Rome - Getting to Know My Neighborhood

I've rented a small apartment in Testaccio, a small neighborhood about a 30 minute walk from the southern edge of the center of Rome. Well more correctly, it is a good sized room with a bathroom and pocket kitchen within an apartment that also has 4 other rooms. It is in a lovely old building with a wrought iron huge main door, stone foyer and stairs and an old fashioned lift, the kind like a cage ... it is like stepping back in time and I love it! My favorite feature is my view ... I open up this lovely huge window and there is my courtyard and all my neighbors ... older Italian women in their housecoats putting laundry out – there are laundry lines in front of each of the window – very clever really. And below me there is a little garden patio where this older gentleman is out in the mornings painting and then in the late afternoons gives painting lessons. It feels very much like real life in Rome and I love it!

I'm still managing a little yoga in the morning – and here, I set my mat up right in front of the window and sit facing out ... I may become the neighborhood gossip but that's fine with me – the breeze coming in is lovely and all the sounds just kind of float by me. Very happy.

My first morning, I went out and explored my local neighborhood – what had seemed like nothing the night before was all alive during the day with the metal shutters up and the little pocket stores open for business. I found a great little deli / bakery selling fresh bread, pizza, sandwiches, cheese – it all looked wonderful. And I managed to get my sandwich without losing my place too many times ... in Italy the queue system is not as respected as in other (northern) European cultures I've experienced ... at a certain point, I asserted myself and was rewarded with a smile! What also made me chuckle was with my very, very limited Italian and then a few other foreign words thrown in for good measure, I think it was the “c'est tout”, by the end of the transaction, the guy serving me thought I was French ... I took it as a real compliment and knew it would give great amusement to all my French friends ... :-)

I then wandered through a lovely local market (specialty shoes, how perfect!), found a little five and dime store equivalent (perfect for the band aids my feet were already crying out for) and stocked up at my local supermarket. I also saw lots of little local restaurants as well as the local gelato shop … I was going to enjoy my week here I was quite sure!