General confusion, Pantheon, & English success

Monday 10^th

My Monday begins with an unexpected ordeal in the cosmetics aisle of the Via Principe Eugenio local supermarket.

My moisturiser has run out. I need moisturiser. Unfortunately, Italy finds it necessary to store moisturisers behind glass. Why? It’s not for us to question; maybe Garnier is viewed as a danger to the children of Italy. I don’t know. Anyway, the two people behind the information desk do not speak English, and it takes a lot of miming on my part before they realise that I need the cabinet opening. Maybe my ridiculous display of unlocking a door and moisturising my face was understood straight away, and they just prolonged it for humour –nothing else of note seems to happen at 10am on Mondays in Esquilino.

Eventually the cabinet is opened, but this is not the end, because I have no idea which of the many creams in front of me is moisturiser. There are hundreds (not quite). So the miming starts again.

Miss Super Mercato Worker can only offer me one solution, however: ‘Crema notte?’

No, I do not want night cream. How old does she think I am?

I pretend to vigorously rub my (facial) cheeks. 

‘Crema note?’

‘Non...’

She hands me a bottle of anti-aging cream.

No! For goodness sake!

Feeling like I possibly should buy some night cream/ generic anti-aging product now that it has been made so clear that I need it, I grab the first likely looking, British-branded bottle that I can and beat a hasty retreat. Feel like I have been there a very, very long time.

***

My day gets weirder.

Lidia, later, as we leave the apartment to pick the girls up from school: ‘Lucy. I like your socks.’

‘Pardon?’

I look down at my feet. I am wearing the faithful India pumps and black tights. I am mystified. ‘Shoes?’ I offer.

‘No... these.’

It turns out she is talking about my tights. Black tights. She ‘likes’ them. How can a person ‘like’ a pair of tights?

My mystification grows. But I let it slide.

Half an hour later, walking to the orange garden with B&B and their friend Martina (of Lago Bracciano fame): ‘Look!’ one of the twins yells from somewhere behind me. ‘Legs!’

All three of them begin to pluck at my tights in obvious confusion. It is as though they think my legs have turned black. This is SO WEIRD that I absolutely don’t know what to do.

Alberto, when he arrives at the orange garden a few minutes later: ‘Lucy, strange socks. Are you not hot?'

It is freezing. I am stood next to Lidia, who is wearing jeans, a coat and a scarf, and is shivering.

I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON.

‘Erm,’ I say. ‘No, it’s cold today.’

‘But it is like spring for you, yes?’

‘Well... no. It’s like autumn.’

‘Oh.’

Silence, broken only by a surreal army of tourists on segways that at that moment floats in through the gate. Segway army rolls through the garden towards the view of St. Peter’s Basilica, and I wonder how a world without the basic necessity of tights would even function.

Benedetta starts to cry about something (this is a very, very regular occurrence, and only ever last a few seconds) and Alberto says, ‘I can no longer sleep in the bed, I ‘ave to sleep on the floor because of the nightmares of Benedetta. It is getting so bad. Since the summer, she ‘ave trouble sleeping. ’

Good lord, poor Bene. I don’t really know what to say. What a bizarre day.

***

Tuesday 11^th

On Tuesday morning Lidia and Alberto inform me that they are worried about my health. Why?

It transpires that I am certainly going to catch a cold, because I keep coming down to breakfast with wet hair and no jacket.

Downstairs. Breakfast and Alphabet House are in the same building.

Lidia also worries that I haven’t brought enough clothes with me when I say I need to buy tights, and then points me in the direction of Oviesse, where presumably the staff won’t look at me like I’m crazy for buying ‘strange socks’.

***

After a successful browse in Oviesse (it reminds me of a slightly more expensive H&M, with better stock) I head down Via Merulana with the vague notion that I might visit a church that Lidia has pointed out as being home to a statue by Michelangelo. I don’t know what the church is called, and we have only ever driven in its vague vacinity –so my chances of finding it are slim at best.

In the end, it doesn’t happen. I don’t know where I take my wrong turning (possibly somewhere near San Giovanni) but I end up in a part of Rome I’ve never seen before, near the ministry of tourism. I walk around for a while, before ending up at Piazza rei di Roma, a huge square with a playground in the middle of it. Leading off it is a wide shopping street. I have absolutely no idea where I am, but it doesn’t matter. It is refreshing to just walk, sometimes. Eventually I see a sign for San Giovanni in Laterano and head towards it. Coming at it from the opposite direction, from outside the old city walls, I realise that I have been walking around the shopping area that Lidia pointed out a few days ago. So, success!

I head back to a lunch of whitebait and tomato salad, then spend the afternoon writing a ‘local tips’ guide for Lancaster freshers, which I post on TNS. Here’s the link – http://www.thenationalstudent.com/Advice/2011-10-11/18_tips_for_lancaster_freshers.html

***

After gymnastics that evening, as we are driving home, we stop off at an art shop so Lidia can buy some exercise books for B&B. In the car while we wait, I try to teach them a few more phrases. Bea can’t be cajoled into repeating anything, but I successfully get Bene to say ‘Where is mama? Buying a book’, ‘coming home from gymnastics’, and ‘there is mama!’ She seems to be picking it up surprisingly fast. When I have bundled them out of the car and into the hotel ten minutes later, Bea is in a foul mood – bottom lip out and refusing to speak to anyone. I get the feeling it was because I have been heaping praise on her sister after her mini-English lesson success. As we are going up in the lift I say, ‘Why is Bea sad?  I like happy Bea more. Bene, do you know why Bea is sad?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bene says.

Bene doesn’t know.

It takes me a few seconds to realise the significance of this, that is, Bene replying in ENGLISH to a question I had posed, also in ENGLISH. And how quickly she responded! This is such a breakthrough, and I don’t even have a gold sticker to give her. Instead I teach her how to say ‘I am very good at English’ and she mutters it to herself all the way into the apartment. And then I tell Lidia and Alberto how good her English has been today, and hope that they understand. She carries in being angelic all through bathtime and the five stories. Really hope she doesn’t have nightmares tonight.

***

Wednesday 12^th

On Wednesday I have my standing lunch date with Ashley and Laura in Largo Argentina. I decide to use the morning to visit the Pantheon, which my map tells me is only a couple of minutes walk away from the square, down a cobbled street.

I’m not really sure what the Pantheon is –apart from being a fairly impressive ruin. It is closely set between crumbling orange apartment blocks and shops selling leather, much like the Trevi Fountain is. I have a wander around the outside, and then realise that I have approached it from the back. The front is awash with tourists and guides holding up coloured handkerchiefs like matadors to reel them in.

I go inside and discover that it is, of course, another ancient church (Lidia later tells me that the majority of art in Rome is collected in its churches). It is also said to be the best preserved building in Rome. It contains the tombs of Victor Emanuel II, the first king of Italy and the namesake of what seems like half this city, his son Umberto I, and the Renaissance painter Raphael. It also has a huge and completely deliberate hole in the roof. I pay two Euros for headphones, and they tell me that, although in the past it has been rumoured that no rain water ever falls through the hole, this is not true (no shit –they should’ve been here in July) and that the basilica actually has a concave floor so that rainwater will flow into a puddle in the centre. Underneath the ornate red and black floor the sophisticated Roman drainage system still exists.

The history geek in me finds this interesting, sorry.

The Pantheon and still is working Catholic church, and is also known, although I doubt by many, as the Basilica of Maria and the Martyrs. The decor inside shows the movement away from classical antiquity, towards a more recognisable Christianity.

Raphael’s tomb is found towards the back on the left hand side, and is engraved with the inscription (in Latin) ‘Here lies Raphael, by whom nature feared to be outdone while he lived, and when he died, feared that she herself would die.’

This is all very heavy stuff, and after a wander around the streets outside (I stop at Arte 5 and stock up on vintage-y notebooks; I’m going through about one a week here) I am very glad to meet Ashley and Laura for lunch. We go to a pizza restaurant, where we find a nine euro deal that includes bruscetta, pizza and beer. Marvellous! The pizza is good, and Ashley tells us a life affirming story about her fiancé, who she first met and fell for in school, before moving to France, getting engaged to someone else, breaking it off, moving home and re-meeting Amos by chance.

That’s fate, that is.  

After Ashley goes back to work Laura and I head back down past the Pantheon and the letcherous waiters (‘Helloooo pretty, London?’) towards Grom, a gelato shop that she recommended we visit. Apparently it is the best gelato in Rome, but I have heard this already and I have some scepticism. I order two scoops; tiramisu and crema di Grom –which is biscuit flavoured and has lumps of biscuit in it. The biscuit is inspired, and I have to say it does rival Fassis. So, so good. I won’t be telling the Bellomos this, since Fassis seems to be near-Godlike for them.

***

Later, after school and the orange garden, I mention to Alberto that I haven’t yet worked out how to get to San Pietro in Vincoli, the church that Lidia has pointed out has housing Michelangelo’s statue of Moses. It is decided, since we will almost be driving past anyway, that we should go in and see it. The statue is huge, but my view is largely obscured by American tourists, flashing away. It is impressive, however.

***

Tonight presents me with further confusion over Italian eating habits, when I am given minestrone for dinner. How is it possible to one evening eat a huge bowl of seafood spaghetti, then grilled fish, potatoes and vegetables, and then desert, and then a couple of evenings later just an insipid broth with a few vegetables floating in the top? This lack of balance in their diet makes absolutely no sense to me, but even if I’m not full when I fall asleep I know that the meal was, at least, healthy.

***

Thursday 13^th

On Thursday morning I am on rota for Women’s Views, the news website that I write articles for. The day begins with a minor drama when the hotel’s internet utterly fails, but I establish myself in the Bellomos’ apartment and have a productive morning. I write up stories on the risk to pregnant women caught in the floods in Pakistan, cuts to Planned Parenthood in the US, the Green Party leader’s view on domestic violence and education, Kenya being named as a world leader in gender reform, and a filmmaker who in the name of art made friends with every letcherous stranger who approached her in the supermarket. The articles can be read here – www.womensviewsonnews.org

After a lunch of risotto I finally get round to writing my Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition article, which I am fairly impressed with by the time I’ve finished. Then we head off to pick up B&B from school.

***

Bea surprises me today by fully listening when I tell her English phrases, and then repeating them back to me without any prompting. Bene goes the other way and refuses – a role reversal seems to have somehow happened. I get Bea to say ‘I am a clever girl’ as we walk to the orange garden, and suddenly everything in the world is clever –‘clever banana’, ‘clever car’, ‘WHAT a clever tree!’ It is very bizarre, but I don’t correct it.

At the park Alan Lyle (he had his birthday party in the park on my third day here) and his wife Tina are providing craft equipment and supervising the making of bracelets. This is a godsend, and B&B spend a long time constructing their jewellery from purple and pink spongy paper (‘Look Loooosy!’) Bene doesn’t momentarily burst into tears, and they are both so good that I feel I have to emphasise this to Lidia when she returns. Full of love for the twinnies today!

Tomorrow, I will buy some stickers.

Bea is upset in the car because Alberto promised to take her out to eat snails, but, as Lidia now informs me, he ‘has gone off kite-surfing and left ‘is phone at ‘ome’. Cue Bea crying all the way back, only to find Alberto waiting on the pavement outside the hotel. The crying stops, they go off for snails, and me, Lidia and Bene go across the road for a Chinese. It is the Chinese, I am informed, that the Italian celebrities go to. Unfortunately we don’t see any (not that I would know if we did), but we do have a lovely feast of spring rolls, dumplings, crispy beef, black rice and shrimps. Bene is excited because her crispy beef has come with an onion carved into the shape of a lotus. It is, in all honesty, pretty impressive. At the next table, a woman has a carrot carved into the shape of a parrot. Surreal.

Back at the apartment, Alberto sees the background on my laptop, which is me, Mel, Katy, Louise, Leah and Lauren dressed up as dead schoolgirls for Lonsdale extrav in second year (so long ago now!), complete with ridiculous back-combed hair, suspenders and eyeliner scars all over our faces. He says we are immoral.

I don’t know how to respond... so I just laugh. Unsure if this is the correct response, but never mind!

xxx

Lake Bracciano, stolen showergel & being an inadequately read British 'ooligan.

Saturday 8^th October

A conversation occurs on Friday in the car that I completely forget to report. It concerns books, and my obviously very limited knowledge of them.

It goes like this.

‘A new book?’

‘Yes.’ (Cue wave of The Magic Toyshop’s front cover).

(Unimpressed by Angela). ‘Oh. Lolita is finished? Have you read the other Russians?’

‘Erm, well...’

‘Tolstoy?’

‘No...’

‘Dostoyevsky? Still in front of you?’

‘Yes.’

(After a pause.) ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover?’

‘No, I haven’t read it.’

‘DH Lawrence? Sons and Lovers?’

‘I’ve read Women in Love.’

‘Oh.’

This conversation does not leave me feeling positive. Honestly, I want to say. I really do have an English degree. I’m big on feminist prose, does that interest you? Start off luxuriously with a bit of Angela, then throw in some Atwood (I recommend The Handmaid’s Tale, my first and favourite foray into her work), and then afterwards, just for a bit of light relief, why not some Plath? The Bell Jar?

The Bellomos, zipping along in their nippy little car between vespers and over cobbles, don’t hear my silent plea. If they did I’m not confident that they would like it anyway, judging by the confused look Lidia gave The Magic Toyshop.

Lidia is persistent. ‘I have read all of Jonathon Coe,’ she says. Bit boastful. I’ve never even heard of him. ‘Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Ruiz Zafon?’

Long drive home.

***

Later I sneak a look at the bookshelves to see if we do have any reading material in common. Randomly, a JG Ballard presents itself. I think, possibly, that Condominio may be the Italian translation of High Rise? They also have a Geoffrey Eugenides –but Middlesex, which I have no knowledge of, rather than The Virgin Suicides. There is an awful lot of Dostoyevsky and Chekov. Feel mildly illiterate. Then head back to Angela.

***

 Saturday requires me to ‘come for lunch at 1pm, and then stay with the girls to try out your games’. This is mildly perturbing – I have no games. There was scarce time to plan games, in the five days I had between landing in Manchester and setting off again from Leeds! Argh.

The day doesn’t begin well – I suspect that the loud, loud American family who have for some reason been staying in Alphabet House and using my bathroom have pillaged my showergel. Why? I suppose we will never know. Goodbye, Natural Source. I will miss your minty freshness in the morning. Hello, weird smelling Italian showergel that I can’t read the label of.

I spend the morning Googling clapping rhymes, and eventually decide that ‘games’ will have to include painting. When I get to the apartment I find Lidia hauling numerous bags through the door –the twinnies have clearly spent their Saturday morning being treated to all manner of books, clothes and craft activity sets. They also have new trainers (‘Look, Looosy!’). A stencil painting set is rammed into my face, which takes the pressure off my so called ‘games’.

As well as ‘Look, Loooosy!’ B&B have also learnt how to say ‘Please could you help me?’ Consequently, I am looking and helping all afternoon. I look at their stencil artwork, and then I help them to create more, then I look at the new books they’ve been bought, and then I help Bene to put together a fairy picnic/ paper tea set... thing.

Or, I try.

Bene and I spend a very long time trying to work out how to fix the tiny paper cake stand together. We eventually manage, but absolutely cannot work out the miniature placemats. It doesn’t make it any easier that the instructions are in Italian and that I therefore can’t read them. But they are clearly flummoxing Bene too. On the upside she learns how to say ‘I don’t understand’ and ‘I’m sorry’, which makes me feel guilty, because it isn’t her fault the diagram is BLOODY STUPID AND MAKES NO SENSE. Eventually, after she has put in a good few minutes of thorough confusion, she loses interest and wanders off to find her sister. I absolutely don’t blame her.

I, however, will not be floored by a fairy tea set and five centimetres of impossible origami. I am determined. And I eventually work it out! What a triumph. I can’t talk to Lidia and Alberto about books despite technically being Miss Lucy Miller BA, but I can decipher instructions meant for Italian five year olds and thus construct a place setting for a miniature paper tea cup. Go me.

***

Later, the Bellomos’ friends come over with their four daughters to have dinner. They tell me that I look like Paris Hilton, and are confused by my horrified expression. I explain the meaning of the words ‘plastic’, ‘fake’, ‘horrible’, etc, to which Alberto replies that plastic is fine, he has no problem with plastic.

All respect for my hosts lost, I am reminded of the quote (where is it from? No idea) ‘You white, then you Ben Affleck.’ Italian version? ‘You blonde, you Paris Hilton.’

Urgh.

We sit down to a plate of seafood spaghetti (very good) followed by patatas bravas, grilled fish and roasted aubergine, followed by fruit flan. I will never get used to this two main meals ritual. By rights, all Italian should be beasts. It’s ridiculous, really, that they eat this much.

The alcohol selection consists of vino spumante, locally brewed Italian beer, and limoncello. My drinking habits are openly discussed, because, being British, I can quite clearly drink all the adults present under the table. Two glasses of wine and one bottle of beer down, Alberto asks how it is possible to drink this much and not be drunk? I don’t really have an answer to this, so I say the first thing that appears obvious – ‘well... British!’

Better, I suppose, than ‘Ha, you Italian lightweight!’

When the limoncello appears I question the correct way to drink it, on the continent. It transpires that they sip from the shot glass. I don’t plan to demonstrate what the British do with shot glasses (I am attempting to keep in mind that they have employed me to responsibly look after their children, not to give them an education in British student drinking rituals) -but they insist on it, and after much (not that much) protest I agree that we could all do the shot at the same time. Their faces as the shot glasses hit the table make me think of eighteen year olds in freshers’ week. It is a beautiful moment.

Sunday 9^th October

Today, after my luxuriously long and dreamy lie-in, we hit the road and drive North West towards Lago Bracciano in order to ‘meet our friends at the lake and eat lake fish, from the lake’. We get stuck in traffic on the way there, which causes Alberto to swear profanely (in English) and Lidia to chain smoke angrily on the pavement when we stop in a lay-by.

Lidia has had her ankle in a splint the whole time I’ve been here. I am now informed that it is because she tore the ligaments in her foot, whilst picking raspberries so that Alberto could make jam. There follows much guffawing about the dangers of fruit picking, and how everyone should realise how dangerous it is before a fatal accident occurs. Hohoho.  

Lago Bracciano, when we eventually reach it, looks exactly like Lake Windermere. We sit down in the restaurant, and I order prosciutto and melon to start, and fruttia di mare as the main. A large carafe of white wine is procured for the table, and Alberto tells everyone that I ‘drink like an ‘ooligan’. This is ridiculous. They then collectively ensure that my glass is never empty for the rest of the meal.

Afterwards  I am sent outside to watch my tiny charges (as well as their friends, well behaved Martina and her brother, mildly annoying Lucio) as they practice their ‘oola ‘oop. Cue many, many demands to ‘Look, Loooosy!’

In the end, I have to tell them both off. Bea first, for running into the road to collect her unruly ‘oola ‘oop (she is suitably shamefaced) and the Bene, unusually, for flat out defiance. She blatantly refuses to stay on the ‘safe’ side of the fence –the side without cars rushing past on their way to the lake– until I pick her up and physically drag her back over. In protest, she hooks her feet over the fence posts. I am not impressed, and I make sure she knows it. Think Bea has been teaching her defiance when they’re supposed to be going to sleep.

Later, by the water, they occupy themselves climbing all over the beached pedalos and pretending to be capitani. The view and the light are incredible, and I get some good photographs. Then Alberto wanders over, says something in Italian that I don’t understand, and then, ‘Sorry, I am a little bit drunk today. Some days, I ‘ave to drink.’

Wow. I remind him that he is supposed to be driving home, and he says that Lidia can do it. When he informs her of this, however, she does not look happy. He turns back to me and says in amusement, ‘She will not drive. She would rather ‘ave a crash than drive.’

Well. I think we’ve re-established who the hooligan drinker is in this scene, officer.

A group of swans (a shoal of swans? A herd of swans?) then appears at the water’s edge, providing a massive amount of excitement. Apparently none of the children has ever seen a swan before –and then I am informed that neither Lidia nor Alberto have either. This is very bizarre. I tell them that there are swans by almost every lake in the UK. B&B look on in wonder. And then the bread runs out, and Bene decides that throwing pebbles at the swans instead would be a wise idea (no idea what is going on with her behaviour today). I have to explain, in the simplest terms, and mainly through the use of mime, how a swan is capable of wrapping its neck around a wrist and breaking it if it feels threatened. Bene quickly puts her stones down.

***

Two hours later Alberto is (I very much hope) sober enough to drive, and we head back Esquilino-wards. Bea falls asleep in the car and can hardly be risen when we eventually arrive back at the hotel. Storytime is a nightmare – clearly she just wants to be in bed, and keeps wandering off. The five stories are of course mandatory though, for reasons that I don’t entirely understand. I’m exhausted by the end of it too, even though it is only half past eight.

Back at Alphabet House, I get into pjs and climb into bed with F Scott Fitzgerald (his Best Early Short Stories, not the dead bloke himself). Lovely weekend!

<3 x 

Thursday 6th & Friday 7th October. Community art, bookshop loving, and rain.

On Thursday, on the outer wall of Esquilino Mercato (the rubbish Asian market), I discover a lovely bit of art that I had overlooked the first time I visited it.

It consists of 56 monochrome self portraits, pasted onto the outside of the building, each of a different person’s face. Some of the faces are smiling, some are in deliberately contorted expressions or have their mouths open, some are looking directly at the camera and some are looking away. A couple of the faces are hiding behind sunglasses, one behind a hood, and there is a big mixture of ages and ethnicities –all set against the grimy backdrop of the market.

I walk around the outer wall twice to make sure I’ve counted the number of portraits correctly and to see if there is anything to explain them; the Chinese population of Esquilino now thinks I’m mental.

Later research tells me that it is part of The Inside Out Project, a global art movement that encourages individuals or groups to take their own portraits, send them off to the Inside Out HQ to be blown up, and paste them up in public once they have been posted back. The people that have pasted their faces all over the Esquilino Mercato have clearly gone for the group option, and it would be interesting to find out more about them. I email Jonathon, editor at online arts magazine Flaneur, about a possible article, and he gives me the go-ahead. Successful morning so far!

I then go across the square to check out Mas, a clothes shop that Lidia pointed out as being ‘full of ugly –but good if you want something like underwear’. She is right about the ugly; it is probably the worst shop I have ever encountered. Think TK Maxx but limitlessly more jumble sale like, set against a backdrop of Wilkinsons-style garish 3 for 2 offer signs. Attempt to make a quick exit but fail, because, just to make things worse, the uscita is hidden away at the other end of the shop, between cabinets of lovely fake Rolexes. Urgh. Mas, the shop you’ll never leave. Later, Alberto tells me he doesn’t go in, because of the ‘dirty clothes, dirty people’ –and that if he ever does he feels like he has ‘the little things in my ‘air -fleas’.

Head back to see if Mario the Handyman has fixed the plumbing in Alphabet House, thus allowing me to have a shower. Come on Mario, you little smiley plumbing genius –I’m relying on you.

***

I’m not hopeful, and when I return Mario tells me that no, there is no hot water – ‘but si, in twenty minutes?’ I believe that this is a blatant lie, and I feel let down by Mario.

Do a bit more research on the Inside Out Project while I’m waiting. A quick browse online doesn’t tell me much about the Rome group, but the URLs underneath their individual pictures hopefully will. The website describes it as a ‘large scale participatory art project that transforms messages of personal identity into pieces of artistic work’, which is a good basis for an article. Eventually, Mario appears and tells me that ‘the water is back’. Thanks Mario!

***

After my eventual shower I go and sit outside a cafe near the Santa Maria Maggiore, armed with a Lion Bar, a green tea and Lolita. I will finish it today! Determined.

***

Alberto is providing much comedy at the moment, completely unwittingly of course. He comes out with some classics this afternoon, the first as we are setting off to pick up B&B from school: ‘We come back from ‘oliday one month and I already ‘ate Rome,’ he says. ‘Too busy, too many Chinese, too much traffic, too much pollution.’ Pause. ‘I ‘ate to live!’

Bit extreme.

Second is provided at the orange garden: ‘Tonight you will go for Chinese or something with Beatrice and Benedetta,’ he says. ‘And Lidia and I will go and eat the intestine of baby sheep that still has the milk inside.’

Pardon?

Then:  ‘I feel sorry for the sheep. But, mmmmmm.’

God lord.

I try to forget what I have just been told, and occupy myself with teaching Bene English vocab as she swings around on the climbing frame. I teach her how to say ‘I am an acrobat’, ‘I am swinging’, ‘climbing a tree’ and ‘my tiger’s name is Melody’. Melody the tiger gets thrown around a lot, and leaves the park in a much sorrier state than she arrived in. I’m not sure if Bene will remember any of the phrases, but at least I’ve been doing my job. In true English teacher manner, I may create a visual aid.

***

As it is, we dispense with the Chinese/ lamb intestine plan and instead ‘go to our friends’ house for pasta –they have a lovely house in the Monti area.’

The apartment is three floors up, above a side street that is lined with tiny restaurants. It is, to put it simply, the most beautiful apartment I have ever seen, filled with Italian books and antique paintings. It appears to be a fusion of wealth, alarming good taste, and thorough interest in Roman history. We are given a tour, which takes in the sliding kitchen doors (circa 1850), complete with original artwork, the ceiling beams (1800), and an original seventeenth century church door, decorated with cherubs, that has been mounted onto a larger piece of wood. The kids, Giulia and Rachele, have a quote on the philosophy of life (this is all I manage to translate) painted artistically on their wardrobe door.

Feel slightly in awe, and wonder for a second how I ended up here, in this beautiful apartment in the centre of Rome, listening to these people talk about architectural history in very fast Italian, with the odd bit of English translation thrown in for my benefit.

We sit down to eat pasta, and I listen to their conversation quite happily, picking up the odd phrase but understanding hardly anything. It’s fine with me.

That night I finally finish Lolita! Mind blown by this level of writing – picturesque.

***

Friday. It’s my day off! No kids!

There are many, many things that I could do. I catch the bus and get off at Piazza Della Republica. Browse the book stalls and buy hardback on Goya –it’s in Italian, but I expect I can get the gist by translating a few phrases online. I then go into the Basilica Santa Maria Degli Angeli e Dei Martiri, which is probably the nicest church I’ve found so far in Rome. There is an exhibition about Galilei, focusing on the conflict between his scientific/ religious beliefs. Have a skim of it, then get shouted at by a nun for trying to steal a leaflet that apparently costs a euro. Oops.

I leave, soul in eternal damnation, and have a glance at the art stands that are erected on the piazza. I find out that it’s a festival of local artists, running until the 9^th. Get talking to one of the artists, an old man, Ugo Pergoli. He tells me that his English is terrible, then proceeds, in perfect English, to explain about his paintings –modern landscapes, which sell for 60 Euros, as well as some smaller sketches, which sell for less, plus a few watercolours. I tell him that I write for an arts website –another article for Flaneur! He gives me a leaflet with his email and website, and I go on my way.

Not sixty seconds later I am waylaid by an Iranian man holding a clipboard. Not a charity collector, though –I stop because he has a board with a picture of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the woman almost executed for adultery in Iran. Mr Clipboard shows me a collection of photos of other people who are waiting on death row in Iran. I say I can’t sign his petition calling for democracy because I can’t read what it says, but I take his leaflet and website address and promise to look it up later. Aargh, too much to write about!

***

Next stop is Mel’s Bookstore (I miss my Mel! At home in Hudds!), which is huge. Piled up the stairs are books on Kandinsky, Pop Art, Japanese printing, Van Gogh, Surrealism – and basically every other major art form/ artist that can immediately be brought to mind. All the books are reduced to 9.99 Euros. Exercise huge restraint –but I will definitely come back after I’ve dipped into my Goya book. Feel like I have never had so much pressing to read/ write, even when it was essay time at Lancaster.

Stop at the George Byron cafe (love, love, love!) for lunch –panini and espresso.  Outside afterwards, it has clearly been raining. The floor is slippery, and I get back on the bus, mainly because I have a day pass and a pathological need to use it. An overcrowded bus on such windy streets is not a pleasant experience. I get off at Palazzo Venezia, home of the Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele –the toilet seat of Rome! It’s fairly impressive close up. The rain immediately starts again though, heavily, so along with an assorted collection of Romans/ tourists I duck into the ancient entrance to the Biblioteca di Archeologia e Storica dell’ Arte, where I sit down and start this week’s book (my fave Angela’s The Magic Toyshop) and wait for the downpour to subside.

***

When it eventually does, I venture back outside, buy an umbrella from a street seller with good business sense, and find out the following things about the monument: its statues symbolise the arts –architecture and music on the left; painting and sculpture on the right. In order to build it, between 1895 and 1911, Palazzo Venezia had to be moved and medieval and renaissance villages including the home of Michelangelo were destroyed. It does indeed contain the grave of the Unknown Soldier. It is very, very slippery, especially in 200 rupee Indian pumps.

Amazingly I make it to the very bottom (there are a lot of steps) before the shoes give up, flying out from under me and causing me to sit down, very quickly, on the wet step. It isn’t a high profile fall. A Roman girl looks at me with mild confusion. I give her the same look right back.

Mild drama ensues. After making my way back across Palazzo Venezia, 5 euro umbrella blows inside out. I attempt to rectify this, and slit my finger open on one of the spokes. A minute later I realise that my wrapping paper/ Italy poster is no longer sticking out of the top of my bag. Venture back, only to find it in a forlorn state in the middle of the road. Many vespers/ tourist buses have clearly already whizzed/ trundled over it –I watch as the Ciao Roma bus becomes the next in a long line. I decide to brave the cars and retrieve it –I didn’t spend 2.50 Euros on wrapping paper for it to get trashed in the road an hour later! It is a good move, because when I take it out of the bag later I find that, apart from a soggy edge, it isn’t damaged at all.

After my death dodging between the traffic I decide to head to the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition at the Fondazione Roma. I had planned to save it for next week or later, but I just want to get out of the rain –and it proves to be a good choice. It’s such an interesting exhibition, and teaches me a lot about O’Keeffe herself, as well as American, modernist and twentieth century art. It’s a much bigger collection than I had first thought; I spend two hours there and almost fill all the pages in my India notebook (the gift from Sushi – distinction club!) Buy another from the giftshop afterwards, then have a quick browse in Feltrinelli (Italian Waterstones) before heading back up Via Del Corso in the general direction of the bus.

Buy a miniature poster of Gregory Peck and Audrey in Roman Holiday, and am about to stop at a cafe for food (too hungry to wait until 8pm for dinner with the Bellomos) but get letched on by a man with a harpsichord (where is my wenchfaced wing woman when I need her ? Aircell Burnley, that’s where) so decide to skip this place. Find a less rapey cafe opposite the monument and order a pizza that, when it comes, is fully loaded with peppers and black olives. An Italian couple fail to find a table outside, deliberate for a few seconds, and then come to join me. ‘Hallo,’ the man says. ‘Hi,’ I say back. He smiles happily: ‘Hallo.’ And then harpsichord letch appears again! For goodness sake. I concentrate on my delish pizza and looking in the other direction, and eventually he wanders away.

***

After a nightmare bus journey (think London tube at rush hour, but moving at snail’s pace along one thousand year old cobbled streets) I head to reception with the dinosaur laptop. Silent German women are taking up all the seats, so I get a chair from the dining room. As I am untangling my wires, they watch me. In silence. I look up and am startled to find that I am being eyeballed by all three of them. There is no embarrassment when they see that they have been clocked. And then two of them stand up (in silence) and leave. The other remains seated, in silence. Staring.

And once again, the day ends on a very bizarre note.

Orange gardens, falling down grates, and a monk with an IPhone. What more could you want?

As far as my days go you get three in one post this evening , lovely readers.

Three for the price of one, which reminds me of Hustle, which makes me feel a) jealous of everyone currently enjoying Lancaster’s freshers week, and b) sad that I’m unlikely to be going back anytime soon. And also a smidgeon of, c) i.e., for goodness sake! Look outside remember where you are! The colosseum is ten minutes walk away you fool, you can practically see it out of your window! IT’S BETTER THAN BEING IN ELEMENTS.

However. I hope you’re all having an amazing time; I already miss being a student.

And with that I will begin recounting my week... scroll down to read Monday & Tuesday first :)

Wednesday 5^th October

After yesterday being so exhausting, I decide to relax a bit today. I write this blog whilst in bed before breakfast, then sat up my laptop in the hotel reception. Still not really sure where the best place to Skype is –neither reception nor the Bellomo’s apartment exactly offers privacy.

I email Geeta about the buddy system for Katha, so hopefully this will be set up soon.

After a bit more blogging, it’s time for me to find my way to Largo Argentina to meet Aaaaashley from Detroit for lunch.

***

Finding the bookshop where we are meeting is actually pretty painless, and I arrive with forty minutes to spare. Sit by the centre of the square, which is full of ruins and as far as I can tell from the information provided has been burnt down and rebuilt and burnt down again numerous times over its long, long history. A monk walks past, on an Iphone. This is a sight I can honestly say I never thought I’d see, even in Rome.

Have a wander around the square and find what is possibly my favourite Roman discovery yet, a shop setting vintage art calendars, notebooks and huge embossed hardback books with titles like ‘A Celebration of French Women’ and ‘Vogue: Collections Through Time’. There is a large selection of books on art, particularly Warhol, Kandinsky and Jack Vettriano. Resist the urge to buy the entire shop, but think I shall definitely be making a trip back there on payday. Every visitor to Rome with a mild interest in art should look it up; it’s called Arte 5 and can be found on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, just off Largo di Torre Argentina.

I meet Ashley and her friend Laura (also from Detroit) and we go to a cafe for lunch. The only way to describe the place would be ‘rustic’ –our table is so wobbly that the trays hardly balance on it, and when we move to a less precarious table Ashley moves her chair backwards, the leg disappears from under her and when I look up down she has fallen into a grate. This is not a good start, but the food (stuffed tomato, patatas bravas, roast veg salad) makes up for it – just about.

After lunch we go to an oriental shop on the corner of Largo di Torre Argentina, which sells everything from incense and joss sticks to children’s toys. I buy a pair of shoes (11 euros!) and then we go our separate ways; Ashley back to work, Laura to Palazzo Venezia, and me to attempt to find the bus stop on the other side of the road (it’s harder than it sounds).

***

Alberto is on B&B picking up duty today, and there is a noticeable difference when they come out of school –they’re calmer, less whiny, more in the mood for doing as they’re told. We go to the orange garden, where we buy freshly roasted chestnuts from the most Italian looking old man I’ve ever seen, and I teach Bene a clapping song –the old classic ‘A sailor went to sea sea sea’. She loves me for a few minutes, so much so in fact that she absolutely will not let her friend Olivia near me to learn the sailor song. A then I throw her (empty) juice carton in the bin and she has a fit; for the rest of the time we are in the park I am shot filthy looks, and then she won’t hold my hand on the way back to the car. Cest la vie. I hold hands with Bea instead, who is behaving for once better than her sister.

***

In the car, Alberto’s views on gender come out again (yesterday he stated the classic, ‘men are only interested in balls and women. Girls, they like everything –I have to buy Barbie and Spiderman!’ I’m pretty sure he meant football.)  Today, he bemoans Italian women drivers, because, ‘They have no awareness of the space! They stop, and start, and stop. My wife, she drives like this, and she puts the children’s jumpers on and blocks everyone’s path!’ Pause. ‘I think it is only Italian women. Not all women.’

After bathtime (thankfully not too horrendous tonight) Bea draws me a picture of a watch, demands that I cut it out, and then attaches it to my wrist. Dinner is salmon, and then I end the day with a three-way Skype with two of my very favourite people, Katy and Melissa. Was so, so good to speak to them – massive love.

Exhausted now and still need to post this so shall sign off,

xxx

Tuesday 4^th October

This morning requires me to go to the police station to declare that I am here. ‘If you are a terrorist or a drug seller they will come quickly,’ Alberto tells me as we leave the hotel.

‘Because,’ Lidia adds, ‘terrorists always travel with the right documents and always declare themselves at police stations.’ Hohoho, nice bit of sarcasm in the morning is always welcome.

Whilst we are waiting for the police to scan my passport and satisfy themselves that I am not a terrorist/ ‘drug seller’, we head across the road to a tiny boutique to ‘look at boots for Beatrice and Benedetta’. It is a veritable baby Monsoon, full of beautiful, miniature sweatshirts, boots and woollen dresses. Lidia spends a lot of time carefully examining woollen knitwear and winter boots, before selecting two jumpers, both of which are stripy and French-looking. She buys boots too –she doesn’t like them, she tells me, but at 15 Euros down from 70 it doesn’t matter. And they are real leather.

She then points me in the direction of the Asian market (well, we are in Chinatown) which sells all manner of foods and clothes. I can’t pretend that I’m wholly impressed with it – the area is dirty and the market reminds me more of Queensgate in Huddersfield than anything we found in India.

Afterwards I sit in Vittorio Emanuele II Piazza for a while before heading back to the apartment for a lunch of breaded whitebait (a whole school of it), and tomato salad. Alberto apologises for the whitebait –it is ‘a cheap fish, but healthy’. Won’t believe me when I say I actually like it.

Decide to head to Santa Maria Maggiore after lunch –Lidia has asked twice if I’ve been, but I somehow left it out of yesterday’s church tour. It’s an interesting church, and it was good to see Bernini’s tomb, since from what I’ve read he was responsible for building half of Rome. It took a while to find –if anyone is ever looking in the future, it’s actually a plague on the floor in the righthand corner at the back of the church.

***

B&B have gymnastics after school, and then it’s the already painful ritual of bathtime, then dinner –meatballs, pasta, spinach – and then the obligatory five stories before I’m free. Bea is a little horror tonight, and after I make her perform the collected bedtime tasks that she feels are beneath her – putting pyjamas on, brushing teeth, etc  - she collapses onto the sofa, gives me a filthy look, and says quite plainly, ‘England es ugly. Roma es boootiful!’

Bit uncalled for, but ok.

Too tired to Skype wench as planned, which makes me very sad.

<3

Monday 3^rd October

This morning I decide to dispense with the map and go for what I will freely admit is a fairly aimless wander. My first destination ends up being a church on Via Merulana. After many attempts, I fail to find out what the church is called. It’s clear it isn’t one of Rome’s major basilicas, however, just from its size, and the fact that I am almost the only person there –no Japanese tourists, amazingly. An old man is sat in the pew opposite, reading a Bible with a magnifying glass and looking mildly perturbed. A monk a grey cassock is also floating around (not in a ghostly way –he’s just walking up and down the pews), and a male cleaner is hoovering the floor. The church is pretty ornate, as per Catholic tradition. Frescos depicting the Virgin atop clouds are all over the walls. A programme on the seat in front of me reads ‘Messa per la cerimonia di inaugurazione del busto del Beato Jacques Desire Laval’ – 2 Ottobre 2011. ‘Guide for the ceremony of inaugerization of the bust of beatified Jacques Desire Laval’ –I’m guessing? This ceremony must have taken place last night, but I can’t see the bust in question anywhere.

I can feel a sneeze encroaching in my nasal passages. Is it blasphemous to sneeze/ blow your nose in church?

As I am trying to leave, brilliantly through the wrong door, the cleaner stops hovering for a second and blesses my soul.

I head up the hill, taking a few photographs (yes, I like buildings. Especially when they are pink and covered in green ivy) and after a few minutes reach the remains of part of the city wall, which has a line of vespers parked in front of it. So far, so Italian.

Next I find myself in front of another church, which seems to be more of a tourist hotspot. Middle aged Japanese are flocking around in abundance, ‘oooohing’. When I go in I discover that it contains the Holy Steps. My ignorance of religion comes into play here, when I see that there are large numbers of people kneeling on the steps, apparently in prayer. I then realise that they are climbing the steps on their knees –because Christ (reputedly) ascended the steps on foot, every visitor thereafter must do so in a respectful manner. So, on their knees.

I decide to skip this ritual, and come to sit in Piazza di Porta San Giovanni, a large, flat expanse of grass in front of (do you see a pattern emerging yet?) another church. This one is emblazoned with, amongst sculptured dedications to various saints, the words ‘Cristo Salvatori’ – ‘Christ the Salvation’?

Inside, I learnt that it is San Giovanni in Laterno, known as ‘The Pope’s Cathedral’. It is filled with massive statues of the saints, imposing alters, and has an extremely intricate plated gold ceiling –as per.

Leave and head up the Viale Carlo Felice, a long and alarmingly straight (Roman, then) road, that has at the end of it what I expect to be my final church of the day, that of Benedict XIV. It is a lot darker and more sinister inside this one – I can hear a sermon or prayer of some kind going on behind its hallowed walls. Once again I try to get out of the wrong door (why are churches confusing me so much today?) and once again am blessed by the guard.

Next door is the Museo Storico dei Granatieri, which sounds more like my kind of place – unfortunately it is only open between 9am and noon, which is exactly now. I decide to head back down Viale Carlo Felice and stop for a drink/ quick read at a cafe on the corner, before making my way back to the apartment for lunch.

***

Whilst waiting for the pasta to cook I spend a while researching and planning my various Roman cultural outings for the next few weeks. I am most excited about the Jewish quarter and the art galleries and shopping around Via Guilia. Alberto tells me that he has never seen a pink laptop before, and then makes an oh-so-witty remark about whether I need to rub stones and twigs together to make a fire before it will turn on? Well, haha. Yes, I’m full aware that my laptop is a monstrous dinosaur from way back in the dark ages (of 2008). Chill out please. I prefer to think of it as retro. 

He then tells me that he likes a bit of Nabkov himself, and recommends the Stanley Kubrick version of Lolita. So laptop bullying may be forgiven.

At 3.45pm we set off to pick up B&B from school, which Lidia says is on Aventine, the ‘poshest’ of Rome’s seven hills. The houses certainly are luxurious, and the school is unbelievably cute –kindergarten consists of two green chalets, both decorated with the Italian flag. We collect Bea, and she sprints off to find her sister –who squeals in delight and runs out of the classroom (I think before the lesson is finished) when she sees us.

Rome’s famous ‘Through the Keyhole’ is just opposite the school. It’s on my list of things to do, so I’m glad it can be ticked off now. It consists of a hole in a large door, set into a wall. Looking through, you can see a very straight path through orange tress that leads directly to St. Peter’s Basilica. B&B climb all over the doors, whilst I take this in.

On the way to the orange garden we stop at two more churches (this must be some kind of record). One of them, the San Alessio, is a popular location for weddings –it’s so rustic, I can see why. The other, San Sabina, Lidia tells me is possibly the oldest church in Rome. A board outside reads that the date isn’t clear, but has been predicted as some point in the early 5^th century AD.

Onwards to the orange garden, another of Rosa’s recommendations. The view is amazing, taking in the Tiber, St. Peter’s Basilica and the Jewish Synagogue  as well as the ‘toilet of Rome’ –a large white building, which whilst being impressive hardly fits in with its surroundings. No one seems to know what this building actually is. In July Alberto told us it is where Romans go to honour the unknown soldier, Lidia doesn’t understand the question and keeps saying it isn’t considered historical because it was only built in 1900, and a sign outside says it contains the National Museum –which also doesn’t align with the museum’s location on Google Maps.

We don’t stay at the garden long because none of B&B’s friends are there, so after a quick stop off at a bookshop (Dickens, Wilde and the Brontes translated into Italian - wow) we go to another playground. B&B occupy themselves sufficiently for a while, especially after they find a listening horn that means they can yell at each other from opposite ends of the climbing frame. The ‘Hellooooo Loooosyyy!’/ ‘Hellooooo Bea!’/ ‘Hellooooo Loooosyyy!’/ ‘Hellooooo Bene!’ routine goes on for quite a while.

Back at the apartment it is bathtime, which I will say as little about as possible, apart from that I was fully unaware of how 5 year olds could switch between being angelic and weepy and bratty back to angelic in such a short space of time. After this ordeal the storybooks come out again –they are marginally weird tonight. A picture book designed to teach English does so by putting pictures in place of some of the words. Fair enough, if the pictures weren’t so obscure that even I couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. ‘Harmonica’ and ‘hacksaw’ are not essential vocab words, in my opinion. But still, not as weird as Little Yellow and Little Blue (nothing is). 

xxx

2nd October: seafood, surfboards and a soiree in the park.

This morning I meet my hosts at 11am and we once again head for the beach, where we will have lunch at a seafood restaurant before heading back into Rome for ‘a friend’s birthday party in a park’.

Did I mention that I am LOVING this job?

Pre-lunch, I spend a while pushing Benedetta on the swings and generally being chattered away at in Italian, not one word of which I understand. Neither she nor Beatrice seem to mind. They then move to the slide, where they delightedly whiz up and down a couple of times each, squealing.

Beatrice (pronounced in Italian ‘Bee-tree-cee-ah’, I have now learnt) is climbing up the slide on the outside to the confusion of a little German boy who is observing when Alberto appears and asks two of my very favourite questions: ‘Do you like lobster? Do you like white wine?’

***

Lunch is, once again, a spectacle.

We begin with muscle bruscetta (brusCetta), which is quickly followed by the most enormous plate of seafood I have ever seen. I genuinely worry for a few seconds about whether there are actually any crabs/ octopuses/ squid/ salmon/ whitebait left in the waters that surround central Italy, considering the gargantuan size of our mutual lunches. There is more seafood on my plate than I know what to do with.

How they eat this much every day I have no idea, but still, I begin the epic battle to scale down the crabmeat mountain. It isn’t too difficult, actually. It is the best crabmeat I’ve ever, ever encountered.  But still, I can’t finish it. The amount is blatantly ridiculous.

So. I am about to surrender, whilst considering the fact that never in the UK would a lunch be so bloody huge, and then...

And then.

It wasn’t even the main. There is an ENTIRE BOWL OF SPAGHETTI coming towards me. Sat on top of it is a huge, spiky lobster.

I had wondered where the promised lobster had got to. But, seriously now.

I drink my lovely white wine and try to pretend that this lobster/ spaghetti feast isn’t for me. But it is. There is no denying it, even though I try, right up until it is clearly placed in front of me on the table and Lidia is demonstrating the best way to negotiate eating spaghetti, the Roman way, so it doesn’t end up variously splattered across the front of THE BLOUSE.

I tuck a napkin into the front of THE BLOUSE (wouldn’t want to destroy the mutual BLOUSE that is also owned by my lovelies Katy Shaw and Leah McGregor) whilst Alberto watches me and then says regretfully, ‘Sorry, it is not nice. But we must save our shirts.’

I agree.

We then have a long conversation about the Bellomos’ hatred of the Pope, confession, priests, the Virgin Mary, ornate cathedral busts and Catholicism in general. I am brought a lemon sorbet that I am informed has liqueur in it, and Lidia tells me that being in a convent school until the age of eighteen has put her off all forms of religion for life. Alberto then goes on to talk politics, which ends up being a heavier conversation that I anticipated, culminating in him telling me that the government in Italy is entirely corrupt, that basic things like fuel are running out, and that the only things good about Italy now are the art, the food, and the landscape, which is being built on and thus destroyed by profiteering developers. I tell him I had no idea Italy was in such dire straits, and he answers that Berlusconi is ‘destroying his beautiful country’.

Erm... crikey?

After the absolute mission of destroying the lobster, Benedetta buys a Barbie bracelet from a vending machine and we get back in the car to drive further down the beach, where a watersports festival is going on.

Lidia drives, whilst Alberto takes his life in his hands by placing one wriggly twin on each knee in the passenger seat.

The watersports festival is pretty buzzy, with a DJ playing and a sea full of Italians on paddleboards, casually floating around. There is a crowd gathering at the edge of the water so we head there, and are treated to the hilarious spectacle of one windsurfing Italian man after another being pulled along by a jet ski only ejected at a random time, thrown into the air, and fall back into the water with what can only be described as painful slap followed by painful slap.

Futile attempts to show off fully enjoyed, we head away from the sea and find an area where various land-based activities are going on. Beatrice practices tight-robe walking, before joining Benedetta in the surfing section, where they drag miniature surfboards onto rolling cylinders and attempt to practice their boarding technique whilst clinging for dear life onto the corrugated iron fence.

***

The friend who is having a birthday party in the park turns out to be Alan Lyle, an American who has recently moved to Rome with his wife and various collected family members. The selection of guests at this soiree at first seem to be mostly Lyle family and work colleagues, and American they most certainly are –they all have names like ‘Aaaaashley’ and ‘Beth Aaaaaan’. I overhear sentences including ‘I’m so majorly excited to be at the park right now!’, and ‘I’m taking off right now, because the Lions are about to kick the All Black’s asses on cable!’.

An American girl (Aaaaashley, from Detriot) asks me how I know the Lyles, which leads into me explaining that I don’t know them at all, actually, and that I’ve only been in Rome forty eight hours. It turns out that Aaaaashley and her fiancé are both also temporarily in Rome, her interning and him working, before she graduates from law school. This is very exciting, and she takes my Italian number so she can text me about lunch this week, where she will introduce me to another American girl that she has met whilst she’s been here.

I also meet a British man who is there with his impossibly willowy French-Italian wife Marie and their beautifully European children Augustin (4) and Clelia (18 months), a New Englander named Debbie who appears to be holding court from her position on a blanket, mildly precocious Rebecca, B&B’s friend,  who informs me that her Italian is very good despite her being from North Carolina, a lad from Nottingham named Andy, and a yappity dog called Jack who belongs to Debbie and I’m pretty sure does not appreciate the mauling he is getting from the collected children.

On the way back Lidia points out a church that she recommends I visit, just down the road from our hotel. I may go for an explore tomorrow morning before I meet her for lunch.

Still full from the seafood mountain, we have a dinner of peaches, pears and grapes. Then B&B get into their pyjamas and I read them five stories before they are ready to go to sleep. All I can say about this is that children’s books have got bloody well weird since I was at the age to be reading them. The most peculiar, entitled ‘Little Blue and Little Yellow’, reads like something out of an acid trip and tells the story of two brightly coloured little blobs (‘Little Blue and Little Yellow’), who are such good friends that when they hug they become a Big Green. This sounds questionable to me, but it gets even stranger when their parents (Big Blue and Big Yellow) tell them off, causing them to cry so much they disintegrate into tiny speckles of blue and yellow and almost vanish completely.

Could someone who knows about children explain this to me please, because I’m sure Bene and Bea were thinking exactly the same as me, i.e., what the bloody hell is this pile of tripe?

Mildly confused,

Lucy

xxx

Rome: the first 36 hours...

Saturday 1^st October

October in Rome dawns in the midst of an unseasonable European heatwave, and after a messy (and loud) breakfast of bread, cheese and croissants (I know, I know) I squash into the back seat of Alberto’s car with a twin on each side and we set off for the beach at Ostia.

Yes. I am being paid to go to the beach.

B&B have decorated the back of their father’s car with stickers. There is a Barbie on each window, as well as a large assortment of flowers, and Beatrice observes me for a moment before making sure I have seen her window artwork. ‘Barbie,’ she says, pointing out the sticker. ‘Barbie!’ she says again, with increasing excitement, pointing at me.

Benedetta meanwhile is playing with a massive stuffed raccoon. I turn my attention to her and enquire as to the raccoon’s name. She looks at me like I am crazy, and then shouts ‘RACCOON!’ Fair enough. Beatrice has also brought an animal for the drive. ‘Bea,’ I ask her, ‘what’s your dog called?’ Her expression matches that of her sister. ‘Dog!’ she yells.

I think something has been lost in translation here.

I spend the rest of the drive ostensibly pointing out various things to see if they know the English vocab. Mainly, they do. Benedetta falls asleep, simultaneously burbling along to the song that is playing on the radio, and I discover that Beatrice is aware of stars, sky, trees, and cars, but not of signposts, cafes or post offices.

At Ostia Alberto drops us off and goes to park, and we pick up B&B’s toys from a locked chalet (this is such a good idea!) and position ourselves on sunbeds by the sea. Because it’s October the beach isn’t too crowded, and it isn’t too hot either. B&B immediately run into the sea, where Benedetta starts jumping around and flipping over under the water, and Beatrice begins to make a collection of shells, which quickly becomes a selection of rocks. My attempts to acquaint myself with the freezing water teach them a new English word – ‘splash’.

Later, Alberto arrives with the pizza for lunch. So much pizza. I have literally never seen so much pizza in my life –not even at Pizza Hut buffet. Veg pizza, margarita, extra cheese. Crispy bread. Five slices of each wrapped in chip shop paper. Two bundles of paper. FORTY pieces of pizza between FIVE people, two of whom are very small people. It is traditionally Roman, crispy and delish. But still. When I only let myself have three pieces my lack of eating is questioned.

After lunch Beatrice drags me off to the storage room, where she locks herself inside (cue moment of panic) before emerging with a giant inflatable aeroplane. In the sea she climbs aboard to pilot her aeroplane, whilst Benedetta hangs off the front. ‘Run!’ they demand. ‘RUN!’ I spend a few minutes dragging them around in the water, thinking of the pizza and how much of this running-in-water it would take to burn it off. Possibly a lot. Possibly any attempt to burn of the pizza/ icecream will be futile.

When they eventually get bored of ‘flying’ and get out to play in the sand instead, I decide that I deserve a break. Settle down on the sunbed to read Lolita, which has sat on my Lancaster bookshelf for nearly six months and was recently recommended to me by Mr Matthew Hilton (cheers mate!). It really is very beautifully written –on the same level as The God of Small Things in its language I think. Remain in this position for a good amount of time, until Benedetta appears and decides that it will be amusing to hide underneath my sunbed whilst laughing uncontrollably and pretending that he isn’t there. It is pretty amusing, and a game of peek a boo entertains her sufficiently for a while. After a while Beatrice appears, drags me onto the sand and practices doing headstands with my back as her support. Like you do.

And then, of course, it’s icecream time again. This time I go for two scoops –as if multiple slices of pizza hadn’t filled me up enough. Chocolate orange vs. apple and cinnamon. It’s as good as it sounds, but as we sit on a wall to eat it Lidia points out that, because they are used to Fassi’s, this gelato ‘tastes like medicine’. Well. Clearly there is an education in icecream that I haven’t been in Italy long enough to understand. Benedetta manages to get melted gelato all over her legs, which is an achievement. Then she draws faces in it.

Bea is tired and nearly falls asleep on my shoulder as I carry her back to the car. They both drop off as soon as they hit their seats, and as we drive back peace ensues and Alberto asks me about my degree. It transpires that he and Lidia have read all of Ian McEwan, but that Lidia found Atonement slow. They have also read the God of Small Things, and apparently Lidia is big on her drama after studying English theatre whilst at university.  Lots to talk about! They also visited Delhi together 10 years ago, and want me to show them my photographs.

Tomorrow we are going ‘lunch at a restaurant on the beach and then to a party in a park’. Sounds like a fun Sunday, so I shall get my sleep in preparation for it.

Muchos love,

xxx

Friday 30^th September

After two hours of living in Rome, I am asked by a woman speaking in very fast Italian if I know where the nearest metro station is.

My Italian skills at this present moment extend as far as ‘Saluti, gelato, grazie’, which may prove useful but is unlikely to help in this kind of situation. This is why, I realise as we stand in momentarily perplexed  lost-in-translation silence at the side of the road, language teachers at school always insisted on drumming into us the boring bits of vocab. Left, straight on, cross the road, next to the church, etc. I fear my meagre B in GCSE French is not going to be of much use now I’ve hit the continent and found myself faced with a highly stressed out Italian woman who is lugging a huge suitcase and looks highly likely to have missed her train.

But wait! Actually, I do know where the nearest metro is! It’s on the other side of the square we are stood next to. I’ve just walked past it, in fact! I might not have understood the first part of her sentence, but ‘Vittorio Emmanuel’ is most definitely the nearest station to where we are stood right now, between irregularly parked cars, with vespers whizzing past us and Chinese language signs all over the walls.

Feeling mildly proud of myself, I point her in the right direction.

It is at this second that she realises I am in fact not Italian. I am in fact British. And therefore wrong.

She surveys me with a look of resignation, before shaking her head and deciding that enough is enough. ‘No,’ she says, firmly but I fear without due reason. ‘No, no.’

But it’s just behind the trees! I tell her. With pointing. A lot of pointing. I feel that pointing is the only way I can get my point across, point being that the metro is less than three minutes walk away, currently obscured by trees. It really is! I know, I live here now –I’ve lived here for two hours!

She shakes her head again in resignation, turns around, lugs her suitcase back onto the pavement and walks away in completely the wrong direction.

***

When I get back to my room I am surprised to hear someone singing operatically outside my window. Wonder for a few seconds whether I am imagining this –things like this don’t really happen, do they? It’s too much of a stereotype, surely? But no, it is definitely happening, I’m not going mad. The opera singer, I reckon, is just behind an open window in the building opposite my window. My ignorance of this kind of music is undeniable, but it sounds quite impressive. I hope it will be a regular occurrence!

I then fall asleep, and am woken up only when Lidia knocks on my door as she said she would at 6.45pm. No more delays; we are off up to the family apartment. Thus the reasons I am in Rome are about to manifest themselves. Loudly.

***

Meeting the kids I’m here to look after (twin 5 year olds Beatrice and Benedetta) for the first time, in July, was a pleasant experience. They quietly accompanied their mother Lidia as she took me on a whistle stop half hour tour of the local area, daubed gelato all over their faces in the park, and pulled faces at each other when they thought no one was looking. Afterwards, Lidia informed me that they had ‘started to include me in their games’ –whatever that means.

The second time they meet me they drag me into their bedroom, where Beatrice turns off the light switch and plunges us into darkness, and Benedetta begins to repeatedly flash a torch into my eyes. Odd, slightly unnerving, mildly torturous, but ok. Maybe Italian children are taught different ways to greet guests, compared to English children. They then physically attack me in what appears to be a very violent hug. It doesn’t take me long to realise that Beatrice is BITING my back, whilst Benedetta is headbutting me in the stomach.

(Later, their father Alberto will tell me that this is a certain sign of affection, that ‘they beat you up because they love you’, and that Beatrice in particular is a ‘little hooligan’.)

At the moment though, I am perplexed. Is this how they greet all their au pairs? Rosa clearly did not mention this hazing ritual in her email. What should I DO?

Luckily they extract themselves a second later and we go for dinner, which consists of buttery chicken and the biggest bowl of communal salad I have ever seen. Afterwards, B&B put on their pyjamas and we all troop off for icecream at Fassi’s.

Fassi’s, I have been reliably informed, offers the best gelato in the whole city. B&B are clearly used to coming here, and they delightedly run around in circles shrieking whilst I select a pistachio cone from the 30 odd flavours that are available.

(How magic must it be to be 5 years old, living in Rome and going out to an icecream parlour in your pyjamas every night? Alberto tells me that even in winter they go at least twice a week. It is at this point that I decide to screw my waistline, because there are simply too many gelato flavours in this city to resist.)

I am not disappointed with the pistachio. Good recommendation Miss Rosa Sharp!

Lidia tells me afterwards that they are planning on spending the following day at the beach. Would I like to come? This question evidently only has one answer. I go back to my room, negotiate the most powerful shower in the world, and then fall asleep almost straight away. Successful first day!

xxx