My New Apartment

You guys aren't going to believe the apartment I found! It's two steps from the Vatican ... without exaggerating, it's maybe a seven-minute walk to Piazza San Pietro. Also - and this importantissimo - I found a spectacular gelateria nearby, hidden alongside the back walls of the Vatican. This is my new routine (which I have faithfully carried ... um, every night since moving into the new apartment): Buy gelato. Walk to St. Peter's. Sit in the piazza, marvelling at St Peter's, listening to the fountains and the chiming of the clock, and - eating my fantastic gelato. I've also determined that this is the cheapest way to eat in Rome. It's a rather expensive city, but if I eat bread and fruit all day, I figure I can get a significant portio of my daily energy needs directly via gelato.

So I've been pretty successful with the various missions I came to Rome with. I made friends with the woman in the post office, and she helped me out, and I got all my paperwork in for the permesso di soggiorno - the legal document that had me sweating. It's the permit that allows me to stay in Italy, and it's complicated because it's one of those things that - basically, if you follow everything to the letter - you need the permesso to get the university acceptance and the university acceptance to get the permesso. So I'm glad to have that taken care of, or at least step one.

I found this awesome apartment.

I found a language exchange partner, and got in touch with a few Italians that I know. Lela and I got together on Saturday, and I'm hoping to get together with the others before heading to Bologna.

I bought some Italian books and I've been studying hard. Tonight I went to a Primo Levi reading at some cultural center. I think it's going pretty well.

And I've been touristing like a champ! It's a good thing I trained for Rome by doing the Camino de Santiago, because I think I walk about 20 kilometers a day. Really. And it's the best. I could walk around Rome forever.

Everything's not perfect. There was a mean guy at the market this morning who almost had a heart attack because I wanted to know the price of the lettuce, a creepy Italian guy asked for the time and then invited me to bed, and there are two pit bulls (or something like that) with fangs in the apartment where I'm staying. But - I'm trying to learn from my "host culture" a bit and chill.

So that's that. Rome is spectacular. I think I could live here. I might even be able to go to a cubicle if I could walk through the old Roman streets to get there. Hmmm. Maybe. Still not sure about that one. I'll have to think about that.