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Retired in Rome Journal: Juventus-Roma soccer match tops NFL in noise, passion

Rome's Olympic Stadium moments before kickoff of Juventus-Roma.

Soccer as a religion is ancient news in Italy. There are archives of pictures of plump popes in full robes playfully booting a soccer ball over the cobblestones of St. Peter’s Square. But how an Italian Cup quarterfinal captivated this city of 3.5 million is another example of how soccer in Italy can’t be described. It must be experienced.

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Retired in Rome Journal: NFL Night in Rome unlike any other

Palazzo Vittorio Emanuele seen on my walk to an Irish pub. So what did you do between NFL games Sunday night?

I took a bar stool and sipped a larcenously priced 6-euro pint of Nastro Azzuro the young American bartender seemed almost embarrassed to price for me. Watching football in foreign countries is foreign in more ways than one. You get the curious, not the fanatic. Rome is filled with American exchange students. One salivating male art student explained to a ditzy blonde in tight, TIGHT leather pants the rules of American football. She was not Italian. I think she was Californian.

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Retired in Rome Journal: Buying an Italian cell phone not as easy as dailing uno, due, tre

Cell phones are as much a part of Italians’ lives as pasta. They’re connected to their ears like a growth. Land lines went out in Italy about the time of chariot races and cells, or cellulari as they’re called here, have become their lifeline. Italians have the fourth highest usage per capita in Europe (If you care, Lithuania is first), with 1,346 cell phones for every 1,000 people. Yes, that’s right. Italians even have backups.

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Retired in Rome Journal: Shopping and cooking in Rome a gastronomic Disneyland

The Campo dei Fiori public market around the corner from my apartment.

I became addicted to public markets during my first stint in Rome from 2001-03. Mercato Trionfale was a sprawling open-air food bazaar not far from the Vatican. I got to know the Cheese Boys. I fell in lust with the Olive Goddess. I chatted up the Pasta Princess. It’s a great way to shop. You go to one stand for your cheese, another for your sausage, another for your bread. Then you stop at a tiny alimentari and get a bottle of decent Chianti for 2.50 euros.

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Retired in Rome Journal: The new apartment in a pre-Renaissance building

Retired in Rome Journal: The new apartment in a pre-Renaissance building

It’s an odd sensation driving with all your present and future possessions to your next home for two months. That’s not a long time but for a traveler it’s a lifetime. You become friends with the cafe owner and the cheese vendor, the newspaper salesman and your neighbor. Moving into an apartment sight unseen is like parachuting into a different planet with no escape.

Fortunately, no escape necessary. In fact, throw away the key. I’m home.

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Retired in Rome Journal: A welcome home to the city of my dreams

Peter Bloom, moi and Gretchen Bloom at La Taverna dei Fori Imperiali upon my return to Rome.

I’m not into omens much. Man determines his own fate. That’s why I’m sitting here in Rome, my life’s remains enveloped in the five bags that surround me as I await passage into my new apartment. An early retirement that has baffled friends and foes alike has taken me to Rome, site of the wildest 17 months of my life and hopefully home of many more to come.

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Costa Rica Journal: A night out in San Jose and five bests and worsts about Costa Rica

Goodbye, lovely Samara

A night out in San Jose and five bests and worsts about Costa Rica. I was watching the NFL Playoffs at Chubbs and went to Il Re to get cash. I noticed the screens were bigger, the bar was shinier and the women were cuter. I sat down to watch a quarter when a drop-dead gorgeous Colombian sits down and starts rubbing my leg. I looked around and realized this may be the only sports bar in the world at that moment where none of the men were watching the games.

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Costa Rica Journal: Trip down Tempisque an eye-to-eye look at big league crocodiles

A crocodile near our boat in the River Tempisque.

We had no food – except for a few arms and legs. We saw the first one when its left eye emerged from the water and eyed us from about 30 feet away. Crocs aren’t hard to find. Their snouts form a kind of breaker through the water. You merely look where the water isn’t flat, where there’s a break in the pattern. Then you can see a long, scaly snout slowly moving through the inky river.

As we approached it, it didn’t move. It just sat there, floating. We came right up next to it, snapped a couple of dozen pictures. It was almost posing.

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Costa Rica Journal: Surfing lesson at 57 is no day at the beach

No, this isn't me. He's actually standing. But this is another beginner surfer in Samara.

THURSDAY, JULY 18 – SAMARA, COSTA RICA You’re not too old to take up a new sport at 57. Billiards. Bowling. Bocce ball. They all come to mind. Surfing, however, is not one of them. Before coming down to one of the great surfing nations in the world, I’d surfed before. That was 1976. I […]

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