Given the work of the past few days we all three sleep close to noon today. It is a relaxing day to be quiet and ponder all we have seen. I blog and drink coffee, C cleans the apartment, PUITA journals and heads to the park for a walk.
PUITA and I head out to say our farewells to the city. It takes me two outfits and two scarfs before I feel I am ready. We are headed on the metro by ourselves for the first time and heading to the Colleseum. Colloseo station. When we arrive I have not eaten anything. I am finally ready to try to order a Panini by self. The pictures up on the wall show a lovely mozarella, basil tomato panini bread sandwhich that is number sixteen. I grap for the map with a handful of words in the back, how do you say sixteen in Italian? I have only ten and six. I choke at the last minute, "Umm SIXTEEN , Diese Sieze? " He immediately switches to English. "UH six TENNA, No A PROBLEM! I GET FOR YOU!"
I am joyously scarfing down my find when I turn to see PUITAS face lit up. "I see it", she says michievously, like she has cheated by looking around at the station. I lean my head over to see outside the station, and that's when you are just completely bowled over. The Colloseum. Rising majestically before you and just so simply across the street while you eat a pannini at the cafeteria counter. The COLLOSEUM! The 2000 year old building you have seen in movies and books and magazines your whole life where the gladiators and christians where fed to lions and each other and it looks like a fake movie set or a Steven Spielburg special effect, but not something you would just glance at across the street when ordering your Paninni, for BLASTED SAKE! Its like opening your front door and just seeing an Egyptian Pyramid or something.
We ginergly cross the street in mystified awe like we have just travelled back in a time machine and are carefully assessing the environment around us. Next to the Colloseum is a majestic looking arch that we must step into the map to determine is Constantines Arch. We slowly and reverently circle the colloseum. It looks just like Texas stadium but you know that it was built in a time where there were no tools, and each brick is layed upon the other. We think about the rendering of how it did look back in its day that we saw in a guide book, with statues inside each arch and wooden beams at the top holding a massive sail that covered the top. There are archways leading into it just in any stadium you go into today and you can so easily imagine all the excited Toga bearing crowds bustling in a probably buying a drink or snack outside just where the souvenir stands are right now.
We move down the main street to the Roman Forum. We are feeling very poetic and reverent as we view all the massive Roman Ruins that are fenced off in the middle of downtown Rome. This is where the Roman Senate building was, a few yards from the massive Colleseum. It is hear that Senators of the most powerful empire of its time and one of the most advanced cultures of its day moved. You look at it now and there are a few gloriously tall, ornate and majestic columns standing. But just next to it there is a such column which has fallen over on its side. Left laying just where it fell, what,,, 300 years ago? 1000? You get the feeling that you are watching the remains of the Titanic or something, some great vessel that has met a ruinous end. Again remembering the GREAT forums that emperors built with such grandeur in the books of how the sites were originally, you see what looks like nothing but a pile of rubble now. Kansas' proverbally "Dust in the Wind". And you have the sense that you are at a graveyard that symbolizes not just the actual fall of Rome but the rise and fall of all powerful civilations of the past and ... present? Superpowers have all ultimately come to this end? What folly for us to think of ourselves as so industructable as if we are the epitomy of YOUTH that think that we will never grow old or have a care for the future.
We walk solemnly to final destination, Piazza Navone... This is the most delightful piazza we have seen yet. And... I am so glad that we came at night. Being the natural night crawler that I am, I find it so incredibly romantic that this whole two block long square is full of local Romans and Tourists alike. There are TWO beautiful statue/fountains on either end of the piazza, and full of Romans sitting on them and talking and discussing. There are artists with paintings scattered all throughout the piazza, and there is a young Roman playing his violin on one end with a Guitar strumming group on the other. And against the buildings outlining the piazza are the cafes with the distant clatter of dishes and voices. There is a slight breeze and the temperature is probably high 70's, just the perfect evening.
What contrast between where we have just come to now! From the echos of histories and peoples vanished, with their piles of rubbles and wrenched foundations with the whisperings of voices call from the few undesturbed pieces of wall or column or intricate scuplutre to this TEEMING, life filled vibrant gathering of pulsing community. It is just the most romantic spot and we stroll gallantly through with our pensive lips giving way to smiles as we join in the life of the piazza. I remember that my camera has video and capture two minutes from this moment of fullness. We must go... MAC are making us a home cooked Italian meal and we are already 10 minutes past the 8PM hour we told them we would be back. We are so reluctant to leave. This is my last sight in Rome. Leaving means there is no more I can see. Leaving means I am on my first step towards Dallas, and I want to stay here with the musicians, artists, sculptures and fountains. I take a deep breath and will my brain to remember everything I see, hear, smell and feel. Goodbye Rome. I whisper. Bye bye... shhhh (bye).
We drag ourselves from the piazza and find a TAXI. "Piazza FIURME" I say for the last time. When we enter the apartment, C has the place "FENGED OUT" with candles and incesne. We move to the kitchen and are so charmed to see MAC with their good Seminarian friend from London, Andy sitting out on the tiny balcony cafe table with two bowls of olives and a platter of Cheeses and Sausages with tiny little Italian cermic plates to place your olive pitts. They are leisuring and talking about what M and Andy are learning in school and thouroghly enjoying themselves at 8PM in the evening. How charming. Why do we not all begin the evening in such a fashion? Why in our hubub life in the States of working and dinnering and laundrying and so forth, with our multi platinum number of square footage houses do we not think to retire to our outdoor cafe for leisurely discourse with freids cheese and olives? I gaze on the scene like its something I always thought to do and have been trying to remember. Here in their tiny little apartment and 2X8 foot patio they are enjoying a more luxuriant and extravagant moment than probably is Bill Gates in his undergound compound. Simple Pleasures. We must take this back home with us. There is only one thing missing from the scene, CHAMPAGNE! I must say as we sip and chat that C whips up the most gorgeous meal of her Rome Tomatoes, sliced and fried into a sauce with pasta that is simply to die for. The Rome Tomatoes are still fresh and juicy and taste nothing of the plastic imposters we find in our local chain grocery. We have also the most Exquisite Sausage. You simply cannot BUY sausage like this in the STates that is at every little side market on the street here in Rome. You can MAKE it, but you cannot buy it. We savor every morsel, both from the table and the company. As I slip under my covers at 3AM with my bags packed and my alarm set for 7AM to catch a 20 hour flight the next morn and sigh and close my eyes and whisper to the Universe... Goodybe Rome. Bye Bye.... bye
