and, believe it or not, it's a lot cheaper.
I'm going to be able to cut my living expenses in half.
IN HALF.
I guess the scenery's free.
I've been puzzling over what to do about expenses since I got here. As well, another year of the wretched local
Manchester. Yeah.
I'd despaired of getting an affordable place in Rome and while I knew that lots of impoverished students lived in 'Nella, I just couldn't figure out how one went about finding a place to live there. I had been poking desultorily around the net but had only found appartamenti vacanze, to the tune of €500 a week. I was beginning to wonder if people actually lived in Lazio or if they only vacationed there.
Then I finally wised up the other night and used Google translator to do searches in Italian. I learned all sorts of interesting Italian words, like solo affitti case Santa Marinella affitto da privati e appartamenti Santa Marinella ... and Lo! all the ordinary rentals appeared out of thin air (or whatever the internet is made of).
I did a little number crunching and figure that it is going to cost me half of what I am spending now.
Half.
Sooooo, thanks Gordon Brown for the great Council Taxes and absurd rents. It's been great. But you know, considering the crap summer, the getting-dark-by-three-pm-in-November thing, the national ID cards, the CCTV, the data-losing and your let's-put-all-the-Christians-in-camps MPs ... I'm thinking a year or two on the beach is going to do me a lot of good.
And there's not a lot of Bernini, Caravaggio, and Michelangelo lying around Mancs.
My future living room
the neighbours
Party with the Queen on the beach
pointy trees
the late show
I've just had a note from the nice lady who is helping me find a place, and there's a hot one, with a big terrace. Say a prayer we can nail it down. At the moment, I've got a flight booked to Fiumicino for Oct 24th, but no where to put my suitcase once I'm there. I hate doing things backwards and the whole thing is making me very nervous.
I hate change.
(you wouldn't know it from my habits, though, I suppose.)
Hilary,
ReplyDeleteStop wasting time bouncing about and get thee to a nunnery.
~ Belloc
I only take personal advice from people who manfully own up to it and identify themselves in the commbox, as is required by the site rules.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I don't take personal advice even then, but it's still the rules.
Do not annoy.
Annoy? Heaven forfend!
ReplyDeleteThe name on the baptismal certificate would be "Jon."
If "Jon" is more manful and less anonymous than "Belloc," (who was pretty darn manful and not at all anonymous) well, I'm left scratching my head.
But I like you anyway, even if you don't like my very good advice.
~ Jon
I'll pray that all your arrangements work out well with minimal stress.
ReplyDeleteChange is evil. That's why you hate it. The solution is Never To Change Any Thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a good solution too.
Do they even have tea in Italy? And I understand the place is positively overrun with Italians. It's too awful to contemplate.
I'll never understand you, Miss White.
Well, Mr. Carriere,
ReplyDeleteit certainly has its drawbacks. But you can get tea there, and in the time I have spent thus far, one really does not have to consort with too many Italians.
And they have the sea there. Just like I remember it from back home.
O! the sea, the sea!
What about the Horrid Yellow Thing in the sky? He appears more down there...
ReplyDeleteAM
I know, that's why the god Greyroof gave us his mystical presence in the umbrella to be ever with us.
ReplyDeleteYes, but even with an umbrella, abnormal exposure to the Bright Face (we hates it!) can start having strange effects on one's mood.
ReplyDeleteLOLcats become consistently funny--or funneh. You find that more often you prefer wine to beer. And you'll even start thinking charitable thoughts about Cardinal Kasper. Have you thought this through all the way?
At a minimum, make regular visits to Tuscany, a/k/a "Chiantishire." The expats will help provide some needed connection to Ol' Cloudy.
Not "too many Italians" she says!
ReplyDeleteIs that like, not "too many shootings" in Parkdale? Or is it prostitutes? I never know if the singularly germane fact of Parkdale is the shooting or the hookers.
Anyway, all that gold and sweat, isn't consorting with even some Italians quite enough to put you off your biscuits?
The one thing about Italians I find so interesting is their women. Somehow, around the age of thirty-two their supple olive skin, flowing hair, and tantalizing eyes are traded in for a shapeless ankle-length black dress, matching hose, and a mustache; their lithe arms and shapely legs replaced with stumpy limbs suited mainly to stirring spaghetti and wearing sensible shoes.
This comes as a grand surprise, especially for one with such an Anglo name, and who has heretofore been so distinctly English.
ReplyDeleteWhat right do I have to complain? Good luck, Hilary, and make sure to tell us all about it!
From the pics and stories you've been posting, sounds like a blast! Winnie coming along?
ReplyDeleteMy Italian uncle and aunt have a house in Santa Marinella. It's a lovely place, although I'm not sure I'd want to live there all the time; it's quite touristy. I have no recollection of what Mass was like, but I would be surprised if the liturgical situation is strikingly different to the UK average.
ReplyDelete