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I am feeling lazy today, and the cobblestones of Rome have not been kind to my feet. I have blisters atop blisters atop raw spots on my right foot, even though I've been applying band-aids, and so slept late, lounged about drinking cappucino and eating a brioche filled with lemony custard, and then wandered to an internet cafe with a better keyboard and keys whose letters have not been worn away from the touch of many fingers belonging to many people from many lands, and am posting what I meant to post yesterday before my time ran out.
The cobblestones are small and black, the size of my hand if I curl my fingers inward at the second joint and make a bear paw or whatever that rather impractical striking surface is called, though often they are too hot to touch. If it's this hot in May, I hate to think what it must be like in July.
The air is full of drifting bits of cotton fluff. They must come from some tree or bush, but so far I haven't figured out which.
When the fountain by the Pantheon got too hot, I sat on a stone cylinder, no doubt of great antiquity, but which attracted me because it was in the shade. Unfortunately, I was not the only one drawn to the are, because I soon found myself behind three peddlers of fake Prada handbags, one peddler of sunglasses, and one incompetent busker playing the first big aria from Carmen, the cigarette-selling one about being free like a bird, on a violin at half-speed. Rome is filled with buskers, and they are mostly quite awful. I particularly hate the guys with accordions who lurk about the touristy restaurants. If I was them, I'd show up with my accordion and offer to not play for pay.
Other gelato flavors not seen in Baskin-Robins: creme caramel, nougat, eggnog, cassata (a scattering of candied fruit on top, yecch), licorice (a scattering of chopped black licorice squres), and cantaloupe.
While walking back from the Pantheon, I came across a very haute restaurant and paused to read its menu. It seemed to have quite the specialty in cheeses. One, which I didn't write down because the description was so long, had a historical note explaining the great antiquity of the cheese, which was buried in tufa pits in ancient times and is now dug up by peasants on St. Catherine's Day; grammatically, it seemed to say that the same cheese buried at the time of the Caesars was ceremoniously uncovered every St. Catherine's Day in modern times, but I think-- well, I hope-- they were referring to the method of preparation.
They also offered Castelmagno, "Cheese speckled with a gren-colored mold of the penicillum type." You know you are in Europe rather than Asia when such a description is not followed by a list of diseases and conditions the cheese might help to cure.
And Toma dla Paja, "A cheese aged in hay by the farmers of Langa (Piemonte Region) at the end of harvest time. After two weeks a delicious crust of delicate mold is formed."
The cobblestones are small and black, the size of my hand if I curl my fingers inward at the second joint and make a bear paw or whatever that rather impractical striking surface is called, though often they are too hot to touch. If it's this hot in May, I hate to think what it must be like in July.
The air is full of drifting bits of cotton fluff. They must come from some tree or bush, but so far I haven't figured out which.
When the fountain by the Pantheon got too hot, I sat on a stone cylinder, no doubt of great antiquity, but which attracted me because it was in the shade. Unfortunately, I was not the only one drawn to the are, because I soon found myself behind three peddlers of fake Prada handbags, one peddler of sunglasses, and one incompetent busker playing the first big aria from Carmen, the cigarette-selling one about being free like a bird, on a violin at half-speed. Rome is filled with buskers, and they are mostly quite awful. I particularly hate the guys with accordions who lurk about the touristy restaurants. If I was them, I'd show up with my accordion and offer to not play for pay.
Other gelato flavors not seen in Baskin-Robins: creme caramel, nougat, eggnog, cassata (a scattering of candied fruit on top, yecch), licorice (a scattering of chopped black licorice squres), and cantaloupe.
While walking back from the Pantheon, I came across a very haute restaurant and paused to read its menu. It seemed to have quite the specialty in cheeses. One, which I didn't write down because the description was so long, had a historical note explaining the great antiquity of the cheese, which was buried in tufa pits in ancient times and is now dug up by peasants on St. Catherine's Day; grammatically, it seemed to say that the same cheese buried at the time of the Caesars was ceremoniously uncovered every St. Catherine's Day in modern times, but I think-- well, I hope-- they were referring to the method of preparation.
They also offered Castelmagno, "Cheese speckled with a gren-colored mold of the penicillum type." You know you are in Europe rather than Asia when such a description is not followed by a list of diseases and conditions the cheese might help to cure.
And Toma dla Paja, "A cheese aged in hay by the farmers of Langa (Piemonte Region) at the end of harvest time. After two weeks a delicious crust of delicate mold is formed."
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