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inb4 "Wine Bar with GF"

Hit the like button above to like this diary entry. Leave a comment if the mood strikes you to do so.

I am all over the place for the next few weeks, but have some pieces planned and that I am already working on.

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I've been to the Canadian guy's bar. He's a cool dude and loves the Steelers. Good beer at that place.

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

How's the mood on the ground re: energy prices, general social misery etc.? Hard to get a good sense of the world with all the doomists on the Twitter.

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Trastevere is a very special part of Rome. That whole area going toward Testaccio is authentically Roman and pretty well devoid of the turisti. A couple of wonderful restaurants I used to like in that area (in the event you are still there): Trattoria “da Lucia” , Vicolo del Mattonato,

This is one of the two preferred small trattorias in Trastevere recommended to me ages ago by my son's wife (who is from Rome): It is small and good, and old place with plenty of photos. It’s pasta cace e pepe and ring omelet are well known. 2008

They also make gnocchi Thursdays, baccala stew Fridays.Pastas,grilled dishes, braised dishes etc.Reserve and even with that you might have to wait. You can go on Sundays. Watch the streets, there is another Mattonato that is not the vicolo.

The other is Augusto, Piazza de Renzi, also in Trastevere and closed Sundays.

Can't go wrong in either.

PS No doubt your Canadian friends are telling you all about the tragic victory of your native Croatia over Canada in the World Cup. For us non-Croats, it was entertaining for about the first 30 minutes, but then Croatia's obvious superiority took over and reality destroyed our hopes. I still intend to remain a happy subscriber, notwithstanding the cruel crushing of my sporting dreams. :-)

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I wish I was sitting at that table in the video right now. I would ignore my diet. I would drink whatever everyone else was having, and I would eat whatever they put in front of me. That was 50 years ago, the 1970s, my home planet!

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Buca di Beppos. Minneapolis.

Good food

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Never felt more like home in a foreign place faster than in Rome

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Nice sentiments. That said, more of a Panicale guy in my traveling days.

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Very enjoyable post.

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Nov 28, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

If you’re ever in the capital of the new empire, let me know. We can meet up for drinks in Dimes Square. I know some fairly respectable people who’d be very pleased to meet you.

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Nov 29, 2022·edited Nov 29, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

'Change is inevitable', you say. A mindset like that enables people to evade taking responsibility for just letting things happen.

Italy chose its present condition. Italy stagnated because it was easier for many, possibly most, to let its people migrate rather than make the changes/sacrifices necessary to provide them with the opportunities they needed to stay. The Left and Right shared the job of excusing the mismanagement and now they will collect the rent from the picaresque scenes of gentle, civilised, decay.

Rome was a squalid, run down, backwater for most of its post-imperial history. It lived off pilgrims and the plunder of Peru and Mexico. The Piedmontese rebuilt it and Mussolini had a crack at forced modernity and now under the Pax Turboamericana it will fill with a globally mobile mass that will bring crime and violence in place of the dying bourgeois order.

Niccolo, I'd be interested to hear about more than dining out.

There are plenty of great stories to cover. Rome has been invaded by wild pigs (literally...they live off garbage and terrorise certain suburbs). The Far Right is also renascent in the city (Casa Pound, named after the poet who mistook Il Duce for the saviour of civilisation). The city has a vast precariat cheated of a decent life now, as well of their future. Do they eat out in Trastevere? And what of the Ukrainian women employed as nurses, cleaners and aged care assistants? A friend born in Rome advises me that the Italian media is obsessed with the Ukrainian fiasco. And the Roman nobility, who own most of the real estate worth having that is not in the hands of the church, do they have any profile in the life of the country? What do the Romans think of their bishop and his welcome to the Third Worlders who will replace his flock?

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

How can a single piece both whitepill and blackpill me at the same time?

Rome is great, but I have always preferred Naples. I have always felt that the closest you can get to experiencing the Rome of the 1st century is walking the streets of Naples. The fact that most migrants skip the city and go directly north adds immensely to its charm.

You are right about the feeling though, the feeling of for a brief moment experiencing the things that could have been. It only serves to depress the hours afterwards though...

If you are ever in Belgium, do tell. I'd love to meet.

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Trastevere really is awesome. I still remember rounding a corner and seeing a panini shop called "Donkey Punch" with a painted image of an alarmed donkey. I knew I had to eat there. Delicious!

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

I very much enjoy and appreciate your European travel writing. Have you ever considered writing a book?

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Nov 29, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

This, from Razib Khan, may interest you.......

"Eurocentrism, the West, and white supremacy

The rise of the West (and its fall?)"

https://razib.substack.com/p/eurocentrism-the-west-and-white-supremacy

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Nov 29, 2022·edited Nov 29, 2022Liked by Niccolo Soldo

Very cool.

Obviously a totally different culture, but I’ve experienced a similar (albeit fleeting) vibe in South Korea (despite its literal death wish fertility levels). It existed among white Americans as recently as my (Boomer) parents’ generation (and I guess I caught the fumes of it in my childhood). It seems impossible to sustain in a low trust / anti-natalist society.

I remain hopeful that American Hispanics can maintain it, but GAE gunna GAE.

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