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

Trastevere

Ok, so last Sunday we went to Trastevere, to experience the Porta Portese and go on from there.

It was quite interesting, mostly because some of the people at work had said that it was soooo crowded… But when I got there I didn’t think it was that bad, it reminded me of Koninginnedag or ‘braderie’ which is like a street sale. It also reminds me of De Haagse Markt, but it was less crowded than that because there was more space. There were some sales people who sat or stood up on the tables, shouting out bargains:

Then after we went there, we were just so tired, but we went on!

We wanted to see La piazza della Santa Maria di Trastevere.
Where the chiesa della Santa Maria di Trastevere is situated, obviously…

Anyway, we took a random bus, which got us completely lost. But we managed to get out at Trastevere station. Here, seemed unfriendly and just not interested in conversing. But we managed to get a woman to point somewhere, while mumbling some random Italian words. From that we derived the fact that we should go that way. Which we did.

If we had walked on, that would’ve been the end.

We ran into a tram stop though, it had a little map and showed us that we should wait for the tram to come and be on it before it left again. So we went on the tram, and my excellent map skills got us off at the right stop.

Then I saw a little tourist booth and knew we should take that street.

By this time we were both fairly hungry, so we decided to look for food. This street was full of little restaurants, but those were completely crowded.

Then we came to this sign:

It was intrigueing and the prices were right. So we walked the 20 metres and were surprised by a lovely little restaurant. The inside was interesting, it was obvious that the owners wanted it to remain like it was, but with the benefits of modern technology. So they had the original, very cute, brick oven but it was connected to a lot of metal pipes and things. The waitress was amiable, but not intrusive, which I find to be the perfect mix. The pizza was just delicious. I was shocked by the mere taste of it. I would like to eat that every single day of my life.

This is the place it was at:

So yes, go there and rejoice. (Oh, I almost forgot, it cost us less than 20 euros for two pizzas, a bottle of water, a coffee and a bruschetta)

So after wonderful, wonderful pizza.. We went to see the chiesa della Santa Maria di Trastevere.

I didn’t realise I had been there before until we went in.. but yes it’s quite a wonderfully overly decorated and way too shiny church. Interestingly commercial too. The altar at the end is wonderful, but it’s only lit when you put money in the little box next to it, hehe, behold:

At some point it seemed like mass was going to start, and the signs had politely asked us to leave during mass, so we did.

Then we almost bought stamps, but the woman was out of international stamps, meh..

We walked around a little and wanted ice cream, so we found this gelatteria, which, for a change, wasn’t called blue or red ice… The chocolate ice cream was just delicious, but crema… I will never have that flavour again.. :S So this shop was run by a funny Asian man, and I got his picture.

I asked him to smile, and he tried…