Back from Rome. It was my first visit, and I'm afraid I don't feel I've been missing much. Chaotic, full of tourists, little respect for the ancient sites and history that coexists with the modern city, etc. And the food wasn't even anything special; we eat much better in Bologna. This might've just been bad luck in the restaurants we wound up in, though... We would've liked to have explored the Trastevere, where we were staying, a bit more, but it was such a lightning-quick trip that we didn't have time.
Sara ordered an almond-milk drink at one point. It was like a liquid marzipan, although not that sweet. Interesting. I would've liked to order one myself but we didn't find another place that served it.
I could not, alas, partake of the orgy of gelato flavor-tasting with everyone else. Sigh.
(And, in general, I found the pastries rather lacking, since I'm not a fan of cream-filled things and there wasn't much else, if and when there was even that.)
The gay life in Rome (not to mention all of Italy) is oddly repressed (well, not unsurprising given the Pope and all that, but in terms of the development of the country in terms of its size, compared to other European countries, it is quite lacking). I stopped by the Libreria babele, the local glbt bookshop, and they were quite nice and friendly, but the selection of available titles is, alas, quite small. I did find an interesting anthology of Italian gay and lesbian poetry, though, and picked up some of the local magazines.
The outgoing flight was quite delated due to the tail end of the hurricaine; not because Madrid had much rain or even winds, but all the planes due to land in the north were rerouted through Madrid so our flight couldn't get to a gate until very late. Which meant we arrived after the trains had stopped running and had to take an expensive taxi ride from the aiport. Sigh. Same for the return flight, which was early Sunday morning (but otherwise uneventful).
I managed to do a bit of work while in transit, but am still horribly far behind on much-near-everything. And people have already arrived for Liber so all that socialzing and meetings and events and so on are gearing up already.
Overall, I am afraid Rome just didn't click with me. It wasn't by any means a bad experience, but I didn't warm to the city much. (We were lucky with weather, though; sunny if humid.) The city is strangely uninhabted by animals, aside form the wild cats among the ruind. But very few people had dogs, and there was little other wildlife around--not even birds flocking to the tourists' leaving, nor when we went to the gardens near the Villa Borghese (which were also largely denuded of grass in spots, and who had the brilliant idea of running a highway through the park?)
I quite like many places in Northern Italy, especially our annual visit to Bologna for the children's book fair.
Sara ordered an almond-milk drink at one point. It was like a liquid marzipan, although not that sweet. Interesting. I would've liked to order one myself but we didn't find another place that served it.
I could not, alas, partake of the orgy of gelato flavor-tasting with everyone else. Sigh.
(And, in general, I found the pastries rather lacking, since I'm not a fan of cream-filled things and there wasn't much else, if and when there was even that.)
The gay life in Rome (not to mention all of Italy) is oddly repressed (well, not unsurprising given the Pope and all that, but in terms of the development of the country in terms of its size, compared to other European countries, it is quite lacking). I stopped by the Libreria babele, the local glbt bookshop, and they were quite nice and friendly, but the selection of available titles is, alas, quite small. I did find an interesting anthology of Italian gay and lesbian poetry, though, and picked up some of the local magazines.
The outgoing flight was quite delated due to the tail end of the hurricaine; not because Madrid had much rain or even winds, but all the planes due to land in the north were rerouted through Madrid so our flight couldn't get to a gate until very late. Which meant we arrived after the trains had stopped running and had to take an expensive taxi ride from the aiport. Sigh. Same for the return flight, which was early Sunday morning (but otherwise uneventful).
I managed to do a bit of work while in transit, but am still horribly far behind on much-near-everything. And people have already arrived for Liber so all that socialzing and meetings and events and so on are gearing up already.
Overall, I am afraid Rome just didn't click with me. It wasn't by any means a bad experience, but I didn't warm to the city much. (We were lucky with weather, though; sunny if humid.) The city is strangely uninhabted by animals, aside form the wild cats among the ruind. But very few people had dogs, and there was little other wildlife around--not even birds flocking to the tourists' leaving, nor when we went to the gardens near the Villa Borghese (which were also largely denuded of grass in spots, and who had the brilliant idea of running a highway through the park?)
I quite like many places in Northern Italy, especially our annual visit to Bologna for the children's book fair.