Autumn melancholy and good news

After holiday-flavoured August life has finally come back to Prato. Shop owners have thrown away the „closed-for-August“ signs and roads are full of crazy Italian drivers that are again keeping my adrenalin level up any time I have to cross the road. I have to admit, I was enjoying a few weeks of deserted streets and empty caffés. My favourite gelateria stayed open as well as the library (ok, it was closed for a week), so I wasn't exactly deprived of anything. However, now that life is, or at least supposed to be, back on track, I'm starting to feel a bit useless. I'm still hosting couchsurfers, who really bring a whole new dimension to my EVS life, but I'm starting to feel my EVS project is giving me way too much free time. I don't have to wake up early, I have time to study Italian, I have time to go running in the evenings (which I can finally do regularly after three weeks of inexplicable, but constant pain in my ankle), I have time for aperitivo, I have time for everything. You'll probably say, what am I actually complaining about. My life is good. I have a great apartment, which I'm sharing with four amazing people. Well, I guess I'm just not used to being passive. I'm not used to not-studying, not-working, like, eight hours a day or so. Maybe that's the problem. I have to learn to enjoy these carefree days. There's actually a lot of courses starting in September and October, so I just have to get myself going and apply. The other day I saw a poster for salsa courses starting in September. It looked very very tempting ... 

The last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about what I can do after the EVS and as I've decided to postpone my plan of studying abroad, I started searching for au-pair opportunities in Italy. I'd love to stay in Italy for at least half a year(or more, I wouldn't mind) and improve my Italian, plus spending more time with children doesn't exactly sound bad. It sounds pretty good, actually. I've heard so many awesome aupair stories and I'd love to experience it on my own. Actually, I have received my very first aupair message the other day. It was from a family with four children aged from 8 to 15 and judging from the description of the family, the children should keep me busy, which is exactly what I'm looking for, so I'm waiting for the family's reply now. I was thinking it might be a bit early to plan my aupair year four months in advance, but we'll see how things go. I'm definitely excited just thinking about staying in Italy for a(nother) year!

Actually, I have some more exciting news. I'm going to Sicily in less than three weeks! I've been planning the trip this week, looking at places to go and with every new destination I take a look at I get more impatient and I can't wait to go. It's going to be one of the rare trips with all my flatmates and as we've all been either travelling or working during the summer, we haven't really had a chance to spend some time all together. With autumn knocking on the door we'll catch the very last moments of summer. Ah. Sicily with my Italian family. I can't think of a better thing right now ... 

Roman Holidays

It's exactly four months since I moved to Italy today and a few weeks before the big step, I made a list of places to visit. As I have already ticked off Bologna, Lucca, San Gimignano and some other towns, Rome kept on lingering unticked on the list, but only up till last week when I finally visited the eternal city with one of my dearest friends, Marija. 

I have to say, it all started out a bit surreal as we took the Frecciarossa train to Rome and got there in less than an hour and a half. It felt like out of the sudden we were thrown into a city that, centuries ago, used to be the capital of the world. Having arrived to Roma Termini train station wasn't exactly a no-fuss arrival as putting directions is definitely one of the things Italians do the worst and it took us more than 15 minutes to find the Metro A line or, more precisely, its Termini stop. Reaching the hostel, which was out of town, consequently took us more than one hour. We did master taking the extra-urban trains and metro in the following days, however. 

As mentioned, our hostel was a bit out of the city, in the northern suburbs of Rome. As we were trying to keep everything low-cost, I booked one of the cheapest hostels - 9 €/night. However, we had beds in a huuuuge room with 44 beds. 44! It said online it was a 20-bed dorm. The room was divided onto smaller "rooms" with two bunk beds per "room" with a curtain instead of real door, so you could sort of have a bit more privacy, but still, 20 isn't even close to 44! We were already thinking how it would be like to sleep in such a room with all the beds occupied, when we found out we were actually the only ones staying in the female dorm! With the high tourist season ending the whole hostel was quite empty, actually, which turned out to be good thing. In the following days, a few more girls stayed in the female dorm, but the hostel still felt kind of deserted.

our hostel (Tiber Village Hostel)

Despite starting our get-away with a transport confusion and the hostel surprise Rome quickly grew on us. Myself, being a fan of baroque architecture, especially fountains, was amazed by enormous buildings, romantic fountains and charming squares. It's actually really hard to recap all four days spent in Rome as so many things happened and with my enthusiasm for Rome resulting in more than 400 photos it's a bit difficult to decide about which of them are the most appropriate for this post. Anyway, after discovering narrow streets of Trastevere on Saturday, we decided to visit the City of Vatican the next day. Every last Sunday in a month the Vatican Museums charge no entrance fee and we both wanted to see the museums. However, arriving around 9 a.m. on Sunday morning it was more than clear there's no way we'll get in as the queue was already more than 3 km long, so we just decide to take a look at the Saint Peter's Basilica. That was overwhelming. I mean, seriously overwhelming. Just looking at the church, at all its golden ornaments and huge statues and, basically, just seeing the size of it made me realize how incredibly unbelievably rich Catholic church is. I was speechless. I sort of still am. 

Vatican City and the St. Peter's Basilica

Having seen quite enough of the Vatican City, there was time for something more multicultural. The Bolivian community in Rome had organized a diablada boliviana, which is actually the dance of the devil, but organized in honour to the Virgin of Urcupiña. There was Bolivian music, dancers wearing Bolivian national costumes and dancing Bolivian dances. I always enjoy this kind of traditional events with music and dancing, so this was such a great surprise. I never would've thought I'd be able to see a Bolivian feast in Rome. 

diablada boliviana

Eventually, we got hungry and grabbed lunch. Our afternoon was spent buying postcards, admiring Roman architecture and simply roaming the streets. We took it easy, just enjoying the city's warm atmosphere and creating our own Roman Holidays. We found amazing gelato near the Trevi fountain, we witnessed stealing money from the Trevi fountain (and saw how fast Italian policemen can really run) and we also experienced how crazy Italian bus drivers can be (when taking the bus to the extra-urban train, the bus driver was driving so fast that one of the tyres blew out). You might say we missed out a lot since we didn't get to any of the (important) museums, but that's left for our next visit to Rome. If there's any truth in throwing coins to the Trevi fountain, we'll definitely return. And even if there isn't, we'll make sure we return. 

At this point, I have to admit I got a bit wordless. Anyone that has already been to Rome, knows it's not easy to describe the city. Despite having high expectation for Rome from the very start, the city itself more than over-reached them. Thinking that centuries ago the world's history was being shaped in the Roman Forum, Colosseum, Vatican City makes me feel so small, so unimportant, so insignificant compared to all majestic that was going on in Rome. Thinking that Cesar might have stepped on the same stone in the Roman Forum I have is simply a breath-taking thought. All in all, together with Paris, Rome has found its place on my places-to-re-visit list. 

the Trevi fountain

Roman streets

at the Palatin, Roman Forum and the Coloseum

charming Rome