I have been super busy lately. Years ago, this would have made me resent my job, but somehow, working in a city that is brimming with art and history means that I still feel inspired. Even catching the bus to work instead of the gloomy metro, with its grey, masked paper people, becomes an opportunity to fall in love with this city. It is like dating your ideal partner: just the right concoction of natural beauty, intelligence, and original old-world charm. Rome is a fine specimen. After any rough day, you can always marvel at her beauty and say: I live here.
Take today as a prime example. I am currently writing this on the delightfully overcrowded bus waiting for it to haul me to work. After school, I have tutoring to compensate for the Italian salary, which will chain me to my desk a little longer. Yet I am still excited by my day because when I emerge from school, it will be around 6pm. The perfect time to enter the labyrinth of Roman streets: the tourists are eating at their usual 6-7pm timeslot, the Italians are finishing work after a drag of a day or deep into an Aperol apertivo, and the city centre is aglow with buildings emblazoned gold by the afternoon sun.
Where will I go this afternoon? No concrete plans as yet (will share later), but that is the luxury of living here: I have all the time in the world. I have this seductive city to come home to every day.
Post script: turned into a morning trip to the Trevi Fountain. Had it all to myself. Got super tired that day and got out of work at 7pm. Woke up early, leapt sporadically off the bus and voilà.
The Adopted Italian 