And so the trend continues. Night walks, evening strolls. That’s when all the good stuff is happening. Pretty colors in the sky and the streets starting to light up. Hostesses and hosts try to herd all the nice dressed people into their fly traps. The air gets cooler and easier to breath, the sun isn’t beating on your skull trying to get into your head. Night walks are where it’s at. It’s funny walking places and comparing them night to day. I seem to do this a lot. I like it when we walk around to places that I’ve never been before. New places are always good. I like it especially when they smell different than dog pee. That’s the best. A lot of the time when we walk around there are people out playing instruments. There are a lot of songs that sound similar…everyone’s got a different instrument though. Men at the Pantheon play the strings, kids on the subway play the toy keyboard, and guys at Piazza del Popolo play the clarinet. They all sound good…usually. Sometimes I hear people playing songs that sound like this video that I used to watch on Ebaum’s world. Some might remember…it was a big hit back in the day. Funny videos and goofy animations. Pretty scandalous stuff a lot of the time. But that’s what kids seem to like, right? Anyway, this video was called Aicha. You can watch it there if you know what a link is. It’s funny, my parents just started using email to talk to me and they don’t really use the computer that much. I put a link in for them to see where I was visiting and I explained what to do with it. It’s funny that kids in preschool are being taught this now. I didn’t even know what the internet was until I was around 4th grade. I feel like an oldy sometimes. Anyway.
The best is when you’re walking at night and you stumble upon little shops and things that are shut down..you get to just peer through the window and make up a scene in your head of how it runs on a daily basis. Uninterrupted and free to be in a daze, that’s how I like it. We found an old clock and antique store one night when we were walking back from the Pantheon. I looked through the window and I could put an old Italian cartoon voice to all of the pieces in the window. It’s like when the store shuts down at night the items get their personalities. It’s like this book I had when I was a little kid. Actually it was my sisters, but I would hide it on the side of my bottom bunk bed and take it out sometimes. It was about a bear losing his button from his corduroy bibs. The mannequins come alive too. It’s funny walking past the high end stores..people like to pose in front of them. I imagine the fake plastic eyeballs of the skinny women in the windows rolling and a sigh coming through their plastic lips. “Silly unfashionable tourists” they’d say.
There are certain things that you see here that aren’t really seen anywhere in America..well, I guess there’s a lot. But some you definitely wouldn’t see. Like nuns on a bus or vespa after vespa zooming around. I’ll miss these little parts of Italy. They’re characteristics that only belong here. I won’t see them at home. But I like seeing them now.
