Life in the urbs

This is self and Sr. Mary Elizabeth Lariviere, from Connecticut, the English language editrix of L'Osservatore Romano, a fellow conspirator to Save the Humans.

New Home:
View from the terrace at the flat. (Ps: it's October 25th.) On November 1st, it was too warm to eat indoors, so we had lunch on the terrace.


Pointy trees on our street.


Tea the first morning. Somewhat befuddled.


The flat is mostly outdoors with a terrace on three sides. It's really meant to be occupied in the summer.


The Sea; the Sea

Roma:

At the Piazza del Popolo, looking a great deal like my maternal grandmother...scary.


Buying fruit at the Campo di Fiori.


Johnm Boyden trying helpfully to tell me that I'm doing it wrong.

The amusing thing is, that the Italians, having heard of this thing that other countries have called "winter" and having seen pictures of the people in those countries wearing warm woolly clothes during "winter", are all bundled up to the eyes in quilted coats and woolen jackets and scarves. No kidding. And it's 27 degrees. Me, I got my linen dresses out of the bottom of the suitcase and put them back into circulation.


Benedict's house. Always the lights are on up there. The guy works pretty hard I guess.


What I didn't get about the Swiss Guards is that they...well...guard things. Specifically the Vatican. Because its actually another country and you have to talk to the border guards before you go to another country. I notice that the Carrabinieri, who are Italian military police, don't go into the Piazza or the Colonnade because that's Vatican territory. I didn't realise that the whole place, other than the Piazza, is surrounded by a big wall, and that you can't just wander in. You have to have a reason, and when you want to go in, you have to tell them what you are going in for. They salute you too, which is weird.


The view out the window where I work. Under the Dome.


The other view out the window where I work. Rome is a strange place. It seems to be a lot of different places, and a lot of different times, all living together at once. Some of it astoundingly beautiful and magnificent (not always both of these at once) and some of it utterly repellent and awful. A strange and mystifying place.


You stand facing the basilica next to the fountain on the left side. You turn 90 degrees to the left (like America, yesterday), and are facing the big baroque decorative thing on the top of the colonnade. Then you count seven saints to the left and that's Philip.

Hi! I made it! So, what do you want me to do now?