July 4, 2007

10:55pm Rome/ 3:55 Houston
So today was my first American holiday in another country…felt a bit weird being in the office today after I realized what day it was. I guess it wasn’t that bad though since I had off last Friday for a Roman holiday. Everyone back home told me it has been raining all day, so guess I wouldn’t really be celebrating if I was at home anyway. As one of my friends reminded me – I will have more holidays to celebrate here!
I did have a bit of disappointing news today. I finally decided which apartment I wanted after talking to more people in the office and notified the agency…sure enough I took to long to decide and it is already taken! I was originally interested in 2 of the apartments, but after looking at the area and talking to several people in the office and other contacts I have in Rome (friends of friends etc.) they all seemed pretty unanimous that none of them would live in the area that the other apartment was in. So now we go back to square one and the agency is going to try to find some more apartments and set up some appointments for me, but this time in the area of the one I liked (which is in the center of Rome). Hopefully I’ll find something soon…I’m ready to have a place to settle down in so I can start feeling like I have a “home”. Maybe something will come up that I like even more & will work even better for me. This one just wasn’t meant to be & I have to leave it at that. Now I think I’ll be after to be able to make a decision quicker since I know more about Rome, the transportation, etc.
At work I still don’t have any real ‘work’ to do (meaning no client work). I spent most of the morning doing apartment stuff & then this afternoon I just watched US webcasts that I had missed before I left home (4 hours of watching PowerPoint and listening gets pretty boring, but stuff I need to know). I met more people in the office today, but I’ve been meeting so many new people that I have a hard time remembering names. Hopefully I’ll get it all straight! I had lunch with about 8 of the “foreigners”. Because of the way the table was I didn’t get to talk to all of them, but it was nice to have someone to go to lunch with – several days already I’ve just gone to lunch by myself. The way the office is set up it is hard to just go around meeting people. Plus since I don’t know much Italian, I just don’t feel comfortable just going up to people & start talking. Many people probably think I’m rude since I don’t talk to them when I see them, but I just don’t know what to say! I haven’t put forth the effort I need to in order to learn Italian either…my assuming I will pick it up by having the TV on and being around it in the office is not working!! Last night I was watching the Italian version of wife swap & that was pretty interesting, but I’m not sure how much Italian I really picked up. When I get home I just don’t feel like looking over it & they still have not set up my classes for me yet. I need to learn soon though because people are going to get tired of having to speak English to me or me asking people to talk to people for me (like the bank) just because I can’t speak Italian.
A couple of Italian things I’ve already learned to appreciate – going to the bar for coffee breaks, espresso after lunch, and wine. The espresso is actually starting to taste good to me! Today I bought 2 bottles of wine at the grocery store and was going to have a glass with dinner…unfortunately I forgot to check if they had a corkscrew in my room and they don’t, so I have no way to open it (believe me I tried to open it with several things but nothing worked!)
Oh & just want to send out a special thanks to Lindsey for making me laugh so hard via webcam tonight! Definitely needed a good laugh & you made me laugh so hard I was crying!
Well I better close! I hope all of you had a very happy & safe 4th of July!
Ciao!
11:20pm Rome/ 4:20pm Houston