That’s right folks, I hit up all corners of the boot in just 1 day! How? We went to Mini Italy!

Located near Rimini, MiniItaly was the second stop on my “just an average Italian vacation” vacation. This was day 2 of me being the only English person sight!

I couldn’t believe the amazing detail of all of the cities. I really felt like I was there! There were even working trains, cars, airplanes and in the Arena of Verona an mini opera! It gave me a good idea of the new places I want to visit in person.

So here is the grand tour. I left out Venice for the next post because it was absolutely insane-you’ll see! (note this is photo intensive!):

First Stop Roma!

We have the Colosseo:

The Airport:

Termini:

and the Vatican:

Florence:

Rimini:

Pisa:

Bologna:

Milano:

Torino:

Verona!!!

There were so many more, I have hundreds of pictures but I don’t want to put anyone to sleep. The islands of Sicily and Sardegna were really neat as well! You could get a look at the whole country from the huge monorail that goes around the entire park. I highly suggest you take a trip here, it was really cool!

Tags: Jessica Romes: Road Trip!, Lose the Guidebook, Postcards from Rome

As many of you may know, the foreign location of cycle 10 of ANTM is my city, Roma! They start off their adventure by doing a fashion tour on segways. Who does that? I think they forced the girls on those things so they would fall. I can’t imagine riding one of those things on the busy, cobblestone-y streets of Rome. Plus they were wearing high heels. Ouch.

What’s even better than that? The contestants had to do their CoverGirl commercials in Italian! It’s too painfully funny to watch. The best part is when Dominique speaks and it sounds like a mix between Chinese and Klingon. I thought the Italian director was going to die! This is seriously what I am scared I sound like when I speak Italian. If I do, no wonder no one can understand me! See the train wreck below:

Tags: American Stuff, Randomissimo, Videos

One of my most favourite bloggers Robin of My Melange gave me this cute little blog award! I am a good chatter-er. Yay! So now I would like to pass this on to another one of my favourite blogs: The Red Scrapbook! I found this wonderful blog through a google alert I have set for Rome. I clicked through and couldn’t believe there was another Rome blogger that I didn’t yet know about and with whom I had so much in common with (well aside from the red hair and being Irish thing). I read this blog from the beginning and thoroughly enjoyed every single post. The Red Scrapbook is a treasure of a find, and the author knows how to chat and chat good! Her posts are all about her favourite music which she listens to on the way to work, how she met her French lov-ah, her adventures in Rome, her upcoming move to the USA and what she will and won’t miss from here. I will definitely be following this blog as she heads to California, and you should too!

Go forth and be chatty!

Tags: Randomissimo

When D and I realized our one year anniversary was coming up, we began brainstorming where to go to celebrate. I am honestly tired of the churches, museums and all the other junk that foreigners come to Italy to do. I wanted a cheap, down home, not made for western travellers, average Italian vacation. Some place where if I was born here, I would probably go. I wanted to experience Italy as if all this old stuff didn’t really matter that much. So I handed the reins over to D who is the most anti museum/anti church person I know.

He found us the cheapskate special: 3 nights and 4 days in Cervia located near Rimini on the Adriatic coast. Only we weren’t going to be beach bums, we were going on a theme park extravaganza! The first day we went to Mirabilandia (cousin of Gardaland, the bigger and cooler Italian theme park).

We had our sights set on this:

But upon seeing how high and vomit inducing it looked in real life, we wimped out and went on the haunted ghost ride. Apparently the ghosts of old westerners in California who died in a mine shaft immigrated to Italy in the after life to haunt all who entered. oooohhh!

Then we went on the smaller of two roller coasters and I thought it wasn’t too bad and maybe we could handle the bigger, scarier one. That is until we saw our picture! I was having a blast and D was holding on for dear life! Poor guy. That pretty much ruled out any and all rides having to do with heights of over 10 feet.

So we decided to go watch the Police School show and it was the coolest thing ever! It is a group of stuntmen who perform crazy tricks with cars and motorcycles. Definitely one of the neatest things I have ever seen.

After that we wandered around the park, did a few more rides and saw a movie in 4D (you get to feel the movie with wind, water and moving chairs). It was a lot of fun, but we knew it was time to escape when we got ambushed by the musical group while we were eating. Just as I had taken a bite of food, a troop of Amici rejects came storming out with portable microphones. They began to “sing” and dance a badly choreographed routine. It was horrible. Oh, did I mention the entire thing was Grease related? There was a girl with a huge white afro wig, I guess she was Sandy. What is it about that movie here?

Me losing my appetite to the song Grease Lightening

Sadly the Ferris Wheel was broken, only adding to my fear that I should never ride one in case it breaks down while I am on it. It does make a nice backdrop though.

Aargh!

D Shroomin’

Even Snoop Dogg was there!

After waving goodbye to tall Snoop Dogg, we headed back to the hotel. Later on, as the sun was going down, we took a walk on the beach. I couldn’t believe the amount of seashells!

The end to the perfect day!

Where’d the time go? Has it really been a year since I started this blog, and even crazier, a year since I got married (for real, not the fake wedding in October)?!?! To celebrate D and I are going on a little road trip. I will post pictures of all our weekend antics on Monday (or sometime next week depending on my level of laziness).

Tags: Jessica, Jessica Romes: Road Trip!

I was never one for being really orderly. When I lived at home, I had to dig a path from my bed to the door, you know in case there was a fire or something. But the thing is, I have always been messy and not dirty. I was pretty certain on where I stood in terms of home cleanliness: somewhere between a few shirts on the floor and allowing science to grow on dishes. But moving to Italy and living with the clean police, Daniele, even so much as actually having a shirt on the floor is a serious offense. I am the least messy I have ever been in my life but I have yet to master the way of the Italian casa. According to D, my mess crimes begin inside the closet. His closet contains shirts that are perfectly ironed and hung up in order from long to short sleeves. I, on the other hand, am lucky if I can get the doors to close on mine. The other thing is my makeup case. I have a serious makeup hoarding problem. D thought he could help (himself mostly) and bought me the ultimate Sephora makeup case, complete with keys! However, it is now so full that I can’t close it, or lock it for that matter. The contents are now barfing onto the counter. But in reality, that is the extent of my messiness on a day to day basis. In Italian reality, I am a disorderly tornado ripping an unrelenting path of destruction all over the house. But like I said, I do try. But I have a secret, a messy secret!

All the trying to be clean goes out the window when D has to travel for work, like this week. I call it “me time” which translates to I do the dishes the night before he gets home, my makeup takes over the entire bathroom, the bed doesn’t get made, laundry piles up and there is a circle of wrappers and cans surrounding my lazy bum as I partake in a 3-4 day Sex and the City marathon. The night before he gets back I scurry around, frantically hiding the evidence that he is married to the anti-housewife.

My plan usually works. I think he suspects what I am doing, but it’s a “don’t ask don’t tell” kind of situation and as long as everything is in place when he gets back, it’s no big deal. But lately the in-laws have been showing up during “me time” and witnessing the inhumanity that is not cleaning the house for 4 days. They try to hide the looks of horror on their faces, but I am beginning to wonder what exactly they must be thinking. I have heard from others that Italians are clean freaks, so I wonder if people in this country are all sensitive to witnessing mess first hand or if it’s just my in-laws that are really clean focused. One time D’s cousin knocked on the door to borrow sugar. My heart dropped. The kitchen looked liked a war had broken out between the cups and the plates, followed by a food fight. I just knew she would follow me into the kitchen so I tried to prepare her with the “sorry about the mess” speech. When she actually saw it, I swear she turned white and mumbled something about how her kitchen was messy too. She invited me for a coffee (to get me away from the dangers of the mess?) and I saw that her kitchen had only a glass and a fork in the sink. Her mess was to mine like a stuffed teddy bear is to a rabid grizzly.

To top it all off (or to rub my face in my own mess), last night my sister in law actually told me it looked like gypsies lived in my apartment! I swear it wasn’t even that bad! I think some Italians are just hypersensitive to a little bit of clutter or I really am Messica: Queen of the Slobs.

Well time to go start cleaning, D is coming home tomorrow!

Tags: Randomissimo

There is still a few things I HAVE to do in Rome before I leave. I had the list in my head but now that I am here with time to write it all down, I am totally blanking. Here is what I remember:

1. I need to go to the Sistine Chapel. Yes, I have lived here for a year and a half, not counting my two vacations prior, and have yet to do the line.

2. Eat my favorite pizza at La Scala in Trastevere

3. Eat the yummy Thai food at Thai Inn

Via Ozanam, 94

Rome 00152 Italy

+39 0658203145

4. Visit San Clemente (the church)

5. Visit the baths of Caracalla

6. Stock up on Sephora and H&M stuff

What am I missing?

Tags: Jessica

In my head, my bags have been packed for months. Basically since D first applied to the job in Verona. My mental luggage is Coach by the way, LV is way too pretentious. People that have heard about the move have asked me why I am so eager to go, because Rome is beautiful and lalala. Basically, I like parts of Rome: the historical center, Trastevere, ect. What I HATE is where our apartment is. In NOWHERE land. To get to the places I actually like in Rome requires me asking for a ride to the train station (because it is out of walking distance, not because I am lazy), taking a half hour train to Tiburtina, then taking a Metro. So it’s like an hour of gross public transportation, and due to school I am required to do it twice a week. So on all the other days of the week I choose not to go through all these motions. The fact is that I live depressingly far from anything cool. Also worth noting is that my little villaggio consists of a tiny pastry shop, the forno, 3 bars and a pizza place. Oh and no sidewalks. Oh and people drive down the roads at 110kph. So walking to any these places is a death wish.

All this complaining leads me to why I have been mentally packing for months. It all has to do with simple math. Living in Verona + living in the center = Jessica is happy forever! (Someone remind me of this equation in case I ever complain about life in Verona).

Why am I so optimistic?

Firstly, D will be making more money, so we can can actually afford to do cooler stuff than we can here. Secondly, I have 80% of the say in where we will live. When I came to Rome, I had no choice. For the first few months I lived in D’s bachelor pad until I couldn’t handle the naked chick posters anymore. Then we remodeled and I was a little happier. If only we could transport our apartement somewhere else, everything would be perfect.  So basically I am the bridezilla of apartment hunting and have been scoping out gorgeous apartments in the center of Verona. They are not that expensive either. We are finding beautiful two bedrooms (notice not just 2 rooms in the whole apartment)  and even one with 2 bathrooms (I SO want this apartment!) and around 80-90 square meters for around 700 euro. Which is crazy to me because apartments in Rome are so expensive.  A few of my friends lived in absolute holes in the wall *shared* apartments for 500+ euro a month! Which is mental in my opinion, especially since they were far from the center (but not as far as me, but we don’t pay rent-the only positive). Back to Verona- A lot of the apartments have wood floors, which I love because it reminds me of my old bedroom in my parent’s house. The views are spectacular as well. All of these things combined make me very very happy.

Now all that’s left in my larger, more complicated “happy in Italy” equation is to make friends. (Ideally their names will be more varied than Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha, which are the only friends I currently have).

Tags: Jessica, Moving within Italy, Verona

1) Why most of the people I know here keep their houses pristine from floor to ceiling, but the minute they step outside they have no qualms in regard to littering (not just wrappers but refrigerators, scooters and other large pieces of garbage), letting their dogs sh*t anywhere and everywhere, and nobody cleans up after graffiti.

2) Why every doctor in a hospital can be a conscientious objector to abortion (inside hospitals abortions are free) yet if you go to their private studio and pay out of pocket they will happily oblige you (illegally). Watch this video from last night on Le Iene.

3) Why so many people continue to wait for years to become legal by sorting the ridiculous laws, demands for all types of paperwork and documents only to probably end up being ignore and denied anyways. If you watch the news, all you really need to do is immigrate illegally, get a job under the table then save the life of an Italian citizen and you are good to go! See this story and this one from Shelley.

Tags: Crazy Italy, Graffiti, Italian Politics, Italian TV

Well they came! The official documents for Daniele’s transfer to Verona. Now all he has to do is go to Verona and take a class about working on the front lines. I guess I didn’t mention that he will have to go to Iraq and Afghanistan occasionally. So he has to take a week long class that retrains him on all the Geneva Convention stuff, rules of engagement, NATO rules and weapons training. Then we find out when we move, if it’s in June or September. I am crossing my fingers for June. I am so ready for a change.

I have only been to Verona once, but I loved what I saw. Here are some pics I took of places that will soon be all too familiar!

Tags: Moving within Italy, Verona