They have the 4th of July in Italy. I mean where I'm staying in Rome they do celebrate Independence Day, not just that they have the fourth day of July. Yesterday the US Ambassador to the Vatican, who lives next door to the American Academy, had a celebration. Today the Academy gave their workers the day off. It's almost nightfall here. No sounds of fireworks here tonight. At least not yet.

I slept in a bit this morning. Then got up and read for a few hours. Since the place is closed down today, I needed to go find myself some food. I did my research, consulted maps, and analyzed the location with Google Earth. It didn't take me but a few blocks until I was disoriented. I decided to start walking down Via Carini. At some point I should have been able to go right and run into the street I wanted. When I did decide to take a right I ended in a dead end street. After a few more blocks I saw a sign for a different supermarket, so I walked ahead for a few blocks until I came to it. It was a very nice grocery store, very clean, great variety. I bought some fruit and a couple of salads. It became much harder after that. For one thing, I couldn't find a single can of soup. Italians must love and respect cooking so much they've outlawed selling food in a can. I also couldn't find peanut butter. So I bought a jar of Nutella. There also was no grape jelly. I can only imagine Italians love wine so much they don't permit anyone to do anything else with grapes than make wine. The other thing was bread. I don't think they sell loaves of bread here. I had to buy a package of tiny pieces of cold toast. I walked up and down the aisles, looking for something I recognized, thinking to myself, "I'm going to starve!" I did find some packaged dinners. I really wanted to buy a bunch of stuff to drink, but I didn't want to carry it back to my room. As it was I was wringing wet by the time I got back. My canelloni heated in the microwave was great. I was glad to have a colleague in the kitchen who knows some Italian and could tell me what the instructions were. The salad was a bit dry, since I couldn't find any kind of salad dressing in the store. I think I've eaten too much Nutella because I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach awhile ago. Okay now.

I have been taking a little time off. I've been downloading episodes of Torchwood, a BBC sci-fi TV show. It's very well done and it's helping me to pass some time. Tomorrow's another day for reading. I don't know whether I'll go exploring tomorrow or on Sunday.