I landed in Rome tonight and the feeling of excitement and pure happiness I get when the plane hits the tarmac at Fiumicino never seems to wane.
Like I’ve said before ti allarga il cuore – it makes your heart sing. That is until:
1) The guy at customs doesn’t even look me in the eye and just scans my passport without stamping it (my heart actually sank – this is the first time I have entered Italian soil on my shiny new Italian (EU) passport and I was desperate per un timbro – a stamp!)
2) I attempt to withdraw cash at 3 ATMs which are all fuori servizio – out of order, of course!
3) There is absolutely nowhere to get coins in the luggage collection area so that I can get a trolley.
At that very moment I say to myself,
“Welcome (back) to Rome!”
But truthfully, there’s no place I’d rather be.
And so here I am and here we go again!
I’m leasing a room at a friend’s place in Ostiense until I find what will hopefully be my dream apartment in Trastevere. Ostiense is really well connected and is about 4km from the historical centre. It will be great to get to know another area of the city.
On arrival, my friend’s neighbour popped round for what apparently is a regular aperitivo – hmm I could get used to this!
At 10pm when I realised I was hungry and thought to pop downstairs to get some Japanese take out (ground floor of our building), I had a Melbourne-moment and thought, ‘oh no! It’s probably too late to order food!’ but quickly remembered that I’m back in Rome now and this is peak hour for dinner!
So downstairs we went (and many stairs! Staying on the 4th floor without an elevator – so burnt off dinner before I even ate it!)
In the ten minutes we were downstairs we were hassled three times by a street seller waving roses in our faces…
On cue I hear police and ambulance sirens and scooters zoom by…
I receive a few calls from friends squealing their excited ‘bentornata’ (welcome back) down the phone line before booking me up for the rest of the week…
And I think… I’m back!
It’s like I never left 🙂
Signing off from Roma
Baci Maria
