Traipsing about in Italian sunshine

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Of gastronomical experiences

It’s so difficult for me to believe that I am halfway through with my time in Rome. As tempted as I am to strike days off the calendar and smile at how close home seems, I am not yet ready to start counting down. I am so fortunate to have got the opportunity to spend two months in Rome, and I want to soak in and savour every remaining moment of it (along with the heat and sweat, ew). 

This evening my friend and roommate Nora and I went out for aperitivo. Aperitivo, or “aperitif” is a uniquely Italian/ French/ Eastern Mediterranean concept. But if you really think about it, not really. Remember the time you went to a bar, and drank until you were hungry, and then gorged on bowls of peanuts and chips? Conceptually, this drink and snack combination is what aperitivo is, except that many aperitivo bars in Italy actually serve full meals, buffet style. 

Nora and I went to an aperitivo bar called Freni e Frizioni, or literally, “Brakes and Clutches”, about a minute’s walk from our apartment. The bar itself consists of two little rooms, one with the main bar and another with a vegetarian spread of salads, fruit, breads and pasta. For 8 euros, you can get a drink, and as much food as you can eat. It was delicious. Freni attracts a young, bohemian crowd that occupies the inside of the restaurant, as well as the entire piazza outside of it. Nora and I sat on the steps between Freni and our street Vicolo del Cinque, and were forced to make very little conversation as we chomped our way through the deliciousness that enticed us from our plates, before heading back for seconds. The highlight of the meal was the pesto pasta, even though (or probably because) it was drowning in olive oil, and the jewel rice salad [Nora has pictures so I will upload those later]. 

I think the aperitivo concept is a win for everyone. Nora and I were very restrained (!) but many if not most people would presumably buy multiple drinks, for 8 euros each, but feel good about themselves knowing that they can also eat as much as they want - even though the first drink itself guarantees unlimited food. And Freni makes money because everyone pays 8 euros per drink, and presumably eats less with every drink as the night progresses. I wonder if something like an aperitivo bar would work in Delhi - I don’t see why not! 

After dinner Nora and I walked around for about 45 minutes - and this is the smartest thing we could have done. We went to Campo di Fiori - a square near the Jewish ghetto that houses a food market during the day, and restaurants and bars at night - and Piazza Navona - the only piazza in all of Rome that is yet untouched by crazy traffic that is so characteristic of the rest of Rome. Nora wanted to sample some gelato, but didn’t want to buy any. As we stood outside a gelaterie contemplating the immorality of sampling with no intention on purchasing, the store man hounded us, dragged us into the store, and force fed us samples of two flavours. The timing was absolutely perfect; we sampled, grunted in approval, and left very happy. 

Here are some pictures from our last visit to Campo dei Fiori and Piazza Navona [Picture 1: colourful pasta at Campo dei Fiori; Pictures 2 and 3: Piazza Navona] 

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Until I get hold of the pictures of our dinner tonight, here’s a picture of a sinful, but much needed breakfast in Florence from past Saturday, when Nora and I were on our feet for almost fifteen hours! If I come back looking like an oversized balloon, I hope you will still love me. Good night, and ciao until next time! 

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Letter from the future

The following is an email that my 13 year old cousin sister sent me this morning, verbatim. She’s spending the summer with my parents, dogs and our grandparents in Delhi. Clearly she has very little to keep her occupied, which opens up a lot of space for her crazy imagination to run amok. I put all my work on hold for a few minutes, laughed like a complete idiot and worried my colleague a little (probably because she has a 11 year old daughter herself). I didn’t think I would say this but thank goodness all doors in FAO are always closed! 

The following is my version of your future:

You will get a internship in Rome every summer during your time at Princeton. The summer after your senior year, you will meet a young Italian man who comes from a very wealthy family. You don’t know how they made their fortune, but you find yourself falling in love with him. You get a job in Rome. Your relationship becomes very serious and after two years he takes you to Paris. On the top of the Eiffel Tower, he proposes to you. You say yes and return to Rome with him. The two of you move into a colossal villa on the Tuscan countryside with and outdoor kitchen. That spring, you get married at your villa in a lavish ceremony. I get to wear a dress. You realize that the jewelry shops and car dealerships your husband’s father owns actually used to be fronts for the mafia. You and your husband investigate deeper and find out that your father in law was actually a powerful don in the Italian mafia who gave up his ways after he married your mother in law. You and your husband are shocked, but take comfort in the fact that all the family businesses are now legitimate. Your father in law apologizes to your husband, and dies a month later from an old bullet wound. Your husband continues the businesses with you managing the accounts. Three years after your marriage, you have a baby girl. You want to give  your first child a Hindu name, so you name her after me. The following year you have a baby boy who you give an Italian name. Life is wonderful, you open your own companies and continue to expand your empire. One day, you take your ferrari into one of your car dealerships to get it maintained. You stumble upon your husband talking to a bald man with multiple peircings. They talk, the other man passing your husband stacks of paper money. You follow the man as he leaves, you see that his car has the markings of the mafia. You are furious with your husband and take your children to your penthouse in Milan. Your husband follows you and apologizes profusely, even telling you that he will give up his position in the mafia. You forgive him and make sure that he severs all his ties with the mafia. Life settles down and you and your husband live out your days at your villa. 
I get to wear a dress! 
The lulz

The Tiber goes on…

It’s Saturday! Last night I decided that I would wake up early today, cleanse and feed myself, and leave my apartment for a day of walking around Roma while taking in the architectural genius and the joie de vivre of the Romans. But of course, as morning rolled around, my finger realized that it had missed its friend - the snooze button on my alarm - way too much, and I ended up sleeping until almost 8. Then for the next three hours I procrastinated on showering, by reading about places I could visit, scanning a map of Rome for directions to each of them, throwing my hands up in the air because there was too much to see, and watching a live stream of an Indian news channel. I finally decided to take that shower when I heard the newsreader emphatically report yet another completely undramatic news story. Post the shower I quickly put together a (delicious looking) sandwich (which ended up being my dinner), skyped my parents, whined a little about how I missed being at the party that they were throwing for some friends, and then set off for Castel Sant’ Angelo. That monument 

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Castel Sant’ Angelo was built sometime in the 2nd Century as a tomb for Emperor Hadrian and his family. Unlike all the other Roman buildings I’ve seen so far, except the Pantheon (also commissioned by Hadrian, I think) and St. Peter’s Basilica, this structure is not in ruins. Walking along the Tevere, or the river Tiber (purportedly the river that brought Cleopatra to Rome), it took me about thirty minutes to get from my apartment to the castle. I wonder if Cleopatra sailed into Rome upon something like this: 

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Or this: 

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If the Romans could build structures that have withstood earthquakes and floods, and thousands of years of unfriendly human interference, I really wouldn’t put it past them! 

Also, I wonder if the Tiber looked anything like this when Cleopatra arrived: 

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Probably not. 

After contemplating Cleopatra’s journey to Rome for half an hour, I bought my ticket to enter the Castel Sant’ Angelo. A big draw to this monument is the you can see all of Rome from the top of the building. No one told me that I would have to go underground first before I could get to the top:

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While it was moderately illuminated, I couldn’t for the life of me see a (literal) light at the end of this tunnel for a long time. Nor were there any other people, and that was somewhat disconcerting. But once I got over the initial hesitation (which lasted for a grand total of 1.2 seconds), I thought it was kind of awesome to be wandering through an almost dark tunnel underground that apparently led to the top of a monument that was built as a mausoleum for a Roman emperor who ruled 2000 years ago. I think it’s much more than kind of awesome. 

A short while in, I encountered other life! 

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And then I learnt a valuable life lesson. When in life you want to get to the top of a building, you can do this by either taking the stairs going up. Or, you can go underground, freak out a little, then flail a lot, and then… 

wait for it… 

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… and take the stairs going up!! Either way, you’re taking the stairs going up, but the second way is so much more exciting and satisfying and fulfilling. And it also makes for a really cool story :) 

So I never did see light at the end of the tunnel (unless you take the stairs to be metaphorical light), but I saw real light - sunlight - at the top of the stairs. These stairs opened into a courtyard which led to an exhibit of paintings, sculptures and artifacts of Cupid and his lover (wife?) Psyche from many centuries ago. Needless to say there was much nudity and eroticism (Cupid = Eros –> erotic. I feel so smart!). To preserve the couple’s dignity, I took no pictures. But all snarkiness aside, I really liked the exhibition. While I enjoy visiting museums, I don’t think I know how to appreciate them very well, and this is evidenced by how I can’t really talk about them intelligently. Still, I thought this exhibit was quite interesting, and I learnt something new. I now know that in Roman lore, Cupid is the son of Venus, and that Zeus is portrayed as Jupiter (?), and that he (they?) played some role in the Cupid/ Psyche union. I feel like all the Classics majors at Princeton, as well as the entire Stone family (my friends from Princeton) are either laughing at me, or shaking their heads very sadly at me right now. 

After seeing the exhibition, I wandered about aimlessly wondering where I was supposed to go next, until I saw more steps to what I assumed was the top of the castle. Despite my bad photography skills, I really like this picture of the view from that-which-was-not-yet-the-top: 

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Some wings of Castel Sant’ Angelo were converted into Papal apartments at some point in the 15th century. I have no pictures of this either. But whatever I saw pointed to a great deal of extravagance. Whichever Pope/ guest of the pope lived in these apartments lived the life, for sure. I hopped from one apartment to the next, and finally got to yet another flight of stairs that led to the top of the castle. Finally! 

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I didn’t manage to get a picture of all of Rome, but I got one that I like, which also shows the Vatican. The St. Peter’s Basilica is to the right, and you can see the Tiber on the left: 

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This whole thing took about three hours, after which I walked back along the Tiber, feeling like Cleopatra in my flowy pink dress (she probably wore while, no?). I spent a good two hours reading at a trattoria near my apartment while (oxymoronic as this may sound) demurely chomping down a Margarita pizza, until I was respectfully thrown out (a.k.a handed the cheque) presumably because I was taking up a spot for two, and thus depriving the restaurant of potential business. But it was fun while it lasted :) 

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On a completely unrelated note, I feel the need to declare that I might have annoyed the fashion police a lot today by wearing sneakers with my dress. I must have looked like quite the cartoon, but given all the walking, and the stairs, I think it was the smartest thing I did. And once I got over the initial feeling of stupidity, the feeling of marching along the Tiber with Cleopatra-like confidence in my every stride (just had to say that), knowing that I wouldn’t have to deal with corns on my feet at the end of the day was an awfully liberating feeling. 

Till next time, ciao! 

sight-seeing food books trattoria museum

Passion v/s pragmatism? You pick.

But do they have to be mutually exclusive? 

Last summer, I discovered the joy of cooking. What began as a mechanism to cope with a not-so-pleasant life experience fast became something that I loved to do for its own sake. I love it when my grandma tells me that the mattar-paneer (peas & cottage cheese) was nice, when my dad relishes the saag-chicken (spinach & chicken)and when my mum goes for seconds of the channa (chickpeas curry)I just made. I love force-feeding my college friends cake and fish on birthdays and brownies before independent work deadlines, whether they like it or not. And annoyed as I am when my grandfather tells me that the “salt is too much” or that “the gravy looks like it has cow dung in it” (true story, elephants can remember), I love it when he doesn’t participate in dinner-time-family-life-talks because he is too busy gobbling down the food I made. I’m not saying I’m the world’s greatest cook. Far from it, in fact. Regardless, I love to cook, and I love the learning process. 

One of the best things about living in an apartment sans guaranteed meals for two months is that I get to decide exactly what I eat, the only limiting factor being my (shoestring) budget.  And that too in Italy! It surely cannot get better! Or so I thought. I had envisioned myself - once again a la the single-woman-in-Paris movie - cooking yummy meals for myself at least a few times every week. But unlike the movies though (once again), reality has hit in the form of a tiny kitchen with a gas stove that refuses to function and grime from two centuries ago. Sandwiches and salads for meals have started to sound like a fantastic idea. 

Some feel good life coach type once said that if you are passionate about something, your surroundings don’t matter and you can fulfill your passion with single minded focus. This is probably inspired by the Arjuna-Drona story in which Drona instructs each of his disciples to shoot a bird sitting on a tree. Prior to their turns, when he asks each disciple what he sees, the responses range from “leaves” to “bird” to “branch” to “sky” yada yada. Of course, no one can shoot the bird. Enter Arjuna. Only he says that he sees the “bird’s eye”. Lo and behold, he shoots the bird, and is the greatest archer ever because he is able to block out everything except for what he needs to be doing in that moment. The end.

I am replacing what you “need” to be doing, with what you really “want” to be doing, but the point remains the same. I don’t disagree with the learning from the Arjuna story at all, in fact that is how I would like to lead my life. But I wonder, must passion and pragmatism necessarily exist independently of each other? As a passionate cook, do I have to want to cook even when it entails tiptoeing around muck that is so old that it won’t go, and yelling at the stove to produce fire just so I can heat water for my morning coffee? I think I would rather have the pragmatist in me take over, and save the passion for different day, lest the passion should turn into a chore. 

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Here is a picture of what I ended up eating for dinner today. Salad. 

Realizations: 

1) My friend Ana will complain about the wrong balsamic vinegar to feta cheese ratio (or some such). 

2) I would never win Masterchef America or whatever those cooking shows are because I cannot for the life of me bother to present my food in a way that is aesthetically pleasing. 

3) I am a terrible photographer. 

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Going solo in Rome

When we found out that I would be spending my summer in Rome this year, my parents decided to do an encore of their Roman holiday from sixteen years ago. This past week was the first time that my parents were out holidaying while I had my bum glued to a revolving chair, staring at numbers on a computer screen for nine hours each day! My parents left Rome this morning, which means I am officially alone in this city for the next ten days - sans familiar faces and company other than at work - until my first roommate arrives. Am I apprehensive? Kind of. I mean, yes, it’s ROME, but then again, it’s Rome and I’m not Roman, so that calls for some jitters. That said, I am so looking forward to hitting the streets with map in hand (literally) and cap on head (metaphorically), and going wherever my feet take me! 

I walked my parents down to the cab that was waiting to drive them to the airport this morning, and as I trudged up the sixteen steep steps that lead to my apartment, I envisioned myself sitting by the window that looks out into the narrow cobbled street, and writing, while sipping on hot coffee. You know, the way they portray single women in Paris or New York on lazy Sunday mornings in the movies. But of course, the gas lighter had decided to take today (and probably forever) off, so I guess I can’t have that coffee, or anything hot for that matter until I get a new lighter. I surveyed the kitchen, and finally settled for Cheerios and cold milk (how American of me), and determined that sitting by the window would actually require me to stand, and would therefore be a very inconvenient writing position. So I am now sitting on a rickety chair at the dining table, chomping down cereal and writing this post. It would probably make for a pretty ugly scene in one of those single-women-in-Paris movies, but I’ll let you into a little secret – it’s actually pretty fantastic! 

In other news, my parents and I went to the Vatican yesterday. I actually have no memories of St. Peter’s Basilica from when I was little - except that I remember seeing Michelangelo’s Pieta from so close that I could have touched the sculpture if I had wanted to. The Pieta is now placed in a glass enclosure and the closest you can get to it is some fifteen feet. However the statue is a work of pure genius. Madonna is depicted as a young (and beautiful) girl, grieving over a very dead Christ. Ever finger, and toe, and muscle and expression has been carved out so beautifully, that you could mistake the sculpture for real people covered in wax! Also (like so many other sculptures/ buildings/ paintings in Italy), the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica was Michelangelo’s creation. If I could chat with one person from history over a cup of chai (or macchiato), it would have to be Michelangelo. And the first question that I would ask would be how he even got to the top of the high dome, leave alone painted it! (I wouldn’t even bother asking how he managed to get the dome up there in the first place.) 

Michelangelo's Pieta

Dome of St. Peter's Basilica

Seriously, how did you even get up there, Michelangelo?

We also went to the Vatican crypt where the sarcophagi (tombs?) of many popes and other people (like the Queen of Cyprus who took refuge in Rome and died there) are located. As you enter the crypt, there are pews that face the spot where the remains of the apostle St. Peter are kept. I think that is for when the pope goes down there (his confession is to St. Peter). The crypt wasn’t eerie or creepy at all, unlike what Dan Brown would have us believe! Although I must admit that it got upsetting when I realized that each arch had one tomb under it, and there were random empty arches. Also I knew that Catholicism is pretty ritualistic, but I never realized that believers actually worship St. Peter and past popes as well. By the way the entry to the crypt is very inconspicuous and you wouldn’t know it existed if you didn’t look carefully (which you probably wouldn’t if you didn’t see people going in). I need to lay my hands on Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and read it again so that I can do an Angels and Demons tour of Rome. 

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Ciao until next time! 

<3 

PS: Since I haven’t yet figured how to get captions under pictures, photo 1 is Michelangelo’s Pieta, the second and third pictures are the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica (seriously Michelangelo, how did you even get there when you were eighty years old?), and the fourth picture is the entry to the crypt (sort of hidden by a giant statue above and left, which isn’t pictured here). 

Sight-seeing The Vatican Tourist Michelangelo Pieta

Buonasera!

I am officially traipsing about the foreign land of L'Italia this summer! A summer internship with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) brought me to Rome, and I get to spend two months in this beautiful country, seeing the sights, and doing some (hopefully useful) research in economics. This blog is where I plan to log funny, interesting, random tidbits and pictures from my time here. I had intended to start writing when I got here exactly seven days ago, but because I just got access to the internet, now is as good as ever! So welcome, and join in my adventures! :) 

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