Lessons Learned

Let me just say that blogging is a whole lot harder than it looks. I have learned that I am horrible at it! Of course, that fact may be compounded by the fact that my hard drive on my mac crashed, and so, I have been computerless for several days. Word of warning: back up your data. Don't be like me and think that your computer will never crash. That is unwise, and I have learned my lesson. I have also learned that electronics are a heck of a lot cheaper in the US than in Italy, and for that reason, I am taking donations to the Buy Alyson a New Hard Drive Fund. Soon you will find a donate button on my blog if I can figure out how to do it (just kidding...but seriously).

 Anyway, other than that rather unfortunate occurence Rome has continued to be wonderful. I have had massive amounts of coffee, gelato, and pasta, and am relatively certain that I have gained like 20 lbs. Okay thats not true; maybe 5, but still when you go from hardly ever eating pasta and never eating white bread to having both every day you start to feel a bit fat. Interesting fact: there are two different kinds of mozzerella, buffalo and cow. If you come visit, I will let you be the judge of which you prefer. The family prefers buffalo, but I think I still prefer cow. And yes, there are buffalo in Italy, who knew?

Jess, the girl who was the au pair with this family before me, has been in Prague since Thursday, so I have been experiencing what it is like to be here by myself. It really has been great except for the computer fiasco. Basically what I do is get up everyday around 7:00 or 7:15, have breakfast with the family, and then help get the girls ready for school. Then, the girls and I make the roughly ten minute walk to their school, and I drop them off. From that point I have till about 4 o'clock free each day to do whatever I want. Then at 4, I get Giulio into the "pram" a.k.a the stroller, and we head to pick up the girls. Then we spend about an hour and a half at this park called Colle Oppio which is between the school and our apartment. Then, we head home, bathe Giulio, feed him, and then have dinner all together. Its really not a bad schedule!

Hopefully, I will be able to make some friends and be able to spend time with them during my free time!

I will post more pictures soon including pictures of the Colosseum, views of the city from Villa Borghese, and a few pics of the gladiator camp that has set up in front of our apartment for the war reinactment they are doing today. Yeah, I thought that was a bit weird too.
Ciao for now!