The Follow Up On Yesterday

Good afternoon to everyone from ROMA! I have a little more time to blog today, so I'll take that liberty and tell you all about my lodgings, my experiences thus far... good stuff like that.

So, I landed in Rome on Friday morning. Of course, customs had to be open and active at Fiumicino this time, so I had to wait in that line before I got my luggage. But the good news is I got my passport stamped, so my count is at 2 now! After I got out of the airport, I took a cab ride to Campo De Fiori, where my my old housing was through RPI. The cab ride took the better part of 80 minutes, where it usually takes 25 or so. There was a lot of rush hour traffic, and the cab driver kept trying to avoid it by taking progressively more obscure roads weaving through metropolitan Rome. Either way, I eventually got to Campo, and then my "move-out" started. Before I get to my "moving out" procedures, I'll show you a picture looking out the window of my former apartment. This is a panoramic I pieced together that shows Campo during fresh open-market hours.

So, then it came time to move out. I booked my new apartment via a British site called lastminute.com. On my confirmation sheet, it told me to meet the realtor at their office, which is a good 35 minute walk from Campo De Fiori. So, I headed out, and after walking through the fashion-forward area of Rome (Via Del Corso) with Fendi, Dolce and Gabana, and all that crazy expensive stuff, I arrived at the office. There was a plaque outside the door that gave me a phone number to call before entering. I called the number and was greeted by a woman... the conversation went something like this:

Woman: (indistinguishable Italian)

Matt: uhhhhh, hello

Woman: Oh, hello (laughs at my stupidity)

Matt: uhhhmmm, I think I'm supposed to call this number because I booked an apartment near Campo De Fiori

Woman: Ahhh yes, okay, what's your name

Matt: Matt Gineo

Woman: Can you spell it?

Matt: G-I-N-E-O

Woman: Can you spell it?
Matt: G-I-N-E-O
Woman: What's the address?

Matt: What are you talking about?

Woman: The address of your apartment?

Matt: Isn't that your job?

Woman: You booked with lastminute.com, didn't you?

Matt: Guilty.

Woman: You're in front of the office, aren't you?

Matt: on 2 counts.

Woman: Your apartment is on Via De Giulia; you're supposed to meet me there. lastminute.com always messes that up

(Note: Via De Giulia is about a 40 minute walk from their office... back right next to Campo de Fiori)

Matt: Excellent... just beautiful. I guess I'll start walking now.

Woman: Okay, I'll see you in a half hour.

So, after that wonderful Shakespearean episode played itself out, I was on my way. I got to the apartment within 35 minutes, and waited another 20 for the realtor to cart herself in by way of her scooter. She took me into the apartment, and asked why I didn't have luggage. Then of course, I was obligated to tell her my luggage was in my old apartment and I'm not in that apartment anymore because I took a pretty substantial nose-dive digger. She pretty much laughed at me, which was unusually refreshing, as my situation has been treated with so much seriousness (and rightfully so), but somewhere in translation, my situation went from serious to funny, which was fine by me.

So, without further anticipation, here are some pictures of the apartment I'm currently living in:

The lock. I have to say, they don't mess around with locks in Rome from my experience in every apartment/restaurant I've been in or seen. This lock has 5 bolts that secure the two doors together, and on top of that, it has 4 posts that emerge from the lock body and engage themselves into the adjacent wall next to the door. These doors would not budge an inch if you ran a bulldozer into them.

From the breezeway looking into the common room.

A panoramic I stitched together showing the main mass of my apartment. You'll see the common room, the kitchen, the loft above (with stainless steel stairs leading up to it), and the closet/ironing room in the back right (through the doorway you can kind of make out) To the far left of the photo, in the foreground, you'll see a sliver of glass. This is the door out to my balcony which overlooks a common apartment complex courtyard. I'm on the 4th floor by the way... very classy.

Looking back toward the breezeway from the common room. Yeah, that's a DVD/VCR, surround sound, and an LCD TV. Not a bad life.

My kitchen. The refrigerator is now fully stocked. I also have an oven which looks kind of like a microwave, but it cooks food traditionally.

Looking up onto the loft from the stairway.

Looking down into the common room from the loft. Who's the girl with all the shoes!? (Clears throat)

My desk with my laptop, external hard drive, and some odds and ends (my 90 page itinerary in the maroon binder).

On the other side of the loft is my bedroom. This bed was freshly slept in (by me) at the time of this photo.

Another shot of my bedroom. On the other wall which hasn't been shown in either of these pictures is a nice fixed window overlooking the courtyard as well as my dresser.

One of my TWO bathrooms. The other one is smaller and adjacent to the kitchen. This one has a big sink, a toilet and a bidet, as well as a shower/bath. Lots of storage space too.

The bottom line is this apartment does not end. It just keeps going deeper and deeper, and is way too generous of a space for just myself. NOT TO MENTION, I was supposed to check-out of this apartment this Friday when I go to Paris, and then check into another apartment upon my return next Sunday night. After I went over this with the realtor, she just told me to leave my things in the apartment and keep the keys. Basically, she gave me two days free in the apartment, which is such a relief off my shoulders. Now I don't have to move out my stuff back into the Campo de Fiori apartment only to have to move back in a couple days later.

Speaking of moving in, that was a project as well. It was pouring rain when I moved in, so I was lugging my stuff from my old apartment to my new one (4 1/2 minute walk) over two trips, and it was miserable. Not a very far distance for sure, but the amount of water that can leak from the sky over a 4.5 minute walk is pretty substantial... you can even ask a couple pairs of my underwear from one of my bags, which seemed to absorb most of the rain that fell in Rome that day.

Since I've been here, I've done a lot of settling in to this point. Went grocery shopping, hung out with my classmates, unpacked my stuff. I went to the Valentino museum expo yesterday at the Ara Pacis Museum here in Rome. Valentino is a 45-year veteran of fashion design. I went with Amy and a few other girls, of course. This is my favorite picture of the day, and I have to take credit for the concept of the photo as well as the execution.

Solid gold!

Anyway, that's all I got for you for now. We were going to go to Venice today, but Amy had a fair amount of school work, and the train schedule wasn't working in our favor. Another time for sure. I'll check back in tomorrow. For now, I'm off to explore some of Roma! Ciao!