late-night lasagna, timtams, pear juice, and paper-writing

First off, it's 1,30 my time and my apartment is finally quiet and peaceful- I'm sitting at our dining room table not quite sleepy but entirely aware of the fact that I have class in 8 hours. Anyway. Today was a really interesting day and I don't blame you if you don't read all of this. It's kind of for my own reference, too. But feel free to read on as part of your finals procrastination ;)

So today started out chilly and cloudy, pretty typical for a Roman November day. Class all day, test in italiano about various literary terms and stuff.. fun. Last night I finished my second-to-last final paper in italiano, which was a composition about this dramatic love affair in which a guy named Claudio has his heart ripped apart by his ragazza, Elena. I was inspired to use Elena because it's the name of a girl I met on the train back from Vienna this past weekend. Anyway, class was normal, got pizza bufala from Pizza Pazza, the tavola calda near school on piazza Trilussa.

Then I went boot hunting. No luck, but definitely made the sweep up via Arenula, toward Corso, up Corso, down the street parallel to Corso, down via dei Condotti (hahahah like I can afford anything on that street- it's the Michigan Ave/5th Ave of Roma).. I am currently on this special quest to find flat suede slouch boots in both black and brown. And I would also like a nice pair of brown leather boots, also flat, with some wear and not too equestrian-looking. Challenge. The nice part about this time of year is that it gets dark at like 16,30 every day, so by the time I really got into my boot hunt, the Christmas lights strung like clotheslines from building to building were twinkling and all was gorgeous in my beautiful city. I will post pictures later- they're still on my fotocamera. I found 2 exceptional things on my wander today:

1) the dry cleaning store that the Vatican uses to get the Swiss Guard uniforms cleaned- OMG
2) Giolitti, not so much by accident. Today was a mela verde/visciola/riso day. Mmmmm. And yea, the skinnier dark-haired scooper with the most formal uniform did comment on the fact that I come to Giolitti a lot. And he asked me why I was alone as he handed me my LARGE cone of HEAPING incredible gelato. I love being a girl here.

I also had a wry conversation with a nice italiano about the incessant winter rains in Roma. Ogni giorno devo portare l'ombrellone quando esco! After a few hours of walking I headed back to Trastevere, where the Christmas lights dance above the cobblestones and light up the backstreets of Old Rome. Pizza Pazza happened again (gli zucchini con some rando cream/cheesy sauce) and then I made my way to school again to watch Gomorra, a film one of my professoresse made us go see. Which leads me to another point..

Gomorra is a film made up of six short episodes with six main characters-- all revolving around the four-sided criminality between the port of Naples, Scampia, Castelvolturno and Terzigno. It's based on the book written by an Italian writer, who was placed under a death sentence by the Camorra clan he exposed. Mafiosi at their cruelest, meanest, most desperate and malicious. It was really dark and good, I guess, but definitely unsettling and upsetting. It's real. And after seeing it, I'm not sure I can ever return to Napoli or Campagna.. it was a dealbreaker. Very intense film-- it took on the form of a documentary moreso than a film with a plotline. Also, it showed the Camorra at all of its stages: a young boy longing to be a part of it, young men gunned down, a middle-aged man wheeling and dealing for thousands of Euros, old men relaying messages and delivering orders. Opposing sides constantly "at war" with one another. Dark and true. It added a whole new dimension to this semester. I mean, I obviously KNEW that the Camorra was still active and still ruthless in Campagna (anyone who really knows anything about Italia knows that much).... but the fact that it was so real and so..accurate kind of made me think and brought me back down to earth. Italia isn't Disneyland. It's a real country with real problems. Food for thought. If you're interested in gangster movies or modern Italian clture, definitely see Gomorra.

Anyway, time to work on a history paper. Ciaociao a tutti! Un bacio~