My first night in Rome was kind of like... meeting up with an old college buddy after five or ten years. It was frenetic, and exhausting, and awesome, full of nostalgia, and I passed many a bittersweet moment reflecting on all that was THEN, and NOW.
But first. Train from Sorrento, and then from Naples, all went smooth. I'm a Rail Pro by then end of this freaking adventure. Even the train ride itself was a little sad as I realized this was the last train I would be taking on my trip. Flying to Athens, ferry to and from Santorini... this was it for the mighty European Rail System. So very fitting that my last train would pull me into none other than Roma Termini. It was 6:00 or so in the evening.
My hostel was near Termini, as are pretty much all the hostels in Rome. I did not want to stay in this area; I very much wanted to be exactly where I had been the first time, in the quiet and picturesque Monti neighborhood just five minutes from the Colosseum. But that had been a very different trip with a very different budget, and now my kinds of places were scattered around what my old Rome guidebook called "the seedy area around the train station." Well, whatever. Rome is Rome. I found the place with no difficulty, checked in, and literally discovered I was standing in my hostel kitchen, rubbing my hands together sort of absentmindedly while walking in a very small circle. I had made it to Rome. I was back, finally, against all odds, and now I had no idea where to start.
I spread my hostel-furnished map of the city on the table and just smiled. There they were, all my old friends. Waiting for me. I familiarized myself with street names and routes, picked out the obvious landmarks: the Trevi, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Vittoriano. I touched the street where my old hotel had been, Via Bochetto. And then I put my map in my pocket and I set out.
I was making for the Trevi. I'd wanted the first thing I saw to be the Pantheon, as it remains my favorite building in Rome and also it was the first thing I'd happened to come across my very first night in the city three years ago. But given the position of my hostel, the Trevi was kind of directly between me and the Pantheon. So...
One of the things I remember about the Trevi was that I was always able to hear it before I saw it. It was a sad sort of shock to realize that wasn't really the case this time around. I don't know why. Maybe they turned down the water pressure? Maybe things are just never quite how you remember them?
In the vein of that last thought, I definitely did not remember the sheer army of hawkers, sharks, sheisters, and one can only assume, pickpockets and thieves that encircled this poor beleaguered tourist-thronged piazza. I have been traveling for nearly three months and I can say with utter certainty that I have never seen anything quite like this. They were everywhere, and they straight-out ruined it. Maybe this has everything to do with the fact that I'm a lot more grouchy and a lot less naive than I was three+ years ago, but I seriously do not remember it like this. But at any rate, the Trevi sadly did not have the magic or appeal for me that it had the first time around. All these circling predators were making me uncomfortable. Last time, I got a pistachio gelato and sat on the railing of the fountain while I ate it, taking my time, observing everything, happy as a clam. This time, it was a pause for a couple photos and I headed on my way.
My very first night in Rome, I wandered around lost for something like eight hours. Just when I was thinking of going to bed early, I came out of a narrow alleyway and stumbled onto this:
I remember being so overwhelmed. I got a glass of red in a cafe overlooking this exact view, and wrote in my journal a quiet and humble prayer. "I'm here. I made it. Thank you."
This night, I wanted so much to sit at that same cafe and remember all that I had felt and thought on that one remarkable night that remains one of the best in my whole life. I walked up and took a look at their posted menu. A glass of wine was 7.50 euro. Ah, those were different times. And all things considered, I would not trade my life then for my life now, for anything in the world. I smiled and set off for the next spot on my Rome Nostalgia Treasure Hunt.
I was heading for the Colosseum, but to get there I had to pass the Vittoriano.
My heels were starting to seriously protest this incredible city-wide trek of ill treatment, but I was ignoring them. I had an agenda. I had shit I needed to do.
I said Hi to the Colosseo, and then turned my pain-in-the-ass feet up the Via Serpenti. I was calling on an old friend.
So I kind of fell in love a little bit, the last time I was here. I don't mean with the city, although that is true as well. I fell in love with a lady bartender named Monya who remains the single most sensual gorgeous creature I have ever seen. She worked in a tiny bar around the corner from my old hotel that I have named the Sodium Light Bar in my head because of the yellow light that filled the place. I found it halfway through my trip and came there every night after that. The entire place was filled with graceful, feral animals, drumming beats to the American Jazz on a giant bin of olives, breaking out into spontaneous song. And Monya moved like tending bar was the most graceful sexy dance in the world, a dance that only she knew the moves to.
My last night in Rome, the bartenders of the Sodium Light Bar let me stay past closing. We chatted and joked as they cleaned up. I even offered to help but they wouldn't hear of it. Monya pulled a bottle of vodka out from under the counter and we all did a shot together. As I stood up to go finally, she fixed me with a sexy glare and said: "You will come back, yes?"
I promised. I promised I would come back, to Rome, to the Sodium Light Bar, even though at the time I had no idea what life would bring or how I would ever accomplish this. And now, somehow... holy shit. I found myself back in the Eternal City. I wanted, more than anything, to find the Sodium Light Bar and see Monya there. I had no illusions about her actually remembering me. But I wanted to see her and tell her. "I came back. I kept my promise." And I am also under no disillusions regarding the turnover of bar and wait staff. I knew the chances of her actually being there were pretty much slim to none. All the same I had to try.
The Sodium Light Bar was full to bursting with Italians. It was the kind of place I never would have the courage to approach normally, but this was a special situation. I pushed my way through the crowd and up to the bar.
No Monya. I smiled quietly to myself and ordered a glass of house wine, which turned out to be more expensive than what I would normally be comfortable paying. I sat at the counter and remembered my teaching the bartenders of three years ago how to say "Through the arch and to the right", these being the directions to the toilet. Later, as I stood up to go pee, someone actually told me "To the right," and I wanted to shake him and say "I know! This is my place! I belong here!" But of course I didn't, because Monya was not here and clearly this was not my place anymore. Whatever magic had been here three years ago, it was hers and she had taken it with her.
As I left, I asked one of the bartenders about Monya. The woman remembered her but said she had moved on. She even gave me the name of her new place, and later I looked it up on Google Maps, but it was way outside the city in the suburbs, not somewhere easily traversed by someone dependent on mass transit. I was going to have to leave Monya in my memory, where undoubtedly she is safest.
I said goodnight to the Sodium Light Bar, which, I realized, got its yellow light from cut-glass sconces and not from sodium bulbs at all, and walked past my old hotel just for a lark. Then it was time to head up Via Natzionale towards Termini and my new temporary home in the Eternal City.
The next morning I would wake up to find myself 33.
But first. Train from Sorrento, and then from Naples, all went smooth. I'm a Rail Pro by then end of this freaking adventure. Even the train ride itself was a little sad as I realized this was the last train I would be taking on my trip. Flying to Athens, ferry to and from Santorini... this was it for the mighty European Rail System. So very fitting that my last train would pull me into none other than Roma Termini. It was 6:00 or so in the evening.
My hostel was near Termini, as are pretty much all the hostels in Rome. I did not want to stay in this area; I very much wanted to be exactly where I had been the first time, in the quiet and picturesque Monti neighborhood just five minutes from the Colosseum. But that had been a very different trip with a very different budget, and now my kinds of places were scattered around what my old Rome guidebook called "the seedy area around the train station." Well, whatever. Rome is Rome. I found the place with no difficulty, checked in, and literally discovered I was standing in my hostel kitchen, rubbing my hands together sort of absentmindedly while walking in a very small circle. I had made it to Rome. I was back, finally, against all odds, and now I had no idea where to start.
I spread my hostel-furnished map of the city on the table and just smiled. There they were, all my old friends. Waiting for me. I familiarized myself with street names and routes, picked out the obvious landmarks: the Trevi, the Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Vittoriano. I touched the street where my old hotel had been, Via Bochetto. And then I put my map in my pocket and I set out.
I was making for the Trevi. I'd wanted the first thing I saw to be the Pantheon, as it remains my favorite building in Rome and also it was the first thing I'd happened to come across my very first night in the city three years ago. But given the position of my hostel, the Trevi was kind of directly between me and the Pantheon. So...
One of the things I remember about the Trevi was that I was always able to hear it before I saw it. It was a sad sort of shock to realize that wasn't really the case this time around. I don't know why. Maybe they turned down the water pressure? Maybe things are just never quite how you remember them?
In the vein of that last thought, I definitely did not remember the sheer army of hawkers, sharks, sheisters, and one can only assume, pickpockets and thieves that encircled this poor beleaguered tourist-thronged piazza. I have been traveling for nearly three months and I can say with utter certainty that I have never seen anything quite like this. They were everywhere, and they straight-out ruined it. Maybe this has everything to do with the fact that I'm a lot more grouchy and a lot less naive than I was three+ years ago, but I seriously do not remember it like this. But at any rate, the Trevi sadly did not have the magic or appeal for me that it had the first time around. All these circling predators were making me uncomfortable. Last time, I got a pistachio gelato and sat on the railing of the fountain while I ate it, taking my time, observing everything, happy as a clam. This time, it was a pause for a couple photos and I headed on my way.
My very first night in Rome, I wandered around lost for something like eight hours. Just when I was thinking of going to bed early, I came out of a narrow alleyway and stumbled onto this:
I remember being so overwhelmed. I got a glass of red in a cafe overlooking this exact view, and wrote in my journal a quiet and humble prayer. "I'm here. I made it. Thank you."
This night, I wanted so much to sit at that same cafe and remember all that I had felt and thought on that one remarkable night that remains one of the best in my whole life. I walked up and took a look at their posted menu. A glass of wine was 7.50 euro. Ah, those were different times. And all things considered, I would not trade my life then for my life now, for anything in the world. I smiled and set off for the next spot on my Rome Nostalgia Treasure Hunt.
I was heading for the Colosseum, but to get there I had to pass the Vittoriano.
My heels were starting to seriously protest this incredible city-wide trek of ill treatment, but I was ignoring them. I had an agenda. I had shit I needed to do.
I said Hi to the Colosseo, and then turned my pain-in-the-ass feet up the Via Serpenti. I was calling on an old friend.
So I kind of fell in love a little bit, the last time I was here. I don't mean with the city, although that is true as well. I fell in love with a lady bartender named Monya who remains the single most sensual gorgeous creature I have ever seen. She worked in a tiny bar around the corner from my old hotel that I have named the Sodium Light Bar in my head because of the yellow light that filled the place. I found it halfway through my trip and came there every night after that. The entire place was filled with graceful, feral animals, drumming beats to the American Jazz on a giant bin of olives, breaking out into spontaneous song. And Monya moved like tending bar was the most graceful sexy dance in the world, a dance that only she knew the moves to.
My last night in Rome, the bartenders of the Sodium Light Bar let me stay past closing. We chatted and joked as they cleaned up. I even offered to help but they wouldn't hear of it. Monya pulled a bottle of vodka out from under the counter and we all did a shot together. As I stood up to go finally, she fixed me with a sexy glare and said: "You will come back, yes?"
I promised. I promised I would come back, to Rome, to the Sodium Light Bar, even though at the time I had no idea what life would bring or how I would ever accomplish this. And now, somehow... holy shit. I found myself back in the Eternal City. I wanted, more than anything, to find the Sodium Light Bar and see Monya there. I had no illusions about her actually remembering me. But I wanted to see her and tell her. "I came back. I kept my promise." And I am also under no disillusions regarding the turnover of bar and wait staff. I knew the chances of her actually being there were pretty much slim to none. All the same I had to try.
The Sodium Light Bar was full to bursting with Italians. It was the kind of place I never would have the courage to approach normally, but this was a special situation. I pushed my way through the crowd and up to the bar.
No Monya. I smiled quietly to myself and ordered a glass of house wine, which turned out to be more expensive than what I would normally be comfortable paying. I sat at the counter and remembered my teaching the bartenders of three years ago how to say "Through the arch and to the right", these being the directions to the toilet. Later, as I stood up to go pee, someone actually told me "To the right," and I wanted to shake him and say "I know! This is my place! I belong here!" But of course I didn't, because Monya was not here and clearly this was not my place anymore. Whatever magic had been here three years ago, it was hers and she had taken it with her.
As I left, I asked one of the bartenders about Monya. The woman remembered her but said she had moved on. She even gave me the name of her new place, and later I looked it up on Google Maps, but it was way outside the city in the suburbs, not somewhere easily traversed by someone dependent on mass transit. I was going to have to leave Monya in my memory, where undoubtedly she is safest.
I said goodnight to the Sodium Light Bar, which, I realized, got its yellow light from cut-glass sconces and not from sodium bulbs at all, and walked past my old hotel just for a lark. Then it was time to head up Via Natzionale towards Termini and my new temporary home in the Eternal City.
The next morning I would wake up to find myself 33.
This should be turned into a short story. Incredible, Mary! Amazing pictures too!
ReplyDeleteThank you Hon! Rome is an undeniable muse. :)
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