A Tale of Two Cities

Rome most of the time is one big mess, at times endearing and at times infuriating. Yet there are moments when it can truly seem like two very completely different places as if I am living in a parallel universe.

Rome being the capital city is constantly under pressure by governmental forces to be a modern city. Take the annoying epigram that Mayor Veltroni gave to Rome and which adorns many a tourist map - replacing "Rome: The Eternal City" with "Rome: The Happening City" Anyone who has ever visited Rome and certainly any longtime residents knows what a fallacy this is no matter how many film festivals and jazz concerts get thrown at us.

A big city with all the problems of a large urban center yet a provincial mindset and a medieval bureaucracy have been known to drive many a foreigner mad with frustration while Italians and Romans in particular merely shrug their shoulders in complacency. This duality is rooted in nearly everything in Rome.

And yet it's those very contrasts that continue to make Rome an interesting city to me. Take for instance, the small independent children's bookshop I discovered about a month ago. Il Brucalibro might as well have had heavenly rays shining down on it - that's how much it compelled me and drew my attention that I nearly got into an accident on our scooter from stopping so suddenly. I made my way in and was delighted to find an amazing collection of books, two very lovely and amiable women who own it who are more than helpful and a small, but interesting list of activities and workshops for children. Now Giulia, Paloma and I are permanent fixtures there every Saturday as Giulia does yoga and this weekend they'll be doing a recycling arts project with a woman from the WWF. They have only been open a year and business is slow and tough. Everyone wants Disney and Winx and not the one of a kind, beautifully written and illustrated books for children they offer instead. So in any other city, this little shop would be one of many community resources and in a neighborhood like Piazza Crati where there are so many children - they should have already doubled in size and had even more events going on. Instead they struggle and who knows if they'll survive. So the big city comes to Rome, but Rome doesn't want it.

We have a good friend who is a specialist surgeon at a university hospital here and people come from all over Italy to be operated by him. Recently he showed us his latest gift from a grateful patient - a Bang & Olufsen stereo system. Now that's not a box of chocolates or bouquet of flowers! Steve and I asked if this was common practice here and apparently it is - especially a tradition of southern Italy. However, southern Italy being a poorer region - the Bang & Olufsens are replaced by live hens, a recently slaughtered lamb in its bloody entirety and enough sausage, salami, cheese and crappy homemade wine to last several lifetimes.

So in a city where cute, innovative, interesting shops struggle and the lamb is slaughtered for good health and a "grazie, Dottore" - you can see why Rome is like no other.