La Notte Bianca

As intended I went and read on the Spanish Steps yesterday. The piazza was packed with people, and I'm not sure if it was because of Notte Bianca or if it's always like that on nice days. I was reading The Italians by Luigi Barzini, which was lent to me by one of my parents' friends, and just gives a very candid portrayal of the Italian people, and (at least in this phase of the book) provides commentary on the incredible draw it has to foreigners. While I'm enjoying the book quite a bit, there was one passage I particularly liked.

Is Italy love? Or is Italy, as some say, art? Like the Italian scene, art, too, can be intoxicating, can transform people, can transport them far from themselves, can be delightfully aphrodisiac. 'Art,' says Walter Peter, with words which could be applied equally to Italy and to love, 'gives nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass.'

Anyway, when I was tired of reading I picked up some postcards and decided to wander around for awhile. Thanks to my adventure I think I should feel fairly comfortable in the Spagna/Trevi Fountain/Quirinale area. Made it home then hung out for awhile to see what everyone was up to and around 9 decided to head out for dinner.

La Notte Bianca is an event that only started five years ago (I believe Paris has a similar one) and in short is an evening when the city doesn't really sleep (at least not until six in the morning, in our case). The streets are packed with people of all ages, from kids being pushed in strollers to an elderly couple clinging to each other for dear life in the swarm of people. Street vendors have their goods on display, there is live music all the place, and we even passed an old woman all bundled up swinging her arms to some hip hop music in hopes for collecting some spare change.

The Metro was insane... completely packed, and when it came time to get on the bus we normally take we found out (after 20 minutes of waiting) that it wasn't running its normal course, so we had to go back to the craziness of the Metro. Decided on an alternate route, met Erin's aunt who is also studying here this semester, and got a nice dinner at a place on one of the side streets. After that, it was time to take to the streets and celebrate Notte Bianca.

We met up with some of the guys at the Drunken Ship after we were able to navigate ourselves to Campo di Fiore, and after having a few drinks there decided to head out to a nearby hookah bar. We were all just hanging out and enjoying ourselves at the hookah bar and kind of just lost track of time. Before we knew it it was three, and we still wanted to make it to the Circus Maximus for the light display we knew to be going on there.

Alyssa took charge leading us along the Tiber to the Circus Maximus, which turned into quite the trek, but it was definitely worth it by the time we got there. I was just expecting a field of white bulbs, but instead they were these big orbs of all kinds of colors, and they'd all change independently. It really was awesome and reminded us of the poppy field from Wizard of Oz.




After hanging out there we decided to keep moving on to the Colosseum, which apparently was supposed to have fireworks at some point, but we never saw them. The Colosseum was still pretty awesome though... I guess there's just something about standing in Ancient Rome at five in the morning.



Needless to say slept late today. Ben and Dan mad a surprise visit and Meghan and I ended up accompanying them to the Colosseum and swapping stories, since we never managed to meet up with them. It's Sunday, so most things were closed, but I was successful in attaining a caprese sandwich and some gelato, which I believe comprise about 80% of what I've eaten since getting here. So good.

School starts tomorrow... wish me luck.