of "stupid laugh girl"(not real name) and her frantic babbling next door, I wondered which sex was the more dramatic in Rome. Out to dinner again with S & M, this time in Frascati (broadening my horizons), what caught my eye in between a fantastic fish-stew and incredible dolci was the "Desperate Waitress" from Via Wisteria. Full fish lips, a scoop-billed nose, simultaneously serving food and spilling salsa all over her couture: a botox belladonna. Not once did she bat a heavily made-up eyelid, when a sudden crowd of amorous teenagers flooded the single room eaterie, keen for a quick bite at 9pm between necking. Score one for womankind.

Earlier, whilst sharing a spectacular view of the tumbling vine-yard laden hills of Frascati from a nearby cafe table, we witnessed the silent spectacle, and the subsequent settling of a parking fine or whatever penalty *might* have been issued by the authorities. I say might because although the smartly suited traffic wardens (think designer utility belts) realised that there had been a transgression, some men arrived, shook hands, and a small, intricate dance took place and nothing further happened. So maybe men, too, could keep a lid on it when they had to.

I thought back to my previous week's escapades with El and Donna. Feeling courageous, I suggested we meet for a drink and something to eat at Gusto, starting with a walk down from Piazza di Popolo. This was Centro Storico and a change of two tube lines for me - for El and D, a short stroll. Somewhat stupidly, however, I reckoned without the planned transport strike and a line of men physically barring my way onto Linea A-B on the tube.

An hour and a half later, involving a Spanish couple having a birthday weekend in Rome as fellow passengers, a rotund, jolly hotel manager and a relatively short taxi journey, I arrived to meet El and D in Friends bar, desperate for a cocktail to start the evening. D was on fine form: as a real-life opera diva, she has a bit of a reputation for not wanting to put the cork in the bottle of exuberance - short, impromptu performances have been known to occur at little notice, in the most crowded of places. One look from El and as we braced ourselves for a version of "Queen of the Night" (not the Whitney, pre-coke era pop classic), I realised that opera is the purest celebration of drama, of over the top, un-British, hot-headed, wild forest-fire emotion. So what if Donna was about to regale the thirty-something bar-huggers with Mozart, at least it would be art. And it would be friggin' sensational.

Finally, finding myself having a heart to heart with El over pints in Campo di Fiori, we witnessed a European version of the Friday night binge phenomenon that London has perfected so well (thanks, in no small part, to yours truly ;), and being a little hammered ourselves, we managed to get perfectly Lost amongst the winding cobbled streets and sprawling crowds of spirits-fueled ragazze. Survivors of Oceanic flight 815, amongst the fashionistas returning from a night-cap. Glorious.

The U.N.usual way we just get along

Tube stops: Tiburtina, Piramide & a car-ride to Trastevere

It's like Matthau and Lemmon, but without the cliche: P and I are officially the only ones left in the apartment. Big M and little M have migrated back to their homes outside of Rome and now, the apartment is filled with strange warblings from P's selection of fine Italian pop. And here, I was thinking Eurovision finished last week.

I'd say we're two peas in a pod but within a matter of minutes, our dinner-time conversation (now sat around the yellow linoleum covered table in our small but tidy affair of a kitchen) stretched from the right way to cook pasta (not with pasta in the bowl before the water; salt only added when the water is boiling) to religion and politics. P is a forthright, right-wing conservative, ex-military enthusiast of all things architectural. I am a liberal, left-wing, language and art enthusiast and of the British persuasion for excusing myself every so often. But we were breaking new international-relations ground here: once I definately admitted to P that I would eat my pasta cold the next day, despite coating it in pesto, I earnt some begrudged form of respect. I'm sure I won't, however, be invited to "Casa P" in the near future, for fear my heathen ways will drive me to bite the head off a live chicken and gargle with chocolate mousse :)

This form of foreign relations reminded me of the other night: meeting up with M, a friend of a friend in Rome who was taking pity on a stranded and Friday-night-starved-Brit by inviting him out on the Roma scene. We met in Testaccio at restaurant/club Angelica (no, not a haunt for pouty, stick-like starlets), whose roof-terrace played host to a fantastic set that would put some London bars to shame. M introduced me to two lively Iranian guys, the Twiddledum and Twiddledee of the Middle East. Glancing around the street-lamp splashed grove, it was hard to tell the Mediterranean genotype from the Mexican, Middle Eastern or Mesopotamian. I'm genuinely inspired by the efforts people can go to to "up sticks" and move over borderlines, pick up a new nationality and add it to their own fiercely held identity. Those borderlines are blurring, but not enough it seems: the two Iranians are on the look out for a european visa, so guys, if you're after a man who can make you perfect "Persian" Polow, drop me a line!

And to a crowd that seemed a little closer to home: the Hoxton Heroes! Roman legend Pi and her boyfriend pulled up outside Casa Lemmon & Matthau a few days ago, to whisk yours truly away for a cheeky "ape" (aperitivo) in the trendy Rome quarter of Trastevere. Meeting Pi's motley crew, I was straining my ears to pick up words I knew within the Italian that bubbled backwards and forwards across the stuffy night air. Some words I could understand, but Pi kindly played the interpretor and provider of key "good-luck" slang, involving whales and wolves. After filling up on the most amazing ravioli known to mankind ("Bracchio" restuarant), I was could find no words, for a different reason this time! Finally a tour through the 80's Raybans, pork-pie hats, skinny jeans and pavement-side acid jazz of Via del Pigneto, Rome's own Shoreditch, where the language was "trend", but the style "universal".

As I type, P has just invited me to tomorrow's military parade and flyover for the national holiday here. We need to get up at 7:30 it seems. Where's a peace-keeper, when I need one?

Mambo Metropolitano

First entry: aaaaaaaarrrggghhh!!

Captain's log, star date 27th May 2010. Mission: to boldly blog what no other blogger has blogged before. In Italy.

Actually, no, that's a lie. I've not read any blogs about living in Italy (of which, I'm sure there are many) and I wouldn't have much of a clue where to start but I think that you can make it up as you go along. If not, I'm pretty much massaging my verbal ego in the ether! Hmmm that feels good. A little higher...that's it! But I'll start at the beginning, which is a very good place to start, a wise woman once said. In a musical, I think - was that the Sound of Music?

I'm a British "expat" living in Rome, having completed a CELTA teaching course in March and deciding that in order to change my job (anyone heard about Civil Service cuts recently? I'll keep quiet about that...) and improve my Italian, I'll live in Italy. For one year. Seemed simple at the time but luckily it's not, otherwise where's the fun, people?!

Imagine if you will, the scene: 28 year old ( a variety of colours: napalm white, to factor 12 pink, green eyes, obligatory expat white linen shorts), typing away furiously on his soon-to-be-exhausted Italian PC notebook, musing whimsically by the open window of a 3rd floor apartment in the Equilino district of Rome. I'm being overtly Romantic because in truth, the weather is approaching 29 degrees C, and I need the window open to avoid cooking myself alive like a Sunday roast. The notebook is proving to be a trusted friend (weighed down by its burden of about 4 million episodes of Glee, Lost and Desperate Housewives = "desert island luxuries": should this blog ever be replaced with the ever-repeating image of Sue Sylvester attempting to get "Physical" (physical), you'll know why....it's because I've enfringed on copyright protection, and posted her magnificent verbal back-hands all over this page in homage.)

I digress.

Living with me in this apartmento are P, little M and big M, all male, two students and a lavotrice, who cannot be named for legal reasons. Because I'll want to talk about them and it's not fair that I name them. And they might do a Google search thing etc.etc., and I will come home to find my room is being subletted to a family of seven. With two small dogs and canary. With dietary problems.

I'll blog about my trying to find work (in case you were wondering "is he still trying to be a foolish, bohemian writer by avoiding earning a penny in this time of global recession? For shame, young writer, for shame! Earn your (e) crust!"), and about the (no doubt) hilarious antics of me trying to remember not to say "per favore" ALL the time, tasting the amazing foods of this city (that are already causing conflicts with my non-existant exercise regime) and living as a wannabe Roman in this truly Eternal City (forgive the cliche - it's my first blog, I'm allowed a few ;)

A presto,
Will

ps. I am not a trekkie.