The Eternal City
Rome
I took the Ninja Monkey on a train trip out
to suburban Rome in search of a shopping mall. I was interested to see an
Italian take on the mall, it was raining and I needed a few things. We never
made it there. We waited for so long for a bus from the train station to the
mall we just gave up. We actually had a great time together. We saw a huge
apartment block in the process of being demolished. One entire side was missing so we could see
into the rooms. There were new buildings everywhere and signs of more
construction. I can’t say whether this
was good or bad. I don’t know anything about the local community and its
economy. I am really interested in architecture from a social and political
perspective so I was happy to be able to see the suburbs. In so many European
cities apartment blocks are built right out to the city fringe. This is in
stark contrast to Australian cities where developers and governments have a
penchant for building new brick houses in new suburbs far from public
infrastructure and amenities.
Six weeks is not enough to see Italy let
alone understand it, but it is a good stretch of time to begin unpacking some
of the preconceptions one has about a place and its people.
I can’t speak for Italians in general but
the people we have met have been very generous with their time and very helpful.
The few exceptions have been laughable. The woman who runs to local pasta shop
has a face like a wet weekend and a manner to match. Despite being the only
customer in the shop it was clear serving me was a terrible inconvenience. I now understand why so few people shop
there. The second exception was a woman
at the Gallery of Modern Art who behaved as though an art gallery was a place
where one should conduct oneself as though at the funeral of a pious old
aunt. When she hushed the Ninja Monkey I
just laughed. He was being particularly
calm at that moment sharing an opinion about a marble statue. If she had been with us at the Museum of
Archeology in Napoli she could have shared our discussion about the extent of
the penis collection excavated from Pompeii and Herculaneum.
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