ere’s what’s strange, though. I haven’t seemed to be able to do any Yoga since getting to Rome. For years I’ve had a steady and serious practice, and I even brought my Yoga mat with me, along with my best intentions. But it just isn’t happening here. I mean, when am I going to do my Yoga stretches? Before my Italian speedball breakfast of chocolate pastries and double cappuccino? Or after? The first few days I was here, I would gamely roll out my Yoga mat every morning, but found I could only look at it and laugh. Once I even said aloud to myself, in the character of the Yoga mat: “OK, little Miss Penne ai Quattro Formaggi . . . let’s see what you got today.” Abashed, I stashed the Yoga mat away in the bottom of my suitcase (never to be unrolled again, it would turn out, until India). Then I went for a walk and ate some pistachio gelato. Which Italians consider a perfectly reasonable thing to be eating at 9:30 AM, and I frankly could not agree with them more.

The culture of Rome just doesn’t match the culture of Yoga, not as far as I can see. In fact, I’ve decided that Rome and Yoga don’t have anything in common at all. Except for the way they both kind of remind you of the word toga.