120 ascensori
(above: my office building)
When I was at the US/ICOMOS orientation in DC, some of my colleagues from abroad had not had a chance to send email to friends and family in their home countries until I offered to let them use the computer in my apartment.
The women from India and Bulgaria were amazed at the elevators my apartment building, which is common an ugly 14-story developer building in downtown DC. First, they were surprised that if you pressed the elevator call button on one side of the lobby, the button on the opposite side would also illuminate. They were both used to pushing both buttons. They also talked about how big the elevators were.
Here in Italy, it was time for me to have the culture shock. My elevator in Diana's condominium is triangular in plan: approximately 2' by 4' by 4.5'. This is very small. The sign says that the capacity is 4 people, but in the few times I have shared the elevator with just 1 other person, I felt uncomfortably cramped. I'm used to it now but looking forward to seeing Jason's reaction later this afternoon.
posted by smr @ 8:11 AM
2 Comments:
Hi Susan,
I'm surprised that any part of Nero's house remains. I thought Trajan tore it all down and sold anything of value to help pay for the Colosseum, (which was built over Nero's private lake, I've heard). There were probably a lot of Christians in the first century who would have thought that Nero deserverd all the bad press he got, at least that's the story I have from the nuns. Do you ever hear anything about the wealthy Romans in the period of the empire having a strong tendency for insanity caused by lead poisoning. I've heard that a lot of the bad behavior of those times was caused by rich people drinking out of lead pots. Bones of Roman patricians often have a lead content that's way above levels required to produce really bad mental and physical effects. Lower class people drank out of clay pots.
I also have problems with people who have not set "set themselves free of calculations". It must be a worldwide problem.
Your story about the elevators reminds me of Novisibirsk (in Russia) The elevators in our hotel were only big enough for two thin people or one overweight person. That was a real problem one night when we had to carry our boss back to his room after he had passed out from drinking too much vodka. We had to lean him up in the corner and I held him there while my friend went up the stairs to meet us on an upper floor.
Hope you enjoy your last few days there. My compliments on your dedication to keeping this blog updated. I've enjoyd it immensely.
Terry
Hi Terry, glad you are enjoying my random commentary. Trajan didn't tear it down, he just filled it up with dirt and rebuilt on top of it.
In the Renaissance, the famous 1st century BC Laocoon (sp?) statue was found buried in dirt in Nero's house. It is now one of the Vatican's greatest treasures.
And yes, Nero definitely killed oodles of Christians, that part is pretty much indisputable. But in his eyes they were a dangerous cult. Humanity has never been very good at embracing change, especially regarding religious practices.
I have heard the lead-poisoning & insanity argument for the fall of Rome too. Others think that the empire got too lazy once life got easy with daily trips to the Baths, so they weren't able to adequately fight off the Visigoths, Gauls, etc that attacked. And of course, the main problem was that the empire just got too big for its britches, extending throughout northern Africa, across the Iberian peninsula to Portugal, all the way up to England, halfway through Germany, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia.
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