Tuesday, June 12, 2007

2 Hours. 1 Position. 1/100000 of Trestevere

Two hours is a dam long time to spend watching one area of a city. As a result, I looked for a place that my buttox could withstand the conditions. I spotted a comfy looking set of tables and chairs outside of a Pizzaria on a main street of Trestevere. The tram line ran in the middle of the road while cars whizzed by on each side.


Foremost, during my stay it was impossible not to notice the PYT's (pretty young things, specifically women) that kept strolling on by - obviously not giving me the slightest glance. A majority of these women were dressed in a similar fashion, one that gave off the attitude "hey look, im chic, im young, im Italian, and I dam well know I'm hot." I, of course, am a fan of this look that involves lots of belts, beautiful dresses and lots of leg.

Other than the women, I couldn't help but notice the abundance of mid-aged men in business suits with briefcases. It seemed that for every one girl passing by there was at least one man in a suit passing along the sidewalk.

What I found really entertaining during my stay was the way in which people carried themeselves. The overall theme of the street seemed to be to walk nonchalantly, as if they had all the time in the world. Perhaps because it was around sunset and work was over, but everyone just seemed to be strolling through without any real sense of urgency. In fact, one man in a suit stopped by the pizza shop to talk to the owners who appeared to be his friends. Holding his briefcase the entire time, they talked for nearly 30 minutes; at one point I am fairly certain they were discussing a new kind of pizza to make with bruschuto topping.

Seated two tables in front of me were an older couple who seemed to be as romantically in love with one another as you might expect high school sweethearts to be their senior year. Though they were there before I arrived, they stayed nearly an hour of the time I was there. The man sipped on his Peroni extremely slow while the woman sipped on her slender cup of what appeared to be a beer of sorts. Despite my presence, camera included, the couple had no problem outright making out in front of me and appeared to be nuzzling at times the way a mother does with her child.


Trains and buses dominated the sound-scape of the area as every minute or so another would roar by. The trains were blanketed with advertisements which probably was very effective within the area noting the high traffic congestion in the area.

Surprisingly, the area was pretty much dead the entire time I was there. Over the course of my two hours, only about five different parties actually went in and purchased pizza from the store. I always wondered just how well these pizza shops did with all the competition but this one appeared to struggle. And, though people would pass through regularly, few actually stopped in to any of the stores and simply using the street for its transportation purposes.

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