Home in Rome

October 11

As soon as I get to Roma on Thursday, I walk to the Coliseum and the Forums of the 12 Caesars. Later on in the evening, I meet Taliya and her friend, Joseph. She’s from Israel, 23, and into music. She knows the Bad Plus, too! We split a few bottles of wine and fool around with language and the Sardinians: Johnny and Marco, the firemen, and Antonio, who makes pizzas. The next day I am at the Vatican trying to decide whether I should wait to get passage into the Basilica with lines leading all the way around St. Peter’s Square when heavy rain begins teeming and chases away perhaps half the people on line. This reduces the amount of time for the queue and I get to climb all the way up to the top where there are immensely bella 360-degree-views of the city. The next morning, Taliya and I walk to the Piazza de Epagne, where there was a rightist demonstration against the premier calling his actions “communist” concerning immigration reforms and welfare. Heading back to Roma’s Statione Termini, there was a contingent of demonstrators waving black-and-red flags and shouting “anti-fasciste” slogans…

The hostel where I’m staying has a bedroom for one, one with four beds and another with 6 beds. Andy’s Hostel is cheap, too, at 20 Euros a night and it’s like an apartment because it has a kitchen. Meet more great kids there from Australia and New Zealand: Anna, who has run a triathalon in Hamburg, Paul, who’s 19 and interested in mechanics, and Thui. They told me that I seemed to remind them of what they’d heard about the sixties. Yeah, I think, is that why you all took mushrooms for the first time in Amsterdam?

Amazingly feel apprehensive and intimidated Sunday and Monday and a little homesick. I think India’s going to be a mind-rattling experience.