I am sick of pizza.  Perhaps it is a blasphemy to say this in Rome… or anywhere in Italy.  It is, however, true.  As a vegetarian, Rome leaves much to be desired.  And as a vegetarian with penchant for Thai food… I am sooo in the wrong place.  Perhaps this will become some sort of abbreviated ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ – type thing.  After all, I am a young woman searching for herself, or something… No, I don’t think so.   Now, back to pizza.

I have a favourite restaurant now in my little neighbourhood, which is effectively Campo dei Fiori, and a grocery store that is two doors down from my apartment building.  There is even a yarn store (yes, I am a yarn addict – find me on ravelry.com).   What I don’t understand is this: why, my goodness, must there be a million and one pizza restaurants in what amounts to less than one square mile?  Okay, so I am exaggerating… just slightly.  But seriously!  Why not throw in a Thai or Indian or Chinese or Japanese or Caribbean or Ethiopian or some other country restaurant in the mix?  I understand that foreigners are not exactly welcomed… but truly, it would break up the monotony, people!  Is it just me?

Sunday, Feb. 6. Everyday I take a walk across the Ponte Sisto bridge over to Trastevere, which apparently is a favourite night spot for the young people (apparently, I am no longer young as I have no interest in being there at night).  This day found me strolling through what are becoming familiar streets and also quite unfamiliar streets.  And just to go along with my above rant, I thought I would mention the other thing that I found quite incredible in Rome as well: a tendency towards duplicity, hypocrisy, if you will.  A restaurant, Aristocampo, had posted on the front of their building, “We are against war and tourist menu.”  This is all fine and dandy…  Now, one of the things that Trastevere is renown is its wonderfully inexpensive prices for food.  So, it was quite to my surprise when I noted just how “expensively” “touristy” Aristocampo’s prices are.  I suppose they are quite fine to take as much tourist dollars as they can, but not so fine to cater to tourists otherwise. 

Rome cannot hide its duplicitous/hypocritical nature behind the fading “romantic” facades of its ancient buildings.  At least, not from me… as we are quite the same, Rome and I: grasping to become better versions of ourselves while attempting to assuage the years of damage done to us by ourselves and others.