Fried Chicken and La Dolce Vita

Last night, I met a man who loved fried chicken and sweet tea more than anything in the world. That's really the last thing someone would ever expect to find in the city of Rome, but we managed it. Ironic when the majority of our conversations now revolve around what we're going to eat first when we get home. Believe you me, the food in Italy is delicious- but very redundant and very little variety. There's always some sort of pasta and/or bread involved in every meal, and here at the Ercoli they seem to have something against non-gassy water. So, while we enjoy the food overall, there's just something magical about Chick-fil-A and Cracker Barrel that the Italians haven't caught on to yet.

For those of you who have seen ANY of the old movies filmed in Rome back in the 50s and 60s: be jealous. We got to briefly check out the movie production area and we were able to visit the Villa d'Este- the home of every famous movie fountain from those movies. And although I'm not exactly impressed by beauty, I will be the first one to admit that the fountains were all lovely. The natural air conditioning provided by interior fountains... superb. Hands-down best feeling of the day. And that came after our excursion to Hadrian's "Pleasure Villa" at Tivoli, the single largest expanse of rooms I've ever seen. A little-known fact: Hadrian loved architecture and actually preferred to design his own buildings. He built the villa with himself in mind; the outcome being a beautiful if not silghtly silly estate. The site is large enough that Hadrian was able to reconstruct famous locations, so really it seems to be like a Six Flags park- it's cohesive, but there are different neighborhoods to visit. My favorite was definitely the Canopus section... Canopus being a sacred area in Egypt that housed a few important temples.

And our adventure didn't stop there! After we were finished in Tivoli, we came back to Rome to check out the aqueduct lines first-hand. I think it's safe to say that the ingenuity of the Romans definitely equals that of the current society, if not surpassing it. The water piped in from nearby hills and mountains had to be kept at a miniscule downward angle so as to not wind up with no way to harness its power. So the aqueducts had to be designed and built PERFECTLY, with no mistakes in calculations. Amazing.

We also paid the Capitoline Museum another visit today to see archaeological remains from the later Empire. Instead of growing weary of it, statuary is becoming more and more endeared and interesting to me. Luckily the Romans didn't paint paintings (at least, not on canvas), because I honestly don't think I would ever be able to handle looking and contemplating hundreds of "masterpieces".


Final thought of the day is something I learned the hard way: Don't hang up things to dry outside of your window. It won't end well.