Today started off as any other day has this week, light breakfast, seeing Nico off to school, then I decided to shave. This was an ordeal. I had to try and get my trimmer to work for the first time in the 220 watt outlet with my converter… well, when I turned it on, it made this horribly loud buzzing sound, like the saw in a horror movie moving closer to the protagonist’s head or groin (depending on their gender). I immediately turned it off, then readjusted some things and tried again. Alas, still death whirring… So with my handy leatherman, I took apart my trimmer to see if I could fix it. After taking it apart, cleaning it, then tightening some things, I put it back together… and… you know that feeling you get when you are working with your hands, on an engine, or a machine, then you fix it and it purrs like a kitten? Yeah, me neither. I turned it on again and still I thought I was being invaded by hundreds of tiny Japanese airplanes in my bathroom. So I got in the shower with my awesome 2 blade razor Raffa bought for me and looked the inevitable bloodbath in the face. Funny thing, even with only two blades, the high pressure of the water made it feel super smooth and didn’t hurt in the least! I love Roman water! It tastes good, doesn’t give you diarrhea, and my shower has LOTS of pressure! After this LONG ordeal, I began to wander around the flat thinking of what I wanted to do today… After getting my laundry hung up on the terrace (terrazzo) upstairs, then trying to figure out how to ask Anita when I should come back so she could let me on the terrazzo to pick my clothes, I started perusing my Rick Steve’s book to give me sight-seeing ideas and decided to check out the catacombs that are smaller, less crowded. Luckily they’re about 5 minutes away walking (on my via Salaria trips, I’d trekked past it twice…).
The crypts are called the Priscilla Catacombs, between via Priscilla and via Salaria. As I got there, I paid the 8 euro (Rick lied, not 6 ;) to see them and decided to take the Italian tour that was leaving now instead of waiting 30 minutes for the English tour. I didn’t get a lot of details from the tour, but did get most of the main concepts. Affondo o nuoto… I sink or I swim. Afterwards, I went to the stazione termini to price train tickets to Milano e Venezia ecc. They were more expensive than I anticipated… Giorgio said the trains were becoming more privatized and so would be more relatively more expensive than they have been in the past. Sad day. But there are cheap-ish tickets I can still get, and apparently, flights out of Italy are more reasonable since there is more competition amongst airlines. Yay! I found a pretty neat Irish pub just near the stazione termini that I would like to go back to for lunch or something sometime… It was large, had a very Irish feel, and was full of Italians. I guess, that’d be a great place to hide from tourists. What tourist would look in an Irish pub for food while they’re in Italy?
When I got back and got my clothes off the terrazzo, Nico got back from school with his friend Mattia. Mattia was a very polite young man and was patient with Nico (he gets a little more rambunctious with his friends). Raffa made some pasta that an old friend of hers had made and given to her with homemade ragu sauce as well… oh my gosh, that was by FAR, the best pasta I’ve ever, EVER had. EVER! We also had grilled zucchini and carrots and pulpitte (meatballs). After dinner we played with toy soldiers in a war of Germany versus Scotland, and I definitely would have won if the Scottish bagpipe players carried weapons on them! What else are they going to carry in those little pouches around their kilts? A small .380! Then we watched the Garfield movie (I really liked it, Bill Murray rocked it, and Odie, so cute) and some Wii action, then headed to bed…
Tomorrow the boys have futbol practice, for their PE team and I’m not working… I just don’t know what I’m going to be doing all day… AH! I’ve just had an apostrophe!
Rubberducky, out!
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