My cousin Emma, Rome, and sightseeing

I spent a lovely couple of days with my cousin Emma charging around Rome, trying to fit in as much sightseeing and good Italian food as you can in three days. I have to admit that I was fairly impressed with my map reading abilities in Rome given my characteristic lack of a basic sense of direction. We managed to fit in the Colloseum, the Pantheon, Campo dei Fiori, piazza Navona, that huge and fairly ugly building built by Mussolini which is affectionately called the typewriter by the Italians who live there (I think it's called something of the Republica?) and some pretty good food as well. We'd been doing pretty well until we missed the train and had to stay the night. We were too far away from the train station to walk it so with an hour to spare we figured we'd get a bus. When the bus didn't appear after waiting about half an hour at the bus stop we decided to get a taxi. The taxi driver, having identified us as foreigners then decided to take us on a touristic tour of the city leaving us at the train station with about a minute and a half to make it to the platform. (This is why Italians tell you never to take taxis, lesson well learnt). We charged as fast as we could across Termini train station missing our train (the last train) by all of about 2 seconds. All in all though it worked out pretty well cause we found a youth hostel and had a very nice meal in the restaurant right next door.
It was really nice showing her round Perugia because I've been living here for almost 7 months and by now I have to admit that I've stopped noticing the beauty of the place, it's just home. When you walk around with someone who's never been here you begin to look at the place again, and actually notice how pretty the architecture is, the little things you take for granted on a daily basis. The fact that I'm leaving kind of made even more impact, I was walking around looking at this city with a little bit of sadness, these are things I take for granted but which I have to leave behind. Anyway, I think Perugia made a big impression and I'm happy that she liked it. We had dinner with my flatmates which was interesting because Emma doesn't speak a word of Italian and one of the girls doesn't speak a word of English so I spent a lot of time translating. Perugia's a world of it's own because all the English speakers here speak at least a little bit of Italian, that's why they're here. So I think last night was one of the very rare occasions that I've had to sit there and translate everything for someone else. To be honest it was a lot of fun.
(So thanks Emma, I had a really lovely weekend and my flatmates think you're great!)

Lu-not-in-prooja-for-much-longer

Well, I've decided to pack it in and come home for a few months. Things haven't been going all that well here in Perugia and my financial situation has gotten to point of being ridiculous. I don't have a job anymore and while I've been teaching English it's pretty damn far from being a sufficient income on which to survive. I've been reasoning things out for the last few weeks and I've come to the decision that I need to come home (to Belfast) for at least a few months to sort myself out and put myself on a better financial footing. Dublin's pretty much out as an option because life there and the extortionate rents would defeat the purpose of coming home in the first place. I'm not quite sure what the plan is, whether I'll come back to Perugia or head to Rome although Rome is looking like the more likely of the two. As much as I love Perugia the reality is that there aren't many employment opportunities or at least none that pay half way decently. There's a much better chance of finding work in Rome if only because it's a much bigger city. I'm sad to be leaving though, I've really enjoyed myself here and I was beginning to feel very at home. I have good friends and I like the lifestyle. But hey, all things come to an end I guess and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone at home, I'll be in Dublin every so often so I can catch up with you lot too. Hope to see everyone (or most of you) over Christmas, but if not, take care of yourselves and Merry Christmas!