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.