After a little convincing, Janise was persuaded to go visit Musei Vatican, so I left her on the metro and headed off to spend the afternoon with Megan. We met at the tie shop and headed to the Bone church (she'd really wanted to see it ever since we'd told her about it). Closed. Really? They must have known I was coming. Oh well. She can save that “donation” for another day's adventure.
What now? She really wanted to see a particular piazza and hadn't seen much of the "touristy" stops in Roma since she moved here a couple weeks ago. I wanted to further explore the Roman Forum. It was a clear, absolutely gorgeous day. Blue sky, cool breeze, perfect warmth on your cheeks when walking in the sun. What better to do on a splendid day like this than a lackadaisical stroll? Perfection. I'm not sure how long we walked, but I gave us a nice little tour of most of the major parts and we just chatted for hours as though we’ve been friends for years. And no, we never got lost. By this point I had a pretty strong grip on things and even took a couple chances that all ended up quite well. :) Oh, how I love the streets of Roma. I seriously could move here.
Eventually, it was time to meet up with Janise at Piazza del Popolo and luckily she made it ;) and we only had to wait for about 20-30 minutes. From there the three of us went up a million stairs to the best view in all of Roma at one of the side entrances to Villa Burghese (which is that absolutely incredible park and I could lose myself in there for days if permitted). It was our rendezvous point with Megan's roommate Ali. And boy are we glad to have her in our lives now too! The two of them together plus the two of us, jeez louise! Too much fun and not enough words! I can't imagine what it would be like to go dancing or karaoke bar hopping with these girlies...hmm...I love the thought!! Someday I'm pretty sure that will HAVE to come to fruition!
Us at the top of the Spanish Steps
Again, we walked for days and they invited us to join them for their evening plans. We agreed. Best decision of the trip thus far.
Introducing Aperitivo!!
We had dinner plans with Babak and Sepideh for that evening, but dinner in Italy is like after 8:30pm so we had a couple hours to kill. This seemed to be the perfect match for our needs. Buy a drink, eat a feast (an over exaggeration of course...depending on how hungry you are and how good of an aperitivo you attend). So, yes, let's get to "how good of an aperitivo" we just attended...ha! You're gonna loooovvvee this!
The Back Story: Megan and Ali, for their first week in Rome, lived in four different locations. Yes, one week...on second thought, welcome to my life for some of this adventure. Anyways. One of these beloved places was a little hostel (Orso Maggiore) in Trastevere, a section of Rome on the same side of the river as the Vatican, etc. There they became great friends with the owners/bar tenders who also happen to be a nice lesbian couple that love to host "women only" events in their courtyard.
Um...just wait, it gets better.
They are now friends on facebook. Oh facebook, how we love thee. So, now every time they are hosting an event, they let Megan and Ali (also two women that spend a lot of time together...) know and invited them. Megan, are you sure they are not confused about your love interests??? Maybe you should check on that...though, I don't exactly have advice on how to approach that one...good luck.
Anyway, tonight the aperitivo was hosted by these two lovely ladies and you know that made it an event I was not about to miss out on. We got there and were elated to see that DJ Margret would be spinning and the decor was something to take pictures of (if only my camera hadn't died). We waited around for a little while as they finished setting up (oh did I mention that in that time maybe my travel partner managed to lock herself in the restroom in the adjacent restaurant??? oh, forgot that one huh...my bad :) ) and then we joined a number of other "couples" and "foursomes" in the seating area nicely surrounded by the glimmer of candlelight and standard cafe bulbs. The music was a grand array from classic show tunes to hard rock--but only those expressing the rise of the feminine regime, male ignorance and stupidity, and/or other maybe famous in other crowds’ songs of love, but not the kind of which I personally seek after. The buffet for the evening was quite delightful. A mixture of fragrances and colors, mostly all vegan with a hint of carnivore appealing flower arrangements on each table. Look out herbivores...don't lean in too close, I don't think you'll like the scent of those flowers. All this was set against a dancing background of bright lights and electric figures coming from the DJ's projector. I would describe this further but being that I blushed at the sight of a handful of the images that graced my view across the wall on which they were being more than life size projected, I think I'll refrain. Suffice it to say that they were mostly feminine in nature, some of them were the combination of more estrogen than I'd EVER care to see again as long as I live, and others...well, we'll leave it at that. Thanks. Like I'm not naive, nor blind, but let's consider me educated and call it a night. hahaha.
We drank, we ate, we laughed, we ate some more, laughed even harder, made future plans of a singing the night away jam sesh with Babak at the guitar, and headed off in our separate directions for the remainder of the evening's adventures.
All we had to do was walk down this street and it would run into the street we needed to get to the Trastevere tram station. Simple enough. The walk was beautiful. A bunch of little streets intersecting with ours and all dimly lit by strings of lights, antique street lamps, people lighting up, and the occasional headlights taunting us with potential doom. Shortly after this wonderful part of our walk we found ourselves mostly alone on the streets, surrounded by junky cars, broken down buildings, and more graffiti than I think I'd seen in Italy, or anywhere for that matter, to that point. Sketch much? Yes. I pretended not to notice, but eventually just told Janise to look like she knew where she was going (she had started looking more like a lost and nervous outsider than I felt comfortable with). We picked up the pace and gratefully soon thereafter dead ended at the street of our desire.
From there we were to just hop on tram number whatever (Babak had told us...can't remember now) and it would take us to Piazza Venezia where we were to meet up with them to head to the "the most Roman restaurant in all of Roma!"--or so it was acclaimed. We got on the tram and were home free. Not. Just after the tram crossed the bridge it stopped, turned off its lights, opened its doors, and shut down its engine. huh? Ok. We sat there for a second and then some cutie old woman rushed over to us and said to follow her to the next tram and it would take us to our desired destination. Ha! So cute. So wrong. So okay. As soon as that tram pulled up I felt like it couldn't be going the right direction but we followed the shuffling coax of the little Italian native and got on. Nevertheless, the first stop was directly followed by crossing back over the bridge into Trastevere. Perfect. I jumped up and made my way off at the next possible stop, with Janise in toe. Back across the bridge we go! (Man, it was starting to feel a bit like that never ending train ride in southern England).
From there we had a rather deja vu experience as again the tram ended here. This time we got off and I headed in the direction that I knew Piazza Venezia was. We walked a ways and then decided to cross the street so I could look at the bus stop signs as we went and if one happened to arrive that would beat us to our rendezvous we could hop on. One came. You know, I've seen pretty jam packed modes of transportation. I've been on some too. But never in my life have I seen a spectacle like what pulled up to the curb next. Insane! Like, um, can those people breathe? Do buses have those room capacity regulations like buildings? Because if they don't, a mere picture of this would be a great defense for a need. I started laughing as I watched people try to shove their way on and others, already on, try to stay on, plead for people not to get on, try and keep people from getting on,...my goodness...I swear those tires should have popped at the next misplace cobblestone in the road. We actually even approached, but just seeing how miserable those poor poor, apparently desperate not to walk people were I just laughed harder and motioned to Janise that we would continue our brisk walk. Why brisk? Well, we were late of course. Duh.
We really were just down the street and around the corner and made it probably sooner than that bus could have gotten us there. We were desperately greeted by a very worried Babak and concerned Sepideh and after hugs, kisses, and my assurance that nothing happened and we really were fine and then their sputtering off in Farsi about the tram and why it stopped and blah blah blah, we hopped on another bus and headed off to enjoy our last evening in Roma.
We went pretty far out of town, out past the Iranian Embassy. It was quite a unique experience. As we were approaching, both Babak and Sepideh took stance a little (that's the only way I can think to describe it right now) and suddenly started chanting and raising their fists,
"Down with Dictator! Down with Dictator!"
over and again until we fully passed the compound. So interesting. We got talking with them a bunch about the whole thing and I learned a lot about the situation in Iran from Iranians my age living it. My uncle was there on the front lines when all these riots have been happening. Like some of you may remember a couple years ago when Iran had a democratic vote and the dictator overturned it and during the riot in the streets a random innocent woman was shot in cold blood. He was there. He heard the shot. It was a really eye opening experience spending some much time with these amazing people. Really, we talk about this war that’s going on and we talk about insurgents and rebels and dictators and armies and riots and and and…and really, it normal people, people like you and me that are out there on the streets and barricaded (in their homes) and hiding and voicing what’s right. Out there quite literally fighting, risking their lives, and all because when you have no right to an opinion and no right to make your own choices for your own life—when you don’t have the right to choose—nothing else matters. And it’s obvious around the world that the right to choose is even greater than life itself. And if you think I’m crazy right now it’s because you or maybe a loved one haven’t experienced your agency or freedom to choose for you and your own being taken away from you, or just not having it all together and seeing everyone around you taking it for granted.
“That’s my family."
That’s all I could think. That’s my uncles and aunts and cousins. All of the sudden there were faces to those “rebels” and “rioters”. Suddenly, “the situation in Iran”, as our media likes to refer to it, has become much less a movie and much more the day to day life of my flesh and blood. A life they were born into. A life they didn’t choose. A life they are choosing to maximize for the cause of not only themselves as individuals and their families, but for everyone. Generations to come. People all around the world. Because even if you don’t feel it, somehow and in some ways we are all effected by people in the world not having the natural human and, I believe, divinely appointed right to choose.
We took the bus for probably 30 minutes, got off and followed Babak into this kinda broken down part of town, through back streets, construction zones, through an alleyway, across some foot bridge, down some totally nighttime sketchy metal stair well, through an abandoned dirt parking lot for an old vacant church, around a corner and into this little shack restaurant, “al Gallo Rosso”. And yes, it was incredible and very worthy of the title, “best food in all of Roma”—and it wasn’t just due to the little guy walking around playing the guitar and getting the ENTIRE restaurant to sing at the top of their lungs all together swaying their over-sized beers side to side in the air and offering the waiter to take shots with them…which they gladly partook of.
On the way home there was only one other guy on the bus with us. He actually had waited to get on at the same stop as us and made everyone totally nervous. Let’s be real, he looked kinda scary. Talk, dark chocolate young man, hood pulled down over his beanie, smoking, distant but close in proximity, not making eye contact, standing in the shadows. Like a said, at 11:30pm in not a well lit area, kinda scary. So, I did what I do best in times like these. Faced the fear head on. Just cut out the awkward tension. I introduced myself and got him to open up J A charmingly handsome guy from Cameroon or Gabon…I don’t quite remember…he had a really thick accent. He was really nice. Ok, let’s be real I think that the other three about died when I asked him his name and sat by and starting chattin’ it up with him. Haha…they’ll get used to it. J He really was nice. By the end of the conversation we learned a lot about his country, his family, their geographic locations in the world and why they’re living where they are, the political situation in his country, what his life goal is, about his mama, and his plans for the evening. Oh and we got into a really awesome conversation about his standards. I guess I could have asked or approached it differently but I don’t think it was that awkward for where we were in the conversation but I asked, “So, what are your standards?” And we got into a really great conversation about drinking, smoking, drugs, and women and I got to share some testimonies with him. Rockin’! Mostly it stemmed from him expressing his frustrations about women at parties and clubs. He just thinks they all have no standards and they just go from guy to guy “Just dancin’ then kissin’ then movin’ to the next and do it all ov’a again…What happen to this world we’re livin’ in? A girl’s gotta have some standards…”
I love this kid!
At that point his stop was next and he leans in and basically said how he doesn’t meet quality people very often and consequently he was going to tell us his “real name”—apparently I looked pretty sketch with my bow on my head so I didn’t deserve it upon first impression. If I had 5 more minutes pretty sure I’d have gotten us invited to his party…and probably a number ;)
Hahaha I think I’m going to be the end of Babak…
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