Comeback

I’d like to think (or at least hope) that a few of you have wondered where I’ve run off to in the past year, given that I stopped mass-emailing and blogging. However don't get too upset. That doesn't mean i've not been blogging at ALL. It just mostly means I haven't been blogging in english.

See proof:
kaece.blogspot.com
kae.leonardo.it
jjm.leonardo.it/foto (this is my boyfriends blog but it may as well be mine).

But now i've come back here. Because I want to write in English again. Because the other blogs have served their purpose -- I am finally (round of applause here) 100% fluent in Italian. No this does not mean that everything I say is grammatically correct but when will it ever be? At least guys at the bar stopped making hearts in my cappuccino's and asking me how long i'd be in town.

But I arrived in Rome on November 6, 2006. Today is February 22, 2008.

And I’m still here.

And I’ve come a long, long way to get here. Re-cap time. Here goes.

Figure that when I arrived in Rome (with a broken heart) I was living with my sister Jess for free in a tiny B&B room in a beach town outside of Rome --- smack dab in the middle of winter when the beach wasn’t all that inviting and it rained a lot. Then we finally moved to Rome city by the end of November – where we took an overpriced double bedroom with yellowed marble floors, high ceilings and a teeny water heater that never worked for the equivalent of about $1,200USD a month. Ouch, yes. REPEAT: DOUBLE-ROOM -- NOT apartment! Then I was out of work a month still while Jess hung on by the a thread working for “uno stronzo” as a barmaid making far too little.

Christmas came around and we had over $2,000USD fraudulently deducted from our bank account (this is THE land of theives)--- and I was still looking for work. We still managed to put up a tiny tree and amuse ourselves with friends and walking around and getting to know our beautiful city. At least the wine was cheap. We decorated the tree with wine corks.

Right after Christmas and Right before New Years I finally got hired as a part time admin by an Irish company called Dark Rome. No contract, 600EURO a month and no other options. Almost simultaneously Jess was "let go" from the bar. My birthday happened and I was sick but Jess surprised me by waking me up with flowers and gifts, and in the evening a few of our friends turned up with cards and presents.

So I get to work and Jess gets a job part timing an Irish Pub and submitting resumes everywhere. Our bank restitutes the money stolen from our account and things look up. Jess gets another day-job working at a nursery school making very little --- but her lunches are paid and she likes the work. She starts taking French classes and I’m working 10+ hour days trying to prove to my boss he needs me there more than 4.

Within two weeks I move from 4 hours a day to 6. By the end of February I am working full time and making a competitive salary, acting as a fly-by-night tour guide in the evenings to help even things out.

In these months Jess and I learn the value of budgeting --- the cheapliness of pasta --- the pleasures and pains of cohabitation and begin to take short trips. I’m learning more and more about Rome through the tours that my job offers and pretty soon my company starts to grow.

The rest happens really fast. It’s March 07-- I take on more responsibility at work and therefore more EUROs --- and we are able to afford to live in a beautiful apartment by the Colosseum and each have our own bedroom. The apartment was nothing short of the most beautiful place either of us has had the fortune to live in -- I start feeling more and more at home.

In May I meet Jacopo. Will not have been the first time I’ve met him but this is the first date -- and marks a significant change in my Rome-life --- as I begin spending most of my free time with a native Roman, speaking Italian (and Roman) going out and experimenting for what will be the first time in a very long time a truly healthy relationship built on growth (and eventually love and trust -- we'll get to that).

The summer is beautiful. Lot's of Italian beach. Our company doubles in size and quadruples in revenue. It's the falling in love part, the pretty part. Emma comes to work for us as our new Communications Manager. When she first arrived at Dark Rome as we stood on the porch smoking a cigarette together and talking about creative ideas to move the company forward -- I said to her “You know, I’m really happy you’re here.”

August is the “watershed”. Jess decides Rome is no longer home and that home is in New York – with the boyfriend she left there and I’m glad for her that she knows what she wants but I’m sad to see her go. I’ve earned many a day off from work and we decide to finally take that European tour we’d been dreaming and scheming about the day we arrived in Rome.

Mid August we fly to Sardegna where we spend 2 beautiful days beach-hopping and swimming in beautiful crystalline waters. Then it’s a plane to Barcelona where for three days we shop and dine and shop and walk and shop and get our hair cut. Last stop for Jess is Paris where it rains a lot but we manage to get a feel for the city anyway. A tearful goodbye and I’m left to my own adventures.

From Paris I train-it down to Geneva where I meet my good friend Helen and stay with her and her parents in Evian, France. After a few gorgeous days “sitting up on an alp” and driving between France and Switzerland constantly, I fly home to Rome and back to Jacopo --- and from the moment I arrive at that airport and he is there waiting for me begins the much more serious part of our relationship--- we get that what we’ve found is much more than a summer fling.

Meanwhile back at the office our revenue has been continuing to build, and so has our staff and number of guides. I get a laptop and a blackberry and tons of new friends in the form of co-workers and I’m barely home. Half the week I live with Jacopo and the other half I spend between work and my friends --- especially Emma.

And my life from August has been a growing continuation of this goodness, this niceness – this – I’m finally-at-home-ness. With this is mind I finally went back to new york, Jacopo with me, to visit my family whom I had not seen in over a year. Emotional? Yes. Did it go well? Oh yes. I even got to see my Grumpa and Judi -- and ski in vermont with Jacopo and my mom and sister.

I've been back since mid January. Had my 24th birthday in a typical roman trattoria. Tons of my friends showed --- and the note of difference from last year resounded.

I moved into a new place. It costs a lot less than the pretty-colosseo-apartment and it's closer to work and to Jacopo. Jacopo paints it for me -- and I make one of the single most expensive item purchases in my life: A BED.

And so between various trips to Ikea -- a new promotion at work and planning my aventures for this year (i'm going to get my driver's license here!) -- i'm just living. And i'm going to start writing about it again.

And it's bound to be interesting.

So stay posted.