I am admitted into a stunning courtyard, palm trees and everything, and justifiably thinking, "Brilliant. This is going to be brilliant." I had already purchased a suitably revolting bottle of white wine with which I hoped to christen what I was not sure would be the most fantastic room in all Rome, nay Christendom.
Iwas swiftly disabused of this fond dream when I was abruptly informed by a confused yet very angry sounding voice that I would have to lug my abundant and weighty pants up the last flight of stairs as, inexplicably, the lift just simply did not go that high. "Sorrysorrysorry" was my only (frankly pathetic) response, mortified as I was by my unexpected detour (although in retrospect, how the fuck was he to know?), but as I was fearing cardiac arrest, naturally my prevailing thought was "HELP ME YOU TOSSER". It soon became clear why he didn't.
Imagine, if you will, Mrs. Overall with a 'tache. Such was the vision which greeted me at the top of the stairs, subsequently hobbling painfully into the flat. It then, if you can believe it, took him a full hour to open the door to my room. That's right. An hour. Excruciatingly slowly, one by one he produced thousands of fucking keys, shakily tried them in the lock, and then muttered at each of them in a hurt voice as if (a) it was their fault, and (b) this would actually help. He disappeared altogether at one point (I presume to take a nap). It took a generous squirt of WD40 and a mightly thwack before the ancient portal finally yielded I am thanking my stars that it didn't simply crumble into a million pieces, Mr. Overall's response to which would presumably been to shake his head ruefully at it, then limp off for another nap.
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Sunday, or Today I have mostly been getting lost near Termini
Greetings from my new home-have sporadic internet access so I will either be putting loads of posts up or not at all so do bear with, and suspend disbelief on funny looking times.
As of today, half of Life Goal Number Five has been (sort of) fulfilled, as I finally took the plunge and moved back to Rome. Given my almost perpetual state of semi-inebriated wistful indolence for the past few months, I had glamourized the city in my mind, blithely forgetting a number of key elements:
-The very real threat of being mown down by a ludicrously small car whenever venturing into the road
-The fact that maps/street signs/other normal features of a capital city actually seek to mislead rather than to inform, unless all you need to know is how many churches are in the square metre which surrounds you.
-Casual lechery.
On a related note, the staring. National past-time. Takes several weeks of acclimatisation before you lose the constant fear that there is some sort of disfigurement on your face.
-The pitfalls of allowing an organisation to arrange accomodation for you.
Not Rome's fault, I suppose. Still, after two hours of sleep, a ten mile queue at Easyjet being repeatedly poked by a hyperactive Italian toddler improbably named William, and the fact that due to said queue I did not have time to swig my customary glass of Wetherspoons piss before embarking (fuck you, Stelios), any target will do. Particularly as, being the tosspot I am, this intrepid traveller decided to eschew the use of a map to find my new home for the month. "Don't be so stupid!" I guffawed incredulously, "It's right near Termini! I shall WALK! I am practically a native, I do not require INSTRUCTIONS!" Bollocks I didn't. Termini is MASSIVE (another salient piece of information I inconveniently failed to recall) and as such, unbelievably, the surrounding streets are manifold. This was compounded by the fact that, in my infinite wisdom, I had decided that necessary components of my luggage included three almost identical pairs of black boots, around three hundred pairs of pants (I exaggerate, clearly, but those buggers are surprisingly heavy when in large quantities) and a number of obscenely large volumes by the aforementioned long-dead depressives. In short-a lot of heavy crap. Given that it took me about three hours to navigate my way out of sodding Termini, by the time I embarked upon my route march I was already panting and sweating like those people who do real exercise. Let it be known-winging it does not work in this town. After miles of cobbles (and falling over in spectacular fashion as is my wont), eventually I had to concede defeat and call the Beloved, beseeching him to consult Googlemaps and send me in the right direction (would that this were an isolated incident). It was about ten minutes away from where I hd originally started. But no matter, at last the blessed sight of the long anticipated door came into view. The delight! The relief! If only I hd known that, contrary to all logic, it was actually about to get worse.
As of today, half of Life Goal Number Five has been (sort of) fulfilled, as I finally took the plunge and moved back to Rome. Given my almost perpetual state of semi-inebriated wistful indolence for the past few months, I had glamourized the city in my mind, blithely forgetting a number of key elements:
-The very real threat of being mown down by a ludicrously small car whenever venturing into the road
-The fact that maps/street signs/other normal features of a capital city actually seek to mislead rather than to inform, unless all you need to know is how many churches are in the square metre which surrounds you.
-Casual lechery.
On a related note, the staring. National past-time. Takes several weeks of acclimatisation before you lose the constant fear that there is some sort of disfigurement on your face.
-The pitfalls of allowing an organisation to arrange accomodation for you.
Not Rome's fault, I suppose. Still, after two hours of sleep, a ten mile queue at Easyjet being repeatedly poked by a hyperactive Italian toddler improbably named William, and the fact that due to said queue I did not have time to swig my customary glass of Wetherspoons piss before embarking (fuck you, Stelios), any target will do. Particularly as, being the tosspot I am, this intrepid traveller decided to eschew the use of a map to find my new home for the month. "Don't be so stupid!" I guffawed incredulously, "It's right near Termini! I shall WALK! I am practically a native, I do not require INSTRUCTIONS!" Bollocks I didn't. Termini is MASSIVE (another salient piece of information I inconveniently failed to recall) and as such, unbelievably, the surrounding streets are manifold. This was compounded by the fact that, in my infinite wisdom, I had decided that necessary components of my luggage included three almost identical pairs of black boots, around three hundred pairs of pants (I exaggerate, clearly, but those buggers are surprisingly heavy when in large quantities) and a number of obscenely large volumes by the aforementioned long-dead depressives. In short-a lot of heavy crap. Given that it took me about three hours to navigate my way out of sodding Termini, by the time I embarked upon my route march I was already panting and sweating like those people who do real exercise. Let it be known-winging it does not work in this town. After miles of cobbles (and falling over in spectacular fashion as is my wont), eventually I had to concede defeat and call the Beloved, beseeching him to consult Googlemaps and send me in the right direction (would that this were an isolated incident). It was about ten minutes away from where I hd originally started. But no matter, at last the blessed sight of the long anticipated door came into view. The delight! The relief! If only I hd known that, contrary to all logic, it was actually about to get worse.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
My life so far
Things achieved thus far during my twenty two years:
- Attending the University of Cambridge without going stark raving mad.
- Acquiring and, miraculously, retaining a long term boyfriend. Significantly older, but remarkably appears to be ageing backwards, so by the time I hit thirty chances are he will only look about fourteen.
- Unfortunate side effect of older boyfriend: two small children. Initially a bit of a concern for a committed paedophobe such as myself, but over time have discovered that I can indeed interact with beings below the age of eighteen, and they actually seem to quite like me.
- Completing a TEFL course. This involved my spending a month in Rome whingeing endlessly to anyone who would listen about the poor structure, teaching, educational value etc. of the thing, then sulking because I didn't get a distinction.
- Invaluable life lesson learned from said month in Rome: contrary to popular belief, it is possible to live exclusively on white wine and nectarines.
- Erm... That's it.
Goals which require attention over the coming year:
- Disabuse self of notion that the sun is over the yardarm at roughly 10.30 in the morning.
- Disabuse self of notion that watching entire series of Come Dine With Me is an appropriate use of my time.
- Disabuse self of notion that pretty much everybody is a total wanker, and put on this earth both to rile and unnerve me in equal measures.
- Embrace fact that while explaining to people that I am currently "taking some time to decide what I want to do" is acceptable for perhaps six weeks after graduating, after several months sitting around on my arse doing nothing this begins to wear a bit thin.
- Actually return to Italy, learn Italian. Could have done this while you were sitting around on your arse, you say? Erm... Yes.
- Despite being possibly the world's worst teacher (though I do apparently have a rare talent for baffling small groups of middle aged Italians for up to an hour and a half at a time), make use of aforementioned TEFL qualification, get job.
- Despite being possibly the world's worst Classicist (it is a point of personal pride that I survived four years of higher education without ever actually being able to read Latin or Greek properly), make use of aforementioned degree, get job.
- Have a crack at writing.
Requires a bit of explanation, this last one. Have always wanted to, you see, but to be perfectly honest have always been a little bit scared. Fully intended to throw myself into the heady world of student journalism but lost my bottle, so doggedly clung to the theory that they were all just a bunch of tossers anyway and went to the pub instead. Amazingly, my ingenious tactic of doing sod-all failed to pay off in the long run. So, here we are. Not so much a New Year's Resolution as a much needed kick up the arse. As well as narrating what may prove to be a crashingly misguided adventure in la citta eterna, I shall also have a go at boring all and sundry with my quite limited sphere of interests. I like books written almost exclusively by long-dead depressives (with living recluses and alcoholics as notable exceptions). I like terrible television (see CDWM) and worse music (for me, the 80's was the pinnacle of creative achievement in this field). And, on the rare occasion upon which I find myself on the wrong side of two bottles of Chardonnay, I tend to enjoy crass generalisations cleverly disguised as social observation. Let's see how it goes. And, should no-one actually read the thing, the mere hypothetical notion that total strangers might find my life unutterably tedious should work as quite a convincing incentive to sort myself out.
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