Back on Track

I'm trying to get back on track with some posts. To catch up from, oh, 3 months ago, I'm back in NYC and back at The Orchard. Jessica's still in Rome trying not to miss me too much. I'm gonna think of a good angle for this blog so check back soon. I also need to clean up my site so it works again. I got hit by form hijackers. It was a nasty experience when random email addresses started signing up for my email list. I checked it out and found out that someone was using my form to send those nasty spam emails, making it look like I was sending it. Ugh. I had to take down the pages with the forms until, as my computer-savvy friend Dan informed me, I get some good form validation.

European Tour

So we're back in Rome after our two weeks abroad. We had a great time in Northern Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Germany. We came back to Rome early because we were hoping to straighten out my visa situation. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned and so I just booked my flight back to the US. It's going to be sad to leave Italy and Jessica, but honestly, I'm tired of trying to find a way to stay. We've decided to take one last trip before I leave so tomorrow we'll get up early to go south to the Amalfi Coast. It is supposed to be gorgeous so we're excited. I'll be back in Rome this weekend preparing for my departure early next week. I'll write more about both trips later.

Class Ending

Today will be our last day of class (it's after midnight here). We'd like to continue on to the next level, but since my travel papers situation is still pending, we've decided to do some traveling in April. It's a tough decision as we've both enjoyed our teachers (the teachers move on with the class to the next level) and our classmates. I find it interesting that when everyone is working towards a common goal, in this case learning Italian, that it's easy to get along. My class has been a blast. I'm the only native English speaker and feel fortunate to interact daily with people from Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. Yesterday, I joked around with my group members - an engineering major from Egypt, a philosphy major from Tehran, a nun from the Congo, and a businessman from Montenegro. No hard feelings and everyone was entitled to their opinion in how to use cui - a cute Italian word that basically means "which" in English. I think we should get some of our world leaders to take a language class together. That's my deep thought for the evening.

In the meantime, we leave for Venice on Monday. A couple of days there and then we'll travel to Padua (Padova), Verona and Bolzano before crossing the border into Austria. We'd like to spend a couple of weeks out of Italy traveling through Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Perhaps we'll hit up the Czech Republic as well. It's nice that we can be flexible on dates. We just have to be back by the 22nd as Jessica has a friend visiting.

Any suggestions on places to visit? Post a comment or send me an email with suggestions. Seriously, we'd love to hear your thoughts.

Our First Visitor .. and some other things

Since it's thunder- storming and hailing in Rome today, I thought this afternoon would be a good time to add a little post. At the top of the agenda (no need for a drumroll), we had our first victim, I mean visitor. There's nothing like knowing two people in Rome so they can take you around and read the guidebook to you. Yes, that's basically what we did when Dan Shamir arrived last Thursday. Ok, so the "Jack & Jessica Roman Tour" still needs to be polished - we'll get there. Dan begged (not really) to have his picture added to the blog, so I've complied. Here's Dan (jet-lagged) and Jessica (not) in front of the Trevi fountain.

Dan helped to break the monotony of going to school every day. Though it's definitely been good for the both of us. And for those of you wondering, yes, Jessica moved up to the next level.

A couple of weeks ago, before we started school, we took a 3-day trip to Pisa, Lucca and Florence. I mean no disrespect to Pisa when I say it's boring. We did it in a half a day and that was too long. Yes, the tower is leaning and they had to add a sunken counter-weight a few years ago to prevent it from toppling, but I've seen it in enough pictures to know what it was going to look like. More interesting were the bapistry, where the security guard harmonizes with herself every half hour in this echoey cylindrical building, and the Campo Santo walled-cemetery, which suffered extensive damage during WWII but still houses some large 14th century Hell frescoes with devils eating the innards of the newly damned. If you go to Pisa, you have to hold up the tower. It's intoxicating trying to get the perfect picture. This is as close as we got before Jessica said I was being a dork.

Lucca is a quaint medieval town with a huge fortified wall surrounding it. The wall now serves as a park and we did the evening stroll with the locals before eating in a cute trattoria.

The next day we went to Florence and did the usual touristy things. Jessica hadn't seen Michel- angelo's David so we made sure to go the Accademia for that. I forgot how much I enjoyed that place. It houses David and I was, and still am, awestruck by the statue, but I forgot how it also houses some unfinished Michelangelo statues. Some were just started while others are nearly finished. It's really impressive to see how he brought these pieces of rock to life. We tried to get off the beaten path and so we trekked to the other side of the river for a view of the city. Here's a picture of Jessica trying not to steal the show from beautiful Florence in the background. Also, here's what David would look like if he had too much McDonald's.

Che signfica 'medio'?

So we finally have the internet in our apartment. The company is called FastWeb but the 'fast' part doesn't apply to set-up time. The first woman whom Jessica spoke to was a sweetheart, promising a quick turn-around time and an email confirmation. The only problem was that she forgot to register Jessica in the system. I guess she wrote the info down on a napkin hoping to transfer it after she went to the bar for un caffe. Anyway, we're now connected and hopefully I can provide some pretty pictures and good stories as they arise. Why not start now you ask? Ok, if you insist.

A couple weeks back, we took a three day trip to Assisi, Perugia and Siena. Assisi would be our first experience with the walking tours in our Rick Steve's guidebook. We weren't sure if we would have time to complete the tour if we tried to find the hotel first so we carried our backpacks around with us all day. It ends up that Assisi is extremely small and the hotel was right next to the bus stop. Ugh. We met some fun characters including a man who talked to us about how his dog loves him more than his wife and a monk whot showed us around a small church before vanishing into thin air. Here's Jessica on the narrow streets of Assisi with the St. Francis basilica in the background.

When we woke up in Siena, it was drizzling. We stepped outside and had the entire Campo to ourselves. Here's me with my lovely rainbow umbrella. The day cleared up and we had fun climbing towers for views of the city and the surrounding Tuscan countryside.

Yesterday we went to the Dante Alighieri Society of Rome to sign up for an Italian course. Jessica decided it would be good for her to take an advanced class to fine tune her written skills. The test included only a written exam and I wasn't even sure if I was following the directions properly. Being the show-off that she is, Jessica finished it in two minutes. It took me a good ten minutes. They graded Jessica's exam and placed her in the medio class. She had misunderstood a section and the woman wouldn't move her to a more advanced class, even after Jessica spoke to her in her fluent Italian for a few minutes. They looked at my paper and also placed me in the medio class. I don't even know what medio means. So we will at least start off in the same class until Jessica moves up a couple of levels and I probably fall back one. Tomorrow morning we leave for another three day trip - this time to Pisa, Lucca and Florence - so I better get to bed.

Roman Holiday

The last couple of days have become a scavenger hunt. Let me explain. As an Italian citizen, Jessica wants to establish residency. This way she gets health insurance and other benefits. Rome is not that large, but they have a municipal building every 1/4 mile for residents in that area. We ended up going to the wrong one and having to backtrack to the right place. Once there, they were nice and it seems like the pieces are falling into place. Yesterday, I also dropped off my permesso paperwork at the post office. It means I have 90 days to figure out how to stay longer. There are a few options and I'm staying optimistic that something will work out. It's been rainy the last two days and we've had little luck site-seeing. We tried the Vatican Museum today but it closes at 1:30 during the winter. After having a quick lunch, we tried going to the Villa Borghese Gallery. It had the weird schedule of only allowing access every 2 hours on the odd hours (in other words 11, 1, 3, 5). Since we arrived at 3:30, it didn't make sense to stick around. One of these days we'll do something touristy. Until then, we'll visit government buildings, the grocery store, and the internet cafe.

Un giorno lungo

Yesterday was an extremely long day as we had to put Nigel to sleep. It has actually been difficult since we arrived in Rome (the reason I haven't been posting more actively). He started acting funny before we left New York, but we attributed it to the stress of moving and the commotion of people buying our sale items. He was great on the plane but when we arrived, it took him awhile to come out of the traveling bag. He was walking kinda funny, but we were hoping he just had to go to the bathroom or needed time to adjust to his new environment. After a couple of days of worrying, we took him to a vet. The vet was very kind and helpful. He didn't provide us the news we wanted but at least we got an answer - he saw a cyst near Nigel's kidneys. The vet wanted a second opinion so we took him to an animal hospital yesterday and they confirmed the cyst, adding that it was a form of lymphoma. The poor little guy was in a lot of pain and already having feline leukemia didn't help. Jessica and I took him back to the apartment and made the decision to call yet a third vet to have him put to sleep. It was a tough choice because we love him so much but we couldn't see him in so much pain. Sorry for the morose update but now you know.