Just some thoughts and ideas going around in my head while trying to figure out where I am and where everyone else is going.

Monday, May 18, 2009

Angeli e Demoni

Bridge of Angels
Vatican Museum
“Football, American football?” asked the little man as he spread his back and flexed his arms and smiled at me. I smiled back at him. Sure when you’re only 5ft 2in everybody looks like a football player to you I thought. Then he said, “Obama, yes, Obama?” and he gave me the thumbs up. ”Look my friend, just put your finger,” and he held up two pieces of string held in a loop, “and two wishes…blah blah blah.” I knew where this was going but my only wish was that he would leave me alone. I brushed him off.

Why is it that Arab men love to ask, “what you want my friend?” no matter where you are or what you are doing. Is this the first phrase they learn to say in English in their foreign language classes, or do they actually say this in Yemen or Syria or wherever they are from and just literally translate it word for word when they leave home? Anyway, that was what I noticed all the waiters seemed to ask me. I’m not saying that all waiters are Arabs in Rome but it certainly seemed to be a hell of a lot of them who were.


There was this one time when I was walking in Travestere which is a residential area in the city and I was looking for something to eat. I was starving, it was close to 3pm and the free breakfast at the hotel could only take me so far in the day. I had to get something or face collapsing in the middle of the street or turning into the Hulk. I was no longer in the mood for pictures so I can’t show you any here, but I found a place where the people were jumping and everyone seemed to be having a good time eating. I should have noticed that they were all eating pizzas with the thin crust or salads. I had had that the day before somewhere else and loved it, but I wanted to get something different this time.

“What you want my friend?” asked the waiter. He was an Arab I noticed after I decided the menu was going to be a waste of time since I couldn’t read it.
“I want some sort of chicken,” I said. I was thinking of fried chicken and fries actually. Look I’m a black man and it’s in our genes.
“I bring you chicken done Roman style. Chicken Roma huh? It is chicken with potatoes and sweet peppers like how we do it here.”

I agreed to that, a salad and a beer and he brought it out fifteen, twenty minutes later. To say that it looked like something that I might have thrown up ten years ago after a night of heavy drinking would have been to put it lightly, but I was hungry and there only one place that plate was going, down into my stomach. The fact that it was almost tasteless didn’t seem to matter either, I had been rescued. The €20 that I paid or about $28 seemed to be a trivial amount since I think most of cost was for the beer anyway.

I found out two days later when I ordered the “Pollo con Peperoni” from the menu of another restaurant and the same plate came out, that there are at least two ways of making this food. One way is for tourists done quick and easy which was what I had at the first place, and the other made with a flavor and a texture that will lift your empty soul and soothe your spirit. However, that was not going to be my best meal in Italy or even maybe the best meal that I’ve had since St Martin. That would go to the one I had in Orvieto, a town about 75 miles northeast of Rome. There is a little video of this town under My Stuff to the right of this if you’d like to see the place. I wish that I had taken pictures of the meal that I had in this little restaurant on this little side street on the way to the Duomo (cathedral).

Again I had trouble with the menu and the waitress didn’t speak any more English than I spoke Italian but I knew that pollo meant chicken so I went for the Petto di Pollo something something. This turned out to be a thinly sliced chicken breast covered with a really flavorful cheese topped with prosciutto and drizzled with herbs and olive oil. Looking at it I wasn’t sure if the chicken was grilled or boiled, but as I started to eat it I didn’t care. All I knew that was that my dick had started to dribble from the excitement and pleasure this food was giving me. It was more than “molto bene”, it was the kind of thing that would have made me shave the chef’s nuts for a week just to get another plate, but they were closing down for a couple of hours and it was time for me to leave. Siesta time you know. Now that’s true civilization; to eat scratch and then sleep and not feel guilty.

sietsa at Palatine Hill
Palatine Hill
Anyway, I took close to 900 pictures of my trip all together and I have erased about 400 of them. That’s the beauty of digital. Here are a few of the rest which if you scroll over them some will have their names listed if I can remember them and you can click on them to enlarge them if you want. Also, no there are no pictures of the Sistine Chapel since they don’t allow you to take pictures there but uh…what more you want my friend?

Colosseum and Trajan's Arch
Roman Forum
Roman Forum
Palatine Hill
Oculus in the Pantheon
Pantheon
St Angelo's Castle
Basillica St Maria Maggiore
Great Synagogue of Rome
young girls at Piazza di Repubblica





Trevi Fountain

Spanish Steps
Colosseum
Victor Emamanuel Monument
Vatican Museum
Vatican Museum
Pantheon

Piazza Navona
Piazza Navona

14 comments:

  1. your description of your bodily functions after eating the Petto di Pollo had me cracking up. you are so silly.

    I love that amidst the bars on the windows and the graffiti, there is a beautiful cafe with fabric tablebcloths, cobblestone streets and the most beautiful colors on the stone. I could look at this picture all day.

    Cute pic of you ;)

    Who's the guy in the green hat with the man bag?... lol

    The Trevi Fountain is fantastic and the Colosseum at night is beautiful.

    My mouth dropped open at the Vatican Museum, simply spellbinding.

    Thanks for letting us be virtual tourists through you! Are you having a good time?

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  2. Wonderful, wonderful pictures. The nighttime shots are magnificent!

    Great commentary on the petto di pollo. Priceless.

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  3. I am loving your photos - next time take me with you!!

    L

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  4. Great pics! When I lived in Korea, I was trated the same way, the only differenc is that the Koreans were calling me Michael Jordan and Saquel O'Neil.

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  5. RunningMom - Funny I hadn't even noticed the grafitti or the man with the green hat until I downloaded the pictures. In fact if I had noticed the man staring at me and interupting the flow of it, I would never have taken the picture. As for having a good time, that trip has long been over. I came back the middle of last week. Now it's just a memory.


    Dusty Boot - Thanks, I'd like to say that was me and my relatively cheap camera, but it was where I was and what they had that came through.


    Lola - Next time? Next time is Eqypt maybe. Are you down?


    NAMjA - I guess the times change but the sentiment stays the same.

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  6. Love the pics! Yes, you are certainly detailed and descriptive regarding your culinary adventures. I think I woke my toddler up laughing!

    I think you may be right regarding the middle eastern men: I get that a lot too.

    Feel free to keep wandering over!

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  7. Sanya - Now you know you almost have the same thing right there in Madrid and probably even more when you go outside of the city.


    KST - Don't blame me for disturbing your household, I am just the messenger.

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  8. ...dripping dick...

    *ahem*
    STOP THAT!

    I am slightly hating on you....no, really!
    It will take a couple more post NOT about your travels...to make me ok again.
    However, right now, I am thinking I could have been such a goof..and friendly friend to take along. I woul dhave paid my own way with my non-working-allowance-getting ass...
    Damn you...limited means!!!!

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  9. Good...
    Not goof.

    Altho...goof may fit.

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  10. haha - however, I prefer Spain and the Spanish - they're a little less up their own asses

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  11. Lol! Sorry - no one else to blame. Twas you who referenced the um, dripping, appendage!

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  12. I like the cafe pic so much that it is now the background on my laptop screen. The colors just move my spirit. :) thanks for sharing

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  13. Blah Blah Blah - You are absolutely right, you could have paid your way. I don't know why people think you have to have a lot of money to go places. I think apart from the hotel, I spent less money there than I would have staying home. So next time get your funds together and we'll goof off arm in arm.

    Oh BTW I used the bathroom on the roof of St Peters and all they had was a hole in the middle of the floor and a button to flush it, and you know who I thought about when I saw it. I even took a picture of it, the toilet not me pissing, and would have posted it but it might have been too much.


    Sanya - Alrighty then!


    KST - As I've heard that man on Dragnet used to say, "Just the facts ma'm, just the facts."


    RunningMom - Don't worry about it, I'll send the bill in the mail.

    ReplyDelete

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