Navona!

This is my path home every night. I turn right out of Cantina del Vecchio's kitchen doors. I walk the curved via and turn left toward Piazza Navona. I cross Piazza Navona diagonally and turn left at the toy Store (Berte -- with it's spooky looking lifelike baby dolls in the window).  Two minutes later, I'm home.

My daughter Raquel used to say, "I'm unique ... just like everyone else." Every night the crowd at piazza changes. Teenage and twenty-something girls in tight jeans and boots. Family's on vacation, with maps open figuring it all out. Every language spoken as friends pose in front of any of the three famous fountains. Diners, well, dining at the various restaurants, the Brazilian Embassy, a toy store and other businesses line the piazza. And everywhere there is gelati, eaten from crispy cones or paper cups with tiny colored plastic spoons. 

Yet the people are all the same, on their own uniques trips, with their unique experiences. These will be their fond memories. I always wonder how many photos include me in the background. 

I also wonder, if I think they all look the same, what do the locals and money-making folk think -- charicaturists, painters, photographers, entertainers (there's the gyspy band playing the entire Sinatra songbook, the Statue of Liberty impersonator I almost bowled over while watching my step, the occasional King Tut, the guy who blares CDs and performs with little puppets that dance to the music), and those guys that sell light-up plastic thingamajigs that are probably made in China.

NOTE: More than once, I saw brides and grooms at the famous piazza taking their wedding photos (CD guy played Mendelsohnn's wedding march during the portrait-taking).