Monday Morning

It feels like forever since we last posted. Our weekend was fun, we finally found a place that we we're looking for without taking four hours to find.

On Saturday night we caught the bus and went to an Irish pub called the Shamrock, the kind of place you kind of feel at home at right away. We talked to a bartender for a while and he gave us some good info on job hunting, life in Rome...you know, all of the brilliant things bartenders are expected to do! We had a couple beers and called it a night, finally a night in which no catastrophies befell us.

Sunday was a lazy day, you know, when in Rome...there is basically nothing to do on Sundays anyway. Almost everything is closed down and we've been too exhausted to wander around Rome in 95 degree heat. We studied our grammar, did our homework and just relaxed.

This is our last week of studying and teaching because week 4 has all of our tests and projects. With Allie's help, I'm hoping to actually pass this course, without her, I would have packed it in long ago.

Class is starting soon, we'll keep the info and pics coming.
Love, charles and Allie.

Is It Friday Yet?

Today was another typical day at school, we took class, taught lessons, and observed lessons. Nothing exciting to report. Yesterday we actually had our first interview at a local school called (ironically) Washington School. The interview went well, the coordinator is a crazy Brit with a great sense of humor. He told us all about the school and their upcoming contracts that he'll be needing teachers for. Unfortunatley he won't be making any decisions until he comes back from holiday in early September. Apparently that is the norm for Rome. Most schools don't begin hiring until late September or October because they wait until their students sign up for fall courses to decide how many teachers they will need. We've also heard that Rome will become essentially a ghost town for the last two weeks of August as everyone tries to escape the sweltering heat. Charles and I have decided to take advantage of this situation and plan a trip up north, in search of cooler weather and less-crowded cities. We are thinking of a short train tour up to Bologna, Modena, and Parma. Being the foodies that we are we hope to have some pasta alla Bolognese in Bologna, balsamic vinegar from Modena, and delicious parmesan cheese and proscuitto from Parma. Hopefully we can just have relaxing week visiting with locals and eating good food before we head back to the city to find a permanent apartment and begin dispersing resumes to the language schools in Rome. We have also decided that we will be taking Italian courses here at Interlingue (where we are doing our TEFL course) so we can hopefully do some communicating beyond pointing and broken Italian. So, it looks as though the plan is to stay in Rome and work here (since there seems to be a large number of schools needing teachers), so any of you who want to plan your trips make sure you research where you want to visit so you can tell us to wait for you before we go there ourselves. Also, living in Rome will allow us to be able to send our visitors out on day trips to see all there is to see while we are at work during the week, so it makes sense to stay here in the city. Besides, I'm starting to get used to the idea of a 20 minute bus ride with someone's armpit in my face.

Love,
Allie

Two Fell Off the Turnip Truck

On the river...those are mosquito bites all over me

So even after the Saturday night debacle, we weren't defeated. We made our way to Piazza Navona, no problems with the busses! We wandered around the piazza for a while and then decided to have dinner and do some people watching.

Dinner was decent but the wine was really good, so that more than made up for it. After dinner we sat underneath a statue of some sort where everyone was congregating and drinking beer. We decided to have a couple beers and join the crowd. People watching was fun and the beer tasted really great (there is a picture of Allie holding a couple beers in front of the statue, for those who need a visual) on such a hot, humid night.

Anyway, we're minding our own business when a couple crazy locals approached us for some reason, neither spoke English and both were probably drunk. So they start talking to us in Italian and one of the guys grabs for my beer. Being a nice guy, I offer him a drink, atleast I thought I had.

He takes my beer and glares at me like "it's my beer." So he took a drink, at this point i decided not to pursue the quarter of a beer left in it, who knows where that guy had been and I really didn't feel like getting in a fight with some crazy local hustler.

Charles in front of the fountain in Piazza Navona

Allie and I were simply dumbfounded over the situation and it kind of killed what was a pretty good night. One thing is clear, this is just another lesson learned in Italy. It's hard to think there are people out there preying on everyone else in the world, especially coming from a town in which I locked my doors on rare occasions.

Lesson learned, next time no one touches my beer for any reason, except Allie, of course.

The Longest Bus Ride in History Continued...

So to recap briefly, we had plans to meet up with a few girls from our class at 830. A few drinks were definitely in order after a long, hot week. We step out of our house and less than a minute later, we're on a bus! Great news because sometimes we're waiting for what seems like forever.

We get on a bus that we know will take us to a bus terminal, in hopes that this terminal will have another bus that will take us to an area' at least' near Trestevere, then we could just walk the rest of the distance. Unfortunately, the terminal didn't have a bus that went anywhere near our destination. A nice old man told us which bus to get in the right area. So we caught a bus that took us basically back past our house. The old man was correct and the bus took us to an area in which we were supposed to catch another bus that would take us to Trestevere or thereabouts. Unfortunately, we didn't know which stop to get off on so we went waaay past it and had to circle back around. We finally made it near Trestevere about 1030.

By this point, we were both really hungry but we were still intent on meeting up with the girls at the "McDonalds sign". We hopped on a tram and it took us the wrong way! So we got off, waited for the tram going the right way. We never did end up seeing that "McDonalds sign". We ended up going past Trestevere and to the end up the tram line. So then, we hopped another tram back towards civilization and food!

About 11:00, we were extremely hungry and we decided to forget about any meeting. We went to the first ristorante we could grab a table at. The food was nothing to write home about but it filled our stomachs and the wine calmed our nerves. We decided at this point to just call it a night and head home.

Unfortunately, we messed up on our busses again and ended up getting on a bus that dropped us off in some remote corner of Rome because daytime busses stop running at 12:30. Though on the bus ride we did see the Olympic Stadium and a couple other cool sites.

So we hoofed it to a main street and waited for a night bus along side a couple "ladies of the night" We hoped this bus would take us somewhere familiar. It didn't! In fact, we were on that bus for another 2 hours as it rumbled and creaked through Roman neighborhoods that we could probably never find again. Luckily, the bus driver noticed we were on his bus for an extremely long time and asked us in broken English where we were going. We told him and he told us when to get off. From this point things finally got better for us but it was also 2:30 in the morning. Then it became a process of taking two more busses (it's common to wait a half hour for a night bus) and we would be home free.

We ended up getting home at 4:30 in the morning, physically exhausted and mentally beat to a pulp but we made it after all. It wasn't exactly as we had hoped the night would turn out but it was a learning experience, none the less.

Sorry for the long winded story but it was a rough night and we thought some of you might get a kick out it.

Our First Friday Night in Rome or The Longest Bus Ride in History

So in our last update, we were all ready to head out to Trestevere for a night of debauchery, Roman Style! Friday night we made plans to meet up with a couple of people from our class and have a few drinks together, a little celebration for surviving our first week. The plan was to just go somewhere quiet and have a few drinks, pretty low key, really.
The night started off on a promising note when as we stepped out of our door, the bus was right there to pick us up. We looked at each other, like, "wow, this is going to be a great night!" That was the best thing to happen to us all night. From that point on, things went downhill.
We were supposed to meet the girls at 830, "somewhere in Trestevere"...

Sorry to end it there, building suspense, you know. We need to make it to the market before it closes because we have nothing to eat! love, charles and Allie

Finally It's Friday!!

Wow! We can hardly believe we've been here a whole week. In some ways it feels like we've been gone forever, and in another sense it all still feels so new. We have successfully made it through our first week of school, and it is wonderful to know that we now have a whole weekend to relax. It seems as though we've gotten our debit card situation fixed, and so we plan to go to Trastevere tonight to see what the night life is all about. Tomorrow we plan to go to the Colosseum and explore that area of the city. We put a new link on the link page with a great site that tells all about what's happening in Rome. Search through it and send us on an adventure! We love suggestions on where to go and what to see. Hope you all are well, and thanks for checking in on us. We will have a full report of the weekend for you by Monday!

Addio!
chuck and Allie

Our First Teaching Experience

The view from our first Rome apartment

Today was our first experience teaching English language students! It's really pathetic that they know more about English grammar than we do, but that's what we're here to learn. It was just a practice run today with supervision from our instructors, but it's still nerve racking (especially for Charles who has never taught before). But all went well and we are ready to go home after a long 12 hour day at the school.

In other news:

Unfortunately our bank decided to put a stop on our debit card even though we called to tell them we would be using it in another country, so we hope to get that fixed soon so we can eat and do some fun stuff this weekend! Other than that minor setback we are doing well. The mosquitos are biting and the dogs outside our window are barking (alllllll night), and the bus keeps us packed like sardines in the hot, humid days of summer (it smells great). All joking aside, we're doing great and we miss you all. Keep posting, and start booking those flights, darn it!!

Charles enjoying some snacks