My night with the Romans

So my night with my Roman friends from Camper was beautiful and so Italian in every way. Mirko asked me to meet him at the store at 9:30 so we could get some dinner and drinks. Now, I grew up eating dinner at 4pm when my dad got home from his very early shift at work. When I moved to DC, I had to adjust to the city dinner time of around 7pm. But in Italy, it's bascially a crime to consider eating dinner before 9pm. So, knowing myself, I got a gelatto at 8:00 to hold me over. They were ready to go by about 10pm, at which point we walked around and talked, sort of aimlessly discussing where we might eat, among other introductory things. Then one of the guys' mates called and said he would drive us to the place we would eat. So my new friends Mirko, Linda, Angelo, and Gian Paulo and I started driving through Rome at night. This in itself was a spectacular sight. I don't think I would ever adjust to living in a city full of buildings that have been around since before the New Testament. My eyes were just popping out of my head. Then Mirko said, "We are going to eat at a place under the Colosseum, is that ok?" Um, yeah. That's ok.

So by the time we got to the restaurant, waited for a table (eating out is like an all-night marathon for Italians - the evening has just begun when the meal is over), it was almost 11:30. I had the full treatment: fried balls of cheese, olives, and tuna; zucchini blossoms stuffed with cheese and anchovies; a pizza topped with mozzerella, fresh tomatoes, and arugula; tiramisu, white wine, and limoncello (a lemon after-dinner liquor that is popular here). The four Italians I was with talked feverishly with their mouths and hands the whole night. Mirko or Linda would occasinally translate for me, but it didn't even matter if I could understand. I was in heaven. I just drank in their words like they were the water of life. When there was no English, I just sat there listening, smiling stupidly. They discussed their corrupt mafia leader. They argued over which brand of pasta is the best (no kidding, Italians really talk about that). They spoke every sentence as though was the last one they would ever say, punctuating every point with a wild gesture or a belly laugh. We closed out the restaurant, at at the end of the night, Mirko paid for my entire meal.

On the way home in my cab, I just stared out the window at all the lights and beautiful, dirty, raw energy that is Rome and my whole body smiled. I am so, so lucky to be here.