The sidewalk cafes tempt you like the Sirens from a nearby shore. You can feel the sun’s warmth on your balcony but you can’t feel the sea. The last time you did the Italian double-cheek kiss was with your cat. Welcome to Porto Quarantina. Life in Italian lockdown is harder than most places. We live […]
So how do you like your company now? I see divorce filings are up all over the United States. Domestic violence is up in Asia. Netflix stock must look like Apple 20 years ago. In this time of international lockdown, people from San Diego to Shanghai are searching in the far corners of the Internet […]
Tuesday I had to make the risky move of traveling across Rome to a clinic using public transportation. As Italy becomes the western world’s most paralyzed country courtesy of the Coronavirus, I felt like the guy sneaking out of his shelter in a scene from “Night of the Living Dead.” My girlfriend, a third-generation Roman […]
Hello from Quarantine Centrale. Here in Italy we have become Europe’s red-headed, deformed stepchild. We are shunned, ridiculed and home bound. The Coronavirus has turned all 60 million of us into passengers on one giant cruise ship. We’re sitting motionless with no port accepting our wretched, damned souls. I myself am quarantined. Yes, it happened […]
(Editor’s note: I was planning on posting this Monday but yesterday was meant for remembering Kobe Bryant and not a relatively meaningless soccer game in Rome.Riposa in pace, Kobe.) It was a terrific idea to celebrate a birthday. Alessandro Castellani, my best Italian friend in Rome and veteran sportswriter, had gathered seven of his male […]
Six years ago this Saturday I retired to Rome saying I wanted to live the last third of my life in the most beautiful city in the world. Of course, I could’ve been leaping into a chasm of living hell. I had few friends, no girlfriend, a tiny cave of a flat and terrible Italian. […]
(Editor’s note. While I’m away for the holidays, I am re-running my blog on Christmas in Rome from four years ago.) I grew up in the capital of the commercial world and now live in the capital of the Catholic world. It is Christmas time, a time when capitalism and religion merge into a big, […]
Did you know Santa Claus lives in Italy? It’s true. His real name is Santa Clausini. He anglicized it to be accepted in more of the world’s chimneys. He and his elves (actually a self-loathing freelance writer from Oregon) have a workshop in Rome’s Monteverde neighborhood where we think up the perfect Christmas gifts for […]
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Conde Nast came out with its annual Readers Choice list for the world’s best countries and Italy came out ninth. Italy appearing in a top 10 list is like Alabama football, U.S. billionaires and Harvard. Conde Nast called Italy the “evergreen country.” It’s always there. It’s why I’m here. And I’m not leaving. Next month […]
I’m often asked if I’d ever live anywhere in Italy besides Rome. I know what they’re getting at. If it’s a woman, she read “Under the Tuscan Sun” and thinks life in rural Italy is all Italian poetry and glasses of Chianti in gardens. If it’s a man, they hated Rome’s filth and have a […]
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I sipped Prosecco Saturday in the same piazza where Benito Mussolini worked his fascist throng into a froth. I stood in Piazza Venezia, in the shadow of the gargantuan white confectionery monument called Il Vittoriano, in suit and tie, and celebrated the most Italian of Italian traditions. The Italian wedding. No, not mine. It was […]
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Living in Rome is like living in a big city with a small town right across the street. Can’t believe you can get a small-town feel from a city of 2.8 million people who drive like they’re escaping a coming earthquake? Just walk down a street. In fact, walk down many of them. Walk down […]
