Fact finding mission 'a Roma'

The timing couldn't have been more, errr, timely. Given that we were already in Milan, what was a girl to do but take an extra coupla days off and start getting orientated in Rome.

I confess, me and the holy city didn't get off to a great start. My plane from Milan was late, so I hit town near midnight, with everything more or less shut - including the first 3 ATMs I found, in a futile attempt to get cash to pay for my room. Then I couldn't find my hostel - a helpful old boy had sent me in completely the wrong direction - and I was almost in tears when, 90 minutes later and exhausted, I realised that it really was only 200metres from the station...

My 'mixed dorm' turned out to house me and 5 blokes (so technically, yes, a mixed dorm), including Sleep Apnoea guy, a very large, 40-something bloke who had left his CPAP machine back in the States... I have never heard anything like it, and I will say no more.

Two hours sleep wasn't quite the preparation I wanted before going to meet my new boss, but the metro and the train were blessedly easy to use the next morning, and I arrived almost on time, met my boss, learned lots about the job (it's going to be as fun, and as crazy, as I expected, and I will need to be a VERY good bureaucrat to do well here), met my future colleagues and left 90 minutes later with my head spinning with thoughts of 'holy crap, I'm going to WORK HERE!!'

Next mission was to buy some more appropriate clothes! The weather forecast before we left was for 20oC in Rome - but she'd turned on a 30-degree mini heatwave (unheard of for May, apparently, but that's global warming for ya!) and my jeans and boots were not the right kit to wear. A streetside stall actually had shoes my size, but I was disappointed to learn that, in a nation where women are often barely more than 5 foot tall, and impeccably petite, I am a size XXL when it comes to t-shirts. Oh well, they were 2 euros each. Assuming they survive their first wash, I can always cut out the tags!

Armed with comfy clothes, I started wandering. One of the things I think I'm gonna love about Rome is that many of her most famous attractions can be seen from the outside for absolutely no money at all: the Spanish steps, the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colusseum, countless columns raised by emperors and somehow preserved through the centuries. I found them all, drifting from one to another in a kind of daze, almost numbed by the intense layer of epoch over era that permeates every street, every corner, every statue. It's almost too much for one brain to take in. I felt almost dizzy, and resolved to stop touristing until I could come back and take it in more gradually.

So then I found a lush little gelati shop where I had my first cassata 'a Sicilia', a place that does potato and rosemary pizza, and a stupormarket selling massive punnets of cherries for 1.95. That's about £1.60. And they were fat, sweet and juicy, and so full of flavour. Mmmm.

Next day saw me pound pavements in Trastevere, a 'South-Yarra-meets-Carlton' kinda inner suburb famous for its food, bars and shopping, ideally located for work, and a place we may end up living. It's heavily geared to lunching businessmen and wannabe fashionistas by day, but it's also home to the church of St Cecilial, the roman Christian who refused to die despite 3 days locked in her own sauna, singing herself through the ordeal. They got her in the end, hacking off her head with an axe, but for her pains she's the patron saint of music. her church is gorgeous, and said to have been built on the site of her home.

Trastevere's leafy streets and paved piazzas definitely hold promise - although I was truly won over when I found Sale e Pepe, a cafe that does lunch for 7.50, and a large glass of house wine for another 2 euros...

All too soon it was time to head back to England, to plan, to dream, and to get things happening - we're moving to Rome!