Day 29 walk

Oh! I remember this! (That's saying something, it was almost a month ago)



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So! Went out, probably relatively early, with the intention of getting to the Capuchin crypt and drawing (with my new black paper and my conte crayons!) the, er, decorations there. It's really a hauntingly beautiful place. On my way there, though, I realized that as it was a Sunday, the crypt might not be open. I continued, but you can tell that I was not necessarily worried about getting there as I stopped to draw along the way.





The first one, I was kind of in an alley and had to keep flattening myself against the wall to let cars by. (this was as more my depth perception than anything else- Italian drivers can be crazy, but they don't hit things, and they had enough room) The second, I sat down on a little roadblock in front of an apartment building. It gave me a little more time to work, and a more comfortable position to work from. Some older guys came by to see what I was doing, and seemed surprised (or maybe just declarative, people can be dramatic) that I was using a pen. I was too, actually, but I feel a lot more comfortable sketching in pen now than I used to, and this day was when I realized that I didn't have to labor over things in an erasable medium. (hooray!)

I moved on, meandering. Though, when marking out my route later in the day, I am always surprised to see that I didn't actually meander as much as I think I have. I suppose that when I don't know where I am, even straight lines feel like meandering. But I was heading in a direction, so I did.

The confusing mess by Piazza Barberini is, indeed, confusing. I had to backtrack in order to find the chapel itself (it was halfway up the staircase to the church) and may have, ahem, been too proud to clearly backtrack in front of waiters, etc who had seen me minutes before. Thus, a bit of looping was required. Once finding the chapel, though, I found it inundated with tour groups! This was too much, especially for drawing purposes. So I snuck into the church proper, instead and drew some putti instead. (Dang putti, being everywhere)



These were no exception, though I found the first's face to be rather enchantingly serene- they're usually more...cherubic, shall we say. And the second was quite interestingly asleep.


After this artistic output, I decided home was best, but that I had enough sunlight/stamina for an indirect route. Thus, as is usually the case with these things, I ended up turned around, and then in the Villa Borghese. (This was back when I still carried a just-in-case map, but the Villa isn't on it, hah) I tried to situate myself via the setting sun, but after realizing that I was not only getting further and further away from things I might recognize, but that I had mixed up east and west again and was in fact going in the opposite direction, I turned back. Refusing to be distracted by streets named after Fellini, I took the street I knew and arrived back in civilization again. (Passing the American Embassy along the way, a fact I would angrily exclaim upon later when I realized they would have be useful for dropping off my absentee ballot.)

I doubt the rest of the day was eventful.

Except for the birds! Oh man, it was Hitchcockian in October, due to migration we assumed. Whichever reason, the birds went spastic, but the swirly flying patterns belied a cacophany and a snow flurry's more disgusting cousin. We quickly learned not to take routes with trees.

But I'm sure that was it.