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.
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