Diana and Duncan come to stay

Diana and Duncan are friends from Oxford, who have spent the last 5 weeks or so riding Dunc’s motorbike from England to Italy, via Holland, Germany, Hungary, the Czech republic, Hungary, a shedload of other former communist states, Turkey, Greece and here. Next weekend they’ll be in Sardinia so Duncan can be best man at his mate’s wedding, but for now, they’re all mine!

I’m not sure who was more pleased to see the other. My joy at the prospect of sharing all this newness with familiar faces, was very nearly eclipsed by D&D’s delight at having several days in a place that feels like a proper home (albeit a very gaudily kitted out one!). Needless to say, there were beers, wine, more antipasto, more watermelon for breakfast (Duncan reckoned that even if you could get it to taste this good in England, you still couldn’t have watermelon for brekky in the UK – the weather just isn’t right).

Sunday we went for a long wander through the ‘central storico’ (historic centre), from Piazza Venezia and the Trevi fountain past the Spanish steps, the tomb of Augustus and the Piazza Navona. Duncan, who’s a history major, was as overawed as I am with the Pantheon… although he also enjoyed meeting the local fauna :-) And it was sweltering hot, so we had to adapt to our surroundings – there were dozens of people paddling in this fountain. And, of course, there’s always gelati!
Back to work for me today, but they’ve got Roma Passes and things they want to go see. It’s just SO lovely to have people to share this place with, and these crazy first weeks, where it’s all so new.

I can’t wait for Ants to arrive.

Pearls of wisdom: crossing roads in Rome

I'm learning a lot about Italy from my colleagues. One of my first insights was 'how to cross the street', which is a topic that fills entire paragraphs in tourist guide books about Rome. Alessandro has it distilled down to three simple things.

1. Pick a gap in the traffic and just start walking. They might toot their horn, they might cut in front of you or behind you, but nobody actually wants to hit you, so they won't.

2. Once you start, keep going, and keep a steady pace. The traffic will assume you're going to do this and pick their own gaps accordingly. Stopping actually makes you more likely to get hit.

3. Don't run. It makes you look like a target :-)

It works. Trust me!

New Home!

The tricky part about moving to somewhere new is finding somewhere to live. We'd found a furnished holiday flat on the internet, but after my 'but it looks nothing like the pictures' experience with Rome in May, I wasn't game to take a long let on anything, so I just booked it for a month.

I'm quite glad I did. After 3 nights in a hotel that was also nothing like what it said on the tin, I arrived here to find that 'home' for the first month isn't even the same flat as the one in the ad... and it resembles nothing so much as someone's nanna's place - right down to the denture glue left in one of the drawers, along with clothes and slippers and other things that mean it could never really feel like home...... Bless the Italians, for whom I'm told image is everything - even more than truth...

So I was ever so relieved to find our new place, in the hip and happening neighbourhood of Testaccio. Fully furnished, fairly priced, and including all bills so we don't have to worry about handling utilities in Italian.

I signed the lease on Saturday. We move in on 1 August. It'll look more homelike once we get linen on the bed and stuff, but I'm loving the solid timber furniture and white walls look. It should be reasonably cool - it doesn't get afternoon sun - and there are ceiling fans and shutters. The landlord is lovely, and obligingly only wanted a month's deposit, which is very good of him (the standard over here is 2 or even 3 months). Yay.

Well wait and see what untold surprises await us... I'm still expecting something to be not all that it seemed...

"It feels right, indeed necessary, to right this wrong in our generation"

These are the words of Sarah Brown, wife of UK Prime Minister Gordon, who wrote about a recent visit to WFP in her blog. The world has enough food - many of us have far more than we need. So why is it that one in six people - a billion worldwide - wake up each morning unable to ensure food on their tables?

Five Things...

I’ve been here a few weeks, and that feels like long enough to start having an informed opinion. So, here are…

Five Things I Love About Rome
Having a proper summer: it’s been 30 degrees or more every day since I’ve been here. Even at night it never drops below 20 – not even when it rains - although that’s just cool enough for a good night’s sleep. While the rest of ‘the Boot’ bakes inland, Rome is famous for her refreshing evening breeze. And the daytime heat provides a very good excuse for…

Gelati: the gelateria nearest the flat does 82 flavours, and each one tastes just like its ‘real life’ namesake: melon, watermelon, kiwifruit, coconut, pineapple, cassata (vanilla with glace fruit), tartufo (chocolate truffle), liquorice, chocolate orange… Mmmm. Oh, and for all the English scratching their heads right now, gelati is Italian for ‘ice cream’.

Salads and melons: ripe tomatoes literally bursting with flavour, aromatic basil, sweet red and yellow capsis, peppery rocket. I’ve lived on salads and simple pastas for my first two weeks, and antipasto: figs with cream cheese and pancetta, or cantaloupe wrapped in proscuitto crudo. Watermelon for breakfast. No wonder Italians are all so lean.

The Nuns: I half expected them to be a dying breed even in the Holy City, but you see some nearly every day. All creeds, all colours, all ages all kinds of habits: austere brown with bare feet in sandals (even in the rain) through white, grey, brown, black and various shades of blue. Some wear laceup shoes even in 40degree heat and have cankles to match. Others are tiny novices, who look as if a puff of wind would send them flying. I still don’t understand how life in the cloister can possibly be the best way to serve God, but the fact that so many of these little ladies evidently do is somehow kinda cool. And they all, always, look happy and at peace, and seem to have found their place in the world. So many others cannot say the same.

Late night living: It’s too hot to do much before 7pm, and Ants is convinced Italians leave work and go home for a nonna-nap. But the shops are still doing a steady trade at 8pm (about the time most folk are turning their minds to dinner); happy hours run ‘til 10, and the gelateria is packed as we call in for one on our way home around midnight. It feels a bit boho, yet perfectly normal and civilised at the same time. And it beats England’s ‘closed by 5.30 and supper served at 6.00’ by a country mile.

I’ll have more to say another time about Rome as a city in decay. I still feel like I’m living someone else’s (slightly blessed) life, but it has its moments. So here are

Five Things I Don’t Love About Rome

The smells: rotting garbage from overflowing skips which sit in the middle of the street, in the baking sun. (Emptying them every other day is not enough in summer). Stale piss on the stairs up to the station, or from random doorways. Part of me longs to get used to it so I don’t notice it anymore – part of me shudders at the thought of ever becoming immune to something so gross.

Massive dog turds: in a city based around apartment living, keeping anything bigger than a Pekinese is cruelty to animals, but judging by the size of the monster poo one sees in the street (all to often already smeared across the pavement by some unlucky walker), Italians beg to differ. It’s almost enough to make you avoid sandals.

Monster rats: I was walking down a sidestreet in the centro storico (historic centre) and saw one that had apparently been run over by a truck – it was squashed flat. I don’t know what was more gross: that it’s innards had been forced out its back end and smeared behind it – or that the rat itself, not counting tail, was a foot long and easily 5 or 6 inches wide. Ick.

Rude supermarket staff: ‘Di mi ancora e piano per favore’ means ‘tell me again please, slowly’. Yelling in Italian about how stupid I am isn’t going to help me understand any better how much money I owe you.

Limited public open space: after England’s village greens, parks and even pubs, Italy has very few places for people to congregate and pass time. People cluster briefly in baked brick piazzas, sometimes sitting in the shadows cast by fountains and monuments, or on benches in the street to eat ice cream and natter. ‘Café culture’ in the style of Paris or Brussels doesn’t exist here: bars are for old men, and if it weren’t for Brit-style pubs, I would struggle to find live music anywhere. Even counting the language barrier, this is the adjustment that’s hardest.

It’s no contest though. I had to think really hard even to come up with 5 things I don’t like, and could have raved about a much longer list of good things. They win, hands down. I don’t yet see us settling here for good, but I hope we get to stay awhile…

A lesson on 'when in Rome'...

It’s maybe funny that Rome should provide some of my most favourite insights into English people. I blame Wimbledon.

The first laugh was on me: I made the mistake of asking a burly bloke from Sheffield (who was watching the tennis) if he’d ever been. ‘Not me. I’m not really of that class’ came the taciturn reply.

Of course. Unlike the Aus Open, where the $30 fee for a ground pass is accessible to many, and you can turn up on the day and buy one, Wimbledon runs an annual lottery. ‘Winning’ just gives you the right to part with 80 quid or so for a basic entrance ticket. Everyone else misses out – unless they fancy camping out for 2-3 days for ‘on the day’ tickets.

I tried to explain this and I think, even if he didn’t quite believe me, our man from Sheffield at least understood that I wasn’t posh. (I was wearing a £1 dress from Primark, for crying out loud!)

As the afternoon wore on, we were joined by a chap from the States and a bubbly couple from Leeds. They all had one complaint: Rome is lovely, but bloody expensive. ‘Oh?’ says me, thinking of my 35c packets of pasta and 4 euro bottles of wine at home, or Friday’s beach experience. ‘Aye, one place charges 7 euros 50 for pints, and it’s just John Smiths, nothing fancy. And fish ‘n’ chips were 12 euros – that’s more’n a tenner!’

Hmmm. Methinks I understand where they’re going wrong. ‘Have you tried the pizza since you’ve been here? I had a very good pasta for 7 euros the other day, and wine for 6 euros a bottle’.

‘You must mean for a half bottle.’

‘Nope. A proper bottle’.

One wonders, sometimes, why English people go abroad, if all they want to do is sit in a pub, watch English sport and eat fish and chips. But the lesson is obvious: eat as the locals do. It's more authentic - and cheaper!!

More sociable early days in the eternal city

It began on Friday. About 4.30, my colleague Lidija asked me if I had plans for the evening. ‘Not yet’ I replied, thinking my weekend was unlikely to feature anything more riveting than grocery shopping, some facebook, and perhaps a trip to a pub on Sunday, to watch Wimbledon.

‘We’re going to the beach. By we I mean me and about 100 people from work. I can give you a lift and make sure you get back to Rome. Would you like to come?’

‘I’d love to.’ I was already mentally sweeping aside logical objections like ‘but I’m not dressed for the beach’ and ‘hang on – back to Rome???’

It was the best decision I’ve made since I arrived. I wasn’t the only one who’d gone straight from the office, and we all kicked off our shoes and pulled up chairs and tables between the bar and the sand. It was my first glimpse of the Mediterranean, so of course I had to go for a paddle, suit trousers rolled up past my knees. Lidija half thought I was crazy, and half wanted to come in too – in the end, crazy won out and she hitched up her dress and waded on in.

It was a gorgeous, balmy evening. One of the blokes DJ’d some laid back tunes, the bar turned on free seafood pasta and we sipped 5 euro mojitos as the sun set over ‘the Med’.

My bill for cocktails, dinner, and a taxi from Ostiense, where my lift back to Rome dropped me off, totalled 20 euros. You couldn’t even get to a beach in the UK for that.

Best of all, I came away with phone numbers for a couple of girls who are even newer than me, who also live in Trastevere, and are also keen to go exploring.

None of them made it out Sunday for Wimbledon, but it turned out not to matter. I’d spent Saturday doing domestics, and checking out the area around Piazza Venezia (there’s a Leonidas chocolate shop near the Scholars Lounge pub – does life get any better?). Opting for a new pub, with ‘fewer tellys but cheaper pints’ proved the right call. Over a cracking 5 set epic between Federer and Andy Roddick I started nattering to a bunch of fellow travellers and ended up going for a meal after the match. If I can string a few more of these together, Rome won’t be a lonely place for long.