They Shall Not Faint

And the prophet Isaiah said, “But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.”

My map of Rome annotated with some points of personal interest 

I have not been running. I have only been walking (and walking and walking). And I am faint. Brad and I just moved today to our second apartment in Rome, the idea being to try out different parts of the city, in particular places far from the center, to get an idea of where we would like to live come September. The first place was on Via Adda, north of the city center, near Villa Borghese, on the east side of the Tiber River.

Our little home on Via Adda 3/31 to 4/6

From there, it was a minimum 40-minute walk to places we needed to go or wanted to see in “il centro” (and then back again). Much as I like to think of myself as a walker, slogging for 2 hours or more every day has been a challenge, especially with the need to navigate strolling Italians and charging tourists, not to mention stay out of the way of cars and waves of motorbikes on sometimes ridiculously narrow streets. My legs ache at the end of the day and I have blisters where I’ve never had them before (including on the tip of one toe). Today's second place, on Viale dei Quattro Venti, is quite far south and west of the Tiber. We have been here less than a day but it is already a breath of fresh air. While it has a limited and faded grandeur compared to the center and is predominated by mid-20th century apartment buildings all crowded together, the birds are singing and some people actually smiled at us on the street. The nearby Villa Pamphili is big and really green. Even our waiter at dinner deigned to talk to us a little bit in Italian! 

Villa Pamphili Entry Arch

Faded glory

Fresh air of Parco Pamphili, Monteverde

Compare this to the Gioia Mia Trattorria in the center yesterday, which seemed like a friendly place and where we greeted the waiter with a hearty “Buongiorno!” He turned away saying, “I'll bring you the English menu ...” : ( 

On the plus side, during the Italian lesson today, our Dante Alighieri teacher (kind Simona) said that our accents are very good! We just need to learn to say more things ...  : )

Two nuns outside Dante Alighieri who weren't too happy I took their picture ...