A concert, a kiss and a half-eaten sandwich...

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

I have just purchased a single ticket for what sounds like a great concert, 28 May at the same place as before -- the Parco della Musica. I know the way there and back (basically, taxi), I know the place and how it works and the time is nice and early -- 6 pm, so I'll be home before it's too late.

Here's the program -- all eastern Europe:

Orchestra e Coro dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Constantinos Carydis direttore, lexander Toradze pianoforte

Borodin
- Danze Polovesiane
Šostakovic
- Concerto per pianoforte n. 2
Cajkovskij
- Sinfonia n. 6 "Patetica"

That's of course Borodin, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky. A powerful show. And if this link works, the red dot represents my seat...

I actually had wanted to go to a concert that is sold out -- the Israeli/Palestinian Orchestra for Peace, conducted by Daniel Berenboim... too bad. But this one will do.

This afternoon I managed to miss my school mates and an aperitivi party. As a warmup and wifi check-in I stopped for a glass of excellent red wine with peanuts and chips at Cafe Barnum at about 6:30, thinking to catch up with the gang in the Campo de’Fiore ... the wine and checking mail was fun, but although the cafes in the Campo were all packed, I never did find "my" group...

However, next best thing, I did finally find a friendly Lavandaria -- where they take your pants and your shirt and return them in 24 hours washed, dried and hung on hangars... what luxury!

I'll find out tomorrow where everyone was, but I don't think I missed much...

After turning my pants in to the red-headed lady behind the counter I decided to extend the evening by walking to Hadrian's Tomb (Castel Sant’Angelo) at sunset... glorious gigantic famous round thing on the Tiber... with a pedestrian bridge leading to it, lined with statues... of course I took pictures.

If you return into Rome along the bridge and on to the street in the same direction, Tomb at your back, the street leads you back into my neighborhood. I had not realized just how close these things are. From Hadrian's tomb it's a straight shot to the front of St. Peters... They basically are connected, and you can see one clearly from the other. Rome gets smaller every moment.

Wrote Jane Corey (we met in Firenze last Saturday) to ask how she's doing... Great, it turns out. In Paris visiting/staying with friends from Berkeley, eating salmon; tomorrow everyone's going to Giverny. Jane noted that in my case time must be going faster and faster... and it's true. So much I still want to do here -- walks in Trastevere, the Etruscan Museum not far from Villa Borghese, the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, Naples, and so forth... eating in every last tasty-looking hole-in-the-wall trattoria...

I'm keeping up with the work at school. It's getting easier, as we seem to be in a kind of review/holding pattern, repeating stuff we've studied earlier. A lot of this detail – the trapassato remoto? -- will be useless in conversation, but it's good to know more than one uses, I guess.

I'm hearing, reading and speaking Italian every day, all day long, and sometimes even the most humble human interaction can be surprising. There was a couple in a doorway embracing and kissing. She had a half-eaten sandwich in one hand, holding on to it with the same hand she was using to run her fingers through his hair. I know, it sounds creepy, but it wasn't, exactly. As I passed I called out "baciare e mangiare!" ("kissing and eating") and the guy looked at me and laughed.

Moments like that are why I'm in school. Not. Wait a minute... really? I guess so! Tell me what else Italian is good for. You can do opera in German, if you have to.