La Casa Nuova

Ladies and Gentlemen, my phone and internet have finally passed away. I should be moving soon, but cercando per un appartamento è piu difficile quando si non ha il internet o un telefono. Si dice, "Merda!"

Communications from here on out will become increasingly sporadic as I plunge into Rome's heart of darkness surrounding Termini-- tis a land of anonymous foreigners, kebab shops, internet points, hostels, and travelling college students. In other words, No Man's Land. Wish me luck. I have ample supplies.

As long as I'm forking out this exorbitant amount to use the internet for a half an hour, I might as well take the opportunity to fill you all in on my life: it is exactly the same as the last time I posted. I have a good job that I enjoy (but which unfortunately ends after next week), I spend all my free time exploring the insides of church, or finding new areas of town to venture into. The other night I wandered into the Jewish Ghetto; I've been there before but never spent much time. The Jewish population in Rome is the oldest in the world outside of Israel. I could tell many stories about their historical persecution in Rome, but I won't go further than to say that in 66 AD, there was a revolt in Jerusalem which ended in the destruction of the entire city, except for the West Wall, or Wailing Wall. Thousands of slaves were brought back to Rome. This is around the same time that Vespasian starts building the Colosseum. Hmm... why don't we use these Jewish slaves to build it?

I think it is now one of my favorite places in town. It's in the center, but buried in a tangled mess of vicoli (alleyways) so that the general tourist would never find his or her way into it. Or out if that be the case. This means it is quite and relaxing, but still maintains the same charm as the neighborhoods surrounding it. There's even an ancient pagan temple there, dedicated to Octavia, the sister of Augustus.

I wandered through there for a little while, waiting for some friends to show up. Eventually I stumbled into a piazza with the infamous "Turtle Fountain" in it. I'd read about the fountain: it was made by Carlo Maderno, one of the few friends of Michelangelo. It's small and very Rennaisance, and therefore not nearly as famous as Nicolo Salvi's offensively Baroque Trevi Fountain (not saying it's ugly, I know that would be a sacrilege, just that there are too many people around and it is so imposing that, with these large crowds, one has a tendency to get claustrophobic) or Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers, but I liked it more. It was well lit and in a nice, small piazza. The basin was shallow and set into the ground so that the actual fountain was mostly eye level. It was interesting to stumble onto unexpectedly, especially since I had read about it before and knew it at once.

I decided to buy a beer there. A small one, while I waited for Jim and Yashar. The girl at the small bar in the piazza, the small EMPTY bar, said, "Sei". Sei can mean several things. It can mean, "You are," or "Are you", or "if", or, and this is the last thing I thought she said, "Six." I thought I didn't hear the first part and that she said "Di dove sei?" which means, "Where are you from?" Common enough question. So I replied, "Alabama." "No," she said, "Sei EURO." You never, ever, ever, pay that much for a small peroni. The ones twice their size would run, at an establishment like that, about 3-4 euros.

I forked it out and drank in bitterness while I waited for Jim and Yashar. Eventually they called me and I met up with them on the main thouroughfare in the Ghetto (did I mention this is where we get the word ghetto?). They led me to an old middle school buried in the ghetto; this old school had been converted into a multi-purpose club. I'm not much into clubs, but this place was undeniably one of the coolest places I've seen in Rome. In Philly it would be famous. It's in the heart of the Jewish Ghetto, every room had some different feel or type of music playing, it was four stories high, in the center of the whole thing was a giant courtyard where the children presumably used to play games. The lunch room was the bar. The place was also inhumanly packed. I saw a friend of mine there and talked to him for a bit-- he was en route to Tuscany for a meeting with the director Spike Lee. He was going to be a translator for Spike Lee's next movie-- a World War II film set in Italy and centered around a squadron of black soldiers. I was impressed, a little.

I talked to several other people there, but didn't dance or anything. Not my style. But maybe I'll go back one day.

This is a pretty typical day here.

Well, I'm going to catch a train back to Marino now. Hope everyone is good.