La Dolce Vita

Update: 3

Aaah. Roma! It truly is a spectacular place. I'd been once before, but had forgotten just how magnificent the Eternal City actually is. This time we'd come to see our friend Tracey who'd offered (after I made it clear she had no choice) to put us up in her small, but immaculate, flat. That she also acted as personal tour guide was an added bonus.

I kept finding myself amazed at the history of the Rome. Absolutely everywhere you'll find something dating back to the Middle Ages or earlier. On Monday night, under my direction, Tam and I walked from Castel di Sant' Angelo to the Collosseum along the river. A local guide might have led us directly there in twenty minutes, but I wanted to show Tam where homeless Romans slept and thought it might also be a good idea to familiarise ourselves with our nearest waste management facility. One can never be too informed in this age of environmental awareness.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that during this two hour promenade, we stumbled across the Forum which is just there, as if it were a park for the public. Two thousand and something years just plonked in the middle of manic traffic. (I know the traffic came after the Forum, but you know what I mean). We also came across a bearded lady with a trolley and a mattress receiving a wave of diatribe from the six lanes of traffic she was holding up. (I thought this was another distinctly Roman trait: six cars side-by-side on a three lane road, but Tracey's housemate later informed me that Romans were Sunday drivers and if I wanted to experience a truly misguided interpretation of the highway code, I should go to Bari).

Our time was spent ambling through the streets eating gelati, taking in the sun and eyeing up beautiful girls people while fighting the masses to catch a glimpse of the Fontana di Trevi and the Pantheon. 

St. Peter's Basilica in the Holy See is a sight to behold. As we wandered under the gilded knave and domes, past the priceless medieval artefacts and general splendour collected from the Catholic church's fundraising campaigns - you know, like the Inquisition - I couldn't help but wonder about the irony of the place: some virgins interfering in the sex lives of normal people and sitting on this obscene wealth while a significant number of their followers live on less than a dollar a day.

On my friend Elena's suggestion, we walked up to the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta where the informed can find a tiny keyhole in the door to a priory and peek through it to see a tree lined avenue (can an avenue be anything other than tree-lined?) framing St. Peter's in the distance. A view made special by two things: firstly there is nothing in sight other than the Basilica and the trees - something that couldn't have changed too much over the last 400 years - and secondly, for a brief moment that view is yours alone.

On Tuesday night we ordered our taxi to Fiumicino Airport. "Circa 40 Euro" was the guide price the taxi company gave us. At 5.30 on Wednesday morning as we pulled into the short stay parking with the taxi fare at EUR30 (that's 25% faster than the norm.) and our faces realigning themselves after the G-force alterations they'd just undergone, I thought of asking the driver if he was from Bari, but couldn't speak for the picture of the speedometer on 180km/h (honestly!) was still clouding my thought.

I'm allergic to cats. I think this was passed on from my old man. (Why I got a cat allergy and my brother got the bouffant is one of the injustices of nature). Anyway, the Law of Cats says: "The feline will show affection to the person least likely want it." So in keeping with this, it was no surprise that Tracey's  housemate Stefano's three-legged kitten took a liking to me and as I sit here typing, somewhere over France, my wheezing abating and the rash on my hands slowly fading, I think, "God, I'm sorry for those evil thoughts about your servants in the Vatican, but does this punishment fit the crime? Why did you have to put me on this flight with a crazed Spaniard and her tomcat? I know it's in a travel cage, but you're not winning me over here. What did St. Paul do that he only received a bright light on a road outside Damascus? Still, shouldn't grumble really, it wasn't that long ago the recruitment guys were burning us doubters the stake.

Thanks for reading, next update from Ecuador...