Back in Rome

We're back in Rome. Actually, we have been in Rome for a little over three weeks, and we have only another week to go. That's a sad thing, because neither one of us feels like going home. We are Flemish, but we live in Falmouth, on Cape Cod. In case you care, that is in Massachussetts, and that in turn is in the US. We have a nice house with a big garden there, a short walk from the beach, so that is not the problem.

The problem is not as much place, as it is time. I (Karl) did classical gymnasium - a very long time ago - and she (Greta) studied classical history at the University of Wisconsin. So the theme is set before we get started: where are the snows of yesteryear, or, as we learned it in highschool: où sont les neiges d'antan? After engineering school I got an Euratom scholarship and did my doctoral work at the CNEN research facility in Frascati, and that is only a good 20 km south of Rome. We spend three years, one level above heaven, in a little farm house in the middle of the vineyards of Colonna, and cried when we left, but not without exhausting every trick in the book that could have allowed us to stay. Three years amounts to a lot of snow...

Then the children were in school, and I had a real job, and we had a mortgage to pay, and so on and so on and... Somebody had the brilliant idea of organizing an international conference in what then was my field (nuclear fusion) in Rome, we took the kids who were 9 and 12, were received by the Pope, and visited all our old friends. That was worth at least an inch of fresh snow.

Then came a long dry spell, no new snow, and Italy and Rome became our most precious memory. When we moved back to Belgium in 2002 we spent a single week in Rome, not enough to settle in, but enough to be confused and waste a lot of time discussing what to do and where to go. But it added a sprinkling of fresh slow, and - very important - we found Amalia. Amalia is the manager of an outfit that rents out apartments in the historical centre of Rome. The location is idyllic, historic, artistic, and whatever other adjective you may which to apply; Bernini lived on this block, and the palazzo dates from 1700, give or take a few years. And Amalia is an absolute sweetheart.

At some point I may explain why, and then maybe I will not, but last year we found ourselves without a home for a while. Don't get worried, without a home, not homeless. So we thought of Amalia, and this time stayed for three months. And got an answer to the question: where are the snows? Surprise: they're still there!

Today is a grey day, much drier than predicted, but still grey with a capital G. We manage to walk around the vias and vicolos of our neighborhood, carrying our giant umbrella, big enough to provide a cozy cover for two. We do a little shopping, buy two crab-shaped ceramic saltshakers that represent a perfect fusion of Italy and the Cape. Lunch brings us another step closer to paradise: we go to Obikà, relatively new in town, the first mozzarella bar in the world. It's all incredibly good, a nice sample of contemporary Rome. You can find them at http://www.obika.it/. They're good for a few millimeters of fresh snow.

We haven't been working as hard as last year. We stayed three months, saw almost all the important things then, took about 2500 pictures (it took more than three months to process them all...), and now it all feels more like visiting old friends, just enjoying the experience. Talking about pictures, here are a few from the recent crop: Palazzo Torlonia close to Saint Peter's, an Afrodite from the Museo Nazionale in Palazzo Massimo (our favorite museum, but then, we have lots of those), a Christmas decoration...

We took all the obvious pictures a long time ago, so our current photographic interests run more towards things that strike us as new (or that we forgot - remember, this blog is about time...), or old favorites we can't resist, or just the chance to take a good picture. Though, with the limited possibilities of a rainy December, that last category may turn out to be limited. If you can't tell whether you're in Rome, or at the South Pole on a misty night, you may not get a good picture...