When in Rome, eat Indian?

We've been eating a lot of Italian food on this trip. Shocking, no? I mean, it's not really Italian food as much as it's the-food-people-eat-here-cuz-duh-we're-in-Italy food. And the food, well, it's been amazing. From the seafood extravaganza Peter wrote about below to Zia Nanelle's homemade pasta (please note that the spelling of her name is my own invention, that's just what it sounds like when people say it). Zio Bruno made a fantastic feast of seafood salad (mussels, cute little octopus, squid, olives, peppers, and some other things)

linguini with clams and mussels

and then an ENTIRE trout-like fish (spigola maybe?) for each person.

So full all the time.

We've been eating and eating and eating for days. I don't think I've gained weight, but only because the intense eating has been balanced out by the hills, stairs, and cobblestone roads.

So, Peter and I arrived in Roma Thursday night. Dinner time drew near and we both looked at each other and quietly whispered "do you want to eat, I don't know, not Italian food?" Sighs of relief. Tonight was a night without pasta.

We walked past various promising places, the Chinese looked good, and scouted out an Ethiopian place a bit further away. In the end, though, we ended up at an Indian restaurant.

It was SO GOOD. Well, I'm not exactly sure it was the best Indian food I've had.... but last night, it completely hit the spot. It was spicy (most of our food has been rather mild) and contained multiple green vegetable (which we haven't seen in at least a week). FANTASTIC!

For lunch today, we decided to continue the anti-Italian food trend and stopped at a halal kebab and falafel place near the Termini train station. Falafel and kebab sandwiches, and not a bite of pasta!

And tonight, well, in a few minutes, after we leave this internet point, we're headed for Chinese. Right near the Trevi fountain.

Bella Roma indeed.

Things I'll Miss About Oregon: Volume 9 [Our Aquarium Community]

Tonight, we passed our fish tank community on to their new caretakers, the Southerners.

Although the tank wasn't the same the last few months, what with most of the fish dieing off, both rapidly and of old age, it will be missed. It looks so sad in that picture, but I promise, it was really exciting. Really.

Someday, I think I'd like to get a big 50-gallon tank, maybe with a salt water community. But Kimberly keeps giving me a look. You know the look, you probably got it from your principal or mom once. The "NO" look. I don't think I'm getting the big tank anytime soon. :(

With Kimberly's thesis odyssey coming to an end and me quitting my job, who would have thought that the giving away of our aquarium would be the thing that makes it feel like this whole vacation and move might actually happen.

what the hell is wrong with our fish tank?

As Kimbely eloquently wrote, 2007 is starting off much better than our somewhat tumultuous '06 (ok, so it wasn't so much tumultuous as downright crappy). One of the minor inconveniences we experienced in '06 was the rapid demise of our fish tank "community." Our tank was struggling along with 2 albino cory catfish, a neon tetra or 2, a barb thing, a clown loach, a rubber lip pleco, a couple random shrimp that we got with our live plants, and Mortimer, our african-dwarf frog. And to top it off, the water was white and cloudy and we couldn't figure out why.

Needless to say, it was a little depressing.

So, it being 2007 and a new year and all, we decided to repopulate, cloudy water be damned. We went to the store; we got us 5 new neon tetras and 2 new angel fish. We came home and dutifully floated them in the tank until they were acclimated.

And then we noticed old rubber lips was missing. Not dead and floating on the top, or in a plant, or even bits of him in the filter. Just gone. A bad sign, it I ever there was one. And if there's one thing Mr Smith taught me in Latin, it's that you can't avoid an oracle (see: Oedipus Rex for example A, and the Trojan War for Exhibit B, and yes, I know those are Greek myths, but the Romans stole everything else from Greece, so).

We released the 2 angels and the tetras, and everyone is looking good. A week goes by and everyone seems to be fitting in well: the angels are taking over the top of the tank, the tetras are settling into the middle bottom, the corys take the bottom, and the loach is in the filter. Even the tank is clearing up.

Then the problems began. The angel fish were doing back flips and spins. Although these are natural movements for the Millennium Falcon or even a Metzger, this is not a natural fish swimming style. First, the white one with the black stripes went: it was sad seeing her go down the drain the same way she spent her final hours. Then the black angel, with the white tiger stripes: he went more peacefully as we slept.

We've decided we're bad fish parents and are holding off on getting anymore large fish. It's too taxing, both mentally and financially. Maybe someday we'll try again, but more than likely we'll pawn the whole community off on someone in the near future as we prepare our move. After all, there is no water in the middle.

Oh my... the death continues

Well, the saga of the fish community gets sadder and sadder. Alas, during a water change last week, several more fish died. They fought hard, and swam upside down for a while, but eventually succumbed.

We are sadded by the continuing loss in the tank. It's pretty lonely in there...

sleeping with the fishes

alas, one of the fishes is no longer. Angelfish had been looking funny for a few days, but seemed to be better. I guess "better" was an illusion. This morning she was face down in the gravel, not moving or breathing. So sad.

She was a good angelfish . She laid lots of eggs and jealously guarded them, until she ate them. She liked to nip at the frog. She was very pretty, lots of orange and black and silver. She was the alpha-female of the tank.

I will miss watching her.

I wish things wouldn't die.

[Edit 4:34 p.m.: Not a good day for the fish tank community: our dear, super aggressive, "kill-all-the-other-pretty-fish" black fan tail guppy was found face first in the plants this afternoon. He was only with us a short time, but his killing of most of our other small fish will live on in our memories - PEter]

[Edit 12/13 12:10 p.m.: So the black fan tail was a guppy, not a tetra; and a he, not a she - PEter ]