on marathons and iron bladders

Although the Rome marathon officially took place last Sunday, the Mermaid, Coco and I did our own little walkathon on Saturday already. In order to illustrate the route, TD made a little map so I can gloat some more: It's amazing our feet immediately recovered (well, mine did at least) and I'm pretty much fit to walk the same distance again, provided I have the same nice company and the occasional shop windows to keep me entertained.

As the Mermaid pointed out in her comment on yesterday's post I forgot to mention the Toilet Conspiracy. For some reason, all the toilets we tried (mind you, we were customers of the bars or cafés in question so it can't just have been some attempt by staff to prevent off-the-streets tourist from taking an unauthorised leak) were blocked by some male employee, wildly gesticulating with toilet brush and detergent in hand and telling the Mermaid whom we usually sent out on a reconnaissance mission "è bagnato" (i.e. "the floor's wet"). "È bagnato!" became the leitmotif of our weekend and explained why I preferred to seek out the comparative comfort of McDonald's (the first branch to open in Italy in the 1980s, by the way) on Piazza di Spagna. Twice. Needless to say, the toilets at Termini railway station and at the check-in area of Fiumicino airport were also closed for cleaning when we wanted to visit them. Do Italians have iron bladders, I wonder, or was it just a bad coincidence?

I don't know if it was the Toilet Conspiracy that prompted the Mermaid to come out with a philosophical "You know, in the old days, it used to be enough to just be blonde in Italy." "We're obviously getting old", Coco helpfully reminded her.

Speaking of the railway station - we committed the stupidity of not leaving our luggage at the hotel (a mere 10 mins walk from the station) as we thought it would be more convenient to deposit them in a locker at the station. Hah, bloody hah! The lockers were closed for security reasons and the queue to the manned left luggage was about 2 kilometres long. A cool new shopping arcade and lots of snack-bars are certainly an asset but what use are they if you have to sit around with your legs crossed because the one toilet is temporarily closed and you have to watch your luggage anyway, not knowing how many hours you have to stand in line to get rid of it? Ah, well.

Today, there won't be any lunch-break-purchases other than food because I'm meeting my cousin, Chiquita for lunch before she's off to Lyon for 3 months.