Pool Report: FLOTUS Lunches With Wives in Rome

Your pooler departs the Aldrovandi Hotel at 11:33, ahead of the 11:45
scheduled departure time. We drive past the American Embassy in all its
spendor and on through Piazza Barberini. It is sunny. It is warm. It is
glorious.

We arrive at our destination at 12:01 and head up the twisting path
leading up to the Capitoline hill, one of Rome's 7 hills, getting a
brief bird's eye view of the Roman Forum.

The Capitoline Museums are part of the Campidoglio, which is essentially
the Capital Hill area of Rome. The spouses of the G-8-ers are having
lunch here hosted by the mayor's wife,  Isabella Rauti Alemanno. Others
at lunch
include: wives of leaders from Sweden, Canada, S. Africa, India, IFAD
(International Fund for Agricultural Development: a UN agency), African
Union (a regional body), UK,  Mexico, US and Japan as well as Italy's
minister of education, and minister Carfagna of Equal Opportunity. The
spouse of the EU Commission president also attended the lunch. When
asked why they were coming to this museum rather than the Borghese or
the Vatican, a  spokesman from the mayor's press office looked vaguely
horrified that your pooler would have to ask. "Because it's the city
museum. The most important in the history of the city," said Gian Paolo
Pelizzaro.

The museum houses a collosal sculpture of Marcus Aurelius on horseback
as well as the original bronze of the she-wolf suckling Romulus and
Remus, which is the symbol of Rome. The wives will view that and more.

Before their tour they had lunch outside on a terrace overlooking the
city.
The head table seated 14 and was covered in ivory tulle with centerpices
of red and yellow roses mixed with oranges and apples. They were much
prettier than they sound.

The chef was Heinz Beck, a German-born gazillion star chef with a
restaurant in Rome called La Pergola. (This information - spellings,
etc. - should be double-checked as it comes from the memory of my
esteemed AP
colleague.)

The menu included lobster medallions, veal filet on apricot puree and
for dessert, walnut semi-freddo.

After lunch, the wives head off on their tour and enter the rotunda
where your pooler is waiting. They enter in small groups with flotus
entering last. Mostly they continued to chat with each other -but not
your pooler - and did not seem to notice the three-story statue in the
room.

They posed for a group photo. Flotus wore black flats, a taxicab yellow
sheath with an oversize green floral brooch on her left shoulder. From a
distance it looked to be bakelite and frankly resembled lettuce.

No one even seemed to notice the two elderly formal guardsman in gold
velvet britches and cranberry coats who flanked the statue.

By 3:45 flotus had left the room.