Food Alert!     In this carb infested country it is hard to find a menu without 98% carbs from appetizers to entrees and on to desserts.  Well, tonight we found a place that is almost Carb-Free!  A little hole in the wall, like most places here.  Quirky decor….flattened cardboard boxes nailed to the walls like wallpaper.  Mis-matched furniture, lamps and Art.  A beautiful Collie named Duke “owns” the place with his nasty, curmudgeon owner.  American Jazz music – some of the old, wonderful stuff.  The owner has made his own mix.  He may be a grouch, but he knows good music and good food.  The food is very innovative…we had an appetizer of goat cheese melted over toast and drizzled with local honey.  I wish I had a menu here to list some of the different choices…they all sounded so good…it was hard to choose.  For dinner, Andy had steak tartare with Gorgonzola and a bit of something spicy.  I had salmon tartare with avocado, ginger and a balsamic reduction.  Lots of salmon, tuna and steak tartare on the menu…I don’t think anything was cooked, or swimming in olive oil!  As good as it was, we were surprised to be the only diners…until we realized it was not even 6pm…the chef told us it would be SRO later tonight when the Italians eat…and tonight is the final soccer match…like a super bowl of soccer.  SO SORRY I won’t be up to see that!  LOL. We will be taking guests here often this summer…as long as they like tartare…or really neat appetizers.

we went to the Tour of the Collosseum Underground.  Unfortunately, the headphones didn’t work well and it was very static-y so I didn’t learn much.  There were lifts made that would lift the animals and gladiators to the floor level where they would fight.  Men and women fought each other and fought with the animals.  The thumbs up and thumbs down to signify who would die or be spared was a myth from Hollywood!  Also, there was never a river battle on ships fought in the Colloseum as legend would tell.  Only once was part of the Colloseum  flooded, and women swam during that water event.  The Coloseum is still being excavated and new finds  are being discovered.  At one time, the Colloseum, inside and out was covered with beautiful marble, but that was torn out and used to build St. Peter’s.  An early form of recycling. 

While near the Colloseum this week, there has been a lot of activity building bleachers from the Vittorio Emmanuele building to,the Colloseum, for the June 2 festivities. This is the day that the people of Italy voted to kick the Savoy King to the curb and establish a Republic.  The King and family went into exile in Sicily.  Now, they are buried in the Pantheon.  

We are just trying to stay cool in the hot and humid weather.  It is pleasant when the sun goes down, but pretty grim during the day for those of us used to air conditioned houses and cars.  

My friend, Diane from Dallas left for home yesterday.  Very quiet around the old Villa.  We appreciated her visit and for introducing us to Father Joe and Mallorca and to Brother Mark here in Rome. We went to Santa Maranella to the beach again on Tuesday and ate at our favorite seafood place there.  It was our ‘last hurrah’ with Diane.  Now we await Jame and Rhoades from Maryland on Monday.  Tuesday, we start another 10 days of fun travel. And probably another bit of exhaustion thrown in for good measure.

Hope all of my TEXAS friends have not had any flooding and hope the rain has stopped for awhile!