Rome part 1

Let me run down how I got to Rome. After parking my car on base at Capodichino, I took the red Alibus from the airport directly to the train station (cost: 3 euro). Using the ticket kiosk at Garibaldi termini, I purchased a second-class ticket on the Eurostar high-speed train directly to Roma termini (cost: 44 euro). This non-stop ride lasts 1:10 and is very comfortable. There are two slower trains for less: one is also Eurostar, lasts about 1:45 and is 34 euro, and the slowest is 20 euro and is advertised to last 2:12, but I’ve heard it’s not as comfortable and can take much longer. I imagine I’ll take the other trains in the future to save money. I may take the Eurostar high-speed back, though. More info here. All in all, it took two hours and seven minutes from parking the car to stepping off the train in Rome.

I stayed at the Ambasciatori Palace, which for the price (209 euro) I actually can’t recommend. It was nice, but not as nice as its neighbor, the Rose Garden hotel. I’ll stay there next time I’m on per diem in Rome. I’ll be looking for more affordable accommodations when I have no official need to be within walking distance of the American Embassy.

The Embassy is on via Vittoria Veneto, in a very nice part of town right next to the Hard Rock Café (and yes, I went there). Our conference was in a palatial ballroom with frescoes portraying Italy’s strength and history on the walls and ceiling. The sun streamed in through stained-glass windows in the morning.

A while ago I was watching a movie set in Italy (Ocean’s Twelve?) when I said to Julie “someday I want to be over in Rome, but going to work, you know?”

“You’re such a dreamer,” she said.

“Yeah.”

It was a good conference, but the evenings were for exploring. One of the conference attendees is marrying an Italian—a Roman, in fact—and our first night he took us to the restaurant of his brother’s wife’s something something for some authentic Roman cuisine. As any American tourist who has been to Rome knows, the pizza in Rome is not like ours. I’ve seen some tight lips and very disappointed looks at a pizza ordered in Rome after a grueling day tromping from the Coliseum to the Vatican to the Pantheon, but tonight I’m not exhausted and I have a few more nights here to sample other cuisine, so I go for it.

Pizza in Italy is regional, just like anything else. Neapolitan pizza isn’t much like Roman pizza. The main difference is the crust. Neapolitan pizza has a fluffy, thicker crust that can bubble up in the brick oven and droops down like New York pizza if you pick up a slice (though they don’t really eat it by the slice here). Roman pizza has a thin crust, baked hard like a cracker. The toppings start about an inch in, so the fire scorches that edge enough to make it dangerous (I’ve heard of it cutting unsuspecting mouths). Artichokes are a traditional Roman ingredient, and of course parmesan cheese, so there you have my pizza. Knife-edged and salty, but delicious. Along with the deep-fried vegetable antipasti, I’m so stuffed I need a limoncello after dinner.

“Deep fried vegetables?” another member of the party says, exasperated. “Pasta, pizza—how can a culture whose diet is founded on carbs, cheese and oil fit into the pants you Italians fit into?”

Our Roman host shrugs. “It wasn’t until McDonalds came to Italy that Italians started to have problems with their weight.”

“But it’s just carbs and cheese! Oil! And you eat it so late at night!”

The table picks up the conversation and discusses the possible explanations—the amount of exercise the Italians get by walking everywhere versus Americans’ drive-park-sit-drive-enter house-sit rhythm, portion sizes, and the fact that they don’t eat a meal this size but once a week or so.

The relative freshness of the food seems to be the biggest reason, according to the Italians present. “It’s the preservatives that make you fat,” one of them insists.

Maybe, but one thing is sure. What we think we know about dieting and nutrition may not be all there is to know. A lot has been said for the Mediterranean diet, but if in America we started focusing on eating even more pasta, cheese and deep fried veggies, Walmart would be stocking a whole new size of pants (and I don’t mean less than 0).

The second night, just like nine years ago, I find myself eating at the Hard Rock Café. But that’s another story.