goodbye Italy

Hey everyone,

Sorry if my last blog was less than interesting, I got a little carried away by my new found knowledge of how to insert photos in the blog text, thanks to Ronan. Anyway, I think I paid less attention to the content and more to the novelty of programming (or rather typing meaningless garble into a page of more meaningless garble with the end result that a picture appears on my blog page - it's all so exciting, whodathunkit!)
Anyway, I'm heading home on wednesday morning and I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. My work has finished, early, and I'm coming back with a good deal less money than I had been led to believe. Some schools cancelled so instead of doing two full day camps equivalent to 600 euro, I only did one half day camp - 150 euro, so I suppose you could say that I'm not the happiest of campers at the moment. Work has been a lot of fun but all in all I'm kinda glad to be finished for the summer.
I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing anymore. My plans have changed somewhat and I'm probably coming home til Christmas in the hope of getting my driver's licence and putting some money aside. The overall plan is to move to Rome after Christmas. we'll see.
It's gonna be weird being home. I don't think I've quite taken it in yet that I'm coming home even if all my bags are already packed and my room is just empty and white. That's not to say that it won't be nice being home for a while but I think I'm very used to living in Italy and independently, it'll be strange being back in my mum's house. I really wish that I could go back to live in Dublin but there's no point in that, living in Dublin would mean absolutely no possibility of raising money by Christmas. I reckon my time'll be pretty full though, I need to take driver's lessons, get a job, I'm gonna join my mum's gym and my dad wants me to teach him to swim for his holiday in Australia. I think if I'm honest I am looking forward to coming home, I miss my family and my friends and it'll be great to see everyone without having to charge off and get a plane or something.
So, hopefully I'll see you at some point between now and Christmas.

Take care.

Lu xxx

Visitors from afar

Well hello there.
It's been a while, I know, but I've been fairly busy/lazy/not fussed and lacking a computer and internet connection I just haven't got round to blogging for a while, my apologies to any of you who actually read this thing.

So, as I said in my last blog, Ger and Ronan came to visit a few weeks ago on their way up to Trieste. It was really good to see some friendly faces and just arse around together. I like my life in Italy but I have to admit that I get nostalgic fairly often for life in Dublin and for all my old friends.

Will and Dave Healy came to visit as well which was really nice but, all things considered, things ended up going very decidedly pear-shaped. The major problem being the fact that both Dave and Will thought I lived in Rome and Dave booked his flights assuming that he'd be able to get to Ciampino airport pretty damn early in the morning. Then Dave's flight was delayed and the two of them only got to Viterbo at 10.30 at night and I had to get up at 6am to go to work the next morning. Then I missed my bus back to Viterbo and didn't get back til 5pm leaving the guys to wander the city in the sweltering heat all day. Then they had to leave the next day so i think it was all a bit of a disaster and I'm a bit annoyed that I had to work and didn't get to spend any time with them. But, it was really nice to see them and I appreciate the fact that they spent 2 and a half hours on a train to spend what ended up being about 6 hours in my very grumpy company.

Ger and Ruf's trip was decidedly much more of a success and I really enjoyed having them here even if it made me realise that a year in Italy has destroyed any drinking ability I once might have had. I just can't drink anymore! We spent a day and a half in Rome wandering about in the heat, or at least Ronan and I did, Ger spent a large portion of his time in an internet cafe waiting for an important phone call. I felt pretty bad for him, it wasn't a fun way to start off his holiday.

Then we headed up to Viterbo and stayed at my place.

Can you smell something?

More drinking was done and once again my new lightweight Italian tendencies got the better of me and I crashed pretty early leaving the boys to the drinking in the kitchen while I sprawled on my bed in a state of near unconsciousness feeling fairly sorry for myself. We went to the student bar in Viterbo which is probably fairly unimpressive but at least the drinks are a good deal cheaper than other places and they let us buy a bottle of wine to take home with us. The saddest thing is that I crashed after 2 pints of strong beer, I didn't even manage the wine.

The next day we headed on up to Perugia for a dinner at my old flatmates' house with some of my friends and my old next door neighbour Stefania. I was expecting a much smaller affair than it ended up being but it was great to see everyone again. I've realled missed those dinners, it's something I don't have in Viterbo. Some of my happiest memories of University are probably the parties and dinners in Terenure and at Ronan's house and the same goes for Perugia. Afterwards we all walked into town to sit on the steps, as is the tradition in Perugia, and we Irish caused a small stir with our revolitionary idea of bringing cans of beer bought in the supermarket with us.

Us drinking on the steps of the cathedral in Perugia, knacker drinking is the respectable way to go in Italy.

Most of my friends made some effort to speak English to the boys which was pretty sweet of them especially since I didn't know some of them could even speak English until very recently.

The next day the girls, Bimba and Chicchi took us all to Assisi so the guys could see the Cathedrals.

Assisi

So, we did manage to get some sightseeing done despite drinking and eating taking up a good part of our time.

Me and Chicchi

We had a very nice dinner together in my favourite Perugino restaurant 'Dal mi' Cocco' where you pay 14Euro and eat like pigs and another of my favourites which costs a bit more but where the food is fantastic (that just so happens to be at the end of my old street).

Ruf in Dal Mi' Cocco

I miss Perugia.

I saw the guys off at 11 on the saturday and they took a night train up to Trieste and I left the next morning to be back in Viterbo to wait for Will and Dave.

It was a very full couple of weeks but I had a really good time... I'm heading home on the 27th July and I'll be home for a few months cause I'm giving in and accepting the need to have a driver's licence and I want to spend a bit of time at home. That's it for now.

Hello

This is just a quick hello.
I found out a few days ago that both Ger and Ronan are coming out to visit me on the 21st June! I'm so excited, I haven't seen either of them for ages, although in Ger's case it's been almost a year! I've taken a week off work so we can go travelling and see a bit of Rome and maybe Perugia.

A particularly striking daguerreotype of young Mr. Crowley

My mum is coming to see me as well, she's arriving tomorrow evening! So i'm off to Rome for 4 days which'll be really nice cause I haven't really managed to see Rome properly yet. Every time I've been to Rome I've spent the day frantically tour guiding or in the pub.
That's it for now because I've gotta let the internet place close, the owner is making cough cough noises.
Take care of yourselves.
Lu xxx

Chicchi in Perugia this weekend,+ 

Me and Bimba in Perugia this weekend 

My friend Luca and his friend Franca at a nice little pizza place. 

This is my friend Andrea in Perugia. 

A picture I took from the train on the way back from Perugia. 

Me posing. I'm very excited about this whole digital camera thing. I'm getting on everyone's nerves with my new found habit. 

Another one of the guys from last week. 

My friend Serena from Limerick. 

My room, not a great picture but it gives you an idea. 

The little rascals in Montefiascone, 4 and 5 year olds. 

The girls in Civita Castellana. I had a great time teachng in this school. 

The guys in Civita Castellana, the camp I did last week. They were so much fun! 

me with my new haircut... 

The kids in my class in Montefiascone. They were such nice kids and the little one hunched down in the blue t-shirt was a little honey! 

long time no blog

Hey everyone,

It's been quite some time since my last blog, I've been an extremely busy little bunny. I'm wrecked tired this evening and I've just spent an hour in a car with some decidedly unfriendly girls. A guy I work with offered me a lift which meant a one hour car ride instead of a 3 hour train ride... I'm very seriously considering learning to drive, maybe it's time. Anyway, I feel like I'm gonna crumble, this week has just been hectic beyond belief and I really need to get some sleep. I worked 2 camps this week, one is normally tiring enough! I did a camp from 9am - 1pm with a group of 18 and 19 year olds. It was so much fun! It's these jobs that remind me why I'm staying with this company, when they go well you leave work on the most incredible high. Of course, to bring me down again was the camp in the afternoon, in a place (situated in the arsehole of nowhere) called Bassano Romano, with little kids of 8 and 9. They had no interest whatsoever in learning English and I spent all my time yelling at them and prying them apart as they tried to kick the shit out of each other. I'm absolutely destroyed.
The camp with the guys in Civita was really good for me in that I really needed to do something with adult people and apart from that their English was very good which meant that we were able to do a lot more complicated stuff. I think they really enjoyed this week as well. Some of the guys had a detailed working knowledge of swearwords and expressions in English and we couldn't figure out how they'd learnt them. Then we found out that they're big fans of Blink 182 and they insisted on performing "I fucked your dog in the ass" complete with actions for us. For those of you unfamiliar with Blink 182, the song goes "I wanna fuck your dog in the ass, I wanna fuck you dog in the ass, I tried to fuck your mom in the ass, I tried to fuck your dad in the ass, but I found your dog, and his ass". They made good use of this knowledge later on when they had to compose a song for their group. We'd divided them into two teams, boys versus girls, the boys were "Italian Schools" and the girls were "American Schools" and the discussion was supposed to be comparing positive and negative aspects of the two school systems. We did get them to do the debate as it had been intended eventually but the initial focus was more a war of the sexes than anything else... still, they used English. The guys' song was pretty funny, they harmonised and everything, like a barbershop quartet, singing "American can suck our dicks, we always put it in your ass, and if you don't like it, we don't give a shit, Italy Italy Italy forever", the girls' was a little less foul-mouthed but a little worrying really "Italians only want to eat and drink, don't want get a job, we are strong and we will kill you, with our atomic bombs". We got them to produce brochures for a nightclub imagining that they were the events director of the club, what events would be on and when, how much you'd have to pay for entrance etc etc They had to make menus as well because you eat in Italian nightclubs. One group created a program for a strip/nightclub called Orgies where you can see a Full Monty show on mondays, eat off the waitresses on wednesdays, watch female mud-wrestling on tuesdays, and watch a demolition derby on fridays. Today they had to write and perform a short sketch and I have to say I was really really impressed. Anyway, it's been the best camp that I've done so far and it's nice to feel good about your job, so I thought I'd share some of the happy stuff with you.
Other than that I've been dedicating a large part of my time to translating a guide to the Museums in Viterbo. It's really difficult, partly because the structure of Italian is completely different from English which means that I have to turn every sentence inside out and back to front, but also because the language is very technical and I keep having to search for obscure words whch half the time aren't even in my dictionary. Another problem is the fact that it's not even written very well in Italian to begin with so I kind of have to find a better way of saying nearly every sentence.
Next friday my mum's coming to visit and we're gonna spend a couple of days in Rome. I'm really looking forward to a couple of days away from work and even if I've been living here for a year I haven't ever really taken the time to see Rome properly, it's always been a really rushed affair so it'll be nice to wander around without rushing.
I guess that's it for now. I can't think of anything else to add just now which is probably a good thing for all of you lot (my thousands of dedicated readers).
Take care of yourselves,

Lu xxx

me at a friends house. do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out all this picture posting crap. 

Cheesy cake, deep fried lamb, and kiwi jam...

Well hello there... Happy Easter!

I'm sitting in an internet cafe in Rome waiting for my mum to arrive. She's coming over for a few days and unfortunately she's just missed the hot weather. It's been roasting hot for about a week, hot enough for me to start getting sun burnt (not that it takes that much!) Sadly, the weather broke yesterday and it's been pissing rain on and off ever since. My mum's gonna be very disappointed, she wanted to know if she should bring sandals and sunscreen...
I've just spent a really lovely weekend with my kind of adoptive Italian family, the Ribigini. Marco's sister (who I lived with all last year in Perugia) invited me to spend the easter weekend with them in Deruta (a little town about 10 miles from Perugia). They overfed me and now I'm feeling that slightly uncomfortable kind of fullness you get a Christmas time. They make a weird cake with loads of lumps of cheese through it, it's the traditional Easter cheesy cake that you eat with a kind of salami, verrryy gooood, mmmm.... and lamb done dipped in egg and breadcrumbs deep fried, and artichokes done in batter and canneloni and.... anyway, I think you get the idea. Basically, I'm feeling very full but decidely well done by. It was really lovely to see Bimba (Marco's sister) and Chicchi (Marco's cousin), and Marco's parents and all my friends in Perugia, I managed to get a hold of pretty much everyone... So I had a lovely weekend. I went up to Perugia on thursday night and stayed at my friend Francesca's house which is always a lot of fun. We headed into town with the intention of meeting up with a couple of friends for a drink and somehow managed to meet practically every single person I know in Perugia on the street, I'm pretty sure if I'd gone looking for them there's no way I'd have run into anyone. We all ended up in this really nice little bar until closing time so all in all I had a really good night.
As for things in Viterbo, things are going a good bit better, I've got a hell of a lot work now. I'm doing that translation, private lessons at night time and about 20 hours a week for AMICA (the teaching kiddies english gig) So I'm pretty much knackered all the time but it's better this way, I'm busy all the time and I'm getting to know people and not spending time in my room wondering what to do with myself, in fact for the last few weeks I've been getting home late and going straight to bed.
I met the nicest guy, Luca, he's 35 and he's helping me out with the work situation. He gave me his friend's number because she needed private lessons and now I'm teaching her in the evenings after work. He's the guy who hired me for the translation too. I've been spending quite a bit of time with him and he's made living in Viterbo a lot more enjoyable. I've been out to dinner a few times with him and his boyfriend, and they're so much fun! Anyway, things are looking a bit more positive. Some Italians are crazy, the woman I'm teaching is just far too nice, she cooked me dinner the first night I went to hers, paid me upfront for 10 lessons and gave me a pot of kiwi jam she made herself at home. Another student gave me an Easter cake which is basically a really heavy, dense cinnamon and carrot cake. They're ridiculous when it comes to generosity sometimes, but it's a nice way to be.

Um, this absolutely beautiful guy who was sitting beside me in the internet cafe just got up to leave but came back and made me a flower out of balloons! and gave me his number and email. I went bright red (of course) and my legs are still shaking... um, anyway...

All in all, things is guuud.

Take care of yourselves.