One thing i forgot to mention and really wanted to make note of was last thursday. In �sterreich, this day is called Gr�nerdonnerstag, meaning green Thursday. It is the day before good friday and traditionally when people fast themselves, particularly of meat. In �sterreich, this is celebrated by devoting the entire day to the lovely, friendly, versatile and heartily tasty vegetable.......spinach. Hence the name GREEN Thursday. Now i dont like spinach at the best of times. Mum puts english spinach in a salad which i love, but in Austria that is unheard of, so the good old popeye favourite is it. We had a lunch with just spinach, spinach soup to begin, mmmmmmmm, then spinach salad, and not the cool spinach, then spinach pie, and spinach casserole. This day looked good!!!! Then, to my delight, and for some unknown reason, Grandma Uranitsch brought out a big plate of french toast, apparantly eating this for lunch on this day is also tradition. I scoped it out. I thought this was possibly a trick, French toast filled with spinach from Austria with love. I dove my knife in, and realised that this was actually legit french toast! I dont think ive ever downed 5 pieces of french toast quicker. It was like i had an eating disorder when the spinach came out and they loaded my plate, i tried to move it around so that it looked as though i had eaten more than i had, but all doubts were lifted when i polished off half the plate of french toast. Luckily the 8 others were full on spinach so i had free reign on the good stuff, but it was a close call for a second there!
However, back to Rome. On the 9th, Simone showed me around town and i was really shocked. There was just so much more than i thought. The way i understood it was that Rome was a modern city that had been built around some old ruins, that, when they put them in the history books, cleverly take out the high risens and new looking buildings to make the whole place look old. But that is just it, the whole place is old, and has so much history behind them. The appartment blocks are villas that were built 150 years old, and the shopping centres are placed in buildings from the 1600s. Its just an amazing place. Everything has a story behind it. The place that Simone lives in is called the EUR which is where, during the Fascist period, the World Expo was held in Rome. Mussolini built a new city on the edge of the city that was perfectly designed and structured in every way. For me at least, these stories are facinating and just to think that everything around town has a story like that behind it absolutely baffles me. Another interesting set of buildings also involves Mussolini. The old administration buildings of his government are built in a plain, some would say, Fascist style, but with columns and arches in the style of the ancient buildings and ruins. This was because Mussolini wanted to built the new empire of Rome, in the old way, but with a new touch, and this was a reminder of that dream. It is incredible being in a place where the world has looked for its lead for 2000 years. It is an absolutely incredible place. But that was yesterday (the 9th), today gets much more interesting!