Washing and a lost dog.

Hey all,

Had a fun little drama with a lost dog last night. It followed the group of 40 Germans, who turned out to be Indian Germans, into the hostel, and the hostel bloke on duty initially thought it was theirs, before realising that even Germans wouldn't bring a dog with them to a hostel. Then he tried to get it to leave, after it caused an enormous fuss with one of the hostel cats – eventually he bribed it outside with food. It stood at the gate looking forlorn. The hostel dude saw it lurking, shook his head, apologised to me for what he was about to do (I was sitting there, watching the whole thing, trying not to laugh) – and tried to chase it away – this consisted of throwing pebbles at it and abusing the creature in a loud stream of Italian, complete with arm waving. The dog wasn't buying it. After all, this was the same man who had just given it food, so what was a bit of swearing and rock throwing between best friends? Finally, the hostel guy gave up and walked away, muttering. The dog continued to lurk, and every time one of the hostel residents came through the gate, it followed them in, and they just assumed it belonged here, which is reasonable, given the pig, the horde of cats, the bats etc. It was quite an obedient creature, until it was told to go outside, so it ended up being dragged out on to the street by its collar at least a dozen times. It continued to lurk for a couple of hours, convinced it had found a new family, before finally giving up and wandering off down the alley with drooping ears.

Got woken again last night by The Snorer – it wasn't even light. But eventually slept in a bit, had a bit of a bullshit with some young South African who, after high-school, had worked until he earned a round-the-world ticket and had just taken off for two years with a total of 300 EU to his name. I pointed out that this was pretty ballsy, considering that I had more than that in my pocket as I was talking to him. He kind of grimaced, said, “Well, I didn't really think so at the time...” and then trudged into Rome to hand out his CV at various pubs.

Did the supermarket thing (tea is regarded with deep suspicion, is kept in an entirely different section to the coffee), washing, spoke to K for quite a while as we finally both got skype working with the camera's so got to see her and well as hear her laugh for the first time in a week, albeit in a jerky, blurry kind of way, which was nice because she has an infectious sense of joy about basically everything. Then lined up a hostel for a few nights in Florence, because the language school I am enrolled in for the next month insists on cash up front, so I want to scout the place out a bit and make sure it A) exists in the real world and B) seems legit.

Then came in to Rome, found this nice little knife shop I came across the other day, bought a pocket knife which the bloke in the shop sharpened up till I could shave with it, then just wandered off and got, well, kind of lost. Was kind of happy I found the place because I lost my original map where I had marked the shop down, so I had to find the place I had started at that day, head in the general direction of where I ended up when I eventually figured out where I was that day, and hope that I kind of got lost in the same sort of direction. After that I went in to various churches, the most humble of which (in local terms) is still awe-inspiring to an Australian used to weatherboard boxes and modernist excursions with all the transcendent grace of a K-Mart. In one, deserted completely except for some old priest reading a book, I prayed for a while – in another I lit some candles for various people. In another, which had some ancient painting of the Madonna held within this kind of explosion of marble angels, I resolved to hate The Snorer a bit less when he inevitably cranks up again tonight, a noble resolution which won't last more than 30 seconds the moment he does; still, the thought was there, at least for a moment.

Writing this at some restaurant in some alley – I splurged a bit on a real meal – roast beef, which in this interpretation is thin slices of cold roast meat, drenched in oil, which formed a bed on the plate which then had rocket and cherry tomatoes piled up on top. That was it - was lovely. Fired up the computer on the off chance and found a free wifi point that worked long enough for me to bash out a few emails, before it kicked me off.

Photos attached are the forlorn dog outside the gate, some ancient ruin with a busy street and a couple of dudes on a Ducati (which kind of sums the place up), another ancient ruin and archaeological dig in the middle of the city – you can see the modern apartments jutting up behind it, and the Madonna and marble angels. Finally, there is a picture of The Disney Store, just for a mate, who is a Philistine, and will be more interested in this than basically anything else in Rome.

Bit of a walk now up some long street at dusk, then the train back to the hostel, where I will post this.

Cheers, B.

A couple more photos on the way home – one just a view up the street I took home, the other of some huge space with a pillar pillaged from Egypt, and a crowd of people listening to, of all things, a Michael Jackson impersonator. Cheers.