Hey, you want to go to Paris?

Tuesday September 20th.  Lunch.  I ask "work spouse" DD about a weekend trip to Paris.  I knew the answer would be YES.  And we were off.....

Hello, Paris!

The genesis of the trip came from a Facebook exchange I had with Vern (left) who mentioned that he was going to be in Paris for his birthday with his boyfriend Anch.  Paris and birthday....of course I'm there.

The four of us spent the afternoon walking along the Promenade Plantee Park, which is an old elevated railway turned into a pedestrian walkway....think NYC's High Line.

One of the things I love about Paris is not only the people watching, the the "building watching."  This building with naked men along it has a police station on the ground floor.

I'll take the apartment with that top terrace!

DD and I committed to a "carbs and proteins ONLY" diet this Paris weekend.  We did pretty well!  The reason there are so many more pictures of me than normal is because DD is willing to play photographer.

After our walk, Anch and Vern had to take care of some errands so DD and I went to Montmartre.

Sitting at the highest point in Paris, Sacre Coeur is the "star" of Montmartre.  It was actually only finished in 1870 and there has been someone praying continuously since that time.

 

It's something to do to rub the foot of St. Peter's.  In both Sacre Coeur and St. Pierre-de-Montmartre.

Looking down the backside (North) of Montmartre.

Here we have St. Denis, the patron saint of Paris.  Legend has it that in 250AD, when the Christians were being persecuted, Denis had his head chopped off, then promptly picked it up and walked another 10km, preaching the entire way.

Three times I've been to Paris in the past six months.  Perfect weather each time.  Sunset light in Montmartre......

Who's Dalida?  I certainly didn't know, but in asking my European colleagues back in Rome, they all swooned.  Turns out she was an Egyptian born of Italian descent who was a naturalized French citizen who was a HUGE singer in the 50's, 60's and 70's.  She brought DISCO to France.  Sadly, she committed suicide in 1987 and this bust commemorates her in a plaza near her home in Montmartre.

We'll have to thank DD for taking one for the team here.  Art gallery and I was hungry.  I spied munchies and barreled my way in right to the spread.  DD tactfully spent a few minutes talking to the artist about the "inspiration" of the work.  Really, we both just saw sponges dipped in water colors thrown onto canvas.

At the base of Montmartre, the famed Moulin Rouge.

Vern's birthday dinner took place under the beautiful cupola and lavender tree of Brasserie Bofinger (Yes EC, it was a repeat!) in the Marais, near Bastille.

Protein......steak tartar, which I LOVE!

Sunday morning, perfect weather and time to rent bikes and ride through Paris.

I WISH I had a yellow shirt/jersey on as I am doing my best Lance Armstrong impression riding my bike up the Champs- Elysees.

We'll depart from Paris with this beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower from Trocadero.

Americans Meet Italians, Italians Meet Americans

Moving to a new city, the key to feeling connected is meeting that crucial person who opens up a who new social side of things.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have been lucky to meet a colleague DD, who has introduced me to her friends and that has made all the difference in this first month here in Rome.  I'm over the first hump, and on my way to a grand life here.

So last week, SS IMPLORED me to set up a get together at local outdoor summer club (called All'Ombra dell Colosseo, which is as you probably translated, right in the shadow of the Colosseum) so my American colleagues at school might could meet his Italian friends.  Plus, most of the American's I brought were.....female.  SS was in heaven.  I kind of felt like a pimp, but hell, it was fun.

Myself and "work spouse" DD

DD and SS

SS and SOME of the colleagues I invited

Italians and Americans mixing it up

Yes, I'm dancing.  Over on Facebook, it was called "the salmon", but I renamed it "the blender"

 

JF, new Chemistry teacher AND from Seattle and myself

Left is Mishu (nickname) and SS

SS, Pino and myself

Copertino, Italy

Myself, SS and IM eating Carbonara with "bastoncini"

As I revealed in my last post, I've made some Italian friends here in Rome....somehow I've fallen into a crowd of phramacists.  Two of my friends are SS and IM pictured above.  IM is from a small town in Puglia called Copertino (seriously, Google map this to see where we were!), and this past Saturday, September 18th, was the day of San Giuseppe born in Copertino and the patron saint of air travelers, aviators, astronauts, people with mental handicaps, test takers and weak students.  Just like Viterbo has its Santa Rosa, Copertino celebrates San Giuseppe.

IM invited myself and my colleague, and proclaimed work spouse, DD, down for the weekend.  This was Wednesday of last week, DD and I sitting out for our usual leisurely lunch start talking about actually going to Copertino for the weekend.  Oh, the dangers of a laptop, wireless Internet, and Facebook.  We sign on to Facebook, and IM is online.  We confirm we have a place to stay at his family home, we research all variations of transportation options and with few credit card numbers and 40 minutes later.......we've booked ourselves a flight from Rome to Brindisi, have a car rented and plan on returning to Rome by driving through the night Sunday to arrive at work in time to teach on Monday morning.  CRAZY.....but this is what live is about.  Carpe Diem!

Pranzo!  Amazing food cooked by IM's Dad dishing out the food.  That's DD on the left, IM's brother center and IM sitting right.

After starting with mussels, an a primo of spaghetti with "vongole", next was a fish stew....

...followed by an herb stuffed fish called "triglie." No dinner was needed after this AMAZING meal.

Late afternoon was spent swimming in the beautifully clear waters of the Ionian Sea, near Porto Cesareo.

The night before San Giuseppe's day, the town is LIT up in these massive light displays.  It's like Las Vegas has been transported to this town of 30,000 in the heel of Italy!

The entire town was out, music, vendors and of course....food.  We were out until 2AM, as IM, having grown up here, knew everyone and since he lives in Rome, everyone wanted to hang out!

Sunday......I slept in, while DD and IM went to watch the parade in town.  Then, of course, another amazing Pranzo.  Mortadella wrapped around peppers, fresh mozzarella and prosciutto crudo around figs were just the starters.  Fresh pasta for primo, then stewed baby goat and roasted goat for the main course!

IM, myself and DD at the beach Sunday afternoon.

The festival ended with a fireworks show, "fuoco artificiale".  I post this picture to remember how amazing it was to be standing in a field in southern Italy with friends watching fireworks.

So it is a weekend like this that encapsulates my living here in Italy.  Great food with friends and getting to meet locals completely off the tourist track.  The fact that DD and I then drove back to Rome (6 hours) and arrived at school at 5AM, took a two hour nap in the car and then taught all day is just part of the great adventure!  Here's to more experiences like the festival of San Giuseppe and places like Copertino.

First Full Weekend In Rome

I arrived in Rome on the 23rd of August knowing no one in this city.  Yeah, yeah, I lived up in Viterbo which is an hour and a half away, but here in the big city?  I moved here with no community.  It was my largest fear that I would get lost here and feel lost here without direction.  I've had three weekends here since I've been back.  The first weekend, I headed up to Viterbo on Saturday to see Anna.  The second weekend, I also headed up to Viterbo for Santa Rosa.  On Sunday the 4th, my friend Mary Bentley arrived in town as my first official visitor to my Rome life.  For all you out there who are reading this......if you travel as one or a couple, I have an extra bed right here in the center of everything here in Rome...you can map the address, which is Piazza della Rovere 109.

But this first full weekend gave me great hope for my year (or maybe more......) here.  If things come together as well and as nicely as they did this past weekend, who knows.  It all started Wednesday afternoon at school.  It turns out that there is a group of about five teachers (of which I am one) that by luck has it we never teach the period after lunch.  So, as most teacher get up to go to class, the group of us sits there and spends an extra half an hour in the sun, lounging and eating slowly.  One of the group, an English teacher named DD (keeping names undercover these days) invites me to a get together on Thursday night.  I accept, thinking that it was going to be a bunch of fellow teachers, but it wasn't.  It turned out to be a going away party for one of the members of a group of friends of her new boyfriend.  It was at one of the classic Roman summer outdoor bar/dance clubs near the Colosseum and it was 98% Italians.  This is where my ability to speak some basic Italian comes to bear fruit because I could pretty much hold up my end of the conversation.  I know my Italian isn't nearly as good as the English spoken by my friends in Germany/Holland, but the Italians tell me I'm pretty good, so I'll take the compliment.  We're all hanging out, toasting and just enjoying in the evening, when DD and I start talking about all the new teachers at school this year.  DD mentions that a number of them are young and pretty and SS's ears perk up.  I mention that the next day, a couple of them are throwing an aperitivi at their apartment and SS (I have to give the guy credit for having balls) asks me point blank if he can come.  I say sure, let me check with the hosts and I would text him the next day.

Now it's Friday, I put in a long day, stay late and prep all my classes for Monday, which is my habit.  No work on the weekends!  There were a number of expat happy hours scheduled for that night (along with the aperitivi, it was to be a full night), one of which was the American International Club of Rome happy hour.  I had heard that this was a good group to get to know, so I invited another friend of mine EE (it's weird all my friends have first and last initials that are the same) to join me.  We arrive and it was WAY dressy and looked it was Greenwich, CT transported to Italy.  We left within five minutes.  EE and I wandered around the city for an hour before meeting up with SS to head to the aperitivi.  SS is THE MAN.  He actually followed through!  We had a great time at the get together and SS is asking me to give his number to one of my colleagues!  In bed at 2AM.

Saturday morning, I got up to go to the Italian Health Office to change my doctor from the one I was assigned in Viterbo to one here in Rome.  I had gone to the office once before a few weeks ago, but they didn't realize I was NOT Italian (is my Italian that good, no can't be) and so I don't require the city residence card, which others in the EU are required to have. I went back to that office and all was good and I was about to be assigned a doctor when they asked for my address. It turns out that even though this office I was at is closest to where I live, I am in another district, which is on the other side of town.  To give a Seattle equivalent, I live around Northgate and should go to NW hospital, but I am actually assigned to The UW hospital.  Whatever, I head over to the other office, and successfully register as a temporary resident of Rome (it was way easier just to keep Viterbo as my permanent Italian residency and be a one year resident of Rome....so if I stay, I have to do this every year) and now Dr. Pietro Corttegiani, you are my doctor.  Nice to meet you...someday I hope soon.  After the office, I was just wandering back to the tram when I saw a sign for the Museum of the Liberation of Rome.  It was a former prison run by the German's when they occupied Rome during from September 1943 to June 1944.  Further wandering led me to San Giovanni in Laterano, the great cathedral which is the official seat of the Bishop of Rome.  I wander in.....sit down......and take a nap.  It was cool inside, and no one was going to bother me.  It was a nice hour.

That evening, I had planned on hanging out with another colleague BS.  While he was in transit from his place, DD texted me to a dinner at her place.  So BS and I spent the evening hanging out with a bunch of Italians, again.  I'm LOVING meeting Italians and being with them.  One of the highlights of the evening was one of the girls refusing to eat some pasta made by SS and his friend (and DD's guy) IM.  The gave it to her, and she just picked at it and called them idiots.  You had to be there.  Later in the evening, another colleague BB (another double initial) came to hang out and mentioned that he was going to go paintball on Sunday with friends and I was welcome to come along.  Being as it's a good policy to say yes to everything, I agreed to do so.  The evening wound down, and my walk home was literally in front of St. Peter's Cathedral and the Square.

Sunday morning and it's off to paintball!!!  BB tosses me a helmet and I get on the back of his motorino.  And we're weaving our way through the traffic in Rome, and I'm feeling completely Italian.  The paintball session turns out to be the birthday celebration of a friend of BB's.  There were only six of us, so we played 3 on 3.  For 20 Euro, we played for three hours.  I have to admit, I suck at it.  I have no aim, I can't really run fast, and I'm a chicken. My first instinct is to hide behind the barriers, whereas BB is standing tall, taking aim, attacking and hitting me and thereby eliminating me.  But it was fun.  Two more Italians were there, first was G?, who's birthday we were celebrating and AC, who turns out to be BB's neighbor and also the chef who runs the #1 cooking school in Rome as rated by Trip Advisor.  Yeah, here I was spending my Sunday afternoon playing on the same paintball team as the famous cooking school owner.  So amazingly....Roman!

So I have to admit, after having a weekend such as this one, I'm feeling much better about life here.  I know that it can't ALWAYS be like this, but having a good one here right at the beginning makes me feel a whole lot better.  I've still got some things to work out, but I'm close to getting my medical certificat (hello Doctor Corttegiani) so I can go to the pool and start working out.  I'm thinking about taking an Art History class (I've seen an Italian one advertised, but maybe one at the local American University) and hope to find a regular crew to play cards with!  Oh and of course there are the sports bars so I can watch....football

The American Overseas School of Rome

Here you go........day before school starts campus tour.

The address of the school is Via Cassia 811 and is located at the northwestern corner of the city, very leafy and almost suburban feeling.  The school is across the street from this bus stop, which is where I get off when I don't ride the school bus.

The main entrance to the school with the guardhouse.

The first thing you see on campus, not a great first impression, is the school parking lot.  Watch for a coming post when I blog about the school bus system.  This parking lot will be featured PROMINENTLY.

Up the stairs out of the parking lot and you come to the corner of the quad.  Here at the NE corner, the two wings of the elementary school intersect.

This is the wing (the eastern side of the quad) that has the 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classrooms.

On the western side of the quad, is the oldest building on campus (it used to be someone's residence) called the Villa.  The Villa houses the Middle school (grades 6-8) and administration.  Behind the villa is the athletic field.

The two story high school building is on the southern edge of the quad.

This breezeway (the SE corner of the quad) connects the Villa with the main entrance of the High School.  The gym is on the other side of the wall of art.

The classroom I've been assigned is the first one you come to one the first floor of the HS building.  My name plate was attached to the door today.  It's the first time I've ever had my name on a classroom door in 16 years of teaching!  I do, however share my classroom.

My classroom is assigned the name "HS0", yeah I teach in Room 0.  The history behind that is that the room has 2 doors. The room across the hall is Room 1, and in the old days, the other door to the room was used as the entrance, so the room was Room 2.  But the former teacher, wanted the entrance door changed, so it became Room 0 and there now is no Room 2.

The southern edge of the campus sits on the edge of a greenbelt, which is what my classroom looks out on.  Along the steep slope, the school has built an outdoor amphitheater, which is right outside HS0's windows.

On the ground floor, right below the room in which I teach, is the school cafeteria.  Teacher's lunches are subsidized by the school so we only pay 30 Euro cents to each lunch!