We have a new contender for "Weirdest Experience in Rome."
Friday night had gone so smoothly. Caitlin had taken her second-graders on a field trip to the Vatican Museum, a fun and educational trip, albeit an exhausting and stressful one. Major highlight: Mummy!
I had six hours of relatively boring class at business school, learning how to negotiate and how to be a leader. Standard stuff.
We met up at a friend's apartment near Castel Sant'Angelo to walk her dog. Found a nice cafe nearby and had some wine and a bite to eat. Nice afternoon, great weather. We walked back home along the river, a lovely escape from the crazy traffic of Rome. We started on dinner from the bio box: potatoes, zucchini, bell pepper and chicken. Good stuff. Friday night, time to relax, another hectic week conquered.
That's when all hell broke loose.
I had just sliced some garlic to go along with the potatoes (trying to emulate Aunt Laine's famous Potatoes Au Gratin). Caitlin had finished her bath, and was pages away from finishing her book, A Feast For Crows. That's when I heard the cry from the bedroom.
"Andy, you'd better come check this out. Something's going on outside."
I set the burners on low and walk to the bedroom. We stick our heads outside. There is a religious congregation outside, about 20 people holding candles. Priests in their frocks hold bibles, and one lady is shouting Italian phrases into a megaphone. It appears to be directed at our door.
The hungry folks in line at Dar Poeta don't seem to mind. About half of them are tourists or American students, so they're getting a kick out of the proceedings. An unusual number of them are peering up at our building. They don't usually notice us, I think.
That's when I notice the puddle of water near the congregation. The lady with the megaphone appears upset. We see our next-door neighbor also leaning outside his window. We're on the third floor (the fourth floor in American parlance).
"Our neighbor is throwing buckets of water onto the religious people," Caitlin says. Hoo boy.
I turn to our neighbor. I don't know his name, but we exchange pleasantries when we pass in the hall. The only time we really talk is when he asks me to keep the front door open, or when he thinks we're trying to park our bikes in the hallway (we're not.) "Too many bikes," he grumbles. Still, he always struck me as a lovable grump.
Now he turns to us, as we all lean out our windows. "Two thousand churches in Rome," he says in excellent English. "And they choose this one." He shakes his head in frustration.
Caitlin and I are getting a kick out of this. Caitlin waves at our friend Giancarlo, who has stuck his head out of his first-floor window. He gives us a wave, a smile, a shrug, and finally a thumbs-up. As if to say, "Crazy, huh?"
I hear someone calling our names. It's Amy, our Gaelic football teammate from the UK. She's in line at Dar Poeta. She doesn't know what's going on. Neither do we, really.
We're waving to her, and I start to say something clever like "Another day in Trastevere!" when the wave hits. Caitlin is to my right, and our neighbor is to her right by about 2 meters. He is holding a bucket, now empty and dripping. We are wet. Caitlin took the brunt of the splash to the face. Our neighbor has dumped another bucket onto the vigil. We took an unexpected blow. Our neighbor has terrible aim with his water bucket.
Caitlin is pissed. We dry ourselves off, wondering where that bucket came from and what it is used for. Caitlin decides to take Bath No. 2. I go say hi to Amy. By the time I get back upstairs, a police officer has showed up. He buzzes our apartment. (I suspect he buzzed all the apartments.) We hear him outside our door, talking to our neighbor. "Non c'era io!" we hear our disgruntled neighbor protest. ("It wasn't me!")
We don't open our door. We try to make sense of what has happened. But of course there's no making sense of these things. They just happen, and we just have to hold on tight. Occasionally we get a random splash of water to the face here. Most often, the water is not intended for us, but it soaks us nonetheless.
Stunned, we eat our dinner. Date Night has not gone the way we had planned.
Friday night had gone so smoothly. Caitlin had taken her second-graders on a field trip to the Vatican Museum, a fun and educational trip, albeit an exhausting and stressful one. Major highlight: Mummy!
I had six hours of relatively boring class at business school, learning how to negotiate and how to be a leader. Standard stuff.
We met up at a friend's apartment near Castel Sant'Angelo to walk her dog. Found a nice cafe nearby and had some wine and a bite to eat. Nice afternoon, great weather. We walked back home along the river, a lovely escape from the crazy traffic of Rome. We started on dinner from the bio box: potatoes, zucchini, bell pepper and chicken. Good stuff. Friday night, time to relax, another hectic week conquered.
That's when all hell broke loose.
I had just sliced some garlic to go along with the potatoes (trying to emulate Aunt Laine's famous Potatoes Au Gratin). Caitlin had finished her bath, and was pages away from finishing her book, A Feast For Crows. That's when I heard the cry from the bedroom.
"Andy, you'd better come check this out. Something's going on outside."
I set the burners on low and walk to the bedroom. We stick our heads outside. There is a religious congregation outside, about 20 people holding candles. Priests in their frocks hold bibles, and one lady is shouting Italian phrases into a megaphone. It appears to be directed at our door.
The hungry folks in line at Dar Poeta don't seem to mind. About half of them are tourists or American students, so they're getting a kick out of the proceedings. An unusual number of them are peering up at our building. They don't usually notice us, I think.
That's when I notice the puddle of water near the congregation. The lady with the megaphone appears upset. We see our next-door neighbor also leaning outside his window. We're on the third floor (the fourth floor in American parlance).
"Our neighbor is throwing buckets of water onto the religious people," Caitlin says. Hoo boy.
I turn to our neighbor. I don't know his name, but we exchange pleasantries when we pass in the hall. The only time we really talk is when he asks me to keep the front door open, or when he thinks we're trying to park our bikes in the hallway (we're not.) "Too many bikes," he grumbles. Still, he always struck me as a lovable grump.
Now he turns to us, as we all lean out our windows. "Two thousand churches in Rome," he says in excellent English. "And they choose this one." He shakes his head in frustration.
Caitlin and I are getting a kick out of this. Caitlin waves at our friend Giancarlo, who has stuck his head out of his first-floor window. He gives us a wave, a smile, a shrug, and finally a thumbs-up. As if to say, "Crazy, huh?"
I hear someone calling our names. It's Amy, our Gaelic football teammate from the UK. She's in line at Dar Poeta. She doesn't know what's going on. Neither do we, really.
We're waving to her, and I start to say something clever like "Another day in Trastevere!" when the wave hits. Caitlin is to my right, and our neighbor is to her right by about 2 meters. He is holding a bucket, now empty and dripping. We are wet. Caitlin took the brunt of the splash to the face. Our neighbor has dumped another bucket onto the vigil. We took an unexpected blow. Our neighbor has terrible aim with his water bucket.
Caitlin is pissed. We dry ourselves off, wondering where that bucket came from and what it is used for. Caitlin decides to take Bath No. 2. I go say hi to Amy. By the time I get back upstairs, a police officer has showed up. He buzzes our apartment. (I suspect he buzzed all the apartments.) We hear him outside our door, talking to our neighbor. "Non c'era io!" we hear our disgruntled neighbor protest. ("It wasn't me!")
We don't open our door. We try to make sense of what has happened. But of course there's no making sense of these things. They just happen, and we just have to hold on tight. Occasionally we get a random splash of water to the face here. Most often, the water is not intended for us, but it soaks us nonetheless.
Stunned, we eat our dinner. Date Night has not gone the way we had planned.
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