Jersey Shore, Italy

Maria, our Persian hostess at Hostel Lodi here in Rome, where Sean and I are rounding out our Italian tour, played this song for us when we told her we just had a day at Ostia Beach, Rome's answer to the Jersey Shore. Cabanas, deck chairs, card games, big umbrellas, outdoor showers, concession stands, and leathery octogenarias in speedos and bikinis passing shirtless musclebound guidos (real Italian guidos!) and slack-pantied young girls along the waterline, a triumph of Italian humanity on parade before the eager eyes of two incredulous, giddy Americans. Our "deck beds" were perched just a few yards back from the water where all the action was happening. An ecstatic young boy playing with his toy car in the sand under the watchful, patient eye of his silver-haired, paunch-bellied and shirtless granddad; a young girl walking backward along the shore, very slowly, with eyes closed, so as not, it seems, to turn her back on the sun; a large, large woman of indeterminate age with breasts spreading from chin to to waist and arm to arm tucked, just barely, into an ample tent of a bikini top. I could go on. It was literally spectacular. And the water was fine.

This was our gift to ourselves after glutting on museums and ruins and crowds, a fine way to ease out of Italy and in to a US state of mind, which will be tomorrow's project. We awake at 7 am and catch the Leonardo di Vinci airport train at Termini Stazione at either 8:52 or 9:22, catch our first flight at 12:10, our second in Munich at 3:40, and our third in Montreal at 8 pm (EST), landing at LAX, knock on wood, at 10:50 pm. We will try not to sleep on the flights so we will be utterly exhausted when we hit our pillows somewhere around 1 am, more than 24 hours after starting. It is funny, to say the least, to sit here in Rome at 10:15 pm knowing that my sense of time will be scrambled beyond telling in a matter of hours, and that, by Wednesday, I have to be back in LA mode, prepping for classes, et al. Bizarre is a word.

Our trip back to Rome from Florence went without incident, an easy train ride marked only by the anomaly of being offered an espresso from an actual Illy espresso cart pushed by a train steward, complete with espresso machine perched on top, ready to whip up a doppio for the asking. At Ostia today, we half expected to see a cabana boy slinging espresso at the shoreline. But no. Just schlock hockers.

I am exhausted from the sun. My next words about this adventure will be spoken in person. This blog will resume when I next find myself abroad. For now, ciao.