The world needs more smoked cheese.

So Steffi planned on writing this epic post about our ridiculous weekend, but I don't think she finished it. Either way, I'll just say that I'm thinking about joining the Communist party of Italy just because they know how to throw a good party/parade.

Joking.

But seriously, I have 4 tests in the next two days, and I'm not freaking out at all, because if you just study a little, everything comes together. Right?

After Thursday, I'm on vacation for a week, and it is definitely deserved as well as needed. My plans include: sleep, reading, writing a couple papers, visiting all the museums and galleries I've been wanting to, sleep, eating soup, eating bread, eating, a little vino, dancing at Rialto, and working a lot so that we can pay for rent.

As far as working goes, I babysit these two little Italian boys, Simone and Michele. They are 4 & 7, and they crack me up on a regular basis. The language barrier is quite funny actually, especially when I'm giving them a bath. Apparently Michele believes he has a un pisello grande, while Simone has a pisellino. Greeeeeeeeeeeeeat.

But this job alone will not pay the rent. So I'm going to the Abbey Theatre Pub, that caters mostly to Americans and the Brits with American sports and lots of rugby... and I'm going to get a job. Or I'll try to get a job, try really really hard. Really, waitressing is the way to go if I want to be able to make some real money quickly, so I'm hoping to get a job on my English/Italian skills and my good looks. C'mon, you gotta use what you got in a flashy city like this.

I figure it's a good way to meet people too. Meet them at work, and then never see them again... probably the best thing about meeting a lot of people. There is no follow-up. Sweet!

So pray that I get this job, and that I get it really really soon... because Di Croce girls cannot live on bread (credit card) alone.

ps- There is a bakery right underneath our building that bakes fresh bread every day, and the guy there gives me about a euro discount every time I go. I spend about 2euro on a ginormous piece of fresh crusty chewy bread. Che bella!

If you are what you eat...

...I should be turning into a piece of prosciutto very soon.

In sickness and in health.

So just in time for a week of studying and catching up on all slacking tendencies before midterms, someone decides that I need to start getting sick.

And it's like that evil sneak-up-on-you sick. Like, I feel it brewing behind my eyes. Hoorah!

Food shopping today will consist of the ancient remedies of chicken soup ingredients and lots of vitamin c. And also smoked cheese. Always cheese.

Stef and I have no warm clothes. Fall is already here. Maybe a trip to H&M is in order, especially because my birthday is coming up real soon... mmmm, 20 years of awesome.

One of my friends recently said to me that one's enchantment with Rome has to fade at some point. He said this in response to me finding it difficult to enjoy the city since I've been here, mostly because of stress of financial things and school and all that rot. But I don't think that's true at all. I think it's possible for certain people to lost there enchantment with a lot of things, very quickly, but again, it takes a certain person to never lose it. Every experience is what you make of it, and if you want to disregard the magic floating around this city then of course you'll become oblivious to it.

I just know that this city captivates me like no other place ever has, and even though I haven't been able to experience it to the fullest yet, I cannot be discouraged.

And now, time for food.

In which I disclose things which I have learned...

So let's talk about lying things that lie.

1) The ATAC website.

So Rome has this great and fantastic website for its public transportation system. That is, it would be great and fantastic if it didn't LIE all of the time! For instance: I've been dying to go to this huge shopping plaza Porta di Roma for the longest time. It's a bit of a ways outside of the city, but it's one of two IKEA locations in the area around Rome and IKEA = Love. You know it's true. Anyway, Jackie and I decide to make a trip a few weeks ago using the route planner option on the ATAC site which tells us to take the 84 to a stop and then IT'S SO RIGHT THERE. SWEAR! Following said directions led us to...the autostrade. The highway for those unfamiliar. Which we gazed along seeing signs for Porta di Roma in the distance and gave up. I find out today that the 38 has an extended route that drops passengers off in the IKEA parking lot.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson.

No less than 4 times since have I tried to plot my route using the website only to find after trudging across cobblestoned alleys that directly in front of my destination is a merry little bus stop just bustling with arrivals and departures. So, right now I'm downloading PDF files of all of the bus routes in Rome, because ATAC? You are a lying liar who lies.

2) Recipes.

There is no brown sugar in Italy. Molasses is an American product that just doesn't have the same following across the pond and is pretty much non-existent except for specialty international stores. FEAR NOT say various ex-pat websites! Brown sugar exists! Just look for zucchero di canna (Zucchero di Canna...are we ending that word with a varro? Because in that case, I'll *adapt the recipe, thank you* [this aside brought to you by a very silly football obsession and yes I'm stopping now])! Those of you familiar with Starbucks' ever delightful 'sugar in the raw' will know what that ingredient is. And what it isn't. Which is brown sugar.

I need to bake cookies, people! Fortunately there seems to be a huge international supermarket (glory of living in a major metropolitan area, huzzah!) near the Vatican, so I'll be making a field trip there in the not so distant future as the weather has turned snappy and, cookies, people. Cookies. Gluttony may be a sin, but even Jesus was all about making food and making it the best stuff around (Good wine? Bread? Fish? That's what I'm talking about).

3) Citibank
Liars. WaMu >>>>>> Citibank

4) Who cares, as long as I can make oatmeal cookies, Who. Cares. Indeed.

Hopefully I'll be back with pictures of the glorious result of this epicurean search. And it will be glorious...

So...things. Good things.

Oh man, I suck. As I was making the layout for this site I would get all snippy at Jackie like "you'd better not put my HARD WORK TO WASTE and not post" and here I'm the one who's being rather lame with the whole thing.

So, slight update -- I am employed! About a week and a half ago I got a call while I was on a bus from a strange Italian number, after hopping off the bus and fumbling around Piazza del Popolo, I hung up from my conversation with Hugo of Berlitz Intl. regarding a CV that I'd sent him. A few hours and one interview later and I was a contract employee of Berlitz EUR and the first full-time hire for the new language school at Tuscolana (which is a 4 minute bus ride away from the apartment). I cannot tell you how blessed I am to have this job. It's a full time job teaching English in an amazing, internationally renowned language school with room to grow and a salary I most certainly did not think I'd be making within a few months of being here. Let's just say that the people who live next door have been living here for a few years and advised Jackie and I that "you shouldn't expect more than 1.000 euro a month" and, well, I didn't expect it, but I'm more than thrilled that I'm working a legit job that pays nearly twice that at its base pay.

God's really blessed me, not only financially with this, but emotionally. I've been struggling a bit with resentment at the amount of money that I put into my university education and with the fact that most of the jobs here that I'd been applying for didn't make use of that degree. Berlitz requires its instructors to at least have a university degree, so it's been kind of a relief for me to know that those four years are really helping me live and have a job that I'm going to enjoy doing. So woohoo to that.

Other than that... Palermo needs to shape up and stop giving me heart attacks and, um, SOMEONE needs to stop leaving Zacca off of the national team sheet, and if that made no sense to you just ignore this paragraph. It is of no consequence.

Also, I pick up a WiFi signal in my laundry room. Go fig. But my computer won't connect to it. I don't know. But do not underestimate my insanity -- I *will* sit cross-legged on the top of the washing machine (for its 2 hour cycles) and surf instead of hauling myself to Trastevere. Oh yes.

Love you all,

'Sei di Sicilia?'

Sometimes you think you speak Italian well and people know right away that you are New Yorkese. Sometimes you don't think at all and you get asked if you are from Sicilia.

Last night we went to Mondo Arancina, this little Sicilian place that sells pizza and arancine (rice balls is a much less attractive term!). I order my arancina and the cashier asks me if I'm from Sicily because my accent is very Sicilian... I thank him of course and we get into a conversation about family in Palermo and such.

Point is, I sounded like I was Sicilian and that makes my life. What more do you want?

Nobody wears red in Rome.

Why am I always the cartoon character wherever I go?

So things have been in complete madness since the last time I wrote. My school ruined my loans for this semester, and blah blah blah things got insane with me going to the financial offices every day, being treated like a criminal delinquent, falling behind in my schoolwork and losing weight... but thank the Lord, it's all over.

Somehow, I was able to explain the entire complicated situation to our landlady (all in Italian, thank you very much) and she was completely fine with everything, very relaxed, kept telling me not to worry and just to call her when the rent is ready. And people don't believe that there is a God that is watching over us and providing for us... Ha!

I was talking with our friend Jake last night (who is right now in Rome staying with us!) and we were discussing how blessed we are to have our parents. We both come from families that support and love us no matter how screwed up things get, and how incredible it is because many people don't know what it's like.

So for the first time since I've been here this month, I'm at ease, I'm relaxed, and I'm finally able to enjoy my beautiful city to the fullest.

Jake will be here for a week, then he's off to travel around the rest of Europe for a couple weeks, then making his way back to Rome for a few days to hang out before he goes back to Jersey... it's great to see a familiar face from home. And it's also so much fun taking someone around the city you love and showing them all of the wonderful things.

I keep picturing my family and I sitting on the steps of Trilussa on a weekend night... mostly because I think it would be funny, but also because you want to share your favorite things with the people you love. Hope they are ready for it in February.

Things are good. I'm in the process of speaking to all of my professors about my situation, so they know that I'm not some slacker that doesn't feel like doing work... they are all incredible anyway, so it all works out.

My Italian is getting better every day and I'm even beginning to forget how to say things in English. YES!