I'm Melting

Today has been an absolute scorcher. And I’m speaking by Roman standards. Yes, today is one of those hot, humid, muggy, nasty days where your main thought is just to survive until sundown. It’s one of those days when even the Italians sweat. It’s one of those days when you seem to be exerting superhuman effort just to move from one side of the tram to the other. It’s one of those days when fanning yourself only makes you hotter, so you resign yourself to your fate, let your eyes glaze over a little bit, and ignore the sweat as it trickles down your nose. It’s one of those days when you drink water like a steam engine, then find yourself realizing at five o’clock that you haven’t been to the restroom since this morning. Yeah, days like today are scary. Fortunately, they happen relatively rarely here in the city: usually either the temperature or the humidity is lower, or there is at least something resembling a breeze to help you cool off. Today, all the elements are against us. And I don’t suppose I need to point out, yet again, that air conditioning is a rarity here in Rome. There is no relief, except in unconsciousness.

All this, of course, means that I haven’t done just a whole lot today. My class seemed interminable, but we saw only the city model at the Museo della Civilità Romana, and the Baths of Caracalla. The Baths are absolutely immense, so that was pretty cool. In fact, the part of the Baths that used to be the caldarium (hot water room) has a huge stage in it, and it is the site of the summer season of the Roman Opera. Tuesday night some of the students were attempting to see Aida when the torrential rain came, and it got cancelled. But that might give you some idea as to the size of this place…since the caldarium was only about a tenth or less of the entire space of the original complex.

Here is a picture of my classmates gathering in an immense alcove to discuss the architectural intricacies of the paelestra:

And just another shot of the incredibly high walls:

On our way from the museum to the metro, I had to stop and take a picture of this, despite Rachel’s mocking (“You are such a dork!”):

Ha. I bite my thumb at thee, wench.

Just kidding. We actually started talking about different plays and how much we liked / disliked them. She may lose points for hating Hamlet (seriously, who could hate Hamlet?) but at least she loves Julius Caesar. You can’t beat that one.

So after class, I had to go home to hang up my laundry. This is one thing that really annoys me about Europe: no dryers. Not because of the inconvenience of having to wait a few hours for your stuff to dry (I can handle that), but because of the lack of dryer sheets. Is that trivial or what? But I must admit, line-dried clothes just don’t feel or smell right (or look right, half the time), and it just doesn’t sit well with me. I’m being a baby complaining about it, of course, but I am also amused by my own pettiness in this area. We all have our quirks, I suppose, and international travel can sometimes bring them to the surface. Dryer sheets are a must for me! …even more than air conditioning. :)

Then, after taking care of the laundry and my tummy, I decided to go book shopping. Haha some things don’t change about me, no matter what side of the ocean I’m on. I don’t suppose I really need any more reading material, but I felt like I did. I have a 10 hour flight, followed by a 3 hour flight, coming up very soon, and I’m supposed to stay awake the whole time to avoid jet lag. One always needs something sensational to read on the plane…so I went shopping for mindlessly entertaining books (as opposed to the books I already have, consisting of textbooks, poetry books, overly erudite fiction books, Bible analysis books, guidebooks, phrasebooks, books in Italian, and a copy of Angels and Demons that I finished days ago...oh, and an old ESPN magazine, who cares if it isn't current, right?). I will also admit that I was partially motivated by my knowledge of the fact that the Anglo American Bookshop has air conditioning. I love bookstores. :)

So I went and shopped for about an hour and a half, and really loved the fact that, despite the establishment’s name, and the fact that all its books are in English, I heard only Italian spoken the whole time I was in there, and I spoke Italian to check out. Funny how that works. It’s the same at JCU…all the employees at the university speak Italian among each other, and about half of them don’t speak any English at all…despite the fact that it’s an American university populated with English-speaking students. It works just fine, though. The student services people speak English with the students, so that’s all we really need.

In case you’re wondering what “sensational” books I ended up with, I got Eragon by Christopher Paolini and a new novel called Cleaver by Tim Parks, one of my favorite non-fiction authors. (I’m going to see how he does at fiction.) Eragon is an extremely popular fantasy novel…in fact, I’ve heard rumors that it will be a movie fairly soon…and this Paolini guy wrote it when he was a teenager. I have heard both good and bad things about it, and I love fantasy, so I’m curious…I’m sure that, even if it turns out to be sub-par, it will at least entertain me and provide fodder for scathing reviews, to appear on this page after my return (stay tuned). Upon close inspection, both of these books turn out to be British imports, which will provide even more amusement as I mentally make fun of those silly Brits who can’t keep their S’s and Z’s straight (analysed, criticised, eulogised), and who have such a glut of U’s that they feel the need to throw them in where they think they won’t do any damage (colour, labour).

Well, I think that’s all I need to say in this post. I’m being an insufferable smarty-pants, so I ought to stop now, don’t you think? The heat’s addled my brains. I’ll be back, and nicer, tomorrow. Until then, arrivederci…