SFO-BOS-FCO-SFO III

Italy is an interesting place. Mostly, though, it is the people’s way of life in Rome that threw me for a loop a number of times. This is my third trip to Europe (having been to London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, Lucerne, the Black Forest and Prague on previous trips), but I got a pretty personal touch this time around by hanging out each night with my friend Penelope, who moved to Italy three years ago after living in the DC area right out of school. She has family that lives in the city center—she’s half-Italian—so Rome seemed like a logical choice to start her experience abroad. She teaches English in Rome and also has a good number of English-speaking friends—great for me, since my Italian is mostly limited to “buon giorno” and “grazie.”

Accommodations were pretty good—free and, well, free. P lives with a born-and-raised Italian who’s a film production coordinator and a Scottish girl that also teaches English in the city. I had my own futon and a share of the fridge—key, since when I travel I like to eat breakfast in, so I loaded up on cereal, OJ and bread in the mornings.

So many random things popped up during the trip—so, enjoy. Movie reviews return next week. P—thanks again for showing me a great time.

-->Where the hell are all of the fat people?

Living in America, you get used to seeing lots of heavy folks. Seriously, even in generally-health-conscious San Francisco, you see some “buffet-plate bastards” on the bus or the train every so often; the other extreme, which can politely be summed up as “New Orleans Any Time of the Year”, features more fat people than raindrops on an April afternoon.

Coming to Rome almost begged the fantasy of hundreds of fat Italian guys eating pasta at every turn, but I was in Rome for a week...they simply are not here!! It is stunning that the people here look so good given the penchant for eating three-course meals right before sleeping twice a day. But, the proof is in the pudding, and the people here are mostly fit and trim. I can’t tell where it is that people get their workouts—like I mentioned yesterday, it seems like no one is out jogging, cycling or working out outside in the beautiful weather here—but, I surely know that there is something in the water here, because this is the best muthafuckin’ tap water I have EVER had. Seriously, I think the water quality alone would account for five less pounds per person, because it actually has taste in Rome!!

-->9 PM for dinner? Fuck that

Back in San Francisco, when I get home from the gym around 7 or so, I am starving for food in any form I can get my hands on. So, you can imagine my problems in Rome for a week as we ate dinner three times after 10 PM and the rest at the “traditional” 9 PM dinner hour. One night, we had dinner at 11:15 PM, and I was already finished with my left shirt sleeve when that time came around. The only thing that made these times acceptable was that...

-->The food was so freakin’ good

As a professional eater, I knows me some good food, and save for the fact that these people don’t know shit about pancetta (Italian for bacon), the food here blows away almost any week-long stretch of food I have ever experienced. I am already very afraid of my first pasta dinner back in the States, because the noodles, gnocchi, shells, lasagna and sauces DEMOLISH the American pasta experience. This, of course, is not a surprise, but now a small part of me wishes I had never had it, just so I wouldn’t be ruined back at home. (Editor’s note—I wrote this essay while still in Rome; on Tuesday, I had pizza at Sbarro so that I could just go ahead and ruin my dream of great pizza; the quality was a solid Hard Vice.)

And, don’t even get me started on pizza and gelato (ice cream), which are almost two separate essays waiting to happen. I took one bite of a cup of chocolate/strawberry gelato and for about six minutes all I said to Penelope was “This is so freakin’ good!!” The Pizza Hut Buffet will never taste as good to me again. Sad, so sad.

-->The stereotype of Italian men and American women—TRUE

I must admit—the Italian men I saw out on Friday and Saturday night looked like they were in full piranha mode, scoping and attacking hot foreign women at every turn. Why don’t the Italian women follow suit? Shit, I’ll hang out.

-->Italian men are pretty cool...all 5’8” of them

There was a point on Friday night where I thought I was the tallest man in Rome, and I’m only 6’1”. I was TOWERING over Italian men wherever I looked—at the club, at the pizzeria, on the metro, walking around downtown. And clearly, the market looks good for tall, reasonably-handsome black men from California in Rome—there are only about one or two in town at any given moment, and women in Rome REALLY like that. Three of Penelope’s friends informed me that, in various phrasings, “black men do pretty well here in Rome.”

-->Hey, Joe Roman—watch where you’re walking!

Great window shopping, beautiful people, watching out for oncoming traffic—none of these reasons is good enough for me when it comes to the walking traffic in Rome. People seem to try and walk right through you, which annoyed the living shit out of me for the first two days and led me to use The Cold Shoulder for the remainder of the trip when walking anywhere. When people would walk towards me—be it man, woman, or child—I watched to see if they would stumble into my path, and if they did, I gave them a hard shoulder to make sure they understand that we Americans won’t stand for that business. It’s like that annoying friend of yours that can never seem to walk in a straight line, so they end up walking into you three or four times per walk? That is, oh, every single person in Rome.

-->No one in Rome knows about the “real” San Francisco

A typical conversation:

“Where are you from?”

”I live in California...San Francisco.”

“Oh! It must be so nice to live there; I heard it’s beautiful there...so sunny and warm.”

“Yeah...except for the fact that the weather back home typically blows...and, that’s if you live in the ‘sunny’ part of town.”

But, people rightly believe that what they see in the movies is true, so I didn’t try and ruin anyone’s impression that the women in San Francisco look mostly like Ashley Judd, it’s always sunny and 80 degrees and everyone has a good job.

-->Scooters in Rome—REQUIRED

I am not a fan of two-wheeled vehicles—besides their obvious safety issues, storage capacity, lack of a stereo (in most cases), and the fact that I can’t really transport anybody with me all factor into my dislike for them as vehicles.

But, in Rome, I would simply have to own a two-wheeler to survive. Damn near half of the people here have one, insurance for them is dirt cheap, parking them here is a breeze and in these tough gas times (where gas in Europe is even higher that the US, war or not), having a “motorino” is the way to go.

And, even though I thought I was going to die a number of times while riding on the back of Penelope’s motorino, it was fun riding around Rome on a scooter. If only they were safer...

-->Ross, you are right—Rome is full of stray cats

I couldn’t help but notice one morning, while walking around the Spanish Steps, that there were about five alley cats just kind of hangin’ out (were those things playing dice?) near the top of the steps. That was the first of about half a dozen instances where I noticed a bunch of cats just kind of, you know, hangin’ out on the streets, all homeless-like. Does Rome have a cat problem? A cat epidemic? Only way to be sure is to see it for yourself...

-->Wrap-around shades are freakin’ hot

My standard-issue prescription sunglasses were regularly outclassed by Italians wearing badass-looking shades that seemed to cover damn near the whole face sometimes. You know how some people wear yellow- or red-tinted shades to dance clubs? Shit, these cats wear them ALL DAY LONG!! Clearly, I need both new shades and new eyeglass frames...if I didn’t need to worry about the prescription, I woulda bought them in Rome. Cool shades make uncool people cool, so just imagine if cool people are wearing them!!

-->The women of Rome—oh my G—

As I suspected, Italian women did not disappoint. The skin tones were hot, the clothes were hot, and I got to meet a few hotties that were friends of Penelope’s. I think the energy level is the most impressive part—such passionate people, the Italians I got to meet in general just seem to be a lively bunch, which makes everyone more attractive.

When we went to the game on Sunday, we had these ritzy $115 seats right next to the seating section that was reserved for the VIPs at the game; there were these two girls that P’s friend Donato and I kept eyeing up from across the seats; it’s hard to confirm this, but on the Bell/Longer Hottie Scale, the looks alone were about to merit a 9, which as some of you know is unheard of for women of any kind on the Scale. As looks go (since I didn’t try my “Hey baby, you like tall black American men?” line), these women were perfect on the Scale. Maybe they were total and complete triks, but man, I was stunned by the beauty of these two.

It also helps that Italian women (and, ahem, the men as well) seem to like their pants in one of two sizes—tight, and second-skin. I don’t think I saw a pair of baggy jeans that were not mine the whole week; daddy likey.

-->Two words—I love siestas

At 1 PM every weekday, everything but restaurants and museums shut down so that folks can take a two-hour lunch or a two-hour siesta or some split of the two. I have been preaching this for years, but there is no doubt that we Americans need to have Nap Time. As some of you may remember, I used to take one-hour siestas at my first job in DC by going down to the parking lot and sleeping in my car. I was so much more productive at my job in those days...I would happily work from 8-6 with a two-hour break, but that’ll never happen in this country. As my roommate Wes was joking recently, “I would kill myself from working all of these hours...but, I just can’t squeeze it in!” So true that the American of today in general works too hard, blue-collar, white-collar, no collar, whatever.

-->Dude...OF COURSE I went out to see the nightlife

Bars—in general, good stuff. People-watching seems to be part of the curriculum at Roman middle, prep and high schools, because these people are professionals when it comes to scoping out the scene. Penelope is more a drinker than a dancer nowadays after a run as a dancin’ machine, so that was the majority of the nighttime...IF we made it past dinner, which was really freakin’ late at night. Drinks are overpriced, but no more so than hangin’ out in Georgetown on a Friday night or the Marina on a Thursday. In general, though, I sensed (and had confirmed for me multiple times by Penelope’s friends) that Italians really don’t do a great amount of hard drinking, in order to stay civilized and cool-looking for the entire night. Much like my friend Kristin famously did one night with a White Russian, Italians are the greatest nurses of all time. These cats will buy a drink and sip the living shit out of it for an hour or two before paying and going home. Also, not surprisingly, I had an Italian beer one night and let’s just say that I’ll never be doing that again.

Clubs—only went to one, so I can’t really judge that scene. The one I went to was not too bad, although they did have an interesting door policy—Italians CAN’T enter. Apparently thinking that because Italians don’t buy a lot of drinks making the daily budget will be difficult, this club’s ownership only lets in foreigners. The music was cool (hip-hop; still stunning to me that each time I have been abroad it has been so easy to find hip-hop, and most of it reasonably current), the foreigners were definitely up in the cut hangin’ out, and the drinks were ridiculously stiff. This female German bartender at the club that had the night off was aggressively looking to “hang out” so I talked to her for a little while, and she provided some funny moments as she, too, talked about how much she loved San Francisco from what she had seen in the movies.

-->Doesn’t matter where you go—Paddy McIrish Bar is in full effect

One night, Penelope, her cousin and I went to an Irish pub around the corner from her aunt’s place. Friends, it doesn’t matter where you go in this world, be it New York City, Rome, Jakarta, Ethiopia, New Zealand, China or Baghdad...THEY GOT AN IRISH JOINT!!! My friend Brian and I have already hashed the Paddy McIrish Bar Theory, which expounds upon the fact that you can go out right now to any neighborhood liquor store and buy your very own Opening an Irish Bar Kit for the low, low price of $49.95...I think the folks at the place we saw in Rome got a discount!

Bar name: The Fiddler’s Elbow (classic Irish, with more style than most places like “Shay McDougal’s” or “The Four-Leaf Pub”)
Interior: All wooden (really, there must be a market for an Irish joint that has, say, shiny metallic interiors, but no one wants to fuck with our image of Ireland pubs)
Number of Guinness and Harp signs: 427
Number of four-leaf clovers hanging near the bar: 22 (low for a bar of this genre)
Dartboards: 2
Smoking: Naturally (even in California, where it is ILLEGAL to smoke indoors, there are Irish bars that allow smoking per a city ordnance loophole about Irish joints)
Nights for Irish chanting: Weekends and happy hour

Freakin’ love these places.

--ROMantic*

Clearly, I would have enjoyed this trip to Rome much more if I had taken a girlfriend/fiancée/call girl/wife on this trip; the 70-degree temperatures and the walks and the restaurants al felt romantic to me. At least, that’s how it seemed as I was walking alone through the city streets during the daytime. Rome is about 50 times more PDA-friendly than any city in the US—IF you are straight.

*If you want to offend a Roman man, just call him gay and run away; I don’t remember going to a place that seemed more homophobic than Rome. Whether it was negative graffiti on the walls of the city center, the sheer lack of gay couples anywhere at night (or even male-male or female-female pairs), or P’s thoughts on gay culture as being “VERY underground here in Rome”, I didn’t get the sense that homosexuality was embraced at all by Roman people. Being where I live now, I noticed this much more readily than I would have while living in DC...but, regardless, I was very surprised at the Romans’ take on homosexuality.

What more can I say? A kick-ass trip. If anybody is thinking about making a trip to Boston or Rome soon, lemme know so I can hook you up with some of these cool-ass people. Now, if you need to reach me, I’ll be staying in, playing video games or watching the NBA playoffs for the next month to recover some cash!!

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Ringo, the best damned cookie since the Oreo (Italy only): Opening Weekend
Being 15 pounds lighter: $9.50 Show
Losing a player from UVA’s b-ball team for the fifth time in two seasons...which raises the possibility that the AD will can Pete Gillen sometime after next season: Matinee
Paying $2000 a month in rent...and, still having to fork over $200 a month more for parking: Rental
Not being able to buy new PS2 games because of a $2700 check for Uncle Sam, the worst, meanest family member in America: Hard Vice

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

SFO-BOS-FCO-SFO, Part III