Winding Down!

Rome Diary IV:
Il Mio Ritorno a Roma!
7 Marzo 2018, Mercoledi
Sunny with Rain Later 57°F/14°C in Roma, EUR
Cloudy 67°F/20°C in Cedar Park, Texas
Buona giornata amici miei!
      Ever since it snowed here last week, Jupiter – the ancient Roman God of Storms -  has been

MikeBo and La Neve!

trying to persuade me that my decision to stay on in Rome for an extra month was a bad idea! (I was trying to avoid for a while longer the political chaos back at home, and maybe – MAYBE – avoid an environmental disaster or North Korean nuclear attack on my corner of Texas in the process!) Adding to my weather-related mopery was the number of my well-meaning friends back home who were thoughtful enough to share a CNN story entitled Rome’s Sad Decline Sums Up Italy’s Problems! My favorite city was being used as the horrible example of what ails the whole country, on the eve of Italy’s National Elections. Which, it now turns out were inconclusive, and it will take weeks, if not months, to form a new government, which is part of the Italian National Problem! The new government will be Italy’s 66^th  or maybe its 67^th  government since 1946.

      The pot-holed, rutted streets of Rome, and the piles of uncollected garbage are little noticed by the throngs of tourists who are primarily interested in seeing ancient ruins anyway and pay little attention to the graffiti that adorns walls all over the city. Only on the national highways, the autostradi, does a motorist get any relief from the kidney-bruising rough rides along Rome’s pot-hole infested streets. My message to my well-meaning, but dubious friends is this: Rome has had historic falls in its past but has always risen to new and glorious heights. So, I am not worried about a few rutted streets or random piles of garbage!
      A city that is nearly 3,000 years old and still relies on its 2,000-year-old sewer system and ancient aqueducts is surely not going to disappear under a bit of trash or a few pot-holed streets for

La Famiglia at Ancient Paestum

very long. Rome has withstood hordes of barbarians of varying sorts over the centuries along with plagues and pestilences of many varieties. It has suffered under kings of many nations and modern dictators, fascist and Nazi! What’s a little graffiti, or a smattering of trash? But YES! Italy does have some political challenges, which even has some of my friends in the ex-pat community voicing concern. (As if we didn’t have sufficient political woes back home in the U.S. of A.)  But, I am not going to dwell on the care and feeding of the body politic, either Italian or American. Instead, I will focus on the high points of this trip and how I will prepare for my next Roman Holiday.

      Next time, I will plan on staying for two or three months at the outset. That way, there is no last-minute scrambling. It’s easier for my family on both sides of the Atlantic. And, I will choose a warmer time of year for my next sojourn. It’s no fun to sit home day after day while it’s rainy and cold outside, when I should be taking long walks and getting to know my neighbors a little better. The snowfall we had last Monday was a bonus to me, but even a few inches of snow brought Rome to a standstill. The Mayor was in Mexico at an environmental conference and, naturally, was blamed for all the glitches that occurred in her absence. Like, the lack of snow tires for Rome’s fleet of transit buses.
      Looking back on the past two months, I have some treasured memories: the high speed train trip to Milan and the sights I saw in Northern Italy; the visit to ancient Paestum and learning more about Magna Graecia, and the expansion of ancient Greece onto the southern reaches of the Italian Peninsula; the thrill of seeing a performance of the National Circus of Cuba, in Rome and just a short distance from Michael and Laura’s home. THAT was a great show. In fact it was held over past its original departure date of February 18^th and was still going strong in mid-March.

Laura and Michael -

Lumina Studios

I’m getting a big kick watching my son’s career take off. When we arrived back from Milan, he was whisked away to the taping of a Television pilot for an Italian game show where he was the host. At Rome’s Comedy Club, he did his first stint as a stand-up comic. His band No Funny Stuff is making more frequent radio and television appearances in addition to their club dates, private party bookings and their concert and festival appearances. No Funny Stuff has competed on Italy’s Got Talent! Displayed their culinary talents on Chef Andrea Mainardi’s cooking show and have another forthcoming appearance on another RAI-TV show demonstrating their home-made musical instruments. Michael is still working at his day jobs – tour guide and English teacher, but he’s growing as a performer.  

Despite my extended visit to Rome, there is a lot that I did not get to do – I was not able to make my long-anticipated trip to the Czech Republic to visit the city where my grandparents emigrated to America in 1903. I did not fly to Amsterdam to see my lady friend Joan. I missed seeing la mia amica Romana, Alba, because I visited the museum gift shop where she works, on her day off.
       Michael took me on a private, personally guided tour of the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. At the Sistine Chapel, where the new Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals, I got the inside view of that process from my son who had worked for CNN as a production assistant following the death of Pope John Paul II. Our chat in the Sistine Chapel was far more revelatory to me than reading Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons.
        On another occasion, he took me to another outstanding art gallery, Il Palazzo Barberini, Italy’s National Art Gallery. Housed there are masterpieces by great artists like Caravaggio and Raphael.

Two Mikes Contemplate Caravaggio!

The Palazzo’s collection includes: Raphael’s La Fornarina, Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes and Hans Holbein’s Portrait of Henry VIII, which I recognized instantly from following the adventures of the Tudors on Masterpiece Theatre!

         Roman history is like a big Lasagna, my son is fond of saying. There’s layer upon layer of history in this Lasagna. Just choose a point in time and DIG IN! You’re bound to come across something that fascinates you.
And so, it is!

Ciao,
MikeBo

[Mike Botula is the author of LST 920: Charlie Botula’s Long, Slow Target! He is a retired broadcast journalist, government spokesperson and media consultant.   Mike’s book is available from Amazon or Barnes and Noble Books. You can follow his blog at: mikebotula.blogspot.com, or visit Mike Botula at www.mikebotula.com ]