In which I disclose things which I have learned...

So let's talk about lying things that lie.

1) The ATAC website.

So Rome has this great and fantastic website for its public transportation system. That is, it would be great and fantastic if it didn't LIE all of the time! For instance: I've been dying to go to this huge shopping plaza Porta di Roma for the longest time. It's a bit of a ways outside of the city, but it's one of two IKEA locations in the area around Rome and IKEA = Love. You know it's true. Anyway, Jackie and I decide to make a trip a few weeks ago using the route planner option on the ATAC site which tells us to take the 84 to a stop and then IT'S SO RIGHT THERE. SWEAR! Following said directions led us to...the autostrade. The highway for those unfamiliar. Which we gazed along seeing signs for Porta di Roma in the distance and gave up. I find out today that the 38 has an extended route that drops passengers off in the IKEA parking lot.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.

No less than 4 times since have I tried to plot my route using the website only to find after trudging across cobblestoned alleys that directly in front of my destination is a merry little bus stop just bustling with arrivals and departures. So, right now I'm downloading PDF files of all of the bus routes in Rome, because ATAC? You are a lying liar who lies.

2) Recipes.

There is no brown sugar in Italy. Molasses is an American product that just doesn't have the same following across the pond and is pretty much non-existent except for specialty international stores. FEAR NOT say various ex-pat websites! Brown sugar exists! Just look for zucchero di canna (Zucchero di Canna...are we ending that word with a varro? Because in that case, I'll *adapt the recipe, thank you* [this aside brought to you by a very silly football obsession and yes I'm stopping now])! Those of you familiar with Starbucks' ever delightful 'sugar in the raw' will know what that ingredient is. And what it isn't. Which is brown sugar.

I need to bake cookies, people! Fortunately there seems to be a huge international supermarket (glory of living in a major metropolitan area, huzzah!) near the Vatican, so I'll be making a field trip there in the not so distant future as the weather has turned snappy and, cookies, people. Cookies. Gluttony may be a sin, but even Jesus was all about making food and making it the best stuff around (Good wine? Bread? Fish? That's what I'm talking about).

3) Citibank
Liars. WaMu >>>>>> Citibank

4) Who cares, as long as I can make oatmeal cookies, Who. Cares. Indeed.

Hopefully I'll be back with pictures of the glorious result of this epicurean search. And it will be glorious...