Kabab

Italians don’t eat a lot of meat. Italy is known for pasta and while many do contain meat, it’s mostly for flavor purposes and to screw with vegetarians. You can always opt for the second course, which is purely meat, but while it may be so delicious you could cry, there is only enough for a few tantalizing bites of heaven.

But there is a way to get your meat fix in Italy: doner kebabs. For about four euro you will get a burrito-type meal typically filled with two types of cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, a white dairy herb sauce, and tons of delicious salty lamb, cut right off of a large rack of meat slowly turning on a spit. Other variations include adding a spicy red sauce, dried peppers, and anything else lying around the kitchen, served also on plates or in a panino.

These savory wraps can be found down small side streets and in lots of cafeterias in many piazzas, such as Piazza Barberini, where I sometimes go in between classes. It’s one of the few things you can order in Italy that will actually leave you satisfyingly full and I absolutely love them.

The Next Day

Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t celebrated much in Italy. Actually, it’s not celebrated at all past tourist themed events. Maybe that’s why I “celebrated” it this year. That, or I was pressured into joining my friends at a pub crawl. But let’s go with the first, it sounds better than elementary school peer pressure.

A pub crawl: an activity where you pay good money to hyperactive organizers so they will take you to various bars and clubs, beginning with a large establishment where they will give you as many drinks and pizza as your immature heart desires. After an hour of this, you will proceed to various other locations with the group only to be greeted with more free booze (this time shots) at each venue.

Responsible, I know.

But really it’s the next day I shall talk about. That morning, my head swimming, I left my friend’s apartment and turned the corner towards the metro, or what I thought was the corner towards the metro. Guess what? It wasn’t.

A half hour later and I began to catch on. A half hour had passed by because I naturally got distracted a couple times. First off, there is an enormous mercato filled with vendors and tables like at a flea market back home. Fish, luggage, wine, sewing kits, this place has it all and it is extremely fun to wander through, though after a couple minutes of turning corners I noticed everyone was craning their necks to stare at me. Some even walked out of their stands and said hello. It might have been the giant green eyeliner shamrock on my face, but you can never be too sure.

Mercatos are fantastic. People of every sort bustle through the lanes, it’s the fastest I’ve ever seen Italian grandmothers move. The air is filled with shouts to and fro, the smell of cappuccinos from an oddly placed café, and food being tossed to costumers, costumers who don’t always catch it. You must be agile here, you don’t know when a rogue potato might roll your way.

Finally leaving I noticed the happiest dog in the world skipping around his owner. His tail must have been going a hundred miles an hour. Dogs are widely accepted in Italy, even joining their companions inside restaurants at times. This dog decided he wanted desperately to go inside a butcher shop and when that didn’t work he decided a toddler clothes store was just as good. However, the lady resisted and dragged him onward.

This is about the time I nearly fell in a puddle, recovering quick enough to look up and see a street sign. One I didn’t know. I was thirsty and wanted to go in a supermarket. I had never seen one in this area before (near the Vatican) so I went down this unknown street. If it was unknown, it might have an unknown supermarket. There was. Today rocked!

I walked some more, realizing that I was probably lost, and looked up to see a building on a far mountain. An observatory? An observatory that resembled the mansion in Casper? How was I not informed about this? I want to visit it!

And then I almost got hit by a car. Rule of thumb, kiddos: always look where you’re walking. Another rule of thumb: traffic lights are only a suggestion to drivers in Italy, especially red.

An ancient lady with a better phone than I’ve ever owned laughed at me as she continued typing out a text. Calming down, I inspected my surroundings. Yup, I had become hopelessly lost and I sure wasn’t about to turn around. It was okay though, today was nice, the sun was shining (a rarity, oddly enough). All I had to do was head for the river. I kept repeating that in my head. Head for the river. If I found the river, I found my route to the metro, or home, it really depended on how far I had wandered as I was pushing an hour now.

I walked for what seemed like an eternity and this sudden adventure wasn’t so fun anymore once my feet started hurting. Seriously where was I? Apartments towered above me, higher then I had seen before. Empty schools appeared every once in a while, but large streets alluded me. I tried turning a corner only to come face to face with an old man chewing on his cell phone. Well that’s different. Suddenly two buttons pop off my coat and I scramble to retrieve them. I want to go home now.

Blocks of walking and an unknown amount of time later I found it: the glorious metro that shown out of the street like a beacon of hope. Fittingly it was outlined by St Peter’s in the distance and I swear I could hear angels singing. I scrambled down the stairs, shoved my monthly pass into the machine, and, for the first time in over a month, sat down in the metro.

The Rain in Rome

Is it really supposed to rain this much? Before I got here I expected a few weeks of scattered showers, but suddenly the sun would break through the clouds and people would sing and dance in the streets. Kind of like Mamma Mia, but the Italian city version.

This has happened a couple times (the song and dance provided by me), but it’s always been a false alarm: a few days of sun, but once you put away the heavy coat forever you hear torrents of rain coming from the open window. This was al tolerable at first, but as midterms approach at school, I’m making the realization that half my time here, in sunny Italy, is going to be spent under an umbrella.

The Italians seem unperturbed by it, though inexperienced with it. They smack the umbrellas into the side of walls, street signs, and passersby. Getting anywhere has become a game of dodging the metal tips of umbrellas that follow you wherever you move. It’s no wonder half the population seems to walk around with broken umbrellas and street vendors are at every corner dangling their wares in your face, people here must got through an umbrella per week!

It’s also become clear that the rain is out to get me, like a personal vendetta for doubting its existence. My roommates decide to stay in, I make plans to go out: cue rain. I run out of eggs or milk: cue rain. I decide to work on my homework in the living room: cue an instant hurricane outside that knocks the windows open and drenches the papers that are now flying about the room.

When I decided to come to Italy, it was a decision based on wanting something different. I wanted a different culture, a different language, a different way of looking at life that would open up new ideas for me. Well, it doesn’t rain in Los Angeles, so I guess this is something different.

Trevi Fountain

Walking through Rome, sounds can be a pretty predicable thing: cars honking, people chatting, the wind through the buildings, until, suddenly, sounds of a rushing waterfall?

Yes indeed, the infamous Trevi Fountain. You hear it before you see it and the intriguing sound draws you in till suddenly you’re in a medium piazza with a large fountain, one of the most famous fountains in the world for that matter. Unfortunately, the sounds that brought you here, aided by guidebooks, tour guides, and buses, also brings hundreds of others every single day to this little spot, turning a visit into a nightmare of navigating the crowds and vendors to a suitable spot to take it all in.

The fountain itself is absolutely amazing, to put it lightly. The first time I saw it I couldn’t speak for a moment as my mouth hung open in awe. The smooth white carvings of the massive stone gods give way as crystalline water flows through the course rocks to the sparkling blue waves below. It commands the piazza and from the side Neptune seems to hold up his hand to order his audience into silence.

But no one is listening. They are too busy yelling, stick fighting, staring at their gelato (never buy anything in the piazza while you’re here, about a block away is the best gelato I’ve ever had in Rome, so hold off temptation for this Italian obsession until you’re ready to leave), doing anything and everything except looking at the fountain. Even the people taking pictures do it only as something to cross off their list. For an instant they are as motionless as a statue, but if they just turned around and looked, they would see how true art really moves with such a still force that it is impossible to be captured with a camera. The horses charge toward the crowd and the Tritons strain to hold them still as hundreds of people sit along the cold white seats unaware of the force in front of them. It’s a madhouse of tourism, children climbing on the rocks, police whistles pierce the air, an annoying scent of tobacco everywhere, I’m constantly getting elbowed by someone and am chased out of the center by all the noise, though the second I move an inch, I’m in the way of someone’s picture. A rare few sit and soak in the artwork, and I instantly love them.

Just sit and look at something, just his leg, the musculature, the size, it’s beautiful. The more you look, the more it reveals to you. The coral on the sides, the roughness of the stone, you want to play with it, explore it, this place does not exist for visitors, but for lovers who can’t get close enough. Night falls and light dances off the caves of stone as a warm breeze drifts past. Time doesn’t deter visitors so it is best to find a seat on the side where it’s calm and lose yourself in Nicola Salvi’s masterpiece for a while before heading back into the chaos of the Roman streets.