The Best of the Blogs: Rome and Beyond

I’m excited to announce a new feature on the blog: This Week in Rome. Every weekend, I will be linking to my favorite articles, blog posts, videos and other goodies found on the Internets that week. Although I’m calling it This Week in Rome, and I expect the majority of items I post will be about this lovely city’o’mine, it will not be limited to Rome, but may include anything from around Italy and the world that I think would be of interested to my readers.

Now you all know how good I am at keeping up with my weekly posts! You’ll recall my weekly bi-yearly history posts I dash out every Monday whenever I can find the time. But this is going to be different! I can no longer keep these gems to myself. When I read something fascinating, or hilarious, or spot-on true, I’ve just got to share it with you beloved bloglings, and this is where I plan to do it.

Before this feature is officially unveiled at the end of next week, I’d like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of just a few of my very favorite blogs, although there are many more wonderful ones out there. They are all on my blogroll, but a list of names often do not do justice to the uniqueness of each, so I want to give you a little taste of them here, as they are sure to show up often on my weekly review posts.

So, in no particular order:

Mozzarella Mamma

Patricia Thomas is a foreign correspondent for Associated Press Television News, and one of the few foreign journalists with accredited access to the Vatican. Although her blog covers many fascinating news stories, it is also a chronicle of her life as a mamma in Italy, raising three children with her Italian husband, juggling her career and family life in a land where being a mamma comes with some enormous expectations.

Un’Americana a Roma

If you’re interested in delving into the complex psyche of the average Italian, this blog is the perfect primer. Shelley Ruelle has called Rome home for over a decade, and in that time has garnered a keen understanding of the workings of the Italian mind. She blogs about everything from Italian politics to Roman culture to the random absurdities of life in Italy, all with a refreshing dose of honesty and plenty of hilarious commentary.

Revealed Rome

This is the perfect blog for people who are planning a trip to Rome and want all the insider advice and tricks. Amanda Ruggeri is an indefatigable writer who will fill you in on all of Rome’s best kept secrets, and make sure you don’t fall into any of the many dreaded tourist traps this lovely city so helpfully provides. She’s got her finger on Rome’s pulse, and doesn’t miss any of the most important cultural events that hit the city.

Parla Food

There is one question I get more than any other from friends, friends of friends, clients, and anyone I have ever come into contact with, who is planning a trip to Rome: Where should I eat? And my response is invariable: ask Katie Parla. Katie is a certified sommelier and holds a Masters in Italian Gastronomic Culture, so it’s safe to say she knows what she’s talking about. She has spent the last 10 years exploring Rome’s culinary jungle, her taste is impeccable and she tells it like it is. She blogs about every gastronomic option in the city, from greasy street food to Michelin-starred excellence, from craft beer to organic wine, from traditional Roman cuisine to authentic Ethiopian, Korean or Indian, and everything in between.

Diario di una Studentessa Matta (Diary of a Mad Student)

Melissa Muldoon may not be an Italian resident, but this linguistically gifted American woman has mastered the Italian language more than many of us who live here full time. After falling in love with this undeniably gorgeous language during her many trips to Italy, she decided to perfect it by regular blogging… IN ITALIAN! To be honest, I don’t know how she does it. I have a hard enough time stringing together a coherent sentence in my native tongue. If you’d like to improve your own Italian skills, reading is one of the best ways, so hop over to her blog to read her musings about Italy, all in Dante’s glorious Tuscan.

Letters from Florence

When I feel like laughing until I practically burst a spleen, all the while nodding my head in emphatic agreement, and crying with gratitude that there is somebody out there who has the same gripes and 

frustrations with life in Italy, but is able to express them with hysterical and beautifully crafted prose, I visit this site. Elizabeth Petrosian lives with her family near Florence and writes about all aspects of life in Italy, with side-splitting hilarity and not a grain of sugar-coating. Her most priceless posts tell of the antics of her almost unbelievably horrid in-laws.

Senza Bidet

There are quite a lot of us American expats living in Rome and blogging about the craziness that such a life entails. But what if the shoe were on the other foot? Laura is Italian, born and raised in Rome, with an American husband and two half-and-half kids. They live in LA and Laura blogs in Italian about the things that madden or bewilder her as an Italian expat in the US. For example, why does her doctor not acknowledge the dangers of colpo d’aria, why are her American friends so shocked when she tells her little boy, “Se non te stai zitto, t'ammazzo di botte!” (I’ll beat you to death if you don't shut up), and why, God, why, are there no bidets in America?!

Check out these amazing blogs; I promise you won’t be disappointed! I only hope that after you’ve discovered them, you’ll still have time to visit my little blog! Stay tuned for my upcoming This Week in Rome feature, to be inaugurated next weekend.

What other exceptional Rome or Italy blogs do you love?

All images are copyright of the authors of the respective blogs.

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My secret Italian dream-job

Perugia, April 2005

I have a secret dream, dear bloglings. A deep, burning desire that comes upon me strongly almost every time I walk down a busy street in Rome, and often when I'm walking down a quiet one.

I want to be a vigilessa. A lady traffic-cop.

Now I don't mean that I actually think that it could happen, or that I would ever go through with such a thing--even if it were possible.

But every time I see someone double- or triple-parked, I long to flip out a ticket pad and write them a big fat multa, right on the spot. Or better yet, get their oversized (and completely unnecessary) SUV towed far, far away. Every time I see some unprincipled maniac swerve to avoid a tottering old lady on the crosswalk, coming perilously close to knocking her to the ground, my blood starts to boil and I wish I had the power to stop them. To make them see that what they are doing is not only a violation but a reckless endangerment of their fellow citizen. Every time I see someone riding in the front passenger seat with a baby in their lap, I want to shout, "You won't take your baby out on a sweltering summer day without a woolen undershirt, but you're fine with letting her fly through a windshield? For shame!" Every time an ambulance is blaring down the street, only to be held up in traffic because no one will pull over to let it pass, I wish I could make them imagine it was someone they loved in that ambulance, in desperate need of a doctor.

I know there are much more terrible atrocities in the world, but what bothers me is that these things are done with such complacence, such indifference, and so often. I see at least one of these things happen every single day. And no one seems to bat an eye; it is so utterly accepted.

How I long to bring these reprobates to justice. How I yearn to show these vile degenerates that there are consequences for their shameless, selfish behavior. How I would delight in their sputtering, indignant outrage at being expected to obey their city's laws, laws that were only designed to protect them and their community, their shock at being make to recognize that their convenience should not come at the cost of another person's safety and peace of mind.

I would write so many tickets I would get carpal tunnel and tendinitis. I would have the tow truck company on speed dial. I would be the nightmare of every double-parking, red-light-running, texting-while-driving, child-endangering person who dared to get behind the wheel of a car. I would inspire terror in every last rione.

But, no. It is not to be. I can do nothing.

Sure, I can glare at them until my eyes are sore. I can throw them a few local gestures so maybe they'll understand. I can even shout obscenities that they'll never hear. A friend of mine will happily testify that I once slammed my hands down on the hood of a car as I was crossing a sidewalk when the driver thought it was okay to inch so close to me that her bumper was actually touching my knees. I might even scribble down a license plate number when I see something truly heinous, but even if I reported it what good would it do?

As I walked from my bus stop back to my apartment yesterday, I witnessed a well-dressed businessman on a scooter with a small boy on the back and a toddler on the front. The toddler had no helmet. Maybe daddy's reasoning is that the smaller the head, the less it will be damaged if it smashes into asphalt. Mere seconds later I saw a man texting with his phone inches from his face as he sped down the street. And as if this wasn't enough to start me seething, the next car that passed had a friendly-looking mother and her little girl standing up in the back seat, leaning through the two front seats to chat with her mom. As I stared wide-eyed at the little girl, I noticed the mother smile at me. She probably thought I was admiring her child. This all happened in less than a minute.

As I turned to walk onto my own street, I could barely make it onto the sidewalk. My street has one of those imaginary sidewalks, where there is no actual curb, nothing to separate the pedestrian from the homicidal drivers but a faded blue line of paint. Nothing to stop those drivers from parking right on the narrow path we pedestrians rely on to avoid getting mowed down. Nothing to stop them from inventing parking spots that don't exist, blocking the end of the sidewalk so that anything thicker than the legs of Kate Moss would never be able to fit through, God forbid a parent with a baby carriage or someone in a wheelchair. Nothing to stop them, when their car won't fit in the parallel parking spot, from parking diagonally, with the nose of their car virtually touching the wall of the building, so that even Kate Moss would have to walk out into the street to get around it. Nothing, that is, except...

Super-Vigilessa!!

I see myself flying in to save the day, with a navy blue cape, white leather gloves, and a white, cone-shaped helmet (see photo above). With a flick of my whip I can yank cell phones out of drivers' hands, disintegrating them with a twinkle of my eye. I blow my whistle and drivers' brakes are instantly hit, so the little old lady can make it safely across the street without having to fear for her life. Any cars parked irresponsibly will be crushed with a single glace. I would have to wear a mask, because the percentage of villains (bad parkers/drivers) in this city is so extremely high, my life would be in constant danger. But I would be brave, and fight traffic crime to my dying breath. I would be the hero of every pedestrian whose only dream is to be able to use a crosswalk without getting crushed, or to open their front door without finding a parked car blocking it. Ah, I can see it all so clearly.

But it'll never happen. Because in Italy, the only thing more important that doing your job...let me rephrase that...one of several things more important than doing your job is looking good while you're doing your job. So in Italy, when traffic cops are not posing for photographs in a sunny square in Perugia (see photo above) they are doing this.

It's lovely. Don't get me wrong. Very picturesque. That's why I took a picture of it. But it doesn't actually accomplish anything. It doesn't make me, a pedestrian, feel any safer.

I have to cross Via Ostiense at least twice a day, and every time I step onto those zebra stripes, I take my life in my hands. Or rather, I put my life into the hands of unscrupulous lunatics who, at best, don't give a damn how close they get to me as long as they manage to swerve around me as quickly as possible, and at worst, figure that even if they do hit me, they'll probably be able to get away, and if not, the consequences won't be too bad. It's not like they'll do jail time, maybe just a little fine.

And that's the root of the problem: no consequences. My staunchly law-abiding Maritino will often grumble about the double-parked cars on a street we often take, as it causes major back-ups because, although it's a two-way street, only one lane of cars at a time can fit down it, due to all the double-parkers. It makes him almost as angry as it makes me. This is when I smugly inform him that if his country's laws were actually ENFORCED, certainly not everybody, but most people would stop breaking them.

But that will never happen, will it?

Italy needs a Super-Vigilessa.... why can't it be me?

All photos by author

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The charmed life of a foreign correspondent in Italy

Is there a journalist alive who doesn’t—at least in some small way—envy Gregory Peck’s dashing character in Roman Holiday? And it’s not just about spending 24 hours with a classy, beautiful brunette like Audrey Hepburn. What would it be like to live on Via Margutta, zip around late-1950s Rome on a Vespa, spend your evenings playing poker with the international crowd, and dash off the odd article to your paper back home?

Ah, the life of a foreign correspondent.

Well, a foreign correspondent in Italy, that is. I imagine the life of a foreign correspondent in, say, Libya or Iran (at least these days) might be slightly more dangerous and slightly less picturesque. But in Italy, can you think of a more fantastic lifestyle? Ok, ok, I’m sure it involves a good deal of work, but, oh, the payoff...

...well, you get the idea.

100 years ago, 14 foreign journalists living and working in Rome, got together in their usual haunt, Gran Caffè Faraglia in Piazza Venezia, and decided it was high time they had an official association to represent them. The Foreign Press Association was born. Today its members are numbered at 443, and hail from over 50 different countries around the world. American correspondents are outnumbered only by their German counterparts, and include one of my very favorite expat bloggers, Patricia Thomas, (Rome’s own Mozzarella Mamma herself!)

Italy as seen by the world, a new exhibit at the Ara Pacis opened last week, celebrating this important 100-year milestone. It was thrilling to see snippets of articles, headlines and magazine covers from around the world, all with the same subject: il belpaese. Some articles dated back nearly a century; others covered news stories I can well remember since my own arrival here eight years ago. 100 years of top news stories, archeological discoveries, culinary culture, destination pieces, social commentary: it’s all covered in this fascinating exhibit, the first big opening of the season.

Here are a few images from the exhibition:

Historic Archive of the first headquarters of the association

Association members in an audience with Pope John XXIII

Hitler and Mussolini, Newsweek, 1936

Il Conchiglione (The Big Shell) in the conference hall of the Foreign Press Association © Chris Warde-Jones

An article on terrorism in Italy, Der Spiegel, 1977

The death of Pope John Paul II, Paris Match, 2005

President and Mrs. Obama in an audience with Pope Benedict XVI (my photo of a photo)

I imagine it’s fascinating for Italians to witness how their country and culture is portrayed to the world at large by the pen-armed foreigners who’ve made their home here, but who nevertheless bring along their own perspective, culture and experiences. As an expat I have learned so much about my own country, simply by getting an outside look at it. This is not always pleasant. In fact, I was surprised that the inauguration was packed with Italians. I would have expected the majority of those in attendance to be the very same foreign correspondents being celebrated in the exhibit, but I rarely picked up on a foreign language or accent, although there were a few international journalistic legends (whom I would never have recognized had the Maritino not pointed them out to me).

Mayor Gianni Alemanno, Ara Pacis, © Tiffany Parks

The mayor himself was also in attendance, and I don’t mean to be mean, but this was the first time I had ever seen him live and I couldn’t stop myself humming that line from Annie (the Broadway musical, eh, NOT the film!), “What other town has the Empire State and a mayor five-foot-two?” Now, I didn’t get out my tape measure, but even standing up on the podium of the Ara Pacis, he didn’t look a hair taller than me. Rome may not have the Empire State Building, but a Fiorello Laguardia-look-alike we do have!

I learned during the press conference that the "extras" in the last scene of Roman Holiday were the actual members of Italy's Foreign Press Association in 1959! (A shocking dearth of women...) This exhibit is on for less than a month, so don’t miss it! Check out my exhibits calendar for times and dates.

 
PS After months of sporatic posting, I'm aiming to go two-for-two with a post about the new Vermeer exhibit at the Scuderie del Quirinale tomorrow, so stop by!

Photo sources: 1, 2, 

3-8 courtesy of Zetema Ufficio Stampa, 

9-10 by author, 

11

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How I moved to Italy and married the love of my life, part 1

As you may have already guessed from the name of this blog, I love Roman pine trees. I adore them actually. I could sit and look at them for ages. Today I have come to the pines for some inspiration.

I am writing this from a bench in my favorite spot in Villa Pamphilj, what I call the pine grove, where the trees all grow in straight parallel lines. No, I didn't bring my computer to the park. I would never commit that sacrilege! I am writing this out longhand. It almost feels like I'm writing in a diary, perfect for the post I have in mind.

As you well know by now, it was my not so brilliant idea to post about my wedding every 29th of the month (because I got married on the 29th), but I quickly got overwhelmed by the back story I wanted to tell.

It started out fantastically. I had a great time writing about my ancestors, and how I feel that they have, in some strange way, guided me here. But when it came time to write about myself, I clammed up. In January I skipped the post, in February I admitted my reluctance to get too personal, but my lovely bloglings encouraged me to bag my inhibitions and open up. So here goes. (I have a feeling this is going to be long. I'll have to do it in multiple parts. Oh, how I love to draw things out. I apologize in advance!)

To tell this story properly I must begin, if not in 1861, then at least in the early 80s when I discovered that I have Italian blood. I can't remember the exact day but I remember the feeling... I felt Italian. Of course I had no idea what being Italian ought to feel like, but I knew I felt it. Never mind that I was only one quarter Italian, never mind that I spoke not a word and had never set foot in the country. Never mind the German, Irish, English, Portuguese and who knows what other blood I had--that didn't matter. What mattered was that I was Italian.

No, this isn't me, although I wouldn't be surprised if a photo of me like this exists.

Not by citizenship of course. The Italianess came to me from my mother's mother, and a ridiculous and sexist law makes it impossible for me to claim Italian citizenship through my ancestors. But that didn't stop me, especially as an exuberant 7 year old, from feeling Italian.

I'll never forget my first trip to Italy, with my mother and sister when I was 14. At that time I was blindly obsessed with the film A Room with a View. I ate, slept and breathed this film. I literally (literally!) had the entire script memorized. Being kissed on a hillside with Florence in the distance was just about the most romantic thing in the world as far as I could tell, and I wanted it to happen to me. So going to Florence was almost a pilgrimage.

I'm embarrassed to admit that at that age I didn't care much about the David or the Botticellis or even the Duomo. I cried when I stood in the Piazza della Signoria, not because of the amazing art surrounding me, or the hundreds of years of history, but because I was standing where George caught Lucy when she fainted.

A Room with a View, Merchant Ivory Film

Ah, the romance! How this scene thrilled my adolescent heart!

A Room with a View, Julian Sands and Helena Bonham Carter

What can I say, sometimes fiction is more moving than history. Blame it on my youth.

We took an overnight train from Paris, and in the morning as the train barrelled through Tuscany, I stumbled down the corridor and bumped into someone. "Scusi!" I said, automatically. Then I stopped, realizing, "I can say 'scusi' now... I'm in Italy!" Bliss.

What would I have thought then to know I would one day live here? Maybe I knew all along it was inevitable. As life sometimes works like dominoes, my obsession with A Room with a View introduced me to the music of Puccini, which began a whole new (and much more time consuming) obsession, this time with opera.

By 16, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro filled every available corner of my brain. Just as much as I longed to perform the role of Susanna, I equally longed to be able to speak Italian. I would memorize the endless recitativi from Figaro, and rattle them off, imagining I was having a conversation with an Italian (preferably a dark, handsome, male one).

Ten years and many trips to Italy later, I was plotting to find a way to move here permanently. I no longer yearned for anything so specific as a kiss in a barley field. I just wanted to live this magical place, to soak up the beauty that Italy emanates from its very core. At first it was more of a day dream, something that almost didn't seem possible. But I wanted that dolce vita so bad I could taste it. Eventually it became a mission, until finally one day, I said to myself, "What's stopping me?" and three months later I was here.

[Cue record scratch as blissful Amelie type music screeches to a halt]

Those of you who live here know, life in Italy is not only about romance, cobblestones, and picturesque alleyways. It can be a frustrating, exhausting and extremely harsh place to live, despite what the films make you believe. I found that out not long after arrival.

I'd love to be able to say I met the man of my dreams the day I got off the plane, and that my life fell instantly into place. Instead followed four mostly wonderful, sometimes miserable and always challenging years on my own in this crazy country. Still, I wouldn't trade those years, what they taught me and how they shaped me, for anything. You'll have to tune back in this time next month to hear the rest of the story.

If you are wondering what all of this rambling has to do with my wedding, well, I'm getting to it. I have never been capable of telling a short story. The point is, just like Mr. Beebe, I am naturally drawn to all things Italian. If it were not so, I would never have met my dashing Maritino.

Photo sources: 1, by author; 2, 3, 4

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