Five Things...

I’ve been here a few weeks, and that feels like long enough to start having an informed opinion. So, here are…

Five Things I Love About Rome
Having a proper summer: it’s been 30 degrees or more every day since I’ve been here. Even at night it never drops below 20 – not even when it rains - although that’s just cool enough for a good night’s sleep. While the rest of ‘the Boot’ bakes inland, Rome is famous for her refreshing evening breeze. And the daytime heat provides a very good excuse for…

Gelati: the gelateria nearest the flat does 82 flavours, and each one tastes just like its ‘real life’ namesake: melon, watermelon, kiwifruit, coconut, pineapple, cassata (vanilla with glace fruit), tartufo (chocolate truffle), liquorice, chocolate orange… Mmmm. Oh, and for all the English scratching their heads right now, gelati is Italian for ‘ice cream’.

Salads and melons: ripe tomatoes literally bursting with flavour, aromatic basil, sweet red and yellow capsis, peppery rocket. I’ve lived on salads and simple pastas for my first two weeks, and antipasto: figs with cream cheese and pancetta, or cantaloupe wrapped in proscuitto crudo. Watermelon for breakfast. No wonder Italians are all so lean.

The Nuns: I half expected them to be a dying breed even in the Holy City, but you see some nearly every day. All creeds, all colours, all ages all kinds of habits: austere brown with bare feet in sandals (even in the rain) through white, grey, brown, black and various shades of blue. Some wear laceup shoes even in 40degree heat and have cankles to match. Others are tiny novices, who look as if a puff of wind would send them flying. I still don’t understand how life in the cloister can possibly be the best way to serve God, but the fact that so many of these little ladies evidently do is somehow kinda cool. And they all, always, look happy and at peace, and seem to have found their place in the world. So many others cannot say the same.

Late night living: It’s too hot to do much before 7pm, and Ants is convinced Italians leave work and go home for a nonna-nap. But the shops are still doing a steady trade at 8pm (about the time most folk are turning their minds to dinner); happy hours run ‘til 10, and the gelateria is packed as we call in for one on our way home around midnight. It feels a bit boho, yet perfectly normal and civilised at the same time. And it beats England’s ‘closed by 5.30 and supper served at 6.00’ by a country mile.

I’ll have more to say another time about Rome as a city in decay. I still feel like I’m living someone else’s (slightly blessed) life, but it has its moments. So here are

Five Things I Don’t Love About Rome

The smells: rotting garbage from overflowing skips which sit in the middle of the street, in the baking sun. (Emptying them every other day is not enough in summer). Stale piss on the stairs up to the station, or from random doorways. Part of me longs to get used to it so I don’t notice it anymore – part of me shudders at the thought of ever becoming immune to something so gross.

Massive dog turds: in a city based around apartment living, keeping anything bigger than a Pekinese is cruelty to animals, but judging by the size of the monster poo one sees in the street (all to often already smeared across the pavement by some unlucky walker), Italians beg to differ. It’s almost enough to make you avoid sandals.

Monster rats: I was walking down a sidestreet in the centro storico (historic centre) and saw one that had apparently been run over by a truck – it was squashed flat. I don’t know what was more gross: that it’s innards had been forced out its back end and smeared behind it – or that the rat itself, not counting tail, was a foot long and easily 5 or 6 inches wide. Ick.

Rude supermarket staff: ‘Di mi ancora e piano per favore’ means ‘tell me again please, slowly’. Yelling in Italian about how stupid I am isn’t going to help me understand any better how much money I owe you.

Limited public open space: after England’s village greens, parks and even pubs, Italy has very few places for people to congregate and pass time. People cluster briefly in baked brick piazzas, sometimes sitting in the shadows cast by fountains and monuments, or on benches in the street to eat ice cream and natter. ‘Café culture’ in the style of Paris or Brussels doesn’t exist here: bars are for old men, and if it weren’t for Brit-style pubs, I would struggle to find live music anywhere. Even counting the language barrier, this is the adjustment that’s hardest.

It’s no contest though. I had to think really hard even to come up with 5 things I don’t like, and could have raved about a much longer list of good things. They win, hands down. I don’t yet see us settling here for good, but I hope we get to stay awhile…