northampton, ma

One of the joys of being in Italy is that you escape most of the lame regulations of the US. USA, the land of the free, has probably the most amount of rules and 'protections' of any country I have ever visited. Italy is far different, most noticeably the fact that you can drink in public, along with the complete lack of 'safety' contraptions that line anything in the US that could possibly be dangerous so as to prevent lawsuits, for example bike lanes, sidewalks, fences on towers, fences on bridges. If an Italian falls off the top of a leaning tower, the family doesn't sue the city for providing unsafe conditions for tourism. There's no waiver form to sign before you can get a cup of coffee.

Anyhoo, I had a night of La Dolce Vita at the Trevi fountain in Rome, sans jumping in the fountain. Me and a group of amigos bought a few bottles of wine and walked over to the famed, gigantic monstrosity of a fountain, sat down, opened up our bottles, and proceeded to have a grand ole evening of drinking in public. I know it seems a bit debaucherous to do, but damn if it does not also feel liberating! I'm sure for Italians that it's another thing entirely, for them it's a natural thing to do. Every night in Bologna, should you walk through a piazza, you'd find kids sitting around in circles and drinking wine and chatting or maybe playing a guitar or whatnot. It's a normal experience for them. For us tourists, it's a bit different. Walking past a carabiniero (Italian police officer) with an open alcohol container? Yes that was a slight flutter I felt in my heart, wondering if he was going to give us any trouble for taking swigs in front of everybody. Nope. He couldn't care less.

I also expected the other people visiting the fountain to look down on us, as if we were typical kid riffraff doing immature kid stuff. On the other hand, it seemed as if our wine had a magnetic attraction. We must have had 10 different people approach us to just yakk it up and hang out. We had a little family group come up, uncles and aunts and a 20 year old niece, and ask us where we're from and if we were having a good evening. An old Italian man heard us mention San Francisco, and he told us he had just travelled there and thought it was beautiful. It was a memorable evening.

Food news for Mom: I have had a few delicious pizzas, and some excellent pasta dishes. Cacio e pepe (a simple dish of spaghetti with pecorino cheese and black pepper), and amatriciana (spaghetti with a tomato base sauce and onions and sweet pancetta). Both are typical dishes in Rome and its region. I took a group to a famed Roman pizzeria, da Baffetto, and had a great pizza. I've cooked a couple times. Here is great because you can get the real ingredients, and don't have to drive all the way to Italian Importing Co. and overpay for imported imitations.