Slainte and salute

After the walk home I woke up with a tiny blond Zara's face an inch from mine talking in a very loud high pitched heavily accented voice "Are you sleeping?" To which if govanuh would have been added I probably would have peed myself laughing. She's like 6? and a spoiled little princess indeed, but also cute as hell. I got out of bed, showered, had a coffee, and hopped on a train back to Rome. The rest of the day was pretty chill, after all I had both work and school starting tomorrow, did I tell you as soon as my contract was signed I walked two blocks to Dilit International language school and slapped down 500 euros for 3 weeks of 2-4:45pm Monday through Friday intensive Italian? No? Well I did. Tired on a school night, I went to bed early. My first week went pretty fast actually, work at 11:00am to 2:00pm, school from 2 till 4:45 and work from 5 to 11ish, long days, but not really hard work you know? Fun really. Everyone in school is pretty cool, there's like 14 people in class, a lot of Swedes, a nun, an older American guy, an Irish playwright from Belfast, just a pretty eccentric group, but we laugh a lot. It feels like a break from work, not work. I'm actually communicating pretty good in Italian now after just a week. Last Saturday I was ready for two days off, from both work and school. I left the room for lunch and a read and ran into Marco, Charlie, Claudia and Luigi (Franceco's son, in town from law school in London) they invited me to hang so I joined them at this totally off the tourist radar local place that featured something like 40 Italian microbrews, very modern cool place down some alley that you would never see, I didn't, Marco had to come find me. It was cool. After a few beers (so much for the read) I met Tad at Scholars Irish Pub by the Piazza Veneto, and hung out in the snook and watched some football, yes soccer. In case you don't know what the snook is, it's a nook in a bar, a little private room, this one with its own TV. So when the bar is packed, and it was, you get a seat and your own little room to hang out in, no crowds. Compliments of the owner Decklan who Tad and friends are friends with. I hung out with Ian, the aforementioned Liverpoolian archeologist, Tad, Kevin from North London, Dave from Tipperary and yours truly. We were there for a few hours, we saw Liverpool play, all fans, lucky David wasn't there, then Tad and I went to the Yellow for a minute then back to his place for a few beverages and to wait for Justin to join us. Tads girlfriend got a job nannying from 10am Saturday to 10am Monday live in on weekends, so he was ready to party. By the way she might quit beacause the 4 and 6 year olds she's babysitting have to be spoonfed. Not cause they are handicapped they're just that fucking spoiled, can you believe that, they shout "Ho fame! (I'm hungry)" and just lean back and open their mouths, what little assholes. Anyway, after Justin came we went for some late night Argentinian food, yummy. The next day I said I would be back at Scholars for the Manchester game, but decided to sleep in and missed the game, oh well. I did go though and then afterwards we went to The Abbey Theatre to watch the Bears/Cowboys game, in Rome, in an Irish pub, I know. Not that i'm a big sportsfan, but it was fun anyway. Met more expats, is it true that they are all English teachers and tourguides?, yes it is. I chatted up a very cute Scottish cocktail girl named Cory, she said I was the highlight of her night, mmmm, out of town but back next weekend, The Abbey anyone? OK....and then had a pretty early night, back to work and school tomorrow.

More adventures

Well i've settled a bit, and have met some more really colorful people like Ian the heavy accented Liverpool archeologist tourguide, and lots of hot young swedish language school chums. Life's not too bad. I finished my first week at work last week. My actual title is consultant. Still lots to be done but have improved the looks of the restaurant quite a bit, candles, stemware, flatware's coming, new piazza, menus on the way,etc. David the new GM from Manchester and I have done some good so far. We've upped the check average some 20% and rising and tips too. We're getting a lot of comments like "the best restaurant we've been to in Italy" from people who have been here for weeks. Repeat business from people for like 5-7 days in a row, every night. Not bad for a total of 8 days of actual work. Pretty cool. Lets not get ahead of ourselves quite yet though some background is necessary. Join me. Lets go back. Alright, not last weekend but the one before I was invited by David to come hangout in Bracciano where he lives, to get to know each other more personally. Not in a gay way alright, you filthy minded bastards. So I took the metro line A from the Termini to Valle Aurelia past the Vatican, then hopped on a train to Bracciano. A cool little town about forty clicks north of Rome on a like named lake, you got it, Lake Bracciano. A medieval castle dominates the center of town, you media whores might know it (Monica) because it's where Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise got married. Anyway it is rather lovely. I called David and he met me at the train and we walked a few blocks where I met his wife and 3 children (Sasha, Leo, and Zara) and some other friends of his from the U.K. We went to his house to watch a little Man United and see the awesome lake view from his back yard. We had some pasta for lunch, kids wildy running everywhere, with heavy British accents by the way, then met his friends and went down to the lake for swimming and a few beers. It was really nice, loads of wind and kite surfers as well as sailboats on the lake, beautiful, albeit a little windy, great for them, though, the water however felt great. We chilled and talked and I played in the water with Sasha, Davids oldest boy at about, what, ten-twelve I guess. He kept talking to me about being an adventurer and I told him some of mine, he was impressed (at least someone, eh?) so I gave him my pocket SAS survival guide, which he was glued to the rest of the day. We'd been at the lake for hours and were talking about dinner, so decided to go to a hamlet called Calcata for dinner. Off the path enough it wasn't in my guidebook. Now get online and check it out, fuckin awesome. At about 30 km from Bracciano this place is a castle on a spit jutting out in a curve of a river valley. The cliff face it's built on drops like a thousand feet straight down on three sides into the valley to the river, which you can't see hidden in the trees below, but can still hear. It is a very well preserved castle, with a narrow entranceway, about eight feet wide, with tiny up and down narrow streets that looks just like a page out of the Lord of the Rings, except that in the castle, all the little areas and nooks, are apartments and shops, restaurants, bars, and artists lofts, all in the actual castle and built in fortified town. It's pretty small, probably something like 30 apartments, and ten businesses, you can walk across it in ten minutes, but it is amazing. Its claim to fame is that supposedly Jesus' foreskin was held in the church for 500 years, only to be stolen from the Pastor's house in 1983, some claim it was the Vatican. We had a delicious dinner with some good wine, I had stewed rabbit and cornish hen, and had a great night out. After dinner we went back to Bracciano, it was late, and David his buddy and girl went to the local irish pub and exchanged stories for a few hours. It was long enough that we all got hungry again but nothing was open except for a kebab shop that was about a k and half in the opposite direction, we weren't driving and already had to walk about 2k home, so said fuck it lets go. We parted ways and saw some lights like two blocks away, David was like "I smell hamburgers!", and he did too, there was a new place that had opened up that he was unaware of so we called the others, they came back, and snacks ensued. They all had burgers, but there's nothing like a bistecca alla Fiorentino at 4 in the morning.

Rome still....

Alright, where was I? Its been a few days so let me think.... Okay, so after the meat inspection I sat down with the extended family and the cooks cut up and prepared something like all of the twenty pounds of meat samples. So platter after platter of veal, beef and lamb is coming to the table and needless to say I was stuffed and didn't eat again til the next day at lunch. Anyway the rest of the day was chill. So like Tuesday I got a sore throat. Not bad but stupid none the less. So for a few days really just hung out and relaxed. On Wednesday, after lunch with Fabio, the manager from the hostel, and Andy Steves (Rick Steves son) walked into the Trastevere, which is a cool not to touristy neighborhood. It was overcast and started to sprinkle, whatever I thought, but this "light" sprinkle turned into a raging torment complete with 30 mph+ winds in all of about 4 minutes. Torrential. I was soaked, trying to hide behind trees, I was right next to the Tiber river (the same river on which Romulus and Remus went for a splash, do you know this? Look it up!!) which is lined by trees and sidewalks and there is no cover what so ever. And none near either. So I gave up on the Trastevere, and started walking back to the metro. Heres the bonus though, strolling through (and at this point whats the rush i'm not getting any wetter) Romes winding streets alone and clean and fresh, it wasn't really cold, but everyone just vanished. Frightened of the rain, huddling indoors I suppose, but who cares it was beautiful. No crowds no people. Didn't help my cold, but oh well, better now, and it was worth it. On Friday I got my contract signed. In Italy you write a contract with your demands and then see if it is approved. I wrote up a fairly juicy contract and F and I went over it, which took a few days of waiting and wandering around Rome trying to get lost (Tues-Thurs). It was pretty easy. It's a big city. Ate food, relaxed, saw some sights, two days later made it to the Trastevere, cool neighborhood, complete with beautiful meat shops with cured chunks of pig hanging everywhere. Just like on TV!! Very Italian. Then on Friday got signed, got some cash. Basically i'm getting free room and free meals at the restaurant, and bar, and five grand. Not to mention living in Rome for a month. So some changes in travel plans and no wedding in Kansas or pizza in Chicago, but a unique experience that I couldn't say no to. All for just bestowing my endless restaurant knowledge on a open minded, vibrant culture, that wants to have a service standard as high as mine. Take that Tysn!

Jesus.... What the fuck, you'll know when you read this. Rome......

Sorry for not posting in the last few days but its been a whirlwind. A windy whirly wind. Saturday, day 3, I went to the Vatican and was pretty blown away, the art they have is amazing, also what should I say about the Sistine chapel, everything everyone says plus, St. Peters Basilica huge, and I paid a bit extra to climb to the cuppola, which is the very top of the Basilica, the tallest structure in Rome, 360 degree view of the entire city, sweetness. Also I had what was quite possibly the best sandwich in creation, appropriate next to the Vatican. Great day. Later I went back to The Yellow Bar for my last night here in Rome. And met a girl that sat down at the next table (we talked all night, she's a super cool chick from Kashmir named Imi, 21, and her favorite band is Iron Maiden, really? yes...Really...) The bar was decorated Happy B-day everywhere, and it turned out it was for the owner Francesco and his niece Claudia. Crazy nuttiness my friends. Loud music, Imi dancing on the bar, shots flying everywhere ("staff meetings"). I started talking to a drunk, but not as drunk as later, Francesco, he was really interested about my Vegas experience and asked me to have dinner with him the next day cause he wanted to see if I could give some insight into upping the ante at his restaurant, Mama Angela's, its a family run Trattoria, but he wants to upgrade to a Ristorante. I said cool why not (I hadn't seen the inside of the Colloseum yet and was thinking of staying another day anyway), I had planned to leave in the morning for Naples, and would need to get another night in the hostel, he said "Would you like to be more comfortable?" I said "I enjoy comfort." Not really, I thought it. So he gave me a free room at the hotel across the street. Nice. He also implored me to join him for an "english breakfast" (imagine that being said in a heavy Italian accent, silly) at 11:00am. Well the party continued late, and I got to bed pretty damn late. So when I woke up feeling pretty out of it, my roommates were loud assholes and were checking out that day, when they left I looked at the clock and it said 8:30, plenty of time. I layed back down for like an hour, looked over and the clock said 8:30, shit balls... I checked my phone and the time was 10:35, 25 minutes to check out, fuckin fuck. I flew up showered and packed like a raging maniac, dizzy, tired, and cussing loudly. I had to check out and be there for my "english breakfast" after all. Well I made it, Francesco didn't show, later his friend said they haven't seen him that drunk in ten years, and then dropped my shit off at the Hotel Romae, check in was at 1:00pm. Shit stowed I began my hung over trek in search of shorts, it's hot here, humid, and i've been walking eight hours a day in jeans, my sweaty butt sticking to them like a warm moist towel at Lucilles BBQ. You know how many pairs I found? Hmmm, do you? None... that's how many, why didn't I bring some?  dumb... Meanwhile i'm surrounded by sprightly assholes dancing down the fuckin narrow cobbled streets, light in their demeanor, big pizza covered smiles, laughing and holding hands, singing "We Are The World" in Italian mocking me in their cool short clad asses....dicks..Anyway I get back have a beer, and join Big F and his family for a free Italian dinner experience. It was nice, for five of us there were like three big ass platters of crudo, oysters, and grilled scampi, with bottles of Pinot Grigio and after, pasta, and tiramisu. It was Francesco, his wife, daughter, brother in law, and yours truly. We ate, drank, chatted, and when we were leaving, Francesco said he wanted to offer me a one month contract to work for him to change the restaurant, retrain the staff, and new GM, in better service and sales techniques and what to upgrade in the joint to make it snappy. Shit, didn't expect that, I was thinking a short dissertation on a bar napkin. I said I needed to think about it. He said he wanted an answer tomorrow at breakfast at 11. Afterwards at The Yellow I saw Tad and we had some drinks, after I swore never again, huh, I told him the story and he was like, the mans a millionaire, he likes you, people just don't have dinner with the family, and if you have a benefactor like that in town, could be awesome, but he can turn on you. Hmm. We went around the corner to another bar, and left the little, cute, sweet, Kashmiri Indian 21 year old muslim, who is also, it turns out, a chain smoking, alcoholic. Didn't expect that did you? So we proceed to go aroud the corner to "chat", Tads like ,take it dude a month in Rome, and i'm considering it. Sitting there is Zizi, the Roman born, raised in Rhode Island African Italian/American. Cool guy. I asked his opinion and he had one run in, but F apologized later, and its been cool beans ever since. In fact a lot of people had left and Z wanted more money for more work (Romans don't make much, 600-800 Euros isn't that uncommon) Z was making 800, and F said ok here's 12. 50% raise, not bad. We sit down, play some rummy, I meet more local expats, and then the no english speaking Italian bartender from Naples, who after several of their own version of staff meetings, showed me a handshake and proclaimed us brothers. Tad left, wasted, Z had to catch the morning metro, shit stops running at a certain time and first train is at 5:30 in the am. We're behing the bar watching Napoli gangster rap, and needless to say I got to bed at 5:30. I wake up in the hotel, to the phone ringing, its F and its 11, sweet. I jump up, similar shit to yesterday, and run downstairs. Since I'm running late we go to his office and (imagine how dazed I am, I mean really, consider it) sitting there is David, the Manchester England hotel desk clerk that F wants me to interview for GM of the restaurant. Ask heem qwestions Dave. Really, what the fuck is happening? I try to pull myself together and make some coherent babble, it sounded ok, suprisingly...He's there just minute then F excuses him. What do you think Dave? Uh, huh huh, uhhhhh (imagine this in a Beavis and Butthead voice.) He's just what we need, I proclaim. Good I thought so too, F says. Come on I need you to talk to the vendor. Vendor? For? Meat Dave. The meat vendor. The meat vendor? Of course. Am I in the fuckin twilight zone or what? Ok, I stammered. Good. Quick intro, starts walking away, uh what do you want me to do? Whatever you think (as walking away) you decide. Neato.... From now on i'll just say a person with a super fuckin heavy Italian accent and little or no english to be had will be known as sfhiaalonetbh. So the vendor with the sfhiaalonetbh starts trying to say trucks almost here for the meat delivery, and starts flipping through his book and showing me lovely laminated pictures of dead flesh. You know I love that shit, but you are aware of the condition i'm in at this point and he's not. Awful..Meat shows, i'm thinking of fleeing but I go in the kitchen meet the cooks instead and finger me some meat. Looks good, local, awesome. Which by the way is why I haven't updated in a few days. Because of turmoil, of oddness, Roman fuckin, what, I don't know? I do sometimes find myself in situations that are, well, just not normal. How do I do it? (to be continued)

Rome day 2

Alright, alright... Well yesterday I woke up and layed in bed for a while, I got up around 10am. I showered and went downstairs to have a little breakfast. I saw Fabio and we sat down and had a couple espressos and I ordered a basic breakfast of a roll with jam and butter a kiwi and espresso, feeling very European by the way. We chatted and when he left he took care of the bill, Italian Kerry? Cool, let me reiterate the coolness of these people. I thought of taking the Metro to the Colosseum, but I decided to walk. So I headed to the Repubblica to walk staight down to the Colosseum. I left at 11:00am and the next tour was at 2:pm, shit, plenty of time. Rome is strife with amazing shit, in the background was so much to see I got diverted several times, and took many photographs. I passed the Forum, and Colosseum, and tried not to check it out as I knew they would be on the tour, but couldn't help it. I'll be honest, the feeling I got when walking around these things was, I don't know man.. overwhelming? I really don't know what else to say. There is just so much history here, I mean the foundation of government structure, art, urban planning, plumbing, design, freedom, equality, and mass entertainment were founded here, amongst other things. Being fucking surrounded by it all, not mentally, but actually seeing it, I felt emotional and a little choked up. Full, like I couldn't take in any more. I've seen amazing old sites but really nothing like this. If you have any interest in social anthropology, people, art, history, architecture, government, war, games, anything, and you have but a fucking scrap of an idea what any of this shit is..... come to Rome, it will seriously not dissapoint. I got to my next tour an hour early so I stopped at a Trattoria for caprese and soda. Justin the next guide was also awesome, funny and very knowledgeable. Canadian. We saw the mouth of truth, which Romans laugh at tourists because the mouth of truth is a five foot high round stone object with a face in the middle, well when it was unearthed the founding party thought it would be more interesting and valuble with a story, they were right. They came up with a story that if you were to put your arm in the mouth of the face, and made a false statement, lied, the mouthwould bite you. Well the Catholic church bought it with the thought of, hell, we can use this in our campaign of power. So people that they wanted condemned were asked to place their arm in the mouth and make their statement, were bit by the animal that they placed behind it and were sent for punishment. But seriously who would actually lie if they thought they would get fuckin bit. Gullible. This was also popularized by a movie in the fifties starring Gregory Peck. Well really it's about shit, people shat in the streets. Consider that amount of scat, when at its height, the Roman Empire had 1.2 million people, so in its infancy, they designed the first sewer system to pipe the shit out of Rome. So the name for this artifact in latin is the great anus of Rome, because it was discovered it was a manhole cover basically for the ancient Roman human shit evacuation system. And, with the popular movie, people line up for hours to get their balled up little fists, photo documented, plunging into the great anus of Rome. Which for me was actually a selling point. A photo of me with my fist up great Romes asshole, shit, what about me tongueing it? Awesome..... we saw buildings by Octavius Ceaser, and the forum. The Pantheon, which was built in like 200 A.D. and had the biggest dome in the world till the 70's when the Houston Astrodome was built. Made with unreinforced concrete (which Romans invented) people still can't figure out how to pour that much concrete with no rebar in the time it would take to start drying, about two hours. It's 45 meters in diameter, it's huge. And the Colosseum is just badass. Read about how many animals and men were butchered there. Craziness. Anyway walked back to the hostel after and had a seat and started writing this. I was about to order a bottle of wine when I saw Tad, he was going in and asked if I wanted a drink, i said a bottle of wine, which I was planning on drinking myself. He said how about a glass, I said ok, well he came back with a bottle, which we drank in 20 minutes. He also refused to take money for it, really? He left, I ordered another bottle and some osso bucco and ate and drank and wrote. I met some Austrians sitting next to me and we talked and finished a 3rd bottle, till about 1:00am. Jesus. Well I woke up this morning at 8am, just had some muesli and fruit with yoghurt and a cappucino, finished writing this, I got too drunk last night to finish, and in less than an hour I'm heading to my last tour, again with Justin, to the Vatican. Vatican City, it's own country, trippy. I'll tell you later what happened.

Alright, Rome day 1

Wow, what a day, i'll start from the beginning, I left Vegas Wed. morning at 7:00am after getting to the airport at 4:30am and not sleeping that night and landed in rome at 9:30am Thurs. With a three and a half hour layover in Philly. Lets see, 7, five and a half hour flight, 3.5 layover, the 8.5 flight to Rome. I took the bus from the airport and walked to the hostel by 11:30 (by the way it was fuckin hot, and I was exhausted). I had a yummy lunch of rigatoni and eggplant to start and stuffed calamari to finish along with a Peroni, and then checked in at 1pm At the Hostel. When I checked in I was told about some tours by some locals (who are from Iowa and Canada incidentally, weird), since I had no plans i agreed to do all 3 offered. At 13 and two others for 20 euros each it seemed like a decent deal. The first was a night tour starting that night at 9pm. So basically it was 2, I had about 6 hours of sleep in approximatly 2 days, but i figured what the fuck. So I started with a complimentary welcome beer and proceeded to drink till 8:45. I talked to the bartenders at The Yellow Bar, part of The Yellow Hostel to which it is attached. The bartenders were at first Charlie and Marco. Charlie is from Pittsburg and is married to and has child with Marcos sister. Marco is Roman and is one of the coolest Romans there is, we all hit it off immediately. Later the staff was joined by Fabio, Marcos brother, all very fuckin cool. Also a guy from Holland was there too. So I spent about 7 hours talking and drinking Fosters, Jamesons, and red wine. I offered to let Marco download some music from my ipod cause I saw the bars music was an itunes list. We all talked music and had a great time till 8:45 I had to walk to the tour about 9 blocks away. It was fantastic! Tad the Iowan tour guide was awesome, talking shit, joking and vulgar, he conveyed so much info in a really fun, funny cool way, one of the best tours I have had, not that I do a lot of tours, I learned about different artists, rich folk, and popes that built several fountains and monuments. The Trevi fountain is amazing, huge and just awe inspiring, it took 32 years to complete, the life work of the artist, who died 4 years before completion. Shitty. The Spanish Steps, where Casanova did his picking up on broads, and is apparently still a popular spot for modern Casanova wannabes, was cool too. After the tour Tad and about five others from the group went to his local and favorite bar, The Yellow Bar, right?, and we proceeded to drink and bullshit till well past closing, about 3:30 in the am. I was doing free "staff meeting" shots of Jamesons with Fabio, Marco, Charlie, and Tad. I felt like I was amongst friends that I had known for a while. It felt like a lot longer than one day. So far Rome is fuckin awesome. If the rest of Italy is like this, it's gonna be easy.

Roma

Well, I'm just chillin here in Rome, I just had some delicious pasta con Melanzane and stuffed calamari. A couple o' beers as well(Peroni, they didn't have Pabst). Rome is very cool, and what sights say about European dress, what a load, everyone is wearing shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers. Its a balmy 80 degrees, and I'm about to check in, store my shit, and go for a leisurely stroll. I'm very relaxed, and starting to remember the old Dave. Ahhh. I miss you guys and will keep you posted.