Caesar's cathouse, and other roadside attractions

Dear Wilson,
Stuck up there on top of Mount Adams, you get almost get a view of all creation, but there are some parts of the world you can't see from there, such as Rome. In all our travels together, we never got to Rome, so I thought I would send some grab shots I've taken which you and the readers might enjoy seeing.

Some of the following photos speak for themselves, but most will be explained via captions. They start with photos I shot Nov.16, the day after I arrived, up to Thanksgiving. By the way, I'm writing this while drinking a fine white wine that I can't explain because the label is in Italian, while eating a bread with pistachios baked by a University of Washington student and chasing some Thanksgiving leftovers with home-made pistachio ice cream with a chocolate icing, also made by UW students. Now this is the way to see Rome!

The 'hood.' The University of Washington Rome Center's entrance is on the right, close to those plants. Nothing ostentatious about the setting. It's ordinary. This is how much of the city looks.

BIDEN WAS HERE: Incredible as it seems, the Vice President apparently walked through this square, the Campo de' Fiori, in a whirlwind visit to Rome on Thanksgiving, enroute to Croatia. This story is someplace between Rumor and Fact. I'm leaning toward fact. This is less than 200 feet from the front door of the UW Rome Center.

Slurp! This is a drinking fountain in the market. To make it work, you plug the drain with a finger and water squirts out that tiny hole you see halfway up the neck. These things are all over Rome. The story is that a politician got voted out of office for trying to put a price on water. All stories are true, right?

The Palatine Hill -- this is the 'hood' of the Caesars. This was shot from a government facility which hosted the annual "McGovern Lecture," on world food issues, named for the U.S. Senator (and Presidential candidate) who founded the World Food Program, which distributes food in times of crisis.

Castel Sant' Angelo at night.

Rome's blue November sky frames a dome seen from a window at the UW Rome Center.

Ruins of Ostia

Ostia was a port that fed Rome's revenous appetite for imports. Over time it was abandoned, and the Tiber eventually covered it with silt. It is now a marvelous park that shows how the city was organized; the park includes a necropolis.

On the outskirts of Ostia, I plugged the tip of the fountain so that water squirted up into my mouth -- and into my beret, onto my glasses and all over my face.

A wall and bench in the necropolis. The stones in the wall are similar to cobblestones in Rome's streets.

The way this is organized suggests a family grouping in the necropolis.

Note the structure of the arches. Were they filled in afterwards to keep the arch stones from slipping out of place?

The ruins suggest that parts of Ostia were very densely developed.

A room with a view--if you can find it. We stumbled across this scene of Amore and Psiche quite by accident while making our way around walls and down corridors. Try as these two might to be discrete, this was a case of kiss and tell. They kissed; and now we've told.

Is this our fate, too? --To be gradually devoured by snails no larger than the nail of your pinkie finger, just as these two molusks are licking down an ancient column in Ostia?

Meanwhile, back in Rome, the locals gather in a square leading to a church, bundled against the chill November day.

Just outside the church door, a toddler tries in vain to capture the attention of her older sibling.

 Inside the church, candles burn in memory of a young woman who died in Paris.

And before the French Embassy, there are many, many flowers...

...and many candles, as well.

There were opportunities for glorious vistas, like this one from the Capitoline Hill.

And there were more touching views like this one at street level, made all the more poignant by the suspicion that the dogs were docile because they had been drugged to lay still.

At the Trevi fountain, I kept a promise and toss in some coins for friends who asked. The gray smudge in front of the arrow at the top center is one of them. (I was able to capture the image by taking a screen shot from a cell phone video.)

On a major street, a florist tries a novel way to capture the eyes of customers who might purchase cyclamen, a popular flower in Rome.

We pass the Protestant cemetery, where the poet, Keats, is buried in an unmarked grave.

And we make our way to what might be called "amphora hill." Olive oil was shipped to Rome from Spain. The amphorae containing the oil were methodically broken and the pieces stacked, accumulating this enormous pile. More recently, buildings have sprung up, some attached to tunnels into the hill. These buildings are host to a thriving night life of song and dance. By comparing them to the size of the  hills behind, we can appreciate how much the Romans loved their olive oil.

Back at Campo de' Fiori, a delivery truck awaits at the green market. The austere appearance is not uncommon in Rome.

Dominating Campo de' Fiori is this imposing statue of Giordano Bruno, "an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician, poet, and astrologer whose cosmological theories included the concept that stars were just distant suns, like our own. That didn't go down well with the inquisition, and he was burned at the stake in Campo de' Fiori. Afterwards people kind of got to liking him, so they erected this statue to him, and for the next few thousand years or so he will experience the honor of having seagulls shit on his head.

I'm under the impression that this automobile was designed specifically for individuals who cannot stomach back seat drivers.

I kind of like this as a moody photo of an alley in Rome at dusk. Note the archway in the distance, joining the two buildings. Clearly, space is at a premium in the Eternal City.

She must have a Sysyphus complex. The woman is sweeping off a bench that no-one in their right mind would sit on. Those white specs are not a fashion statement, unless you are a starling.

CAESAR'S CATHOUSE. This is believed to be the notorious site of Caesar's assassination. I call it "Caesar's Cathouse," because the Romans love cats, and this has become a cat sanctuary. Although they don't show in this photo (the residents declined to sign waivers) they are all over the spot. Readers may recall that Wilson, I and several of his relatives scheduled the Madison Street Marathon earlier this year for the Ides of March in honor of Caeser. if the great man had used an indestructible One World Futbol for his body double on that fateful day in 44 BC, no-one would have been hurt and the future of Western Civilization would have been radically different. For example, one of Shakespear's most famous speeches wouldn't have been written, and Liz Taylor would have gotten stuck playing the role of Nefertiti.

THE PROJECTS. For some reason, everyone wants to see this place. I don't know why. Bad things happened here. There were a lot of stabbings. And there were cats so big they could rip up the visitors. The reason it's called an "arena" is because that was the Latin word for sand, which was used to soak up the blood. And up in the upper levels were the people who laughed while others were being butchered. Not a nice neighborhood.

Thanksgiving

Getting overlooked by the Vice President didn't dampen the spirits of the UW anthropology students attending Ann Anagnost's class on the Culture and Politics of Food. Thanksgiving was one of the highlights of the wind-down of their class in Rome, and it was a chance to celebrate. Sorry, they were having too much fun for me to photograph all the action, but here a few shots that tell a bit of the story.

Young as it was, this student-crafted cheese had character. Put it away for a year and it will be superb. It was one of the skills the students were shown during their course.

Nicole, whose family raises grass-fed beef on a farm in the Skagit valley, brought bread to the feast, including one loaf full of tasty pistachios.

In the right corner of this decorative setting is a reminder to students of the instruction they received from Dafne, who invited them to her Italian kitchen to learn the art of creating pasta, cheese and soap.

And this is Dafne, bestowing on Professor Ann Anagnost a marble necklace as a reminder of a memorable quarter for students who had gained an understanding of the politics of food -- what goes into it (or shouldn't), the implications of producing it locally or internationally, and how food is used in power politics. Part of the experience included cooking for refugees who were fleeing war and famine. Most of the students were in their 20s and some had never traveled before. For them, Rome will be an unforgettable milestone.

Well, I trust that these are enough photos to digest in one sitting. Hope you have enjoyed it. I have just one more to add to close this dispatch. It's from the theater in the heart of Ostia. Break a leg!

Love,
Robert