I'm Ada Limone and this is The Slowdown.

Just recently I was asked by the Graduate Writing Program I teach with to attend a residency

in Rome.

I know, I know, it's a tough life.

Because of the pandemic, I was naturally worried about the safety of the flight, staying safe

while there and so on.

I've been very locked down these last two years and the extra hairs of anxiety that the

pandemic was adding to the traveling was real, but I went.

It felt so much like a dream.

The October light over the Tiber River, the Trevi fountain lit up a glow at sunset,

the Colosseum, the Pantheon, history on top of history.

He was almost overwhelming.

Everywhere I looked there was some unexpected feast for the senses.

I could hardly believe it existed.

There I was in Rome and I was suddenly struck by how lucky we were to be traveling again,

safely and to a place with such a rich culture that it overflowed the spirit.

I was reminded how much travel changes you, how the act of seeing Hadrian's Villa and

Tuvelli felt like the act of time travel.

To admire his private room with a moat around it and think, at one point, he had a bedroom

that had a moat around it.

This is the stuff of fantasy.

I ate everything that was offered to me and drank everything that was handed to me.

...