OK! These photos are from me and Erika's trip to Tivoli last weekend. Tivoli is a little hill town just outside Rome, with several amazing old villas. I don't know quite why a tiny, one-piazza town has at least 3 huge villas - there must be some history there which I'm afraid escapes my mind right now - presumably I've read it in the Lonely Planet. Anyway, we took the bus there last sunday. Bus tickets are supposed to cost only 2 Euros - it's only about an hour away - but unfortunately we decided to chance it by buying a ticket ON BOARD the bus, and when we clambored on the bus driver informed us it would cost 7 Euros EACH to buy directly from him. We were a bit put out once we eventually understood what he was saying (I have slow reactions in Italian) but he very charmingly suggested that we don't pay yet, but ask around among the other passengers, and find our if any of them had a spare ticket to sell.
So, a little daunted but determined to save that 10 euros, we made our way down the very crowded bus and attempted to ask for spare tickets. Confusingly, the bus appeared to be populated solely by dodgy-looking characters with a profusion of gold teeth, plus the odd nun. No one seemed to have any tickets, although a guy with a full set of Midas-touched dentures did ask me if I was French. That was interesting.
When we came to get off the bus, we had to confess to the driver that we hadn't found a cheap ticket, but charmingly he let us off without paying at all as he couldn't bring himself to rip us off so blatantly with the 7 euro ticket. That was nice. What's more, when we reached our villa of choice, Villa d'Este, it turned out that as it was the last weekend of September, admission to all museums was free. Score!! we purchased 2 euro bus tickets home and were overjoyed to have a day out of Rome that was practically free.
This shows Erika being generally happy and excited about the amazing view from one of the balconies of villa d'Este. The views were generally great - it was so nice to get out of Rome and up into the hills - plus the gardens were fabulous, with a profusion of magnificent fountains. We did some wandering about, admired the many-breasted female fountain -
- a fantastic celebration of femininity and the nurturing capability, as I mused feministly, and met some Australian tourists who I impressed with tales of my extensive drive round the coast of Australia.
Anyway, it can't be all fun and games, so only too soon we had to head back to Rome for another week of slave labour as english language teachers. As you may be able to tell, I have been feeling somewhat depressed and exploited of late - working 6 days a week doesn't help. However, there's cause for celebration as I've now LEFT Trinity business school, the one which made me travel to teach people in company. Hooray!! no more trekking round Rome.
However irritating trekking around Rome was, it did generate some rather bizarre and surreal situations, such as last Friday when I was taking a break between classes in the university area. I headed to a rather tasty kebab shop for a veggie kebab - the couple who work there are really nice and want me to teach their daughters English, apparently. Anyway, while I was talking to them about this - the woman speaks quite good english as her ex-husband was from London - a homeless beggar guy wandered in: he's a bit of a local character who you always see in that area. The kebab shop guy started chatting to him, and before long he realised that I was English and as I ate my kebab he approached me with a request: could I translate his sign for him?
I was initially skeptical about this project but he had his reasons: lots of the tourists round Piazza Spagna are American, and with an english sign he would be more likely to get money from them. He handed me a pen, and I thought "Ok, why not?" so before I knew it I found myself translating phrases such as
"I'm an honest man with no job and I have two little children who are hungry - please give money..." etc. Surreal.
This is me with my friend Luis from Venezuela, at one of our favourate Roman haunts, the charmingly named bar Bum Bum in Trastevere, on Emily's birthday.
Rob finds that our traditional Sardinian crisp-bread thing has miraculously broken into the exact shape of Italy. Wow.
All about anti-fascism. Throw that swastika in the bin. I can't even remember where I spotted this - maybe San Lorenzo.
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