CHIAVARI, Italy - Rome was the first city in
Italy I ever lived in, and like a first love, it holds a special place in my
heart. I was there to study Italian. Through the school I found a room to rent on
the Via della Vite, near the Spanish Steps. The apartment was owned by an old
woman named Niola, and her only other ‘tenant’ was a girl from Argentina who
was also going to school in Rome.
 |
| S[panish Steps |
I don’t know what she was studying, or
anything else about her as she didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Italian.
But we got along ok, she didn’t take up space on my shelf of the refrigerator
and I didn’t take up space on hers.
Every weekday morning I would take the bus
from Piazza San Silvestro out to the school on the Via Nomentana and spend four
grueling hours trying to get a grip on Italian grammar. It was torture trying
to wrap my tongue around all the complicated verb forms, but thankfully, from
one o'clock on, the day was my own and oh how I treasured it.
 |
| Via Condotti |
I loved living in the center of Rome. Every afternoon as the stores re-opened from
their mid-day break, the narrow streets of my neighborhood, which included the
famous Via Condotti, would slowly fill with people of every age, Romans and foreigners
alike. I used to spend hours walking those streets, window shopping and
dreaming of the day I would live in Italy forever.
It was great fun to look in the windows of
the oo la la fancy shops on the Via Condotti, but more interesting were the small
open air markets that seem to sprout up from one day to the next like giant
mushrooms after a rain. I found them irresistible, especially the food markets. Growing up in a country where most foods come
pre-packaged and shrink-wrapped, I loved being able to buy three egg, six
carrots or just one potato, if that was all that I wanted. No one cared. It didn’t matter. Everyone
shopped that way, and they still do.
 |
| Trevi Fountain |
On days
that I didn’t have school, I would walk to the small outdoor market near the
Trevi Fountain to do my weekly grocery shopping. I would cross the Via del Tritone, go up Via
del Stamperia, then turn and head toward the vendors. It was just at that point,
near the corner bar, that I would be greeted by a Rudolph Valentino look alike
who bow ever so slightly and say, "Buon girorno, Contessa." I'd stutter and stammer and finally come out
with what I hoped was "and a good morning to you too."
Now I know that in Italy everyone calls
everyone else cara or carrissima, or caro if it’s a guy, or Contessa or any of
the other hundreds of endearing names and it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
Even my slightly senile landlady, Signora Niola, used to have imaginary
conversations that always started with ‘ciao cara’ and continued as she walked
around the apartment talking to ‘her.’
At first I thought she was talking to me, but she wasn’t, so I got out of her
way.
 |
| Trevi Market Looked Something Like This |
But I liked the Trevi market and if having
this guy call me Contessa was the worst that was happening to me, it didn’t
seem bothersome enough to worry about. The Trevi market was not organized like
most of the other markets in the city, it was more of a meeting place where
farmers sold their produce and goods like honey and jams and wine. You had to
bring your own bottles if you wanted to buy wine, and they would fill them from
the barrels they had on the back of their trucks.
My favorite stall was run by a very old woman
who sold live chickens and eggs. She would wrap the eggs, one by one, in torn
off squares of newspaper, hand them to
me to put in my shopping bag, and then hold out her wrinkled hand for the
money. She never spoke to me. I later figured out that it was probably because
I was actually asking her for two or three grapes, confusing the Italian words
for grapes and eggs and she realized any attempt at conversation would most
likely be a complete waste of time.
 |
| Daily Market at Campo Dei Fiori |
There are open markets in most of the
city's neighborhoods. One of the best is the one at the Campo de'Fiori. There
are two very different versions of how the Campo got its name. The most obvious
is that before it became part of the city, it was a meadow of flowers. It's a
nice story but I prefer the Roman legend which says the Campo was named after
an actress named Flora, who lived during the time of the Caesars. Her theatre,
which was the largest in ancient Rome, used to stand on what is now the
northeast corner of the square. Or it could very well be that both stories are
true. In Rome anything is possible.
Some of my favorite Italian memories come
from those early experiences in Rome, and every once in a while I get a
hankering to go back and walk the streets and revisit those early days, which
is what is going on right now.
No comments:
Post a Comment