36 Hours in Rome
Good morning everyone!
I'm sorry it's been so long since I wrote. The weeks have gotten away from me.
I have some time now, because I'm sitting in the Tunis airport, waiting for my flight to Rome to leave. This was an extremely last minute decision, brought on by my need to leave the country to do a visa jump (residency card is no where in sight...), Tom's schedule, and a cheap deal with Tunisair. For those of you who don't know, my uncle Tom (side note, my iPad kept changing that to Uncle Tom's Cabin) lives in Rome and is kind enough to let his niece invade with very little notice.
Of course, as soon as I bought the tickets, I caught a nasty cold, so I've been working out of bed for the past three days. I've consumed two jars of honey and more tea than I can count, but thankfully I'm feeling a little better today. Nothing a little pizza can't fix.
We've made progress on the office in the last few weeks, though not as much as we would have liked. But, we have office space and phone lines, so that is a start! After spending so much time in my apartment last week, I am ready to have an office to go to.
Since I last wrote, I have booked my tickets home. I will be in the US from the 16th to the 30th. That's earlier that I would have like to come home (I would have preferred September) but I can't take time off once we're past Ramadan and our work really begins. I also have to be back in time for Jessica Bell to come visit me!
In other news, I have started apartment hunting (it never ends...) because I've talked to a lot of locals and they have all agreed that I am paying way too much for my apartment. If I were really attached, I would stay, but given that the oven only has three levels, the water doesn't always stay hot and the construction could go on for months, it doesn't seem worth it to also be paying a lot. I am going to try to stay in Marsa, but could move somewhere else. This is going to be a long term hunt, now that I have the time. The past few times I've moved I've been rushed to find a place, resulting in crazy roommates, a stove that catches the wall on fire, and now constant construction. If I give myself some time, maybe I'll manage to find a decent apartment. Or I'm cursed.
For those of you who follow the news, I'm sure you've been reading about FEMEN and salafists in Tunisia. While there are definitely tensions here, I think salafist battleground, as it was recently called in an Atlantic article, is a little strong (thank you Christina for passing on that article). What I've mostly noticed here is preparation for Ramadan, which starts in about a week. We'll see what happens in Cairo tomorrow.
I'm about to board, so I will pick this up later.
June 30:
Well, I just wrote a whole post about today on the train, but it appears to have been deleted... I'm sitting on the plane in Rome, hoping that we will take off before 9, two hours after the plane was supposed to leave.
I had an amazing 36 hours in Rome. I got there without incident by taxi, plane, train, and metro. The weather couldn't have been nicer and it was a holiday in Rome yesterday, so it wasn't too crowded. Toad met me by the Colosseum and walked me to a cute little hotel that he had set up. The view from from my window is below:
After we dropped my stuff off, we went out in search of lunch. We got focaccia, pasta and red wine, which got me feeling better in no time. After lunch, we strolled from the Colosseum down the forum, over to the Pantheon, and back to the cat sanctuary. By the time we were done with that, we had dinner at a small cafe near the Colosseum, and watched the sun set.
Since I was still sick (I pretty much lost my voice for half of the afternoon), I crashed early, but before I did, I wandered around to take a few pictures. I've never seen the forum at night and it was perfect weather.
This morning, Toad collected me at 10 and we set off wandering around again. This time we avoided the sights mostly, though we saw the Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps, and took the small side streets instead. It was a beautiful day and perfect for wandering. We eventually ended up on the street that Gregory Peck's apartment was on in Roman Holiday:
Via Margutta
We actually got proof that we were in Rome together this time!
After another delicious lunch and farewell limoncello, I wandered through the park to the train station and caught the train to the airport. I had a relatively uneventful trip home, though the flight was predictably delayed. The taxi ride home was way to expensive, but I got a very talkative taxi driver who I managed to talk to in Arabic for about 15 minutes, which was interesting. I learned a lot about the different Arabic dialects, since he drives all kinds of foreigners to and from the airport.
We have a busy week ahead, so I'll end here.
Miss you all!