Rainy Rome

It is a rainy day here in Roma. Still warmer than Sulmona, but everyone is huddling beneath umbrellas and shivering. Umbrellas! Who needs one? I have gone through 2 or 3 already and I refuse to buy another, silly flimsy things. NOT buying an umbrella is harder than buying an umbrella though. Not because of the rain, but because of the umbrella sellers which have descended on the city. They are like those rubber seahorse creatures that expand in water - the rain begins and a million umbrella sellers are everywhere. According to them, just because you have an umbrella does not mean you do not need two more umbrellas. Or six. Or fifteen.

I have said no thank you to them probably about eighty times. And the strangest thing is that while all the purse sellers are from Africa, all the umbrella sellers are from the vicinity of India. Did they all charter a plane to Rome yesterday when the weather forecast was for rain and come to sell??

So confusing!

So, I went to the music library in the conservatory here. When I arrived (it was on a tiny street and very hard to find) I was informed that the library was Chiusa. I had been told that it was open, so even though the man started talking on the phone and smoking and ignoring me, I pressed the matter. Why was it not open?? Another man came over and he explaned to me in French that two days ago the library had closed to "fix up the floor and some of the books" and would open when the the work was finished, whenever that would be.

He gave be directions to a bookstore, but they had not heard of Thomas, Hamlet, or even Shakespeare. So, no opera score for me.

I walked back to the Piazza del Popolo and found a Leonardo de Vinci exhibit. The museum-church had recreated DeVinci inventions and it was so interesting to see!

Now I am back at the hostel. Soon I head to the church to hear about the concert tomorow. Nine days and I come HOME!!