Πάνθεον

it is a paragon of pluralism, created as a house for `every god`, the pantheon was designed to welcome and include all the people of the realm and the variety of gods they worshipped. it is one of rome`s oldest buildings, built by marcus agrippa in his third consulship after actium in 31 bce, and has been in continuous use for over 2000 years. (the xtians usurped it in the seventh c and its used by them still.) its walls are six feet thick, to support its huge dome.

it is a massive structure that, like the moon, remains stationery as you move beneath it. it is breathtaking every time. its columns are gigantic and its awe is wonderful to experience, every single time. it comes into the corner of the eye, through the small streets that hide its fullness. but in the openness of its piazza, it is awesome and thrilling, every time, even when looking away for a moment and turning back.

rome is empty at night, all the piazzas are clear, making way for lovers and other strangers. the pantheon`s majesty is clear in the daytime, despite all the people, but it`s solemnity is clearest at night.

zooma zooma/angelina [for zara...]

i would eat this antipasto fifty times. one of the most amazing things in my life, the mont blanc was pure pleasure, the hot chocolate was pure, melted pleasure [a blog on paris breakfasts, w more pics]. hot choc and mont blanc are the two most popular things at angelina in paris, just near the louvre. "Although this palace has become a veritable institution, it still keeps its recipes secret. The thick, frothy beverage is served in a hot-chocolate pot, accompanied by a jug of whipped cream to complement it. The Mont-Blanc pastry comes from the Italian Alps. It consists of meringue, whipped cream and sweet chestnut cream." angelina is a chocolate house which opened in 1903, and it looks like it, an old, elegant salon, serving the most amazing hot chocolate, really, and the signature dessert, mont blanc, which, again, is out of this world. so good. "One should come as soon as it opens while the tea-room is still quiet and almost empty. The unchanging ballet of waiters then begins. The setting has remained almost identical for nearly a hundred years. Only a few Art Déco chandeliers were added around 1930. From floor to ceiling, the gilded moulding plunges us into the prestige of bygone times. On the ground floor, a large long room, lit by a glass roof letting the daylight in, receives small groups at tea-time, gathered around marble and wooden tables for a snack. A few people sitting in the window watch passers-by strolling by, while eating a Viennese pastry. At the back of the room, alcoves make it possible to set large tables for a dozen people or so who can meet quietly together. The mezzanine, almost hidden away and covered in red, attracts a few customers. In all, the restaurant can serve more than a hundred people." aviva told me to go there, though she doesn't read this lexical space; i went with zara, and she loved it like me. other people love it too: "The famous fashion designer Coco Chanel and the writer Marcel Proust used to take their five o'clock tea there. King George V of Britain had his own engraved glasses there. Today, artists such as Catherine Deneuve, Britney Spears and Patricia Kass are regular customers." i went to the angelina in bangkok, in central chidlom department store, it was a small section and kind of looked the same style, but the mont blanc was nothing ... nothing. and the hot choc was not as good as j&c here in mtl. regardless, i remember angelina in paris. i remember it so well. but i forgot to go there when i was in paris in december.

al-italya.

i loved florence when i lived there and i hated rome then for its busyness. the next time, when i visited rome primarily, i came to love its excitement and its italian-ness, and visiting florence was a drudgery due its american-ness. italy generally is wonderful in its beauty, history, culture, streets, fountains, language, food, people, statues, temples, churches, coliseums, pillars, arches, trees, hills, sky, air, gelato, piazzas. i love piazza culture, young/old people walking in and out of small streets into/onto large open spaces where other people are sitting talking laughing eating loving watching; the shops all around, the fountains in and around. the people are fashionable and pretty, wearing colours that reflect their internal passion for life, fueled by an openness with love, something that the continent embraced but which english and, by extension, north american culture suppressed. i loved parma; a small town with a towering medieval university and surprisingly large population of young people, who were the only people out at night, lounging on the lawn of the university, basking in the light of the late-night pizzeria and gelateria, talking singing playing loving, until they move on into the main piazza which is deserted except for one small street in which almost all the youth of the town are gathered inside and outside of a bar. i loved that restaurant there i went to by accident, and ate dinner and lunch the next day, it was so good i ate it all, the antipasto the primi the secondi the insalata and the dolce. i loved the shops there too, i found such interesting and well-made items. but rome really is spectacular in its physical oppenness its grandiosity which is at the same time surrounded by networks of small mysteries, like the choclit shoppe with the chocolate shooter glasses. but venice is the real hub of mystery. at night it's deserted, not a soul except the lonesome wandering carabinieri, who tells you that the island is completely safe despite its seeming danger awaiting every twisted corner and turn, of which there are millions in that little space with the high walls and small streets, which conjure images of men and women running and chasing mischievously in long capes and masks. i loved florence, with its museum that used to be the academy in which every night musicians would play in the open courtyard surrounded by statues of the founders of western humanism all of whom lived there and flourished under the medici. but, nothing gets done in italy. in a way, i love that, it's comfortable to me, i feel constricted by the rule-obsessed repression of western society; i grew up in a third-world country, i live in the third-world city of north america (where the roads are bad health care is abominable and things don't get done administratively), and thus i suppose it's natural i'd like italy, the third world of western europe. but it really does have a natural beauty, which really is matched by its historical and architectural beauty; it is a place that is thousands of years old and has the histories of my favourite periods in european history, classical and renaissance (both are philosophically the same if one was to look for a link in my thought-chain). it's such a cliche to love italy, but it is part of my mental heritage as well, being schooled in liberal humanism all my life, and while india's beauty/culture/heritage/homeness holds its real sway over me, italy is my second love.

MTL

i love mtl. everytime i leave i want to come back. everytime i go somewhere else i realise how great it is here. the people here have a joie de vivre that keeps them pursuing pleasure all night every night. they're beautiful they're fun they're full of a certain 'i don't know what'. i love how small this town is, i can go from my side to st laurent to atwater to old port to laurier to mont-royal to duluth in like three to five minutes. it's constant fun.