Sunday night:
Enjoyable, but not very eventful. I made up for that today. There's an open air flea market in Porto Portense on Sunday mornings. I packed up my sketch toys and went to wander the stalls in the rain. Most of the goods were pretty junky, like flea markets everywhere, but there were enough treasures mixed in there to give a glimpse of a few layers of modern Roman life. I love flea markets for that. They, like reading the classifieds, give a peek into local culture that would otherwise go unseen by a visitor.
Afterwards I hopped on the bus (again without paying; I've got to figure out how that works), told myself I'd just jump out when it looked interesting and ended up stumbling onto the Roman Forum and the Colleseum. It was just after the rain, and the remnant performers of a carnival parade all covered in sequins and glitter were no competition for the ancient stone structures, green trees and rich red earth all glistening in the fragile sunlight. Too chilly to sketch, I did my best to soak it all up.
So what would be a perfect top off on a day like that? How about meeting up with a favourite old high school buddy who just happens to live here, speaks fluent italian (he's been married to a Roman for 16 years), knows the back routes from piazza to piazza and has just the right mix of info and anecdote to give a perfect guided walking tour? Yes please. Polish that off with a big plate of pasta and I'm ready for sleep, dreaming about all those fountains and piazzas that I want to go back and draw tomorrow. Yay Rome.
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