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Goodbye 2014, Hello 2015!

6 Jan
The last two weeks have been busy what with four – count ’em – four holidays in Italy! December 25 and 26 (Santo Stefano) we spent in Ortisei (see prior posts), then returning from vacation we had two more holidays to enjoy: New Year’s Day and Epifania.  Life is good!
New Year’s Eve we traveled to our favorite trattoria in Roma, Antica Taverna. The owner Paolo and our favorite waiter, Giovanni, took good care of us and we enjoyed a protracted dinner with too many dishes to name them all and a steady supply of good red wine. The dessert was the only item I managed to photograph, a delightful tortino al cioccolato.  It tasted 10 times better then it looks. It was THAT GOOD.  We slipped out before 23:00 in hopes of finding a cab before the whole city descended into chaos. The buses stop running at 21:00 on NYE because they can’t make it through the streets effectively. Can you imagine? Shutting down the buses because there are too many people in the streets? The Metro runs but unfortunately nowhere near our home. We can walk from Antica Taverna to home in 75-90 minutes, but it was really cold (for Roma) and walking did not seem like much fun. What luck! We found a cab at an obscure cabstand near the restaurant! Got home in time to endure 45 minutes of neighborhood revelry.  Some year we need to be brave and go down to the party in via Fori Imperiali and see the fireworks over the Colosseo. Some year.
This weekend was the start of the winter saldi (sales). We had a couple of purchases in mind and headed out into a bright if chilly Sunday along with THOUSANDS of people making their way to our destination, a major shopping street near the Vatican. We made our way by bus to transfer to the Metro at Termini. The Metro was packed like the Japanese subway on a business day. I wanted to take a picture of how crowded it was, but I couldn’t maneuver to do so packed in as I was with my arms pinned! We wondered at so many people heading out to shop! We might have bailed in the Metro station but by that time we were like cows going through chutes and there was no turning back. Moo. When we got to our stop, the hoards headed down the street toward the Vatican. It was then that we realized they were headed to Piazza San Pietro for the Pope’s angelis. Shopping was busy too, but not quite the cattle drive.
Today is Epifania, the official end to the Christmas season, also called Befana, when the witch La Befana visits the children leaving candy for the good ones and coal for the not-so-good children. Having no young children around and having spent Christmas out of Roma, we decided to have a small group of friends for a decidedly non-traditional lunch. Is Italian-Swedish a fusion cuisine? Our new friends and soon-to-be-landlords had voiced an interest in Swedish meatballs, and she wanted to make a special Neopolitan pastiera for dessert. Combined with a purè di patate casserole, Swedish pickled herring, Swedish cheese, a beet salad, and Italian salumi, it was cross-cultural event. Unfortunately as we got into entertaining we forgot to take more pictures!
So now we have to go a week-and-a-half until the next holiday, Martin Luther King’s birthday. Hope I can make it!

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Things are different here

31 Mar
After almost two years here, we have different patterns and habits, routines we have adopted that have become second nature. I had pause to think about some of them recently and thought I would share with you some things we do in Italy that we did not/could not/would not do in the U.S.
  1. Eat pizza with a knife and fork
    Very fresh Mozzarella di Bufala is key!

    Very fresh Mozzarella di Bufala is key!

  2. Spend an hour-and-a-half each day commuting to & from work…on foot
  3. Walk to dinner — an hour from home — just because it’s a beautiful night
  4. Take a taxi home from dinner
  5. Car-Sharing!
  6. Kiss my boss when arriving at his home for a party (il bacetto, “the little kiss”)
  7. Say “Ciao bello/Ciao bella” to, well, almost everyone
  8. Give our building super/doorman/manager a tip for Easter, Christmas and Ferragosto. Oh that’s right; we didn’t have a portiere in Portland!
  9. Have dinner with a dog (he was next to us in the restaurant, and very well-behaved)
  10. Decide to walk instead of waiting for the bus because the transit tracker app says the bus is still 25 minutes away and it only takes 20 minutes to walk home.
  11. Shrug my shoulders when the bus that was 25 minutes away passes me 5 minutes later. Whaddya gonna do?
  12. Janie trots out the door under a watchful eye....

    Janie trots out the door under a watchful eye….

    Let our cats play in the elevator lobby and call it “enrichment”
  13. Worry when the crazy unfortunate man next door stops yelling…then find myself relieved when he starts yelling again because it means he’s OK.
  14. Get our groceries delivered: Best thing ever. (Remember Homegrocer.com? Way ahead of its time!) Here it’s a guy with a tiny truck or un motorino delivering the stuff we bought at the store an hour ago. Essential when you drink wine buy heavy bottles of beverages and do not have a car.
  15. Keep a restaurant list online because I so often am asked “Where should we eat in Rome?”
  16. Be kissed by waiters (il bacetto) at favorite restaurants
  17. See Ric kissed by & kiss friends, waiters, co-workers – yes by men too
  18. Worry someone will see me without make-up and think I am una brutta figura on Saturday morning
  19. Do something because it makes me una bella figura
  20. New Year's Eve Vespers with Papa F! We were right on the aisle. Ric snapped this pic with his phone.

    New Year’s Eve Vespers with Papa F! We were right on the aisle. Ric snapped this pic with his phone.

    Only buy fish on Tuesday and Friday because that’s when it’s fresh
  21. Plan meals around what is actually fresh in the market and local, not what I feel like eating that was shipped in from another continent

  22. Go to mass and see the Pope!

  23. Write a blog

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Perplexed

21 Mar
We have been without heat in our building for almost a week. Luckily the weather is mild: as I write this at 6:00 AM it is 9 C/49 F, and the high today will be 68 F. Not bad. But it is a little chilly in the mornings and the cats are missing radiator time. So what? Why “perplexed?”
A couple of weeks ago I came home to find this sign posted in the lobby of our building:
Lent 2014 The priests will visit families for an Easter blessing on Monday the 17th from 5-8 PM.

Lent 2014. The priests will visit families for an Easter blessing on Monday the 17th from 5-8 PM.

An Italian holiday tradition, seldom-if-ever-seen in the U.S.
Our perplexity is this: the announcement of priestly visits was posted, but nothing was said about the heating! No note of apology or acknowledgement of inconvenience. I actually had to have the Embassy call and ask what was going on after 5 days because the portiere (building manager) was not his usual present self. Maintaining a low profile so as not to be confronted by chilly occupants, he is apparently awaiting a part to effect repair on the century-old heating plant. It’s cooling off over the weekend, low 30’s by Monday. Heat would be nice. At least we have water. 

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Waterless Weekend

14 Jul
This eroded lion head fountain is the only source of water for our while building of 14 condos. He's over 100 years old.

This eroded lion/hippo/whatever-head fountain is the only source of water for our whole building of 14 condos. He’s over 100 years old.

Living in Rome is a dream; we pinch ourselves almost daily. But for two days, it’s been a bit scomodo (inconvenient). We have had no water in the apartment. We had showers Saturday, but since about 12:30 yesterday, nothing. It seems the pump is out. Apparently the city feeds the property (a condominium building, about 110 years old), and the distribution is via an electric pump underground, accessed through a scary stairway.  The portiere (superintendent) is away for the weekend as he gets half of Saturday and all of Sunday off. And there is no one else to call. No management firm we are made aware of. Ric and I tried to reset the circuit breaker on the pump yesterday, to no avail. But thought we were just being stupid Americans not knowing what to do or who to call in an emergency.  Then today our 80-something-year-old neighbor, Signora Vyta (who may actually have lived in this building her entire life from what I understand), asked us to go with her to the pump and see if we could fix it. She was fed up. She’d called the portiere with no result, no answer, and she wanted to try and fix it. So Signora Vyta oversaw a second attempt telling Ric (in Italian) what to do to reset it and told us this happens a lot. Apparently never when we are at home. Just our luck this time!

Ric makes the umpteenth trip to fill a bucket. We have tons of bottled water on hand, too, because that's what we do in Rome. And there's always wine.

Ric makes the umpteenth trip to fill a bucket. We have tons of bottled water on hand, too, because that’s what we do in Rome. And there’s always wine.

So how do we function with no water? We haul buckets in from the only functioning source on the property, a tiny little old-fashioned, 100-plus-year-old fountain, now controlled with a spigot. We use gravity to flush, and we went to the Embassy today to shower, a 2-hour round trip. I heated water on the stove to wash dishes, just like camping in the 1960s with my parents.

What’s worse, we had to cancel a dinner party planned for tonight! We’ve decided being without water actually sucks more than an Internet outage.  I only hope Emilio, our portiere, knows where to hit the pump with his magic hammer to get it back online tonight. 

Gravity flush. Just keep a bucket close by.

Gravity flush. Just keep a bucket close by.

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November Sunset

24 Nov

View from our window this evening. Awesome day, Rome!

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