Rome Rain in Room

What?!

Yes, in Rome it Rains in Rooms.

Our room, our two housemates’s rooms, and one of the bathrooms, to be precise.

It happened like this.

I woke up and heard a dripping sound. *Ploop* …. *Ploop* it annoyed me and I couldn’t get back to sleep bfore I knew what it was.

I nudged Gaby, who growled, “I hear something weird, can I turn on the light?” *Grumble* “Yeah…” *Sleep*

So, I got up, turned on the light and… it was raining in our room!

Changed into clothes, opened door to hallway, found two housemates standing there, mouths agape. I went “Che cosa..” A finger pointed to the room next to ours… It was coming down like the Niagara falls…

It was also… 6 in the morning…

We moved our beds from under the rain and tried to get back to sleep, Gaby succeeded. I, however, did not. I asked Maria Cristina what happened and she told me.

They woke up about the same way I did, although I believe the Niagara falls might have been a bit worse than my rain.. So they went to see what the hell was going on.

They rang the upstairs neighbour’s bell for a couple of minutes before finally, they heard someone shouting “Ma che cazzo succede?!” (Roughly translated into: “What the f*ck is going on?!”So they knew they were at the right house. She came to open the door and water was up to her ankles. The entire apartment was flooded… She’d slept through the whole thing. Eventually they found out that some piping had sprung and it was all a big mess.

This is now about a week or more ago, and since then the room has smelt and tasted like a mineshaft. Every morning I wake up coughing and every night when I come home from work I walk into a wall of brickdust. It’s quite depressing, though I must say, the last days have been better on the amount of dust in the room…

Today a man came to see what should be painted over.

WoW it’s been ages

Hm.. I just can’t be bothered to update this thing much… Such a shame..
Moments often pass where I think “This would be a wonderful addition to my blog..” but then they slowly fade from memory, and I start asking Gaby things like “Do you remember that one time when this thing happened and I said I should put it in my blog???” she goes.. *sigh* and I let it die off in a dark corner of my wardrobe.

Quick update and on to more serious stuff, or well, other stuff..

Uhmm lots went by, Eric and Idzi had a brief stop-over, about 5 days, well 7 in the end, because public transportation was striking and Ryanair crashed some stuff…

My parents came by as well, onnnn Thursday, I think, we had fun, but on Saturday my mom fell down and had a lot of trouble walking for the remainder of the trip..

Uhm…. oh I made a website proposal for the Roberto Wirth Fund, if it gets accepted I’ll have a job here for the last months of my stay, pretty good, hope it works out.

Sign language classes are still awesome.

We ate some very good mozzarella today.

Almost Sinterklaas, we’re celebrating with Inge, Vasiliki (?), Kate, Gaby and uhmmm me.

What else…. Ooh, Kate got kicked out of her apartment because she couldn’t pay rent because she hadn’t been paid in forever, so last night she stayed at the Hassler hotel, which is Roberto Wirth’s hotel, and tonight she’s secretely sleeping in her own house and tomorrow she will be bunking with us.

I’ve been playing World of Warcraft, when the expansion hit the stores I vowed not to get it that same day, but voilà, we went out into the rain to find an Italian game store, the guy went “Did you pre-order?” I raised my eyebrows and shook my head.. “Well…. let’s see if I can find one…” And behold! We got us the last copy

I bought a leather jacket, Gaby bought a fake fur coat… It was all my dad’s fault…

She now wants to give it to homeless people.

Which brings me to the heartwarming fact that the other day, there were people at the Tiburtina train station, close to our house, feeding the homeless. A big pan of Spaghetti, big doesn’t quite cover it though… Warm drinks and… new clothes! They all looked like unwashed rich people!

Also, every morning, before I start work, I go to this bar. We call it “the corner bar” due to lack of creativity… So every morning I go there, have a cappucino, sometimes a cornetto (a croissant, but sweet… Some have glazing which is called “semplice” and some have stuffing… I usually have one with marmalata, which is jam really…). I sit outside and watch people rushing around me. Then every morning, this lady comes by and asks for a cigarette, so, a couple of days ago, I figured I’d buy her a pack of cigarettes! Why not?? She was always a nice beggar and never rude or pushy… So I bought her the pack and a lighter, but for the life of me I haven’t been able to find her anywhere…

Errm, let me think…

Oh, today I got scolded during sign language class… I understood nothing of the story my teacher was telling because I couldn’t get some of the Italian words… So she told me “I should practice my Italian more.” She’s right of course, so when I returned to the office, I wrote her a lengthy e-mail in Italian, telling her that she was right. I hope she thinks that’s enough practice.

Secret Santa next week, bit of trouble with that, I’m supposed to write a poem and buy a gift, but… omg… a gift up to €3…. So yeah, dunno what to buy, but we’ll see…

There’s probably a lot more to tell, but I’ll leave you with this:

We bought tickets to return to Holland for the holidays, don’t call us we’ll call you, no not really, please do call, I feel so lonely! We’ll be flying in on the… 18th, Eindhvoen Airport, be there or be square, please bring a car so we won’t have to do the train ride.

Byebye

The skies of Rome cry loud and bitter tears

“Bellissimo!” Cries a halfdrunk Roman when the sky breaks into pieces and all but our two tables run inside for shelters. “6 Mesi! 6 Mesi!” Yes, six months, he tells us, it’s been six months since it last rained like this. He is very happy and his friend who’s taking shelter is summoned to come sit with us.

They talk to us like we’re native Italians, I’m just as happy, not one person here apart from Cristina speaks actual Italian to me.. No, I lie, there is one more.

Today, Gaby came to my work so we could go out for lunch. We went to the little bar across the street, I drink my coffee there every morning and have lunch there as often as not. So we eat our panini, and sip our acqua. Gaby had herself uno panino al tonno e pomodori, and me, I’m not sure, but I think it was uno panino caldo  al prosciutto e mozzarella, yes, it was quite good, a little bun with mozzarella and some kind of smoked ham which was then toasted for my eating pleasure. After the meal I had a caffè, since that’s just awesome here.

So, after you eat/drink you have to go to the cassa to pay.

It’s quite an ordeal for me, usually, because frankly, I’m scared to speak up.

Today however I went: Due panini, un….caffè, e uhm… due acque…liscia (not sure if that’s correct but whatever).

And this woman, who is there everyday, seeing me stumble, brightens up, laughs and shouts: “BRAVA!”

So that was definitely one of the greatest moments this week

And yay it rains! The two guys who joined us were both kind of drunk, and were very happy with the fact that we were Dutch but could understand Italian. Oh and one of them had a dog, called Breadcrumb, so awesome.

Anyway, so they’re talking about politics and Amsterdam and crap like that and I just sit there and nod and so does Gaby mostly, and then out of nowhere, this Italian guy who has never met me before starts badmouthing the Pope!

Well I’ve never..! But really though, what the hell?! He’s talking about how bad it is to have a German Pope, and that the former Pope was so much better and really quite like a superhero. Then he says the weirdest thing… He says something about him touching small children… I was just sitting there like: ‘o_o

I mean geez, I thought Italians were like the uber-Catholics, purebred and stuff! So yes, after that we decided to somewhat exit stage right.

So I went: “Mi dispiace molto, ma dobbiamo andare.” I shake his hand and go “Piacere. Ciao!” So yay, I kind of did some Italian right, I think, I’m not sure, at least he understood…