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...