They were predicting rain again today, so we decided we should stick close to home and just explore the neighborhood. We started with an amble down Viale Trastevere and looked at all the market stalls along the street. They seem to rotate on a daily basis, so you are never sure what you will find. Today’s wares seemed to be mostly underwear, with a couple of stalls of cheap house wares and toys thrown in for good measure.
We found one stall with junky plastic toys for a euro each, so I let them each pick out a little something. The Princess chose a knock-off Rubik’s cube. The C-man really, really REALLY wanted this plastic gun complete with suction cup darts but I vetoed that one. After a great deal of gnashing of teeth and rending of garments about how I am so mean, he chose this little plastic billiards game. I think he chose wisely. I am also sure the pieces will be long gone inside a week.
Next we happened upon an art supply store. They have all kinds of great colored pencils, pastels, watercolors, oil paints, wood for models, glass for mosaics, and on and on and on. All of it crammed into this tiny shop. Every time I go to an art supply store I find myself lusting after all the great colored pencils, and wishing I had even a shred of artistic talent so I could justify dropping 50 or 60 bucks on some. Oh, well, it is just not to be. Tom says I should just get a sketchbook and give it a whirl, but I know how that would go, and it wouldn’t be pretty. And then there would be a sketchbook out there full of absolutely ghastly drawings. I cannot allow that to happen.
We went in looking for paper. They had a ton of it, but it was all nice “artist” paper. I was really looking for cheap paper for the children to draw on. So we will keep that in mind but keep looking. I have a couple of ideas where we might find inexpensive drawing paper. I suppose I could get them the good stuff, but they are very prolific, so we are really after quantity, not quality here.
Our favorite fruit guy had blood oranges at the market today. I love them. The C-man likes the look of them, but ate one segment and declared he was “full”. Her Royal Highness liked them though. For the uninitiated, blood oranges are orange on the outside, and red on the inside. They are sweeter than regular oranges, and so beautiful. They are almost impossible to find in the US, (or at least, in my part of the US – I guess I cannot speak for the entire country) so I have really been looking forward to having some. And they are just as good as I remembered. Hooray.
It might not rain tomorrow. What shall we do?
Posted by goitaly 
