A whole darn country born to shop

Ants and I have succumbed to Italy's one true religion. Every Sunday, without fail, we go ... shopping. From the flea markets at Porta Portese to the bustling supermall at Parco Leonardo (which does a cracking sausage and broccoli pizza, if ever you're shopping with a hangover!). I've never seen anything like it. Boys in this country grow up dreaming of football, and girls dream of Prada - although the boys are dab hands at spending cash too, if their carefully groomed appearances are anything to go by. (Maybe they just let their mothers and sisters shop for them).

From the cheap knockoffs on every corner - specially the ones near train stations - to the entire city blocks closed by Porta Portese every week, to the 'regular' stores that are open 'til 7 or 8pm, seven days a week. The supermarkets close on Sundays, but you can still buy sunglasses and a killer pair of stillettoes - with matching bag. In case you get to 8pm on a Sunday night and decide you have 'absolutely nothing to wear' for that pizza and beer on the sofa at home... Obviously.

It's habit forming though - having finally found a pair of shoes that fit, I went on a spree recently and came home with two pairs of trousers, three new tops, a dress and a skirt - all from brand name joints and (MOST unlike the the UK) for just a little over 200 euros. Even I, an avowed 'commando strike' shopper (know your objective, get in and get out again) could get to like this...

I wonder how long it'll be before I emulate my boss, who is American, and who went on a training course in Brussels this week. We heard from her Wednesday. 'How're you enjoying Brussels?' asked the two Belgians in the office, and me. 'It's a really weird place. The clothes stores and everything shut at like 6 o'clock on a Monday and Tuesday. I mean, who does that in this day and age?'

I'm not sure she believed us when we answered, 'the rest of Europe. Actually, everywhere but Italy.' She sounded really dismayed.

Bye Rach and Astrid (sniff!)

The end of summer announced itself with a bang - literally, another of those thrilling Roman thunderstorms that I have come to love. Rolling rumbles of thunder at 3am followed by brilliant lightning and drumming rain.

And in the morning, the temperature was 10 degrees cooler. Just like that.

It also brings the end to intern season, and it's suddenly time to say farewell to the girls who have been my boon companions these first few months. From that first carefree beach bash in July, to nights in Trastevere, songs ringing in the stairwells of the Castell Sant Angelo at 3am, and impulse buys at market stalls along the Tevere. We've shared tears and ridiculous giggles, life stories, good times, stressful times (Tiny scottish Rach has also been juggling part time work and some study while she's here. Danish Astrid hasn't had to care about any of that. But somehow this odd couple has worked brilliantly!). My 'summer of mojito and prosecco' would never have been the same without them. (I might've seen a few more Saturday mornings though, instead of emerging middle of the afternoons... this is the difference between 23 and 35!)

Now I have to start all over again on this 'making friends' caper. This is the downside of living as an expat in a place like Italy... I wonder if all my friends will eventually up and leave, and whether we will ever feel like we belong. Sniff.

Assissi!

Alex's big thing that he wanted to do in Rome was to, erm.... leave the big smoke behind and go to Assisi. Home of St Francis and host to squillions of nuns in a rainbow of habits from around the world. And I thought the sisters were out in force in Rome? I had to think again.

Assissi is, like Siena, one of those 'once heavily fortified' medieval hilltop towns, this time in Umbria. Its slopes are so steep that the railway, which needs flat land, is 5kms from the city gates, which still look like they could withstand a moderate sized beseiging army.
The Duomo (or cathedral) is somethign of a wonder - a small humble church with low ceilinged crypt that is home to the earthy remains of the saint and his four boon companions, and a later, soaring masterpiece that has survived fire and earthquake and centuries of politicking. Fear of fire is surely behind the electric candles that adorn the shrine (unless, in making Francis the Patron Saint of Italy they also annointed him the patron saint of tizzy tat). Whatever. They don't work. I put in 2 euro and not a single candle lit up. Ripped of by God in the bosom of St Francis. Bugger. It mattered not. After taking sqillions of photos at the Duomo we headed off in search of lunch, but got sidetracked by a 3 hour exploration that took us right to the top of the hill above the town and all the way through the Rocca Majore, the stone fortress that has spent as much of its history protecting its occupants from the townsfolk as it has protecting the townsfolk from outsiders. I'm gonna save the stories for when Ants comes back and we go there. But suffice to say that as you stood on the top on this windy, windy day and looked down, it was all to easy to imagine steadholders racing towards the gate, hustling sheep and children in skirts before them, in advance of a beseiging army... John Hawkwood had a lot to answer for.
Eventually we found our way back to our chosen lunchspot - only to realise it was 3pm! But we were in luck - on hearing my stumbling attempts to apologise in Italia for the hour but praising her restaurant for havig the best charisma, the charming hostess gave us a table with an amazing view and asked only that we order quickly. It was amazing... truffle pasta, prosecco, antipasti, dessert... lush.

There was barely time to check out the church of Santa Chiara (Clare), Francis's bestest childhood companion who followed him into holy orders and whose pink and white striped marble edifice is not a patch on her famous cousin's. Suddenly we had only moments to pick up souvenirs and gelati and make our way back to the bus, and the train.
But I cannot wait to come back. With Ants. He will love this.

Alex abroad

Alex Mitchel is one of my chums and former colleagues from working in England. Avid blog readers may remember my first ever football match (Oxford United played out a respectable nil-all draw against Reading or someone). Alex was my partner in crime that day.

The trip was not without controversy. Buying a sleeping compartment supplement in Paris is never gonna be easy if you don't speak French - although I could HUG Alex for doing the whole trip by rail instead of flying! And thank goodness he didn't have to change trains in Florence - he passed right through 'Firenze' without realising that one of Italy's most famous cities was right outside his window...

Funniest of all (although I blame the tittery English and their peurile minds for this, not Alex himself) was the reaction around the office when he announced his travel plans. "So.... *snigger* you and Georgi eh". Oh please. Alex's response made it all worth while "Are you mad?? Have you SEEN her husband? He's six foot twenty, and a rugby playing kiwi. I would be killed if I put a foot out of line with Georgi.' Ha ha. (He's right. Although I would kill him first, and Ants second.)

Just as well they didn't know Ants was in England - although he had known about Alex's visit before he booked his flights.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. Alex is one of those curious people who, like me, wants to know the story behind everything he sees. In Rome, that makes for quite slow exploring, and this is possibly one of the reasons why I am still coming to grips with this place after nearly 3 months here. There's so much to see and absorb if you look beneath even the surface layer of dust and veneer.

And he has a fascination for the out of the way places as well as the big sights - many of which he has now seen and I haven't : the Vatican, the Villa Borghese, the Forum and Colusseum.

(Ants has decided he doesn't do art. Or Roman Stuff. Or churches. So that pretty much buggers up Rome for sightseeing, unless I want to go on my own. He also has no intention of learning italian. And he wonders why he never meets people here... sigh. Sometimes there is an advantage in him being away. But I digress)

Alex and I fell into the habit of meeting up after work where I tried in vain to persuade him out of the habit of eating scandalously early. 'How do they know that we're English' asked an amazed Alex, his pale face burnt crimson right to the roots of his blond hair. After pointing out this obvious difference, I asked him the time. 'It's 6.30'. Right, standard dinner time in the UK then. This place will start serving primi piatti to most people about 9pm. '9pm?? Who had dinner at 9pm??'

Erm, most of Italy, actually.

'So we look like complete tourists then?'

Yes. But I'm only willing to argue so far about dining hours with a diabetic.

And the advantage of eating early is that it leaves so much more of the evening for exploring. Aperitivi near Augustus's tomb. Gelati near Piazza Navona. Poking fun at the grim statue in the otherwise bright and cheery Campo dei Fiori (field of flowers). Half price cocktails til 10pm and a chocolate shot on the way home. Funny cartoon voices, kebabs at 3am and a long meander through the Porta Portese market and up to the Janiculum hill in search of the monument to Garibaldi - which we found, having also discovered every other monument to the War of Independence on the damn hill. We also discovered one of the best views in Rome. And that there's a bus from Viale Trastevere that could have saved us all that effort. But it wouldn't have been nearly so much fun.

Lazy beach days

I've been itching to get back to the beach since that first balmy night after work. This weekend, armed with party invitation and stunning danish friends for company, nothing was going to stop us...

Although hangovers from Friday very nearly ruined our Saturday... have I mentioned just how good this aperitivo thing is? Thing is, all that free food, however filling, doesn't actually stop the mojitos from working. It just slows them down a little. It was 2pm by the time I arrived at Astrids for lunch and later still by the time we set off (back to the station right near my house!) for beach party goodness.

It was worth every delay. Sun, sand, not ridiculous amounts of crowds. Astrid's brother Jonathan, visiting from Spain, had brought a bottle of Veuve, there was bat tennis and shuttle cock and body surfing and sand fights and it all felt very, very 50s. The summer of the mojito continued until well into the night before we caught the last train back to Rome, with Astrid and Jonathan trying to outdo one another in the 'big kids on monkey bars' stakes. Luckily, no-one got hurt.

I can't wait for Ants to get back from England so I can bring him down to this little piece of paradise.

Daisy does Roma

On my dad's side of the family, I'm the oldest cousin. That's kinda cool, except that a lot of my cousins are nearly 15 years younger than me, so with me having lived abroad for most of their adult lives, I hardly know them. Going to my brother Jus's wedding last year was awesome for getting reacquainted with family.

This week we took it up a notch when my cuz Daisy came to town on her bus tour of Europe. Okay, so 31 cities in 14 countries in 21 days would make many people's heads spin, but fact is when it's yr first trip to The Continent you want to see a little bit of everything and work out what's worth coming back for.

We hooked up by the spanish steps, me straight from the office and Daisy and her tour mates fresh from the Vatican, via some extensive shopping on the Via del Corso. We found aperitivo -my new favourite thing in Rome: drinks, with free food, served around 6pm, where its too early for dinner but too long since lunch to drink on an empty tummy. Enter proscuitto e melone, bruschetta and frittata and some little pastry things with some kinda filling in them... For the same price as a normal drink. Yum.

So we nattered about family and got all the goss from home, gloated about our brilliant jobs and recent travel adventures and promised to have a proper catchup when I come home in May. She left feeling like Rome had been well and truly done in a day, however long it had taken to build it.

I don't believe her - nor my friend Kim, who says the same thing. I've been here two months and I'm still getting to grips with its dirty glamourous commercialist arty cultured classy mixed up vibe. But they are 23 and I am a woman of wisdom. Or too many words. Or something.

Next time Daisy comes to town I hope she brings her bloke along and stays long enough to see some of those layers. In the meantime babe, happy travels!

Random giggles

The engineers at work were in fits of giggles today. Turns out the surname of our new catering manager at work is Mr Tossici: Google translates his surname as Mr ‘Poisonous’. Hmmm, not exactly what you want from the bloke in charge of feeding 1000 aid workers per day.

It's nearly as good as the day I learned that Witney has a plumber named Phil Crapper. :-)