Sunday starts at 11am and Largo Argentina, usually the hub of well-dressed Italians transferring between buses, is awash with non-Romans. You can tell the non-Romans and it has very little to do with ethnicity (although, that helps). We just dress differently (or wrongly). A sari or bootleg sports jacket. Maybe a thin wispy shawl. Listening in on the chatter, I can tell they're not speaking Italian. What language they are speaking is much trickier. Wizened old ladies in white saris with crooked teeth and small black crosses tattooed on their foreheads chatter away, second-guessing each other on the right bus to board. Eventually, we do get onto a Linie 40, express to Termini Station and on it, have to squeeze more tightly than most married couples do, that it's a gargantaun effort to validate my 1 Euro ticket. Nobody else even tries to validate their passes--no conductor is going to get through this crowd at any rate. Even if he does, the Pope will intercede--these people look like pilgrims on the way back from Sunday at St. Paul's.
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[Pilgrimage: (1) one who journeys in foreign lands - WAYFARER; (2) one who travels to a shrine or holy place as a devotee. - Merriam-Webster]
In this context, I'm more wayfarer than devotee. Getting to the Rome Mosque (or officially, the Rome Islamic Cultural Center) is a trek for the first-timer. Located on the outskirts of the town amongst soccer and rugby pitches, I attempted to get close to this outfield location by taking a Linie 217 bus from Termini. After snaking through increasingly unfamiliar neighborhoods, I ask an old man in broken Italian for the Via Paroli stop (which was planned out for me by the excellent website of Rome's public transit service)
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