roma

even though i don't know enough italian to order a caffe, i am having the time of my life in rome. living my life as a lingustic infant has never been so easy. the pizza here comes in small personal pies with a thin crust, there are indian men everywhere selling things i never thought of not wanting, africans hawking faux handbags, chinese women selling colorful scarves, women of all nationalities dressed in their finest revealery, children shrieking all the languages i can think of, enormous stone fountains with statues of luxuriously muscular roman men engraved into them, church after church after church, the gargantuan Pantheon which had all the gods replaced with Christian characters (including a Jesus that resembles an anorexic Biblo Baggins), the overwhelmingly decorated Vatican City and its gaudily painted Cappella Sistina full of brightly colored angels and demons and Jesuses, strange Mediteranean crows with gray underbellies and underwing spots, lots of pedestrian space flanked on all sides by cafes and gelaterias and pizza parlors, and lots of sunlight. the espresso here is only about $1.50. i spent a good deal of yesterday walking around a large park in the north, listening to the singing birds and watching fathers wheel past carrying seatloads of kids on rented bicycle cars. and every meal i've had has been exquisite, often to the extent of tearing with joy. i have not asked for salt once, for i have shed more than enough tears into my meals. after every meal i have smacked my lips in satisfaction, shouted "bellisimo! grazi signoire!" and kissed my fingers in a gesture of appreciation. the waiter would then slap my back and gesticulate wildly while singing some snippet of opera as i gathered my things to leave. laughter and wine drinking all around. how could anyone ever be depressed here? i saw a crazy old guy yetsterday. he had two words taped to his shirt, some kind of tiara in his hair, and was shouting with bestial anger at passers-by. he yelled at some kids on a motorcycle to fasten their seat-belts, and when they started to yell back, he pressed his finger into his cheek like Shirley Temple and swung his dirty body left and right, all the while smiling insanely. a small armenian boy was watching him from a fountain and laughed at his every action. then the old man ordered the boy to gulp some fountain water and spit it out like the statue above. he did it! what an unlikely pair! this made my day.

time to waste a day in paris

the fault of my 9pm flight out to rome, which happened to be quite a deal, and quite a poor choice with regard to my travel plans. for now i am in paris an extra day while rome still awaits, clenching her fists in dismal anticipation. paris? what the hell do i do here? i guess there's a big eiffel tower, and some big churches, some golden statues and joan of arc and all that crap, but honestly, where can i find a nice pizza pie? a crepe is a sorry substitution. considering its lack of mozzarella and tomato sauce, and the fact that it is egg and not flour. plus, i think i might be late for my espresso with the pope, which i scheduled months in advance and paid more than i should have for, and the preparation list they mailed me back in gold seal did state that if one is even one minute late, the participant shall be "subject to eternal hellfire for selfishly wasting the time of His Holiness." i have always known deep down inside that paris would be my downfall, but how could i have any idea that this downfall would be a spiritual one, of my soul down to the darkest pits of hell? damn you, paris! damn you, cheap airline tickets! i can almost feel that espresso getting cold, the pope checking his golden watch, the minute hand ticking audibly and jangling with sapphires, the cardinals all breathing loud sighs and mopping their moist brows with crimson kerchiefs.

i managed to begin a haphazard and bizarrely-begun conversation with a girl at breakfast, and i might have coffee with her now, in order to impress upon her my caffeine-induced verbal insanity. this is of the utmost importance. perhaps i shall visit the catacombs today, an extensive underground tunnel system that happens to house 40,000 wheelbarrows' worth of human bones, some of them arranged into spontaneous discovered art: sculptures of flowers, beasts of burden, vampires, surreally life-like scenes of public beheadings, of which the french are historically fond.

mad rush in louvre

to see the mona lisa. we found her! she was hiding behind a sheet of bullet-proof (and probably cannon-proof) glass as thick as her own head. according to a tour guide, some italian guy stole her some years back and hid her in his closet. when they found her again, she was still in that closet. he said he did it for italian nationalism. we only had an hour and a half to view the largest museum in the world because i had asked a guy mopping the louvre's beautiful floor and he told me it closed at 11 pm. in his defense, my french is always dangerously ambiguous and has questionable grammar, so he must have thought i was referring to the mall area surrounding the museum, as if i wanted to buy some bags of gummy candy or some perfume at 10 pm. which i didn't. i wanted to see some art, dammit. and so we strolled over all leisure-like, hands in pockets, to get a sandwich for lunch, chatted pleasantly, then strolled right back over to the louvre to discover it indeed closed at 5.30 pm. it was 4 pm >< ;;;;;;

we also saw the venus de milo. before we reached her we saw a large and impressive statue of athena. i told kevin i wasn't interested in the least in statues with arms. i then was asked to take a picture of him with fists thrusted in the air before the statue, in a posture of power and/or victory, mouth wide open in mock roar.

the eiffel tower was also scaled by us today. we were accompanied by a girl who was studying in spain and who could not for the life of her stop talking about spain and slipping "helplessly" into spanish, even when speaking her native tongue of english. despite this minor defect, she was much fun to spend time with, and would regale us with stories about spain, spanish grammar, spanish food, spanish host families, and even spanish lispy accents. she scaled the tower with us. even though it was only to the deuxieme etage, it was still six hundred steps, and the view was magnifique. the top was off limits to all humans that day, although we saw mysterious elevators climb slowly up the rails towards the blue zenith. it snowed slightly. our breath trailed out before us, a ghostly vapor that wafted down the tower steps as we climbed the many stairs. it mixed with other water vapors and became a rain cloud that rained upon the coast of north africa. when the rain hit the parched ground, our voices could faintly be heard rising from the earth. spooky.