Incongruous Things I Have Seen In or Near The Vatican

• A Swiss Guard in full uniform reading Stieg Larsson by the Scala Regia
• A monk on roller skates gliding down the street
• A black cat meowing in the rain near an x-ray machine under Bernini's colonnade

My Pavlovian Response

Apparently I am at my giddiest when, all alone, I press "play" and the up-beat theme music that you can mimic with a series of "doo doo doo"'s or "ba ba ba"'s (i.e. "30 Rock," "Arrested Development," "The Office," "Monty Python's Flying Circus," "How I Met Your Mother," "Flight of the Conchords") starts playing.

I begin literally squealing and squirming with joy.

Nuovo Cibo

Before coming to Rome, I detested zucchini and had never really eaten eggplant (or drunk wine, but that's another story). Now I am obsessed with both, especially when the former is sautéed and accompanied by melted mozzarella on ciabatta. In wondering why the States haven't caught on to the fact that zucchini flowers are edible and delish, I Wikipedia'd them... and was met with this wonderful fact:

"In a culinary context, zucchini is treated as a vegetable, which means it is usually cooked and presented as a savory dish or accompaniment. Botanically, however, the zucchini is an immature fruit, being the swollen ovary of the female zucchini flower." 

So now you know. 

I also had rabbit (in pasta sauce) and basically raw beef for the first time on Saturday night. Adventures for my taste buds!

Carpe Diem

I did something impulsive today.

Well, kind of. I had been thinking of it off-and-on as an "If I were a different person..." sort of thing for a few years, then let myself be convinced to do it for real about a month ago, then tried to pursue it two weeks ago but was foiled by misinformation and was crushed into resignation that it shouldn't happen after all. But today, quite unexpectedly, the opportunity presented itself—and, without my usual waffling and listing of all the hypothetical consequences, I took the bull by the horns.

Or more specifically, I took a needle to the nose: a souvenir of Rome and a symbol of the newer person I've become since landing here.

I Miei Nuovi Amici

• Single-serving containers of pesto
• The secret coffee vending machine
• ACE juice
• Pear juice
• Nutella boat cookies
• Zucchini-and-mozzarella sandwiches
• Vino bianco for less than 2 euros

(Do you sense a theme? Oy gevalt.)

I'm attending the canonization ceremony at St. Peter's this weekend, so maybe by Monday I can add Pope Benedict XVI to this list too—or at least an Australian cardinal.

The Top of a Muffin

I'm pretty sure I have gained weight since arriving here a month ago, despite the heightened amount of walking I've been doing. This gelato-and-pastry habit I've fallen into (or just carried over from my binge-eating in the states) has to stop, for the sake of my wallet and my waistline. 

Those cornetti con cioccolato are divine and a scoop of stracciatella hits the spot every time, but I am putting myself on a restricted diet of no more than two pastries and two small cups of gelato a week, starting this Friday in Venice. Quality over quantity. Try to avoid diabetes.

EDIT (Sunday): Well, that was a fail. Starting over tomorrow. Cornetti don't count.

I should probably also stop buying those 38-cent packs of wafer cookies at the supermarket. They disappear embarrassingly quickly down my throat.

In related news, apparently spoom is a thing.

Wanted: Peacock Logo

I haven't watched a movie or TV or even a web video for four weeks now, partly so as not to use up our precious bandwidth and partly because I need to break that habit but mostly because I should spend my time exploring Rome instead... but right now I miss my NBC comedies.

I need some Liz Lemon and Michael Scott in my life.

(I would also really love to go apple-picking. I miss New England in the fall.)

Or Maybe It's My Trusting Face

In the past week, at least six couples have asked me for directions somewhere—most of them in Italian.

I couldn't help them, but at least it made me feel like a local.

Inconsequential Inconsistencies

1. There are fountains with drinkable water all over Rome, but few public bathrooms.
2. Most of the streets are made of treacherous, slippery, non-contiguous cobblestones, but all the Italian women walk around wearing heels at least three inches in height.
3. The best bar I've been to in Rome thus far has been Irish.

Diff'rent Furnishings for Diff'rent Folks

Things That Are Not In This Roman Apartment

• Mirrors in the rooms
• Different locks on the room doors
• Garbage cans in most rooms
• Window screens

Things That Are

• Three bidets

A Taste of Gender Inequality

Well, it's 11pm and the boys just slipped out for the night—which means that we girls basically have to stay in. Rome so far has seemed pretty safe during the day, but once the sun goes down, the catcalls, whistles, and date rape drugs reveal themselves (or not so much "reveal" as "conceal [in drinks]" for that last one). We've been warned that going out even as pairs of females is unsafe, and I am certainly not going to ignore that advice. I have no desire to end up in a dark alleyway (of which there are many in this city meant for chariots instead of Chevrolets) with an intoxicated man, be he amorous American or romantic Roman. In a place and culture (and under a legal system) that are foreign to us, we women cannot forget that we don't have the independence or protection here that we might back home. Part of that protection is supposed to be provided by our compatriot males, but apparently we may be cramping their style in their weekend bar-crawls, so tonight they didn't even ask us if we'd like to escape the residence for a while, thus resigning me to yet another night of browsing the internet in my pajamas while eating Nutella with a spoon.

A Quick Confession

I have but one complaint about Roman gastronomy thus far, and it is this: it is an unwritten rule that you must order at least two flavors of gelato even for the smallest cup, lest the scooper look at you as if you have suddenly grown a second nose. "Solo?" he responds with disbelief when I order stracciatella and nothing else. "Si, solo," I must answer firmly. He resigns himself to my annoyingly non-Italian ways, and hands me my cup of a single, lonely flavor, his secret heart hoping that this heretic will leave his gelateria at once. 

There are hundreds of gelato gusti ("Mozart" and "Hello Kitty" among them), and of course my goal is to try them all. (Well, not quite all—just as with ice cream, I'm not tempted by anything based in chocolate.) My pignolo today was delicious, and now I know to avoid the boring fior de latte or syrupy-sweet zabaione. But I would like to try them one by one: one flavor taking up the whole of one cup or cone.

It's not that I'm obsessive-compulsive (in most cases I will allow my food to mingle as much as it likes on my dinner plate), but that in order to enjoy the flavor most fully, I must not have to maneuver the ever-melting dividing line between multiple tasty scoops. Moreover, the size of an Italian scoop seems to be about half of an American one, so when two flavors are crammed in one tiny copetto, you hardly have the chance to experience one of the two on its own terms before you find your cup sadly empty. What it boils (or melts) down to is that I want a lot of one taste instead of half as much of two tastes, complementary as they may be.

So, dear Italy, please indulge me and let me sample your many tantalizing gelati gusti one full, unadulterated cup at a time. I promise I will enjoy them that way even more.

Ciao, Roma!

I like lists. Here is a Benvenuto a Roma edition!

Il Bene

• Pizza, gelato, blood orange juice.
• Tomatoes, basil, mozzarella.
• Individual containers of Nutella with dipping sticks.
• Shopkeepers who speak some English and/or appreciate my embarrassing attempts at Italian.
• Feeling as if one is on a movie set while one walks down the narrow alleyways at 8:00, passing a ristorante every two minutes where people are leisurely dining al fresco while lit by beautifully wrought street lamps and serenaded by busking musicians.
• Surprisingly good connection to home on my program-provided Italian cell phone.
• Very helpful, friendly, and understanding RA's.
• Smart Cars and teeny-tiny dump trucks (except when they come hurtling down a viccolo when one is walking there).
• The fact that my legs will be quite shapely from all the walking I have to do.
• Cobblestone streets: they're ancient!

Il Male

• My fifty-pound suitcase (with my books, towel, walking shoes, newly purchased clothes, school supplies, and toiletries) got left behind in Dublin when I transferred there on Thursday morning. Thanks a bunch, AerLingus. (Then again, thanks for being cheap and for having friendly flight attendants with great Irish accents.) Because it's now the weekend, the earliest the bag can be delivered now is Monday (though at least the tracking website suggests that it is indeed in Rome).
• A miserable first night. Jetlagged (Rome is six hours ahead of home), exhausted (didn't sleep at all on the planes), overwhelmed (by multitude of tiny streets with no discernible plan, compounded with my inability to navigate my way even out of the apartment complex), in pain (neck muscles), pitifully homesick. I am a four-year-old at heart.
• The heat. It makes me sluggish and grumpy, I hate being sweaty, and escaping the sun is difficult when one is constantly having to walk somewhere.
• Only two working outlets in my room means that if I and my roommate both have our computers plugged in, we can't use the fan. This probably deserves a remedy.
• The McDonald's directly across from the Pantheon. Come on.
• General miscommunication problems among the various administrations.
• The fact that I am so easily frustrated, disoriented, and panicked.
• Cobblestone streets: they trip you up!

Next on the priority list (before classes begin) is to find a nice cafe, order my first cup of Italian coffee, and people watch from a table outside.

RANT RANT RANT

I am SO FUCKING BORED.

I am literally turning into a blob of nothingness.

When I'm not glued apathetically to my computer, I am sleeping, eating, or flopped on some lounge-y piece of furniture bemoaning this lame-ass summer.

Besides my stint at camp, I haven't seen a friend since mid-May.

My town has no sidewalks, or look-out points, or cute boys behind the counter at Panera.

I had better stop being dead before my plane leaves for Rome in nine days.

Depilation Drudgery

I strongly dislike shaving. Maybe because it takes so long, maybe because I do it while showering and thus am not wearing my glasses and thus nick myself all the time, maybe because it reminds me how fat my thighs are. I do like the feeling of soft, smooth, hairless legs, though, so in the spring and summer (i.e. during seasons where one cannot justify wearing pants to cover one's calves all the time) I pick up that razor. I pick up that razor maybe once a week because goldarnit, even though I hate seeing my stubble, I can't be bothered to shave away those short, annoyingly dark "maybe no one will notice—who's looking at my ankles anyway?" hairs. (More power to the girls who decide to stay au naturel; I just don't have the guts for that. Though I don't wear makeup for a multitude of reasons, I'm still a servant to the shaver.)

So two weeks ago I noticed that a Nair + Special Two-Sided Sponge set was on sale at CVS. It promised convenience! It promised remaining hairless for longer! It promised that I too would be a high-kicking, grinning girl in short shorts! So I bought it, and I tried it. And again today, just to make sure I hadn't messed up the first time. But no. 

After slathering on and rinsing off this foul-smelling, chemical-loaded cream, my shins became stubbly again just as quickly as they do after shaving (like two days—my head hair doesn't grow that fast!). More frustratingly, though, this so-called depilatory didn't even depilate all those bristles that interfere with my chances of being found by model scouts on the street (sarcasm)—I had to shave afterward anyway! I had to methodically mow the random patches that the lazy grazing cows had left behind.

So now I am doubly irritated: firstly because my leg hair growth never takes a breather and secondly because the magical solutions provided for that very problem are not, in fact, magical solutions. Unless anyone has recommendations that do not require lasers or scalding hot wax, I am resigned to wielding bits of sharp metal, hoping that my knees don't start bleeding again—at least until corduroy weather rolls around.

On a similar "I am slightly pissed off" note, I have to wake up in seven hours to join the family on a visit to a college that wait-listed me way back when. Yup, I'm still bitter.

On an unrelated note, I finally watched "Donnie Darko." Wow.

Things That Are Currently Making Me Happy

1. That it is my night/day off, free from melodramatic middle-schoolers
2. Lorna Doone cookies on sale at CVS (a buck a box)
3. That I saw "Inception" for only $5.25
4. Jon Cryer as Duckie in "Pretty In Pink"
5. The thought of gelato in Rome

Finally Something Worth Blogging About

Today (well, technically, last night) a boy asked me to go for a walk with him. So I did. We chatted for nearly three hours. (We are co-workers and met on Saturday night.) As far as I can remember, that's the first time such an event has occurred in my usually dismal life.

So things are exhausting, but I've got a smile.

Movies I Have Watched Since Wednesday's Wisdom Teeth Extraction

Wednesday

• Speed
• Kramer vs. Kramer
• Full Metal Jacket
• A Serious Man (first half)
  

Thursday

• 40 Days and 40 Nights
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Deconstructing Harry
• A Serious Man (second half)
  

Friday

• Every Little Step
• Hamlet 2

Recovery from sedation and looking like a chipmunk sure provide an great chance to veg out in front of the TV.

Missing You (from PostSecret)

Dear Emma Watson,

Please stop being so bloody gorgeous, intelligent, and lucky. You're making the rest of us want to crawl under our beds and decompose into dust.

Case in point: this Vanity Fair article. Selected quote (my emphasis): "Then she started meeting people: a roommate who had no interest in Harry Potter (phew!), some really friendly rower guys, and eventually one Rafael Cebrián, who's a rock musician and actor in his native Spain and has reportedly become her boyfriend."

Sincerely,

Envious in Ohio