La Notte Bianca

La Notte Bianca (the white night) is when the streets of Rome are filled with live music, poetry readings, street performers, pannino stands, and the wine flows like water. All of the museums and many shops are open all night and the streets are packed with tens of thousands of people. My consumption of the evening consisted of too much wine, too much beer, and too many pannini with fillings ranging from porchetta (the real deal), to grilled sausage, to eggplant. Suffice to say by the end of the evening my wallet was empty and my stomach full. I basically walked the streets listening to music and eating food. Feeling social I started talking to people and I ended up spending most of the evening with a group of dutch tourists, one of whom was wearing a cal sweatshirt (GO BEARS!). By the time I met up with them their english was as good as mine. We walked through the city with me acting as their guide. Hilarity ensued since I don't speak italian, and I don't know the city, but I led us to where we needed to go with much gesticulation, a few words in italian and a lot of angelino spanglish. All in all the night was a total success except that I forgot to take enough pictures. But I did come away from the evening with a fantastic shot of the colloseo worth looking for in the web album.
One random thing I noticed was that there must have been thousands of women in spike heels walking quickly over irregular cobblestones drunk out of their minds, but I only saw a few stumble, and none (that I saw) fell. By all indicators, the streets should have been littered with beautifull well dressed women with broken and sprained ankles, but I guess Italian women're hardcore. These Romans in general take their fashion seriously, regardless of age everyone seemed to be dressed stylishly, this doesn't imply universal taste or judgement, just the effort involved; of course I'm used to palo alto where the uniform is khakis, a company polo shirt, and the badge still on.