Goal is to post at least twice a week. Now that we're a little more into Everyday Life there's not as much interesting to tell, but the Italians do provide a wealth of stories for those of us not accustomed to dealing with idiosyncrasy on a daily basis!

***

I have a magic piece of paper. It is not THE magic piece of paper, the soggiorno, but for my purposes, the residenza is close enough. It allows me to register the girls for school. It allows me to buy, register and insure a car. It allows me to open a bank account. It allows me to go the Agenzia Sanitaria and register for National Health cards.

Maybe.

So the girls didn’t get visas because I was getting a study visa and they would just be basically accompanying me. Which was wrong and I’m suffering for it. But now it turns out that because I have a study visa, I have to show that I’m enrolled somewhere in school in order to get the Tessera Sanitaria to match my visa. And I can’t exactly do that. So now, having driven over hill and dale to get to Fornovo, where the Sanitaria office is, the nice man at the Sanitaria has to call all over the universe looking for a way to register me and the girls for our National Health cards. He said he would call back Friday if he found an answer immediately, but it might be Monday. (He didn’t call. I am hopeful of Monday. Given my experience with Italians and their timelines, however, I am not holding my breath. But I have to drive out there again at such time as he does. Oh well, I’m getting to see and drive a lot of the countryside, so at least I’m learning how to get around!)

Meanwhile, I bought a car! Honestly, I don’t know a thing about it except it’s big enough, it has a 12 month powertrain warranty and air conditioning, and I can afford it. These are the points we care about most. I test drove a Hyundai Getz (nice but VERY small, and as a carpool mamma for this year, I require one a scoche bigger to tote around 4 kids), a Mercedes Benz A-170 (didn’t know M-B made a small affordable 5 door hatchback, didja? Well, don’t worry about it, because it SUCKED), and the Opel Meriva. The 2 things I liked most about the Meriva just driving it were a) it was a good height for Mamma to get in and out (that being MY Mamma, who arrives Wednesday, not just me) and b) I didn’t actually notice driving it while I test drove it. The Hyundai had me on alert making sure I could find all the bits. The Mercedes was simply badly organized inside and I couldn’t reach anything. But I got into the Opel and just drove it. Things were under my hand where they were supposed to be. I didn’t need to adjust the steering wheel. The seat was comfortable and a good height. I signaled and turned off the radio and ran the windshield wipers and generally just drove and didn’t have to think. I have to think about a LOT when I’m driving these mountains – not having to think about the CAR appeals to me.

Andrea, our lovely used-car salesman, gave me an “assicurenza libretto” for the car, which was covered with mysterious numbers and Italian abbreviations. Could have been the alchemical formula for the philosopher’s stone for all I knew. Fortunately, when I called USAA to get insurance, the gal said, “Well, read me the first number.” (I learned a bunch of the military alphabet on this conversation). “Nope, that’s not it. Read the next one. Nope, that’s not it…” we read a lot of numbers. But finally we got one. And it turned out that two of the other numbers were also things she needed. So all good. The insurance on it is only about $40 a year more than for my Prius, so yay. I expected it to be a LOT more. But the car is an ’05, and biggish, and the Prius is an ’06 and small, and in America, so that may account for a lot. (The Getz had an MP3 port. The Opel does not. Elise is disappoint. But that was really ALL the Getz had going for it that was way better.)

But of course, nothing’s simple. Now I have to pay for it. Seems that under Italian law persons who buy cars with Visa cards are by definition Mafia or drug dealers, so I can’t use my lovely empty this-would-solve-my-problem-fast Visa card. I tried asking Visa for a cash advance, but my 12-year gorgeous payment history and stupidly high credit limit apparently are not sufficient guarantee that I will pay back their ridiculous 21% loan of 6000E in a timely manner. (I have all this in cash in my American bank account. I actually told the guy, “I will pay it back as soon as it posts, so, like, Monday. This is not a long term thing.” Sorry, no go.) I don’t have checks for my lovely new bank account yet, and the wire containing all my money for the year won’t arrive for 2 more weeks, so that’s no good. So what do I have to do? Go to Salso every day for the next 4, find the only bank machine in town that does NOT decide to cut me off after a 250E withdrawal, and take as much as it will let me (turns out, 1500E). It gives me the money in 20s and 50s. I’m going to have a BRIEFCASE full of cash when this is all over. It does kinda make me wonder, wouldn’t you RATHER that the drug dealers bought used cars with Visa cards? So much easier to trace than piles of unmarked, low denomination bills. (And fear not. I called my bank this afternoon to make sure they were okay with my taking the 1500 every day, and to let them know that yes, indeed, this is me making these stupid withdrawals so don’t freak out.)

I extended the rental of the Lancia till Tuesday (it was due back tomorrow). Happily, the main showroom of the company Andrea works for is at the other end of the block from the place I have to return the rental Tuesday morning, so he will bring the car into the main office, I will walk up from the rental place, sign the papers, hand over the briefcase, and drive him back to his shop, which is about 5 km out of my way home from Parma. All good!

Paper that hasn’t MESSED. WITH. ME. For a whole day. It’s a bad precedent, I think you’ll agree.

Docu-Drama Update:

We went to the doctor on Monday 20.8. First off, my buddy in Boston who set us up with the endocrinologist neglected to pay any attention to my request for a PEDIATRIC endo. Dr Zavaroni may well be one of the best in Italy, but she doesn’t do pediatrics. Plus, I had forgotten that we still needed to get our national health cards, so we arrived at the doctor’s office with no insurance cards, plus I had forgotten to pack the school orders from Dr Wolfsdorf. Fortunately the pediatric endo was wiling to see us briefly, get us some syringes and strips (the boxes are still in customs), and reschedule us for later this week, but we HAVE to have national health cards. When I told her we already had codici fiscali (Italian social security numbers), she said, “Oh, no problem then! Just go to the health office and show them the codici fiscali and they’ll be able to issue the cards!” This should have been my first clue that this would, in fact, be a problem.

 Tuesday I finally got the letter from Matt authorizing me to bring the girls to Italy in the first place (we had one before but no one, including me, had noticed that the dates were July 2013 to July 2013 ☹ ), which completed our packet for the request for a residenza permit (so that we would be permitted to RESIDE in Italy but not to SOJOURN. It may be Christmas before we are permitted to sojourn) and so I decided to hit the post office and the Health Services office in Salsomaggiore at the same time. At Health Services they told me that the cards couldn’t be issued without the receipt from the Post Office for the residenza mailing. Oooookaaaaay. But it turns out the Post Office is mere steps away! We will go to the post office, get the receipt for the residenza mailing, and come back. (And incidentally pay the parking ticket I got in Parma the day before, because you can do that at Post Offices in Italy.)

At the Post Office I paid my ticket, no problem, then asked to mail my packet. “You need an appointment. We have to review the packet before we can send it for you. Plus you haven’t stamped it or paid the 107E for it.” Stamped WHAT? Paid WHAT? Fulvia didn't tell me any of this crap! “You can get a stamp for it at the tobacconist’s across the street. But we don’t have any appointments till Friday.” Uh, I need this before Friday. “Can’t help you. But the stamp is at the tobacconist’s.” Why is the stamp at the tobacconist’s and not at the freakin’ POST OFFICE? Oh Italy.

So we went to the tobacconist’s. And it was NOT scratched, for those of you who care about that sort of thing. ☺ But apparently this particular stamp (14.62E – why 14.62, we ask ourselves to no avail) is very popular, as I walked in and said, “I need a revenue stamp,” and she rang up 14.62 before I finished speaking. So I got the stamp. But still had no appointment at the post office, and so had to give up in despair on the day. At least the parking ticket got paid on time (you only have 10 days in Italy to pay them or they start doubling, eek).

 So today, I took my duly stamped packet to the post office in Pellegrino, which has the advantage of being tiny and thus not overbooked with appointments – I did have to wait almost 15 minutes, but that was about it. The man there initially said my packet was no good because I didn’t have apostilles on the birth certs, but then he read the letter that our beloved Fulvia wrote back at the Foreigners Information office and said it was ok. He gave me many things to sign. I signed. I gave him the 107E and he gave me a very elaborate series of papers all stapled together. A paperwork assignment finally successfully completed! I took this multi-part receipt across the street to the Comune.

 Is. This. What. I need. For the residenza. “YES! IT IS! And we’ll get you the actual residenza permit next Wednesday.”

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

 Please. Please have it ready for tomorrow. I have a doctor’s appointment on Friday and I HAVE to get the Sanitaria tomorrow. PLEASE. “Oh, well, okay, we can have it for tomorrow.”

I’m so proud. I didn’t faint or do a happy dance or anything. I just said, “Molte, MOLTE grazie signore,” and came home.

But the question still remains: Will the paper be ready in time for the Sanitaria, and will the Sanitaria REALLY give us the cards just on the basis of the residenza and the codici fiscali? TUNE IN TOMORROW!

8.8 The trip up the A1 from Sarteano was pretty harrowing. Since it’s a freeway, the speed limit for most of it is 130 kph. The trucks mostly go about 110; the speed demons crawl up on your tail if you’re going a mere 5 kph over the limit, then cut you off as soon as they can whip around. Add to this that the road goes over the Apennines, and it’s a bit  nerve-wracking. Then Anna aanounced that there was an accident 60 km ahead and we needed to take a detour. Short form, we got lost. But happily, getting unlost involved finding an IperCoop! We love the IperCoop. Coop is a supermarket chain, and when Italians say “supermarket,” they mean “a store that carries about 80 items, sometimes 2 brands of each.” IperCoop, on the other hand (iper, of course, = hyper), makes your local Wal-Mart look somewhat undersized and understocked. This particular IperCoop had with it a mall with food and bank, both of which were needed. We had a surprisingly good fast food (Italian fast food – pizza and pasta and veggies and all manner of stuff!), ice cream, got money, and by the time we were back on the road, the accident had cleared and Anna was willing to go up the freeway.

Got as far as Fidenza without incident, then had to figure out how to get to Beso since Anna doesn’t acknowledge that any such place exists. Finally connected with Frank at the bar with the Vespa on the roof. Well, it IS rather a landmark! Turns out getting to Beso from there is very easy, since one just stays on the main road until just before reaching the village. But it’s 20km, and mostly 50 kph speed limit. FOR A REASON. Twisty turny doesn’t begin to describe it. I can’t WAIT to try to negotiate this in the dark.

9.8 The girls will be deported. Or not. See below.

10.8 I need a professional measurer in order to stay in the country.

So the past week has mostly been taken up with figuring out how we’re going to resolve the girls’ immigration issues. Seems the Italian Consulate in Boston flat-out lied to me when they said the girls didn’t need visas. You plan to stay in country for more than 90 days, you need a visa. End of sentence. I’m especially pissed because I asked twice on the day we were there and once later to be SURE they didn’t need them. But hey, if they had had them everything would have been simple, right? Wrong. We went first to the Questura, the provincial office for governmental shtuff – sort of a provincial federal building. They handle local immigration, passports, traffic stuff, and are the people one needs to register with to get a Permission to Stay. Now, why I need a Permission to Stay when I have a valid visa, that as far as I can tell confers permission to stay for the duration of the visa, I do not know. But there it is. The first person we met at the Questura was a uniformed attendant. She took one look at our passports and said, “The children do not have visas. They must leave in 90 days or be deported.” Uh, WHAT?! She said if we had an issue we could go to the Prefetura (provincial police administration) and take it up with them.

The lady at the Prefetura was much more understanding, and assured me immediately that while this was indeed a problem, it was NOT going to lead to deportation. Fortunately, both girls are still under 14. (If Elise were already 14 it would be a BIG problem.) This means that they cannot, under Italian law, be separated from their mother if the mother is here legally. She sent us to the Information for Foreigners office (Informa dei Stranieri), to a woman named Fulvia Baroni.

Cultural interlude: everything here is back to front. Addresses are not 123 Sesame Street, New York NY 10021, they are Sesame Street, 123, 10021 New York NY. You don’t refer to someone as Mr. Tiziano Fusi, you refer to him as Mr. Fusi Tiziano. I suppose it is more sensible in its way, but it takes some getting used to. So the Prefetura lady sent us to Sra Baroni Fulvia. Fulvia, for those of you not acquainted with the Fulvia of classical times, is a very strong name. She was married to Clodius Pulcher, a mover and shaker in early Caesarian times, and eventually to Marc Antony. After Clodius was murdered in a riot she retained the loyalty of his followers (sometimes referred to as his “thugs” or his “gangs”) and remained very influential. After Caesar’s assassination she raised legions to fight for Antony’s rights in the turmoil that followed, and Plutarch was clearly scared to death of her. When the news of her death was announced in the Senate, some bright spark supposedly said, “Wait, Fulvia can DIE?”

So I had high hopes of Baroni Fulvia. And indeed, she seems to have done all she could for me. The first time we went, she told us that in order to be able to apply for a permesso at all, we were missing some documents, primarily, the official measurement of the square footage of the house, with a sworn statement of how many of us were living there. Yes, the lack of kid visas turns out to be completely secondary to the problem of how big the house is. Furthermore, we can’t just bring the copy of the construction permit that Roisin happens to have, that has all the measurements on it from the provincial records; no no, we must have a new measurement done by the Official Measuring Guy on staff in the Comune. Then she says, oh, and your identity docs are all fine and good, but they have to be sent back to the US to get an official government document attached to them saying that they are official government documents. Shades of freakin’ 1984. So I have to send the birth certs back to CA to get apostilles attached. And then they have to be translated into Italian. In the US. And certified by an Italian Consulate in the US. (At which point I’m thinking, uh, kids, like that’s going to happen. I don’t trust the Consulate employees to put their shoes on the correct feet any more, no way I’m sending anything to them that involves actual thought. Plus I’d have to find some way to get a power of attorney overseas so someone could take it for me, since all this requires personal appearance! My hatred toward the Boston consulate is considerable.)

Now, Fulvia is pretty clear on the concept that none of this is likely to happen. So she gave me a list of things to bring back. Once the Comune had gotten the measurements (and no, no Official Measuring Guy had to come out because they had a copy of the construction permit on file and they just recertified it), I went back to Baroni Fulvia. She looked through what I had and wrote me a lovely letter for the questura saying, essentially, “Ok, the Boston crowd messed with us, so here’s what we have. We’re only here for a year. Please just deal with us and with these versions of all the docs. Thanks.” Once I have the last bit, a new copy of Matthew’s permission for me to come here with the girls, I send it in and automatically get a temporary residence permit just for sending it all in. (Did I mention that I was supposed to register with the police as a resident alien in Naples, even though I wasn’t going to be a resident alien in Naples but here in Beso? Yeah, that turned out to be a problem too. Fortunately, the police in the Comune thought that was stupid and just forged my entry document. Always deal with locals when you can ☺ ).

7.8 In which we are directed into the wilds and lose faith, but see lots of pretty, dead Etruscans

The first real test of the gps. After all, it’s all very well to go 25 miles up a freeway and fall off the exit into the hotel parking lot. But now we wanted to go from Civitavecchia to Tarquinia to see the painted tombs there, thence to Sarteano, near Chiusi (ancient Clusium, very big deal).

The Tarquinia portion was easy, again mostly freeway, and the Tarquinia museum was very entertaining. Almost all Etruscan or Etruscan-period objects (a lot of Greek pottery that had clearly been made for Etruscan clients), including a case full of votive objects: terracotta hands, fingers, feet… and not a few gentlemen who clearly were in search of 6^th c BCE viagra! Pretty hilarious. The sarcophagus tops with their portraits make the Romans look positively dissolute. These folks were hardcore! Stern faces that clearly Disapproved Of Your Antics. Some of these pieces must have been available for folks to see during the medieval period, though: the stone lions look like they’re RIGHT out of a 14^th c bestiary!

The museum ticket included entrance to the tombs, which were a long walk or short drive away, and in 95-degree heat we decided to drive. VERY different from the Cerveteri tombs. Those were more of a city, carefully planned out and organized. These seem to have been kinda plopped down in the first available space … and then worked on like you wouldn’t believe. The frescoes are just amazing. Some were harder to see than others, because the glass that keeps weaselly tourists from touching them has gotten scratched, or in some cases because the tombs were 2 rooms deep and you just couldn’t see in (one of these very helpfully had a 3D movie of the interior playing on a tv just outside the door). Gotta love my camera – it took GREAT pix of the ones we could see well, even without a flash.

From there it was on to Sarteano. Anna took us through miles and miles of absolutely gorgeous, nearly empty countryside. Not a freeway in sight. I lost faith. Then suddenly we were at our hotel. And I was ashamed. Ro swam but I was too tired even to put on a suit. Just snoozed by pool. Tomorrow we go HOME!

Good heavens! Not even a week behind now!

6.8 Monday Not much to report. We relaxed at the chlorinated pool all today, and as usual taught non-English-speaking children to play Marco Polo (Norwegian this time). Rose meanwhile is angry because she is getting tan and she wants to stay snow-white. Must put more sunscreen on her ☺ Elise has not been feeling well this week and took the opportunity to sleep all day, though it didn’t help much, as the beds are like ROCKS. Lovely Mediterranean hotel otherwise, but sleeping isn’t really happening ☹

5.8 Sunday: Adventures in Driving

We picked up the car at the airport and told the nice English lady in the gps to get us to Civitavecchia. For reasons I do not now remember, Elise and I started riffing on Counting Crows song names. Actually now that I say that, I do remember: when the gps comes on, it says “Acquiring Satellites.” This reminded us of Recovering the Satellites. Thus the riff on the names, and as the gps began to give us directions, we said clearly its name was Anna, since it was beginning to do stuff. (cf August and Everything After, “Anna Begins.”) Aided by Anna, we drove up the A15 freeway to Civitavecchia and mirabile dictu, found the hotel in one try. Anna becomes irritable if you go more than 20 kph under or 1 kph over the speed limit, so 130 was the order of the day! (Just so you know, I’m not a fan of 130. 115 is about my personal speed sweet spot. And of course at 130 everyone was still whizzing by me. Plus, I failed to study up on European road signs, so I was needing to process AND interpret everything I saw to try not to do anything stupid. So it was a bit stressful.) Fortunately it was freeway virtually the entire way, so I didn't have to deal with real Italian traffic or medieval streets yet.

The hotel had both a saltwater and a chlorinated pool; we swam in the salt one first, since that’s been so good for Elise’s skin. Salt pools really do leave your skin feeling icky though.

The restaurant in the hotel didn’t open till 7:30, so we went for a walk and stopped at the first pizzeria we found. The pizza turned out to be both expensive AND mediocre, but we were hungry, and the leftovers were enough to provide snacks for the next 2 days. After dinner we watched Italian MTV for a while. We became somewhat addicted in Rome, as it was the only channel we could find that routinely had English language programming on it. Not sure whether I love or hate “Payphone” by Maroon 5 since I’ve heard it so often at this point.

4.8 Saturday: The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.

I make a fetish of my birthday, as many of you know, so to have my birthday plans canceled on me was pretty traumatic. But it’s probably just as well; we’ve been heavily overscheduled this entire trip, for all I thought I’d kept it pretty light, so it was mostly a toad day. The original plan was for a tour of Hadrian’s villa and the ancient collections at the Villa d’Este, but not enough people signed up for it to fill the luxury coach involved, so it was cancelled. So instead we went up to Capitoline museums, and accidentally to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, which was very rococo, but had nice cosmatesque (named after the Cosmatis, who did a lot of mosaic floors in this style -- I'll label some of the nice ones in the flickr stream) floors made of recycled ancient stone (as usual, mostly from collapsed stuff in the Forum. Everyone thinks the Forum was pristine white. It was crazy with color!). I have to admit, I was somewhat entertained by how disdainful I felt of the church. I mean, it was all so NEW. Practically nothing there pre-1400! (It is supposedly built over the ruins of the Temple of Juno Moneta, of sacred geese fame, and home of the governmental coin issuers of ancient Rome, thus "money" and "mint," but none of that is anywhere visible. And I should note, most of the columns dividing aisles and nave were also recycled from the Forum.)

Because I am a major geek, at the museum I wanted to stand around reading grave inscriptions and taking pix of a bunch of them, but children make these things harder; Elise was tired and Rose was bored, so I kept it minimal. I got a few good ones, of a gladiator, an incense vendor, and a few parents of children and masters of slaves. I am wondering what happened to the stone Colossus of Constantine – he was nowhere to be found. A bronze one was in the new room where the Capitoline Wolf now stands (still with those terrible babies). There’s a whole new exhibit in the Palazzo Nuovo with a bunch of stuff from the area of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, very cool. Even a bit of the foundation wall, which apparently was under the hillside and no one knew until recently! So that’s been moved/incorporated into the new wing with a bunch of new Etruscan stuff, including a remarkably complete burial of a teenaged boy, most of the grave goods still intact. There was also a reconstruction of what the Capitoline must have looked like in the 6^th C BCE when the temple was completed, and good old Jupiter really would have dominated the skyline. I’m going to put a goodish bit (at least, relative to other texts) about Etruscans in my book. There’s so much to Rome that they kinda get lost in the shuffle, but their culture is really important to Roman history. Any of my Mirman students will remember: When in doubt, add palmettes!

3.8 Friday: Cerveteri: Dead people's houses, but no dead people.

 Finally, a site the girls liked. Took three hours to get there, ugh, but had a great time once we arrived. The necropolis was easy enough to find – about a mile walk along constantly marked road (a rarity in Italy! What, you mean you don’t already know where you’re going? Then why are you going there?! It’s like Boston, only in a foreign language with more frequent stops for ice cream). Aurora was so excited to be the one to spot the excavations first. The excavation gives a basic idea of the plan (only a tiny fraction of what’s under there is visible), and the scholarly stuff I picked up to help with my textbook said that the necropolis plan mirrors general Etruscan city planning. Many of the tombs are so beautifully preserved, and a bunch are still inside their original round beehive-topped houses. A lot of them were perfectly accessible to get in for pictures, but they were FULL of flies and mosquitoes, which positively swarmed when we shone a light in, ugh. Very uniform in design for the most part: a few steps down, an antechamber, with one or two rooms leading off of it, each room with two beds. All grave goods long gone, of course, and no indications of any decorations on the walls. But the architecture itself pretty much completely unchanged from 2500 years ago. SO cool.

Still, it was 36C out, and the tramp back up the hill into Cerveteri was not appealing. However, as we were leaving the excavation park, a little bus came by. I stuck out a thumb and he stopped; clearly a shuttle of some kind from town. I asked him how much (it’s only a mile, so I knew it wouldn’t be more than 1 or 2E, and that was TOTALLY worth it by then!), and after a second’s hesitation he said, “Fa caldo. Gratis.” (It’s hot. Free.) When we got to the museum I called him il nostro santo – the ride is usually part of an 8E ticket to the museum. We decided to pass on the museum and catch an earlier bus back, which was just as well. We’re going to Tarquinia next week, and the Etruscan museum in Tarquinia is supposed to be better anyway, so we’ll take in that one instead.

Arrived back at the hotel at 6, grabbed a pizza and decided to turn on the tv. When what to our wondering eyes should appear, But Bill Cosby in Italian (but no tiny reindeer)! Couldn’t really follow it but laughed our butts off anyway. Just the IDEA of Cosby in Italian was funny. Or maybe we were really tired. Hard to tell ☺

Thu 2.8 In which we are basically toads.

When I was first planning all this, I thought I was being pretty conservative with the activities, knowing that the girls would tire of things faster than I would. I was right about the tiring faster, but wrong about what constitutes “conservative” in this case. We’ve overdone on more than one occasion. So today was pretty nearly entirely a snooze/watch tv/not do anything much sort of a day, and we all needed it. Rose and I did get inspired briefly and went down the block to Santa Maria dei Angeli e Martiri, Michaelangelo’s last project, to convert the Baths of Diocletion into a very magnificent church. It was finally finished in the early 1700s, and so was VERY grand and covered in Shtuff, but I wanted to see more of the Roman base for the church, and we never got as far as the section of the Terme that’s still the ancient building. I feel like I’ve lost so much time here, but between the insane heat and the girls just not having the interest or stamina, it’s probably just as well. I am also tired of pizza. The girls only like cheese pizza and I haven’t found any other combo that I’m excited about, so we’ve eaten a lot of margheritas (and not the nice tequila-y kind, which might have been soothing after a few of these very tiring outings!).

Wednesday 1.8 In which there is a private tour, and a public laundry.

I had booked a tour of Ostia Antica (the first “new” spot on the Rome leg of our odyssey for me), and we hustled our fannies to get to the meeting place by 8:30 this morning. The directions clearly said “near the red umbrellas” and there we were, near the red umbrellas, but no sign of anyone tour-guide-y. I was getting rather nervous when a young woman came up to me and said, “Meelayr? Viator tour?” I allowed as how I was indeed Meelayr. She motioned for us to follow her. When we looked confused, she explained that in fact no one else had signed up for the tour, but since it was on the train and not by expensive private bus, we could still go. So we had our own private guide for the morning!

We walked through the necropolis, the small baths at the edge of town (mostly for soldiers and out-of-town businessmen who were just stopping in the warehouse district and then off again somewhere else), the theatre, the forum, the world’s teeniest synagogue (couldn’t have been more than about 12’x12’), some apartment buildings, a lovely restaurant, and the big baths near the center of town, complete with 20-seat latrine. I so enjoy freaking out the students with the total-lack-of-privacy latrines. I took lots of pictures of floors, as usual :) But it was too hot and too long, so we cut it a little short (after all, we were the only ones there, we could cut it short if we wanted!), rested for a bit in the tiny but lovely excavations museum, then back to Rome.

After a brief nap I decided it was time to do laundry. A large part of why I booked our hotel was that its website announced that it had a laundry service. Turns out, what they MEANT by “laundry service” was “there’s a laundromat 5 blocks away that you can tote your stuff to and they’ll do your laundry for 14E.” So I had to put all the dirty clothes (and walking 4-6 miles a day in 95 degree Roman heat leads to many many dirty clothes in a week) into a suitcase and shlep over to la lavanderia. The little man there said that I could do the laundry myself if I wanted, but it would still be 14E. So I let him do it! Why not, after all. And he even dried the linens and lingerie on low, and folded everything and repacked the suitcase! So it was completely worth it, given that that’s what it costs anyway. For those of you familiar with the lingo, though I was heartily annoyed at the time, it's a past tense funny :)

Tuesday 31.7 I am an archeology hipster. Sometimes.

We had planned to get up and go to Cerveteri, but needed to be at the Cornelia station by 10 and hadn’t left the hotel by 9:50, so THAT wasn’t happening. Finally got going and went to San Clemente, down near the Colosseum, instead. I fear I am an archeology hipster – I liked it better when it was still underground. Ha. Ha. Ha. They’ve done a TON of work on it since I was last here, and the new excavations were amazing, but now it’s all full of people, there’s a climate control system that keeps the humidity high so it’s not cool in the lowest levels, the spring has become polluted so you can’t drink from it any more, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures yet there are no postcards nor yet an updated guidebook to the new areas, most of which, naturally, are the 1st c Roman section. The most current guidebook is from 1989! I asked the bookstore lady when a new one would be out. “Oh, next year. Perhaps two years.” In other words, have your grandchildren check with us. Nine years ago, it was still kind of a “San Who?” type of place, and I crawled around in it and investigated to my heart’s content. The Roman area is the most thoroughly worked on but there’s been a lot of work to the 4^th c basilica as well. They've installed actually STAIRS and LIGHTS and whatnot! It's much more accessible now than it was, and better lit. Plus they've put in recycled tire pathways to preserve the floors of the heavy traffic areas. I'm happy for them that all this work is worth it, that they've got people coming to see it and appreciate it. I'm mostly annoyed at the no pictures (now that we have something really really worth taking pictures of) combined with the no new scholarship (now that we have a ton of stuff worth talking about).

We got home in time for me to take in the Palazzo Massimo, where the best frescoes and mosaics in town are (the girls were tired and stayed in the hotel). Upon asking the guards for a contact to ask for permission to publish photos I learned the Italian word for “@”, namely chiocciola, “snail.” Makes sense, but they liked "at" better – fewer syllables! The contrast between the beauty of the exhibits and space at the Palazzo Massimo and those at the Museo Archeologico in Naples is severe – I know the secret meaning of SPQR is “sono porci, questi Romani!,” but their national museums are GORGEOUS. Took zillions of pictures of floors and walls, and not a few of famous and obscure heads. Still didn't have enough time, even without the girls, since I didn't want to leave them for too long and it was getting close to dinner time.

I was initially annoyed that we didn't get to Cerveteri, but it turned out to be a good day, and not as stressful as yesterday on the girls. Tomorrow's extra exciting for me, though – a tour of Ostia Antica. I've never been, so this will be all new (so far we've taken in all stuff I've seen before – new work on most of the sites has made it more interesting for me, but still). Life would be better if the temperature ever fell below 93F during the day, but oh well.

28.7 More at San Vincenzo

I spent the morning at the excavations of the old Abbey. The 12th c church up the hill from the 7th c monastic house still had a lot of its frescoes intact, including an entire section of crypt that wasn't complete enough to be worth covering up. (The 9th c crypt has most of its walls intact, and so has been locked up to keep it looking good.) It was still astoundingly hot, so I didn't stay long, but did crawl over the frescoes and take lots of pictures. (Oh the love we have for the digital camera! Want to take 400 pictures in a day? Do it! No guilt! No paying for "hmm, well, THAT didn't come out as well as I'd hoped" failures! Love the new camera especially for its ability to take nearly flash-quality pictures with no flash.) A better overview of the whole thing, for those willing to slog through the Italian, is here: http://xoomer.virgilio.it/davmonac/sanvin/index.html

After lunch a friend of Mother Agnes took us to the station, where we realized we had left all the refrigerated medicine... in the refrigerator. We panicked, but Mother Agnes, being telephoned, told us not to worry and that she would find a way to get it to us.

29.7 Pantheon

We walked most of the way down, finding a grocery store for more juice boxes and a toy store which has inspired us. Smurf chess sets! Playmobil ninjas! SPQR Risk! (Which we will own once we get to Parma and don't need to tote it around in luggage.) Finally gave up and got a cab the rest of the way down.

Such an amazing building. The girls weren't all that interested in my explanations of the various bits, but they did like the mosaic floors and the intense marble work. Gelato, of course, is required in this neighborhood -- I was told Della Palma was da bomb, and it was delicious, but I may try to get to Monteforte before we leave, as my memories of that place are just magnificent. From there we went and tossed our coins into the Trevi, then a cab home -- too hot and too tired to walk any further.

30.7 Palatine Hill, Forum and Colosseum

These come as one ticket and I have learned to acquire said ticket at the back of the Palatine Hill. After all, we’ve ALL heard of the Colosseum, let’s go stand in line THERE! With a ticket purchased in a line composed of the couple in front of us and us, we cruise right in. But the Palatine is pretty cool. I took a picture of my foot on a bit of floor from the Domus Augustana – that’s right, I walked where Auggie himself walked! Woot! (Yeah, I call him Auggie ‘cuz we’re tight like that, Auggie and me.) More pictures of bits of in situ flooring, and a few of the Villa Farnesina frescoes from the xx century. I had forgotten how much of the Palatine had been covered up with Renaissance-era palazzos; on the one hand, seems a shame to pull them down to get to the ancient stuff, but hey, the ancient stuff! So it’s a puzzle. A lot more excavation work has been done, which means a lot is covered with ugly orange mesh fence and scaffolding. The Circus Maximus is completely closed off because of some sort of emergency restoration. Since most of the Circus is grass, I’m wondering what needs emergency work, but I couldn’t get close enough to the signs to see.

Down in the Forum, the changes since I was here 9 years ago are considerable. The Curia has been converted into an exhbition space, about which I am ambivalent. (I’m ambivalent about a lot in the next few days, be warned.) It’s a big empty space – cool floor mosaics (I am discovering in myself a fascination with floor design) but not much else going on – and thus great for showing off some of the bits and pieces discovered in the ongoing excavations. But it’s hard to get a sense of The Senate Met Here when there are exhibits everywhere.

Meanwhile in front of the Curia are new excavations – are these of the so-called Palace of Romulus of which I’ve heard? It was definitely some kind of mosaic-y looking floor and all covered with greenish glass to keep out the sunlight. No posting of any kind of what it was, and it blocked access to the Arch of Septimius Severus and the Tablinarium, pooh. But Rosie was getting tired so Elise and I cut short our admiration of the Comitium and headed back up to the Colosseum.

A lot of work has been done here too. There was an exhibit on the process of cleaning the dear old thing, and I got a great pic of several cleaned next to several uncleaned supports on the second floor – EWWW. Welcome to 1900 years of city living, smog and soot. It’s a slow process (no one wants to powerwash stone that potentially porous, after all!) but the results look great. It was too long a day for Rose in the end, though, so we had to come back and go to bed.