Second Week in Rome

Now that I'm back in the States for the fourth day, I'm sad and reflective for the second week of Rome, but because it was that good of a week and I'm no longer there! Despite all efforts to make it a true holiday away from work and school, it still ended up as a working holiday, but seriously, I'm not going to complain. Environment is everything to me and I actually enjoy working, so it was still awesome.

We saved our 'tourism moments' for when friends arrived, which was fun to do together. Walking...lots and lots of walking, even though I think it was the Vatican Museum that killed me over walking the city from stem to stern. Major museums really drain the life out of me because it's always an overwhelming presentation of 'cool' combined with no food or drink support. It takes like 20 minutes just to leave the crazy place once you start to exit. Everything else was in perfect little doses though and highly enjoyable.

Bazaars and street fairs will of course always be my favourite component of every holiday - Rome is no exception. Several shirts, scarves, designer tights, boots and other necessary paraphenalia later, my wardrobe has a breath of fresh air.

Bonus: I lost five pounds between eating less more often and walking several miles a day!

Water for Elephants (review)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen


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First Week in Rome

Either we are the laziest tourists on the universe, or we just really needed a rest! After being here a full five days, we've yet to visit the usual tourists sites, but I beg an excuse for that since we've been here previously and spent most of time during that visit in ancient Rome. Parked by the Vatican City (again), we are most familiar with the west side of Rome, and my connection to Via Cola di Rienzo and the main shopping avenues off of Piazza del Popolo are strong due to my love of boots, gloves, sunglasses, and designer wear. Besides, I know we'll venture to the ancient sites when friends arrive tomorrow, which will be enjoyable.

We're eating very well and losing weight between eating right and walking a lot. Purposely getting lost and figuring out how to get home is a great weight loss program in old winding cities! Our antiquarian shopping went great if we were millionaires. The first clue was of course the fact that these lovely little "buzz me in" shoppes were tucked between Armani and Fendi. When the greet you with all smiles proudly explaining that most of the pieces come complete with provenance, you think, "yeah, thanks for confirming to me the reality that I won't be able to touch anything you have!" I like to think of the shopping as free mini museum visits as I was cheerfully told that the 1200s gothic sheet music is at a low low price of 32,000 euros. I did take the card though, just in case I win the lottery I never play :)

I slept in too late to hit the horse races today, so after the bazaars Sunday morning, hopefully I can get some in that afternoon. Trotting and gallop races alternate each day down the Appian Way south of Rome, so that'll be awesome to watch some gallop races.

Office time...Saturday morning

...because you know that Saturday is a work day too! Actually in this situation I'm simply stealing the conference table to spread all my resources out for the paper I have to write for my class. Here we discover a major positive in the world of offices - taking over conference rooms for personal use.

As you can see through the lack of two daily posts, my Thursday and Friday was a little mundane since you didn't hear from me. Neither day was terribly mundane as they were simply exhausting. Thursday was full of meetings that were productive yet draining. Following that up with an evening of study made me feel like I had no life. My excitement of the evening was a relaxing cocktail that I was too tired to finish and a movie that apparantly turned itself off by morning....not very impressive.

Friday held a more interesting perspective, but equally time destructive. The offices of my department moved to a new building, and unfortunately that usually requires the social norm of having people in to take a look. This may come as a surprise, but I'm often not terribly sociable. I left the office door open a crack so I wasn't being rude, but not welcoming either. That made zero impact with strange people poking their face in and calling me by name as I tried desperately to figure out who in the world they were. In retrospect, I believe I could have stemmed off the biggest tide of stupid comments if I'd have just posted a sign saying,

"Yes, you are correct. I am not the person who normally sits in this office. You have great observation skills. Also, this person is not nearly as nice as the person who normally occupies this office. You may be bitten."

I am happy to report the best humour point of the week as my final one.

Humour Point: The President of the school stopping by the flat to tell me that I'm doing a great job. Elle's response to this? Walking up to where he was standing, look down at the puddle of water that he brought in from the rain with him and pronouncing "OH YUCK" while registering a very irritated expression. I'll be working on her political skills next.

Office time....Wednesday morning.

Things are settling into a moderate routine. Showing up to the office 2.5 hours late was brilliant on my part and saved a lot of early morning irritation. Also, having a bacon, egg and cheese bagel from McDonalds made me feel like I was splurging big time from my usual boiled eggs and tea. However, the big improvement for my day involved having my own office. One of the staff doesn't work Wednesday, Thursday or Friday in the office (works remotely those days), so I was very quick with the seige and capture of private space. Thank God. They had another meeting out in the main area and I would have totally snapped if I had to focus through that for the third day.

No significant news. Unfortunately I don't have a humour point. Holing myself away takes away my exposure to others, or their exposure to my sarcastic mind - I'm not sure which perspective to use.

I have not seen walnut and bee lady today. No news on that front either.

T-3 days for Rome!

Office time....Tuesday morning.

There are other indicators that have recently been discovered why I should not work with people in a face to face environment. It turns out that I have no patience and and no checking station in my brain for when to stop talking. To make a long story short I accidentally informed the President of the university that his campus maintanence was pitiful at best that his latest program was boring. Oops. The problem was that I had no shower for the second day because of some plumbing issues...and to my dear girl readers...you know how unacceptable that is. It was simply a miserable happenstance that the President crossed my path on a morning where I was desperately craving a shower and reading an article on ways to infuse the latest brainstorm with some pizzazz. We'll find out if I'm fired later.

My tea spilled in my car on the way over to the office. That was a whole different level of trauma.

Humour Point: the walnut lady is now concerned about the bees.

Office time....Monday morning.

While there are benefits to working in an office (separation from other responsibilities or temptations), I am happily reminded that I made the correct choice in pursuing a self-driven career working in the home. Some things cannot be blamed on working in the office since it's just community issues. For example, the nearest Starbucks is 30 minutes away. That alone would kill a potential office job for me. While it is cool to work in an old train station, it's been too refurbished and you can't tell from the inside, which is annoying.

One and a half hours into my conference table-desk experience and I already know who I want to kill and who may live... if their tongues are removed. Apparantly I am non-existent since people randomly came into the room, walk over to the window, and discussed the tragedy of parking under a walnut tree. They barely escaped with their lives.

Humour point: I needed the security key to get into their wireless. I told the executive assistant and she contacted the guru. He emailed it to me. Just think about that for a moment.

T-6.5 hours...