god save us all

as a pre-note to the 'to be continued' story from this weekend, i'd like to explain the surreal state all of us in rome are in now that it is d-day for votes... i have never felt so helpless and anticipatory in my life... after having mailed my absentee ballot [yeah... i was turned away from the american embassy twice when i tried to drop off my ballot there... hmmmm], i am wondering how much my voice really counts in this election. i stayed up for a while last night watching the italian news coverage of the american election and gave up after a while of not being able to interpret anything that the commentators were saying about the progress of the tallying. needless to say, i was deeply disheartened by the news that the presidential race is a] way too close for comfort right now, and b] that three states' votes have been delayed due to causes undisclosed on international news at the moment [well, besides ohio - which i knew was going to be a problem]. i actually had nightmares last night that bush had won the election... good god, what will happen to america and the world if he triumphs in this election? god save us all if he does.

anyway... to curb my political rambling, i will continue the 'tale of the wicked weekend' that i began the other day....

saturday - i wake up in the morning [actually, mid afternoon... tee hee] very excited about the fact that i am attending a costume party later on in the evening [at the flat of a newly found friend of mine who works at sloppy sam's - jasmine]. i meander out of my flat and work my way over to the hat store near piazza navona so that i can buy my sweet sweet sweet bowler cap, suspenders and black cane so that i can at least have some of the essentials for dressing up like alex from 'a clockwork-orange. needless to say, in rome, i have no bloody clue where one can purchase fake eyelashes that won't look like trash... so after a conversation with my roommate, brad, i decide to adapt my costume to a pseudo charlie chaplin, pseudo pimpstress costume... all worked out well... that is except the funny looks we got while walking through campo dei fiori on the day before halloween, me in a weird get-up with a cane, a hat and lots of make-up, camille, dressed - very convincingly - as a gypsy [complete with begging cup and all], and bradley - my dear, dear bradley - dressed in a bed sheet [actually, it was supposed to be a toga...].

we met up with some friends from the university of miami - one of whom was dressed marvelously as a nerd [hiked-up pants, suspenders, taped glasses with huge frames and an alfalfa hair-do] - and made our way all the way out to battastini [a suburb of rome about 15 kilometers from the vatican]... we were among the first to arrive. once the rest of the guests filtered into the party, we noticed something very strange: we were the only americans there... not just that, besides jasmine and a very very select few of her friends, no one spoke english at all... my italian was put to the test, and the very nice people at the party excused my lack of eloquence [put plainly, they excused the fact that my italian, saved for my accent, is really quite elementary... if that]. we had lots of fun... danced some salsa rather clumsily [actually - quite terribly, but anyway], ate lots of really yummy yummy hors devours, drank some rather good italian beer, listened to a wonderful assortment of really good music, had wonderful, though limited, conversation... and then one of the romans brought up politics... ugh.

it's hard enough to explain my embarrassment, disappointment and disgust with our current administration in english [oh, wait... that's not true at all...], but trying to do it in italian was nearly impossible. i managed to thoroughly convince my new-found roman friends that not all americans are 'for' the war in iraq, that not all of us are political imbeciles, that not all americans are un-educated hicks [which he seemed to be fully convinced of], and that quite a lot of us had voted for kerry... for all of you who don't know, italians - on a whole, especially younger italians - are staunchly against bush. staunchly. once more: staunchly. yeah, isn't there some sort of rule that in social gatherings, one never speaks about politics or religion? yeah, that's what i thought, too... - all ended up being hunky-dory and everyone decided that talking about other random junk would be much more entertaining than talking about politics... thank you, thank you, thank you...

my friends and i decide to head out, as it's about 4 in the morning [actually, 5, if you don't count the time change] and we have to either get a taxi - we hope that we can get a taxi - or hike back to campo dei fiori [about 1.5 hours... needless to say, as i was wearing heals, that walking was not an option]... finally, after about 5 or 6 cabs had just flown past us, we caught a cab and made it back home safe and sound...

sunday - sunday can be summed up in seven words: the kings of convenience rock the house! for that matter, so does the auditorium parco della musica, by renzo piano... ahhh... great music in a great building... what more could a girl ask for? the kings of convenience have this wonderful simon-and-garfunkel-type harmony that makes you want to close your eyes when you hear them play... sigh. it was positively delightful. not to mention that they are the two most adorable people that i've ever seen... one of them kept sliding off of his stool, as it was too high for him to keep his feet on the ground while playing [though he was probably about 6'-3" or so...]... so cute. ...

my night would have been perfect, had it not been for the bus ride home... we just happened to get stuck next to the most offensively bigoted, valley-girl-speaking, ridiculously mean group of people i have ever had the misfortune to encounter... not only was their conversation inappropriate by all standards of social etticate [no, i wasn't eavesdropping... they were speaking loudly enough for people in milan to hear them...], but their disgustingly anti-semitic commentary made me want to throw up all over them. i was so taken back by the fact that people my age - my age, for christsakes - could be so... so... i haven't the words. i just couldn't believe my ears. nor could i believe the candid way in which they carried out their conversation... like the whole bloody world had reverted back to the ice age or something. -- insert heavy-hearted sigh here -- finally, one of the people in the group happened to look my way in the middle of a sentence [mind you, i am so shocked, so disgusted, at this moment that i was uncontrollably looking at this person like i could kill them with my eyes... i hadn't even the power of mind to say anything, though i really wish that i had...] and caught himself mid-sentence and abruptly changed topics... i simply couldn't believe it... i'm sorry, but it is hard for me to believe that people could be so hateful... i thought it entirely impossible... apparently, i was sorely mistaken.

well, folks, that's the end of my story [though there is much, much more that i could tell... i just thought you would appreciate me not writing you a book here...]. i hope that it was worth reading and such...

ciao... for now.