Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Unbound.

I forgot to tell you what sometimes happens in Rome, though I'm sure you've deduced that the following is a likely thing.  Sometimes you are exhausted and your feet hurt and you can't figure out where the stupid bus stop is to take you back to your apartment.  So you go to the one closest to the Colosseum because you checked the ATAC (public transportation) website last night.  But when you checked the ATAC website it gave you the wrong bus number, so while you get on a mercifully empty bus that seems to be headed in the general direction of your apartment, you realize when it comes to the end of the line that you are a few blocks off.  You are also in a part of town that you have not been to yet (which can happen if it is only 5-6 blocks from your apartment, simply because you have not gone east yet, because the Rome Center and the grocery store and the gelateria and all the restaurants you've eaten at are west, you see).  So you get off the bus and you are near the Piazza Colonna, and thank god for huge columns dedicated to really old and important men, because how else can you find where you are on the map?  And in trying to figure out where you are, you cross the street and try to find a doorway to stand in so you don't block the crazy Pasquetta foot traffic since the most part of Rome has the day off and is just walking around.  Milling about, as they say.  And you are a little frustrated, but you start walking, and you turn around, and all of a sudden you see a plaque on the side of a building that is telling you in Italian that ON THIS VERY SPOT in 1819 Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote Prometheus, Unbound.  Ta-da.  You are in Rome, and it is a Monday.

No comments:

Post a Comment