28/06/2013

postcard from italy - tits in Rome

by Jana, Val and Mathilde





We landed in Rome on saturday evening, before the last day of the Crack! comics festival. After an exciting taxi ride where our driver almost ran over a hardly impressed old man, we found our friend Silvia Rocchi from La Trama. She took us to the Forte Prenestino, a prison built in 1880, now a self-managed social center (CSOA) where the festival was taking place. There was an underground labyrinth of little cells painted white, each holding a different collective/organization - Tieten met haar would share a space with La Trama and Inuit, a cultural association and bookstore based in Bologna.

Walking around the maze, we came across the lovely and talented Inès Estrada who designed the festival's poster. "Do you want some Belgian beer?" we asked her. Some drunken italian man intervened and grabbed the bottle. He attempted to drink but missed his mouth or something and spilled beer over Inès' books. "You pay now!" she quickly said to the guy, but there was no reasoning with him. We hung our heads in shame.

Later in the evening, after seeing a brass band play old italian songs, we sat in the garden with some Portuguese and Swiss people who had found an enormous jug of unidentified alcohol and were teaching us to say "hairy tits" in their respective languages.

The sun chased us from our tent at about twelve o'clock the next day. We ate some pizza, had a trip to the supermarket ("no pictures" a shop assistant said as we were trying to pose with melons as boobs) and it was time for the festival to start again. We sold a couple of books, many stickers but mostly had good laughs with the people from Inuit and La Trama.

On sunday, we had some time off and went to the beach in Ostia. Later, we visited the city by night - taking a very early plane has its advantages. There was nobody but us in front of the oversized, ultra dramatic fountains of Rome. "some dudes built this shit", Mathilde said, rightfully so : the thought was amazing.

After our checklist of italian wine, coffee, pizza, ice cream and mozzarella was complete, it was time to go home. We hope to come back for the whole festival next year!





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