siamo arrivati a roma

Apologies in advance for the blow-by-blow account of my first 24 hours a Roma. It is every bit as wonderful as expected. The driver, Cristian, met me at the airport with a little sign; I've always wanted one of these. I surprised myself by speaking with him in italiano the entire 30min to Rome. We zipped from talk of Virginia (at first you get a blank stare, but then I just say Washington, DC and then people nod knowingly, which is exactly how mid-Westerners acted when I moved from Chicago) to lighthearted things like Italian politics. Here is a map of the Fiumicino airport, which I learned is also called the Leonardo Da Vinci airport. Lido di Ostia is on this map, a beach town I plan to frequent. Me thinks on Thursdays...



When I asked what he enjoys for fun, Cristian had two ready responses: mangiare bene (mon-JAR-ay BAY-nay or eat well) and dancing with his girlfriend/wife/life partner. He said they were a "coppia" which means couple but I couldn't get the image of him at a Xerox machine out of my head, until he said "you know, like with shoes - there are two and they make a pair." It was adorable.

The obtaining of the apartment went well, after I finally found it, which ended up being on foot. I had done a Google street view walk-through so knew what to look for. Cristian had the Rome driving down but must have driven 3-4 circles in search of Piazza di Costaguti before asking a little old Italian man, who said "you can't get there by car." When I found the piazza it was full of cars, like this:



My landlord, Gioia, is one of those beautiful tan Italian women who told me she was 42 and had two teenage children, at which I scoffed and said "no! that's not possible". She showed us how to work the gas in the kitchen and not kill myself, which is molto importante. First you turn on the gas and then you light the stovetop with a little button. After agreeing on the gas/water meter levels, she took almost all my money and departed. Then I went to sleep for 5 hours.

Upon awaking I nested. There is something about making oneself at home in a new place that I love. Even on airplanes, though there are considerably fewer options about how to arrange your possessions when you are folded like a sardine into an airplane seat. Fortunatamente, my flat is larger than that. It is a cute little 2-room apartment, with kitchen/dining area plus random comfy chair, and bedroom/living room.

After all was unpacked I slowly got cleaned up and commenced my first passeggiatta to the Sette Oche restaurant in Trastevere. I learned that "oche" means "geese" because it was all over the menu, as in "Geese First Courses" and "Geese Salad." To say the Italians know what they are doing in the way of food is like saying the Grand Canyon is a rather large ditch. OMG, was it delightful. Here is my dinner:





After dinner, returned to the flat and with the help of a liter of wine managed to sleep until 4am. At which point(10pm EST) I awoke and wrote in my journal and read for an hour. Then was proud of myself for returning to bed until 9:30am. First thing on the agenda today: Campo di fiori, and a bunch of food. Currently my kitchen is equipped with 4 pieces of Geese Bread, 1 nectarine, some Goldfish from CVS, and a bunch of Italian salt. Not for long! Mangiare bene, here I come...