Rome VI

May 16, 2015

We went by bus to see Will’s friend Larry out in-- Garbetella? I have forgotten the name, a suburb of Rome built by Mussolini to be a sort of workers’ paradise, and in truth not falling far short of that. For “public housing” it is idyllic and elegant, the people living in the streets and the playgrounds as they might in any neighborhood or village. The architecture is simple, evocative, elegant,  what Mussolini called “rational.” I suppose it is that, too. The roses are enormous, and when we arrived, at sunset, glowed like embers. Larry is an energetic and talkative man of exactly my age (he was born the day after me) who is Senor Warden at St. Paul’s, and, believe me, there was a good deal of talk about that. He loves his community and is a fount of information that we, alas, left largely untapped. He took us to a seafood restaurant where we were the only tourists. Huge groups sat on long picnic tables, loud, boisterous, long-enduring, much hugging, much consuming, as in the movies where you think it’s an exaggeration, but it is not. So many courses! I’d make a bad Italian. You say goodbye for half an hour at the table, then at the door, then outside the door, then at the car or taxi as you’re getting in, kissing and exclaiming the whole way. I disappear into the night when no one’s looking. Garbetella is unlike Via Nazionale. It is another country. It is the country. Downtown Rome could arguably be New York or London if you didn’t take in the history. At the end of the bus line is Italy. Best evening yet. The busses were on strike–for no particular reason– so we took a taxi home. Packing my bags for the move to the Homs Hotel.