When in Rome...: La Neve!

Ciao tutti, spero che abbiate un buon weekend!! (using conjunctive tense!)

Here in Roma it is freezing! -2 degrees C right now, a real cold SNAP! You have probably seen in the news about Europe what a terrible state a lot of other northern countries are in. People aren't prepared for this type of cold! We sure aren't in Rome. There had been talk for several days that it was going to snow on Friday. Then, it did! And everyone got real mad at the mayor for not preparing the city for the snow. There were tons of traffic jams all over & the mayor had ordered things like museums and city offices to close so that people wouldn't try to go out & have car accidents. The city certainly isn't prepared to deal with snow removal or large scale salting of the streets or anything like that. Puzzling though why people got so angry about the situation.

outside my house. no shovels exist here.

My flatmate & I had planned to go to the ballet on Friday during the storm. The show was still going on & I had to convince her that we'd still be able to make it to the opera house despite the snow. And, of course we made it! Only about 1/3 of the audience made it to the show, kind of sad because it was opening night. But, nice for us because we got to go down to the main floor to sit & ended up having really sweet seats! The ballet was Coppelia, it was wonderful! The prima ballerina was absolutely fantastic. Here are some photos of me walking around Rome in the snow yesterday. It was slippery & everyone was just shuffling slowly around. My roomie said that in here lifetime they have never had a snow like this in Rome, sometimes a few flurries but nothing that sticks.

I'm not trying to make light of the situ either, the snow has really caused transport chaos all around the country. Many people are out of power and potentially out of heat, yikes! I am lucky to live in the city within walking distance of necessities.