A Roman Snow Day

  Several amazing things happened this weekend. For starters it snowed! Rome hasn't seen snow like this since 1985. It is horribly amusing to see how the city has reacted. Shops have shut down and all the buses have chains, even though most of the main roads have little to no snow. On Friday and Saturday it felt like the first snow of the winter, when all the children don't have to go to school and spend all day sledding. Except in this case all the “children” were fully grown adults. People were walking up the center of Via de Fori Imperiali and taking pictures standing on top of snow piles. The sidewalks were full of Romans out to see this rare occurrence.

  I was leaning against a railing looking out over the imperial forum thinking about how the ancient Romans would have reacted to such snowfall, when I saw a man in his 60's dancing around with a large grin on his face. The man was attempting to catch snowflakes on his tongue while his wife filmed him. It was a moment of pure child like joy. He caught me staring at him and his wife, he smiled and gestured as if to say 'don't you love it'. Regardless of what language you speak or where you are from, we all can appreciate the small simplicities of life and on occasion can all remember the joys of childhood.

  As the day went on and my toes became more frozen (I kept telling myself it is like a wet suit- the heat from my feet will warm up the water in my socks and actually insulate my feet... Didn't work), it became apparent for the sake of my balance and ability to do ballet (in my next life time) that I should head home. We had successfully taken snow photos of the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Forum, and St. Peters. Of course you can probably guess that transportation around the city hasn't been the easiest with the snow... many trains just don't come and buses have bizarre intervals of arriving. After waiting about 40 minutes the 64 decided to show up and it was so packed that the doors to the bus couldn't open on their own accord. Determined to thaw out my feet I canoodled my way into the bus and at one point could not have reached my pocket if I had wanted to. From our bus stop I went to the market to stock up on chicken/eggs/veggies. One rule of thumb to always live by when shopping- don't go when you are hungry- especially when you are uber hungry. In this case I was frozen, tired, and uber hungry. So I did the smart thing to do when you don't have a backpack to put your groceries in or a vehicle to drive your load home, I spent 30 euro and even bought a heavy bottle of wine. DUMB! The first grocery bag I stuffed full split and its contents fell on the floor. I proceeded to buy 6 more grocery bags and tried to disperse the weight of my food. The clerk looked at me like I was a moron, not just any moron but one preparing for Armageddon. Don't worry if the world is coming to an end I will share my wine and Gelato. The walk home was absurd. I kept telling myself off for buying the juice, wine, and two things of milk... so unnecessary. I was trying to be efficient by cutting down the number of market visits I would have to make this week. I got to S. Pietro train station and passed our usual gang of homeless people who live there. This is when the second amazing thing happened. One homeless lady came up to me and asked in Italian if I wanted a bag. I said no I was fine but thank you. She insisted so I stopped. She rummaged around her own garbage bag and pulled out a box of new garbage bags. She removed two from the box and started taking grocery bags off my arms and placing them inside the two garbage bags. When my two Santa sack like bags were full she spent several minutes tying each garbage bag around my wrists. When she finished I looked down and thought how much easier it was going to be to carry all my stuff and that now I look like a homeless moron preparing for Armageddon. I was extremely moved by the fact that this woman living in a train station to be out of the cold would stop a foreigner with bags and bags of groceries, just to make carrying them easier. Plain and simple- She was willing to help me, something I didn't see coming. It is good to be reminded that it is the small things we humans do for one another that makes life beautiful. At the end of the day it does not matter how much money you have, what accomplishments you have on your mantle, but the people you have in your life and how you have treated others. I tip my hat to the woman and am very appreciative of her kindness. Now it is time to pass it on...


Kristin