So back to Roma. We immediately head out to the countryside to the town of Canale. Our hosts, whom we had just previously entertained for 2 weeks in NY, made jokes about arriving at Canal Street. (NY folk should understand the international word, with which the Romans made jokes, spoken in chinese accent: DVD? DVD?)
This little town is out by the lakes north west of Rome.
All of these large round lakes throughout Italy are in old volcanoes, look at the map. Damn. The festival of the weekend was the blessing of the animals.
This is a community of cowboys and there was a big parade with all the locals riding horses doing tricks; also distinguished well dressed older gentleman riders, plus a few toothless geezers. There was a group of young men and a woman with monogrammed jackets like a 50s car club. Following the riders were dog walkers, some cats, pet goats, and many rabbits. This entire town is filled with barking dogs, barking early in the morning everywhere late into the night. Bark bark bark bark bark. The blessing seemed to have no effect on their manners.
Later in the day we went to the community feast. Grand meaty meal with lots of wine on cramped picnic tables finished with many types of sweet cakes.
At another nearby lake with a slightly bigger town was a castle and entire neighborhood of medieval apartments. Fascinating living, steep stone streets, roaming cats, laundry out the window, luxury living in piles of stones. This is the castle where an actor recently had a big wedding; he allegedly paid all the local restaurants to close, and the area to be cleared. It is still the sarcastic talk of the town; they call it Tohm Cruweese castle.
We also toured other lakes in volcanoes. One town is called Rocca di Papa; I hoped it was a band called Rock of the Pope, but it was a rock of the Pope.
We cruised downtown Rome most days looking for contemporary art galleries. We found some damn good ones. For several days in a row, there were thunderstorms and hail all day long. Hail and thunderstorms in January?! Crazy. Miserable walking but weird enough to not be oppressive.
The buses have four extra superwide seats, presumably for fat people, and two wheelchair places, though I hardly saw any fat people or a single wheelchair person in Rome.
We went out to a rock club called Jail Break, saw bands called Real Swinger, and Tito and the Brain Suckers. All these names were displayed like this in English. It was a typical rock club with beat up dark wood and posters. We had dinner there(?!). Then the bands played late. I had to see some music in my quest to confirm that the USA is actually the cultural superpower, not the military superpower; as our government's military apparently isn't. My experience has been that musicians in the US are the world's best. This is partly because all the best people in the world immigrate to the US, but that is not the whole story. I am not sure what it is, but creators of original material outside the US are usually just not as good as even average US creators. The bands we saw were good, but were lacking some innate knowledge or attitude preventing them from being great.
We went to Naples. Wow. Chaos and grunge. Even the luxury areas made me feel uncomfortable; I couldn't stop thinking about that the mafia is touching all wealth here. There was a lot of beauty and vibrant life right there in the shadow of active Vesuvius; damn. I think it is illegal to use a leash on your dog. We went to the national archaeology museum and saw the Secret Room where they have a collection of erotic mosaics, hot sculpture, and sexy everyday good luck charms. A statistically measurable number of people in Naples have a fake tan.
Most doors of businesses open in, confusing Americans. Our doors open out in case of fire so people don't pile at the door and burn up. Buildings in Italy don't use much wood, everything is stone, they don't consider fire. Most businesses are closed on Monday, most also close for a several hour lunch.
Love,
Brian
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