I arrived back in Rome on Saturday evening. (You have to love orange trees growing on a busy city street.)
I was pretty beat from having to get up to catch my 5am train departure and not really sleeping that night due to the party in the room next door and on the streets. Anyway, I got picked up at the airport, which was nice, and my driver took me directly to my home for the next three weeks. He basically dropped me at the building door and said good luck. I went up to the call box and found the name of the owner and rang her. She let me in and came down to meet me. We went into the apartment and she was a bit short explaining everything. It kind of reminded me of an old school Western. She pulled out some keys, unlocked the room and said “this’ll be your room”.
She ran through everything and told me she wasn’t sure where my roommate (Paola) was but that she typically goes away for the weekends. RoommatE? Not roommateS? Woohoo! So, the good on this shared flat thing – one roommate. I was really hoping for only one but expecting five, which I was told was possible.
So, Sara leaves me to settle in. She lives in the apartment next door, which I came to learn by “hearing”, with her husband and kids, one of which plays the cello pretty well. But back to settling in…I really just wanted to lie down and go to sleep but decided to just get the task done and unpack. I went into the bathroom and noticed that there was (a) not a single personal item except for some almost empty shampoo bottles in the shower and (b) no toilet paper. So I thought well if she’s out of town maybe she takes everything with her and just happens to be out of TP.
I went into the kitchen to check that out and it was a Pigsty. It was really bad and smelled horrible – maybe from the Tupperware container on the counter that appeared to be filled with a tomato sauce and calamari. At this point, I’ll just cut to the chase and say that this place really brings out the Monica Geller in me. I want to clean everything. It is so disgusting. I’ve considered, and looked, at various cleaning supplies in the store. I think I’m going to have to bite the bullet and invest in something to clean things up a bit. It’s really, really gross. I just don’t think that the place has really been given a thorough cleaning in probably ten years. Plus, it has various people traipsing through here every few weeks. The only constant is Paola so…
I really didn’t have high expectations for this housing. I thought I’d have a small little room with a twin bed, a desk, and hopefully a closet or dresser. I thought it would be really simple with nothing special in it. I did expect things to be really clean though.
Oh! One other thing. I took a few pictures of things in the kitchen. I had to laugh. You’ll notice the burned hot pat that isn’t really much use at this point.
The cutting boards that are actually in the “clean” pile but you can bet from that brown stain I won’t be using those.
Lastly, is the toaster. I asked Paola about it and she said she didn’t use it but that it was there if I needed it. I pulled it out today to have a little toast (I love toast) and the thing was covered in a thick layer of dust.
So, the good is that I just have Paola as a roommate and she seems alright. We had a little chat last night and it was good. The other fantastic thing is that the empty bathroom is all mine. She has her own bathroom in her room. I seriously thought I’d be sharing with four other people.
I was talking with one of the other students about their housing and apparently they encountered a similar situation of a pigsty flat. The housing is really inexpensive so maybe that is the trade-off.
I also completed my first day of class today. I honestly cannot imagine how I will go from today, to being able to speak a sentence to someone. It just seems so far off. I’m sure it will come. I think my other hang up is that I always feel so awkward and unnatural speaking another language. It sounds so foreign. There is a Friends episode (not to keep bringing them up but I haven’t watched TV in a long time and I miss it) where Joey is trying to learn French from Phoebe. She says something to him and he repeats something along the lines of “blah, blah, blah, poo”. This is what it feels like I’m doing. It doesn’t actually make sense, register, or feel comfortable. I suppose the more you do it, the more comfortable you are and that feeling goes away. I hope!!
So, my classmates – a quick rundown: Quiet guy from Germany, Phillip; awkward accountant from Germany who now lives in Switzerland, Tomas; a bit cocky young guy from Guadalajara, who said his name was Ettiro which I just realized when he spelt it was Hector; Stylish AnnaLee from Australia, who looks very Italian but is Greek; Ukari from Japan; Mai, from Japan; Eleanor who feels as awkward as me and is from Sweden; Michael from Los Angeles who is the Steve Meyer of the group, even has some similar expressions; and Maya from Mexico City who told me she’s a daddy’s girl and he sent her here to get some independence.
So, that’s the scoop on class. The first day went pretty fast and didn’t feel like it was dragging on. Our teacher is Marina and she’s great. Her husband is from the Seattle area so she got a kick out of me. Teacher’s Pet.
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