First Day 2012

These Blogs give me trouble, and more so from Italy. I wanted to post something to make contact with the student group and to set an example for posting. Rome has been here for almost 3000 years, so it is not strange that it has not changed in a year. It is still the noisy, rushing, busy place it was last year and the year before. Although I was exhausted, the ride into town was as exciting as my first ride on the train to Statione Trastevere was 13 years ago. I was excited to be back in Rome and anxious that I had to take a new place to stay, one I had not used before. However, while it is small, the bedroom at the Bed and Breakfast Miti is clean and the family is friendly. They give me all sorts of opportunities to practice my Italian.

It has been raining all day, so the city sparkles somewhat. The buildings and trees are dripping. The sidewalks and streets all puddled, and waiting for the light to change is an adventure if not a bath. Rain brings out the smells in the city. Rome especially for me. The air and the interior of buildings have a faint musty odor, not something one finds in the dust of El Paso. The air is also pungent with the fragrance of jasmine and flowers that dangle from window baskets or hide behind walled gardens. And there are the muted odors of automobile exhaust and stale smells of men and animals along the streets and the sidewalk dividers. Romans aren't much better about cleaining up after their animals.

Now I am off to a small place in Trastevere for some food. The first meal in Rome each year is special. Since it is raining there is no chance of eating out of doors, a distinctively Italian pleasure, but it is cool and the shelter of the building will be great.