Siena, friends, adventures

Bus heading to London street...made me homesick!

It's been an eventful few weeks since I last posted...I had four wonderful friends visiting from the UK, which was fantastic:


Although I was a bit ill with a tonsillitis type virus, I think you can tell in the photo below from my feverish flush



Then last weekend I went to Siena as 8th December is a bank holiday in Rome...the immaculate conception festival, if you can believe it. (It seems Mary had a very speedy pregnancy - just over 2 weeks from conception to birth - but then if you're doing things miraculously why wait 9 months???) Siena is GORGEOUS - tiny, medieval and lovely. This almost made up for the fact that we'd planned to head to Venice, but it's been flooded and tourists were warned to stay away.





This last is the ceiling in our bedroom in our b&b - so fabulous!! it was only 25 euros per night each but was absolutely lovely and right in the city centre.
Teaching is still going well - hard work but I love my job. Highlights this last few weeks have included: me trying to elicit the word "rubbish" and a student responding, all seriously "I know! I know!er...SHIT!!"; one of the kids describing his house as "small...small-issimo!"; and doing a song listening exercise on Kung Fu Fighting, with a class composed of 60% Chinese students (lyrical highlights included "They were funky China men from funky Chinatown"..."There was funky Billy Chin and little Sammy Chung"...I'm now a bit scared that the equal opportunities police will come and get me, but luckily Italians aren't overly fussed about being PC).

In terms of my Italian, this weekend I mixed up the word for porcupine (istrice) with the word for pregnant (incinta) which made for an interesting sentence...I spent alot of time battling with the post office which was definitely educational, and I got drunk at a party and became convinced that I was now fluent, hopped into the front of the taxi and proceeded to "talk" to the driver the whole way home, in my terrible broken Italian..he was laughing alot, apparently.

My birthday!

I'm now 26. This is me and my friend I live with, Erika, on Monday, the actual day, in our local pizzeria...I insisted on getting champagne/sparkling wine and then felt like a ridiculous english person

The guy on the far left here is my housemate Lorenzo...in the middle is his friend Teresa, and then my friend Antonio from the CELTA course. (Antonio is also my future husband, although he doesn't know that yet).

Me and Pete, my former housemate and another CELTA course graduate (this is where all my friends are from pretty much)

Joe and Lucy. Lucy I work with at the British School, and we were already friends from CELTA - I'm really glad I work with her, it's great. Joe is a friend of a friend who also teaches english, he's from London

Me with Nur, who's Turkish and also did the CELTA

Woo!!

Florence in the winter

The 1st of November is a bank holiday in Italy - Ogni Santi, All Saints Day. (yes, lots of hilarious jokes were made by me and Erika to the effect that this is the day that Italy celebrates the rise of all-girl British pop bands). As we usually work Saturdays, we made the most of our 1 proper weekend by going to Florence to visit Rob, our friend from the CELTA course who's now teaching there.

Florence is gorgeous and much smaller, calmer and quieter than Rome. Very pretty and a bit easier to cope with. Also, it's completely integral to Dante's writing, which makes it really cool. I last went there for a day trip when I was 19 years old and au-pairing for the Bini family in Castiglioncello, so it was interesting to compare my impressions now with my impressions then.

We had a really excellent time, stayed in a posh hostel (Erika and I splashed out on a twin room with an en-suite and terrace which was pretty much luxury compared with our apartment (which, incidentally, is FREEZING: it's finally got cold here, and the centrally-controlled condominium heating hasn't yet been turned on. Oh dear.)


Aside from this trip, things have been pretty cool - I love the fact that I'm now only working 5 days a week, plus I have all my mornings free (except saturdays, weirdly). I feel like I have a really manageable timetable, finally, and I'm still enjoying the teaching despite how exhausting it is (and my dodgy discipline problems with the young teenagers).
This weekend I'm going for a Thai meal to celebrate my birthday - I'm looking forward to eating something different, but my Italian friends have already started complaining ("Why Thailandese? when there are so many good Italian restaurants"). I've never met people so xenophobic about food before. Anyway, it's all good.

new photos

Rome museum in Piazza Repubblica


This is the park/wasteland near my house, where I go running. It's beautiful in a bit of an unkempt way. I love the mountains in the distance - and this also shows the amazing October weather we've been having. It's only just turned cold.

Gritty urban realism on Metro B...and below is another big, free concert in piazza San Giovanni.


My housemate thinks I'll get in trouble for taking photos of my students, but they were all working together so beautifully that I wanted to show them off. This is my class of 11-12 year olds.

Teaching Italian children

So this might be a boring post for people not interested in teaching, but hey. This week I started some of my new classes at The British School where I'm going to be a full time teacher. I have one group of 6 ten-year olds, all beginners, and one of 6 teenagers, ranging from 14-17, who are really good at English - upper-intermediate level, ie they can understand what I say, which is reeeeeeeeeeally useful.

The kids are quite fun, once I got over my initial panic - somehow standing up in front of children and telling them what to do seemed really overwhelming on the first day, but once I pulled myself together it went well. They're all quite sweet and enthusiastic, and they go along with the games I make up which is good news. I can't deal with how quickly they do things though, compared to adults - they're all competitive so they race through the exercises, shove their hands in the air and yell "Finito!!" which keeps me busy finding new things for them to do. On wednesday we were making up sentences for a game of my own devising ("If you've got a brother, jump in the air" etc) and one of the boys came up with "If you haven't got a toilet, stand up". I think he was waiting to see if I got angry or not, but I didn't think it was worth it (plus the sentence was constructed correctly) so I just pointed out that he'd spelt "Toilet" wrong ("toilette"). haha.

The teenagers, on the other hand, are more challenging as they're all a bit cynical and grumpy. They're nice kids, and all really good at english, but not nearly as enthusiastic as my adult classes. I had a bad moment where I tried to make them repeat phrases after the CD, in chorus - a technique on which all ESL textbooks are heavily reliant - and they just refused: too self-conscious, too cool for school. As I looked at their blank faces it occurred to me what a stupid and pointless exercise it was, so I just told them to practise the phrases in a conversation instead. They're prone to talking all the time in Italian, which I have to keep telling them to stop, but they do do what I tell them in general so it's not too bad.

On Monday I'm working from 1.30 - 9pm with barely a break, so wish me luck!!

Some pictures...words to follow later

OK! These photos are from me and Erika's trip to Tivoli last weekend. Tivoli is a little hill town just outside Rome, with several amazing old villas. I don't know quite why a tiny, one-piazza town has at least 3 huge villas - there must be some history there which I'm afraid escapes my mind right now - presumably I've read it in the Lonely Planet. Anyway, we took the bus there last sunday. Bus tickets are supposed to cost only 2 Euros - it's only about an hour away - but unfortunately we decided to chance it by buying a ticket ON BOARD the bus, and when we clambored on the bus driver informed us it would cost 7 Euros EACH to buy directly from him. We were a bit put out once we eventually understood what he was saying (I have slow reactions in Italian) but he very charmingly suggested that we don't pay yet, but ask around among the other passengers, and find our if any of them had a spare ticket to sell.
So, a little daunted but determined to save that 10 euros, we made our way down the very crowded bus and attempted to ask for spare tickets. Confusingly, the bus appeared to be populated solely by dodgy-looking characters with a profusion of gold teeth, plus the odd nun. No one seemed to have any tickets, although a guy with a full set of Midas-touched dentures did ask me if I was French. That was interesting.

When we came to get off the bus, we had to confess to the driver that we hadn't found a cheap ticket, but charmingly he let us off without paying at all as he couldn't bring himself to rip us off so blatantly with the 7 euro ticket. That was nice. What's more, when we reached our villa of choice, Villa d'Este, it turned out that as it was the last weekend of September, admission to all museums was free. Score!! we purchased 2 euro bus tickets home and were overjoyed to have a day out of Rome that was practically free.

This shows Erika being generally happy and excited about the amazing view from one of the balconies of villa d'Este. The views were generally great - it was so nice to get out of Rome and up into the hills - plus the gardens were fabulous, with a profusion of magnificent fountains. We did some wandering about, admired the many-breasted female fountain -

- a fantastic celebration of femininity and the nurturing capability, as I mused feministly, and met some Australian tourists who I impressed with tales of my extensive drive round the coast of Australia.

Anyway, it can't be all fun and games, so only too soon we had to head back to Rome for another week of slave labour as english language teachers. As you may be able to tell, I have been feeling somewhat depressed and exploited of late - working 6 days a week doesn't help. However, there's cause for celebration as I've now LEFT Trinity business school, the one which made me travel to teach people in company. Hooray!! no more trekking round Rome.

However irritating trekking around Rome was, it did generate some rather bizarre and surreal situations, such as last Friday when I was taking a break between classes in the university area. I headed to a rather tasty kebab shop for a veggie kebab - the couple who work there are really nice and want me to teach their daughters English, apparently. Anyway, while I was talking to them about this - the woman speaks quite good english as her ex-husband was from London - a homeless beggar guy wandered in: he's a bit of a local character who you always see in that area. The kebab shop guy started chatting to him, and before long he realised that I was English and as I ate my kebab he approached me with a request: could I translate his sign for him?

I was initially skeptical about this project but he had his reasons: lots of the tourists round Piazza Spagna are American, and with an english sign he would be more likely to get money from them. He handed me a pen, and I thought "Ok, why not?" so before I knew it I found myself translating phrases such as
"I'm an honest man with no job and I have two little children who are hungry - please give money..." etc. Surreal.

This is me with my friend Luis from Venezuela, at one of our favourate Roman haunts, the charmingly named bar Bum Bum in Trastevere, on Emily's birthday.


Rob finds that our traditional Sardinian crisp-bread thing has miraculously broken into the exact shape of Italy. Wow.


All about anti-fascism. Throw that swastika in the bin. I can't even remember where I spotted this - maybe San Lorenzo.

Orvieto, Cinecittà and Liam Gallagher's accent

Since I last updated I took a quick daytrip to Orvieto in Umbria to visit my brother John and his friends, who were staying in an amazing villa up there. We hadn't planned the trip in advance, but when I realised it was only an hour on the train to Orvieto I seized the day. It was really good to see John and his friends, including Tim and Becky who got married the weekend before I left the UK. We looked at the wedding photos and agreed that I was probably the drunkest person at the wedding, and I finally got to see the swimming pool where the boys play tortuous games of kick-the-ball-as-you-dive-in which I'd seen several videos of. Though it was a bit cold and rainy. Autumn has finally arrived here, which manages to be a relief - the sunshine was actually getting annoying.

In general things are going ok. I feel exhausted at the moment as I'm working 6 days a week for 3 different language schools and trying to get my head round teaching. However, things will calm down eventually - I've told the school I've worked for since June that I'm leaving, and next week's my last week. Hooray! I've had ENOUGH of travelling all over the city to teach, of last minute cancellations for which I am not paid, of my constantly fluctuating timetable and lack of support/colleagues/friends.



From mid-Octoberish I will be working full-time at the British School in Cinecittà, a school where my friend Lucy also works. I'll be teaching classes, some adults, some children/teenagers, and so will altogether feel like more of a "proper" teacher.

On the other hand I will miss some of my current students. Yesterday I went to a lesson with a music journalist who works for the company Repubblica, which runs newspapers and a couple of radio stations. His english is pretty good, and after we sat down I asked him "What do you want to look at in this lesson?" to which he replied "Well, I'm interviewing Oasis on friday, but I find Liam Gallagher's accent really difficult to understand"!!! I couldn't believe it. Then he asked me if I could imitate Liam's accent for him. Ha - I laughed alot - and refused.



This excellent graffiti stencil was spotted somewhere near Campo di Fiori.

Back in Roma

Ciao tutti, I am back in Rome so I guess it's time to resume the blog action. Just to give you a quick idea of what's been going on, I vacated Rome for August in grand Italian tradition and headed back to London to catch up with people. Then my family whisked me away to Barbados for 2 weeks of tropical paradise, including a trip to Antigua, following which I had another week in London and attended Tim and Becky's fantastic wedding.


So that's where I've been, and now I'm back in Rome, living in a new flat in Rebibbia and working at not one, but TWO language schools. Argh, reality check!! Tomorrow I have a brand new class of complete beginners which I am not a little stressed about...plus three new individual students to meet first.

Rebibbia, my new area, is not quite as leafy and affluent as Monteverde where I lived for the summer, so I initially approached it with some trepidation. We're very near some huge A roads, the motorway, and Italy's biggest high-security prison, packed with mafiosi. However, on the other hand, I'm living with my brilliant friend Erika from the CELTA course, our apartment is very nice and newly renovated, and we have a great high street with lots of useful local shops where everyone is very friendly. In fact, the owner of the internet cafe I'm currently typing in is so friendly that he sometimes lets us use the internet for free...in exchange for us watching educational videos about Islam on Youtube. Yep, I'm afraid he's trying to convert us...we're not sure how to handle it so are thinking of starting to turn up in full purdah to convince him it's no longer necessary.

Erika and I are sharing our apartment with a lovely Italian from near Napoli called Lorenzo. He's a fantastic housemate in that he refuses to speak English (he claims he can't, but he wrote a grammatically perfect note the other day so I think he's just feigning ignorance). This is good practice though it leads to some hilarious misunderstandings. Yesterday he told me I was "una monella". We looked this up and the dictionary defines it as "a street urchin". He says that that's not what it means, it actually means someone who is "molto vivace" - lively - and is affectionate. Hmm, I still haven't figured out how to take that one. Anyway, tonight he is supposed to be cooking us dinner, which I imagine will be amazing, although me being vegetarian is throwing a spanner in the works. I hate putting people out and messing up their lovely cooking plans, but I don't know how far I'm prepared to relax...I already eat fish!

It's STILL ridiculously hot here, circa 35 degrees, and our apartment is like an oven at night. It's doing my head in - I was expecting to come back to Autumn (because the UK was getting there when I left London) and instead it's still the middle of summer. I understand there's floods in the UK...must be global warming.

Aside from getting things organised re work and the apartment (I had my first EVER trip to Ikea last week!! it was cool though a tad stressful. Plus I bought a bedside table, and am now terrified of becoming Ed Norton in Fight Club...especially as I live in a "condominio": am I going to be slaving away for no other purpose than to fill my condo with neutral and inoffensive Swedish furniture??) I've been catching up with my friends here, and have already had pizza at Formula One, hung out in various piazzas, had lots of Italian misunderstandings, drunk lemon soda in Lucy and Dave's beautiful flat, drunk way too much wine and Peroni with Rob and Erika, provided a translation service for Jacopo, tried to convince Antonio to marry me, taught Luca random english swear words, been called "bella ragazza" by a variety of italian men, spent hours of my life sitting in un-airconditioned discomfort on Metro B, and been poo'ed on TWICE by a pigeon outside the Vatican - so basically everything is carrying on as normal. A presto...

End of an era!

I'm heading home tonight for the whole of August. Will be returning in September to a new apartment in Rome with my lovely friend Erika from the CELTA course, and eventually a new job at a different school. (I will be teaching children!! uh-oh!)

Lots of cool things have happened since i last updated...Vic and Matt came for a flying visit, there's been beach trips, partying in San Lorenzo, Testaccio, Isola Tiberina, flat-hunting, not much work (due to italians slacking off for summer) and consequently not much money, general hanging out.

Anyway, I'm excited to be coming home for a while now. Things I'm really looking forward to in London:
- understanding what people say!! It will be so nice to have a bit of a break from the constant struggle to learn italian...mind you, I suppose at the moment I get to tune out alot of boring/unpleasant conversations. Also it's nice just to be able to say "non parlo italiano" when people ask for money/directions/my phone number.
- food!! I've had nothing but italian food for the last 3 months. There ARE chinese, indian and thai restaurants in Rome, but I just haven't been to any of them. I can't wait for a break from pizza/pasta/olive oil/very crusty bread/nutella. Even if it is all delicious.
- my friends and family!! obviously. goes without saying.
- electric kettles!! I haven't had one in any of my apartments here...it's so much more hassle to make tea when it involves gas stoves and saucepans.
- newspapers that I can read with no effort
- radio and tv that I can understand with no effort
- being reunited with all my books, cds, clothes and shoes. And my knitting.
- blending in! Having pale skin means I really stand out as not italian, and you get people asking where you're from - England? Scotland? Germany? - all the time, and shouting things in English in the street, etc. It will be nice to just blend for a bit.
- being able to go into a post office/bank/shop and have a completely hassle-free, effortless transaction with no miming

Things I'll miss about Italy
- Italian...I do love it. Such a beautiful language, and I'm beginning to understand little bits of it too
- Italians being incredibly open and friendly. "How old are you?" "I just had this huge fight with my mother" "I'm in the middle of a divorce, and need to hide my income so I can screw my rich bastard husband for as much money as possible"...no subject is off limits
- the food
- learner english. I love it. "do a mistake", "angry/hungry" confusion, "say me". People sniggering when you say "beach" - "doesn't that mean troia?" "no, that's bitch." "But it's pronounced the same!!"
- Italian boys. They love me. And I hate to make national stereotypes, but they're all hot, and amazing cooks
- Having a watertight excuse for being an alcoholic. "Of course I want another drink, I'm British." "She's British! get the girl a Peroni, stat!"
- the gorgeous weather, and being able to sit outside in the evenings to socialise - nights out are so cheap here
- being a quick train ride from the beach
- being able to make ridiculous generalisations and stereotypes about the UK and having people take them seriously. "Everybody's divorced in england" etc

I must go and pack now, then head off to pick up my pay before I get on the sleeper train to Paris at 6pm. (I'm coming home the enviro-friendly way).

See you in London I hope!!

Croatia

Hi, it's been a busy couple of weeks since I last updated this...last weekend I had a visit from my big brother, which was really cool - I've been to stay with him loads in different French cities so it was nice to be able to return the favour. As he hadn't been to Rome before we did some sightseeing, taking in the ruins of ancient Rome on saturday followed by my own personal Rome tour which includes San Lorenzo piazza and lots of Peroni. It's got so hot here lately, and the city has really started to feel like it's the summer holidays with tons of outdoor cinemas, concerts, bars and market stalls springing up all over the place.

We also hit the beach on the Sunday - as it's been 38 degrees and I've been struggling across Rome on Metro line B (senza air conditioning) it was sooooo nice to finally get in the sea. Ostia is about 40 minutes from Rome it only costs E1, which is nice...it's fairly busy and not particularly picturesque (Romans are so snobby about it, telling me it's dirty etc) but it does the trick.

Then after just 3 days back at work I headed to Zadar, Croatia, to meet up with Mary Morris and her friends (the same group I went to Glastonbury with last year) to hit the Garden Festival, a dance music festival by the beach that appealed following the ridiculous cold, rain and mud of Glasto last year. I took the train from Rome to Ancona and then a 9 hour overnight ferry to Croatia - it was incredibly cheap and so exciting to watch the italian coast recede and head out into the Adriatic.

(This is how enormous the boat was...viewed from the end of the street).
I'd gone for the cheapo option of simple deck passage, so once I got through passport control I grabbed a sofa in the bar area to sleep on and headed up to the deck to watch the scenery. It was so warm, it was beautiful, and sunrise next morning was stunning.

It was great to be reunited with Mary who I hadn't seen in months, and also to get out of Rome for a few days after so long!! We stayed at a cute little campsite mostly inhabited by German families, and spent time each morning lounging by the pool nursing our hangovers...it was sunny and lovely. This is how festivals should be set up, Michael Eavis, please take note.

I had been mega disorganised and failed to equip myself with a tent. Since I also had no money and we were kilometres of (very hot) walk from civilisation, I opted to sleep in the porch space of Mary and Matts' tent (thanks guys), which was good in the sense of being free and bad in the sense of being not mosquito netted and exposed to insects like our friend here:


Anyway, the festival itself was cute - really small and nothing like the big rock festivals in the UK, but by the sea, with lovely views and the option to do lots of drunken swimming (we were shocked to find that the beach wasn't policed at all, so drunken revellers were constantly jumping in the water...so much fun but I'm sure it's so dangerous! Luckily no casualties, anyway!), just 2 stages and a few food and beer places. The drill generally involved arriving at the festival mid-afternoon, doing some swimming and sunbathing, drinking some beer, and eventually dancing to whatever music was going. Trojan Sound System, fun and danceable reggae, was probably the best act, whereas Mr Scruff, the one I was looking forward to the most, was a bit of an anticlimax (no fun animations or visuals, little rapport with the crowd).


Croatia seemed like a really beautiful country, though admittedly I can only comment on the Dalmatian Coast where we were. My friends had done alot of travelling around the coast, visiting little islands etc, which I'm very jealous of. The language is completely incomprehensible - I expected it to resemble Italian alot more, since they're neighbours, but no. I couldn't rid myself of my habit of trying to speak italian in shops etc, which didn't work for me so well...in terms of sightseeing I didn't really get to do any, except for a few hours wandering around Zadar in the sunshine before catching the ferry yesterday. It's a really lovely city, with ancient ruins and lots of churches - quite similar to here really! I definitely want to go back there for more exploring.

It was lovely, but over way too soon...I stumbled back to Zadar, then back onto the boat, then back to Rome, in a sleep-deprived stupor. I have to work tomorrow and am hoping I haven't lost my voice like I normally do after a festival/too much partying!

Working in Roma

Ciao ciao, sorry for the long gap between posts. My internet in my apartment is currently a bit dodgy, which puts me off. (This is also the explanation for the absence of photos from Facebook...I'll add more as soon as I can get the quick method to work).

Anyway, things here are still good. There have been ups and downs recently, mainly due to the fact that I've started working properly, for a language school. I'm currently teaching part-time hours - about 3-4 a day on average - as work is quite hard to come by in Rome in the summer, but it feels full-time due to the fact that I'm doing alot of travelling. Almost all of my lessons are teaching "in-company", which means going into people's offices to teach "business english", usually one-to-one. It's VERY different from the group teaching I was doing at teacher training, and last week I really felt completely at sea - I was rushing around Rome, trying to navigate the (not particularly reliable) public transport system and locate addresses, then negotiating the generally non-English speaking receptionists and security desks, locating my students, and figuring out what the hell to do with them for an hour or two. Teaching one-to-one is weird; it's all on you and there's no option to just pair them up and make them practice exercises from the book together...but on the other hand in some ways it's much less stressful, and if they're fluent enough you can just chat to them and correct the odd mistake.

I've been yo-yoing between feeling fine, good and competent, and like a ridiculous cowboy who's taking money for nothing. I've been asked so many grammar questions about which I had no idea - "when do we use "did" in questions in the simple past and when is it not necessary?", for example...if you know off the top of your head I congratulate you, I had to research it and teach it at the following lesson! - and generally have felt very unprepared. Also, some of the office clients have a bit of an attitude and seem to intentionally set out to intimidate me, especially this one creepy guy who I see twice a week. Sample question: "How old are you, twenty?" and "when you grow up you'll understand this," etc. I feel really lame for not speaking/understanding much Italian, especially with elementary students: I'm happy teaching purely in English - that's what the CELTA training is all about, and I do think it's a good system - it's more about negotiating the pleasantries/practicalities. It makes me feel automatically wrong-footed, especially when students talk to each other and I don't understand. Must work on that.


ah...reunited

Anyway, aside from work, which is going much better this week, anyway, I have had some very good times recently. Jemima stayed last weekend which was fantastic - amazing to see her and so exciting to show her all the places in Rome that I love, show off my apartment and my friends, etc etc. We ate alot of very good pizza, drank way too much of everything and had loads of fun. We failed to get up early enough or be energetic enough to do much substantial sightseeing any of the days she was here, but she's been to Rome before so we decided our priorities lay elsewhere. It was so good catching up, and made me miss London more than I had up til now, really - all the in-jokes etc...they remind you what you're missing. We taught my Yank housemate alot of fun English colloquialisms...he is now fixated with the idea that we shorten all possible words and add "y"...cardy, sarnie, footy. I just introduced him and my Italian housemate Diego to the word "Blighty" - they found it hilarious.

me, Jemima and my American housemate Ben

I've been expanding my circle of Italian friends which is cool - this weekend just gone I went out clubbing with an Italian boy and his friends, which was both weird and fun...he started off by cooking me dinner at his apartment, and not to stereotype, but all italian guys can cook amazing meals in 3 minutes flat. He made me pasta with zucchini and cream and it was delicious...then we drove to Ostia, the nearby seaside town which appears to be the Blackpool of Italy, full of discos and arcades, and hit the clubs. I was amazed by all the cleavage and fake hair and nails on show...any delusions I had about Italians being sophisticated and different from trashy binge-drinking Britons have been well and truly destroyed.

It's weird with Italians my age - people here seem kind of younger, not necessarily in a bad way, but they do. Most people I meet of about 25 are still students (university lasts longer) and most still live with their parents (housing is expensive, it's not usual to leave your city for uni, and families tend to stay together much longer). On the other hand, people (especially the boys) are very attached to their cars/mopeds...I think it's the independence they symbolise. People marry very late and you see middle-aged men joking around in cafes calling each other "ragazzo"...which means young man/teenager. I commented on this to an Italian friend and she was like "yes, we stay young for longer here!" I think it's true.

I just got a lift home on my friend's scooter/moped/whatever you want to call it, and it was so much fun. Not really scary at all - I always thought passengers looked so precarious, like they're clinging on for dear life, but it was actually really comfortable and I didn't feel like I was in danger of falling off at all. I've got to get one...waiting around for buses in the heat (it's around 35 degrees this week) is driving me crazy. Also Metro line B does not have air-conditioning...torture.

I cooked some crazy giant pasta