Day 48

I'm not entirely sure what day it is on my day counter, but I've counted up and I'm assuming it's day 48 right now. Time has really begun to fly now that I have a good routine and know what I'm doing (most of the time; the rest has been me working on my ability to "wing it" and have no one realise!). And because (I'm sorry to all my past teachers...I know I just started a sentence with "and" and followed it with "because"!) a lot of my days have been very busy I hadn't realised that it was so long since I last wrote!
Clare and I went to the beach on Saturday. We weren't intending on doing anything interesting with our day, and when I turned up there at 11am she needed to do homework so I made full use of the unlimited wifi, chocolate and cats. By half 2 we had decided that neither of us wanted to be in Rome but didn't know where to go. Google was very helpful and told me that we can get the train direct from Termini station to Santa Marinella beach, and after grabbing a McDonald's for the journey that's exactly what we did. The trains here are quite fancy, and a lot bigger than at home - I never knew that double decker trains existed! We arrived at the beach at around 4:30pm and walked it's length a couple of times, taking far too many pictures (over 300 on my phone alone!) and battling with writing in the sand and it being washed away - I very nearly fell in the sea laughing trying to take pictures of it!
Then, despite both of our better judgement, we had an impromptu swim in the sea as the sun was setting. To warm up afterwards we wandered through the town, bought little bottle fridge magnets and a lot of potato pizza! (Yep, potato pizza is a thing; a beautiful, delicious, cheap thing!) We ate our pizza by the sea and saw a full sky of stars for the first time in a month or so.
So that's just a small update for now,
Ciao!

Photos 26/09/14 - 11/10/14

Paulo the Pigeon and Piazza del Popolo

Could not believe it when I found this near the Vatican!

The view from Maddie's roof

A ridiculously famous concrete ceiling

The Pope: Live in Concert. Or at least that's what I assume all the chairs are for

Sunset over rainy Rome

A big fancy building I met B outside of

Looking out from my seat in front of the big fancy building (Piazza Cavour)

Emmanuel II (I have to google how to spell that every time!)

Do these next few even need a caption?

Days 34-36

I've just spent the last 25 minutes working on accessing the wifi at the pool..it's not exactly fast or reliable wifi, but it's better than nothing (I think)! I'm pretty certain it's the same wifi that you can access at other spots around Rome, so hopefully when I'm in some places outside of the apartment and the cafe I'll be accessible not only by my brick. 
Similar to Monday, the last few days I've had very lazy mornings, which has meant that I haven't been tempted to spend on breakfast or coffee, and actually, I've been eating lunch before meeting Clare for an hour or two, so I've saved there as well! I mean, I did buy a jar of sweets to keep in my room, and we did buy gelato last night to have at SS Meetup, but I haven't gone over budget which is the main thing! 
(Continued at the apartment)
Me and M had a really lovely play date with some of her old classmates yesterday afternoon; we went to a beautiful park, and the sun was shining, and there were no tears and I think everyone enjoyed! Plus, I got taken back to meet G in M's best friend's car, and her mum speaks perfect English (her mother being English) so we had a good chat on the journey. 
My cold has become worse again, after thinking it was clearing up yesterday afternoon, my cough developed in the evening and tonight I sound like a man, so I'm definitely staying home tonight! On the upside, I had frozen mousse stuff (if I'd only watched MasterChef I'd know the name of it!) that tasted like a Snowball after tea today, so that was yummy. I haven't figured out whether cold stuff is actually helping or hindering my throat yet, but when in Rome eh?!
Ciao!

Day 30-33

I spent this morning lazing around in bed and watching TV - I have three go-to channels; one for music, one for American shows and films that I can change the audio on, and one for Nickelodeon programmes in Italian. None of which are fab, but they're better than nothing and are good for background sound when I'm on my own with a cold!
Speaking of being on my own *holding back from singing Les Mis*, this weekend was my first one home alone. It was very nice knowing that I didn't have to be back for anything - Clare and I were joking that my "Italian phone" is a bit like a doctor's pager, in that when it rings I know I have to be somewhere soon! You can probably guess who I've spent my weekend with can't you? I mean, in fairness, her family were away too, and Danielle and Maddie had swanned off to Paris so we had to do something together! It's not like we spent most of Friday together or anything...we did have the best 11am gelato on Friday though. I had hazelnut, pistachio, and marscapone with biscuit topped with coffee cream and a chocolate wafer in a sugar waffle cone filled with dark chocolate. Yes, it was as incredible as it sounds! We did a small grocery shop (I say small, it filled two bags and my arms nearly dropped off during the 20min walk back!) and went back to hers to see Fluffy and Tiger and watch part of Divergent and eat white pizza. Dropped M off at the train station in the evening with a previous au pair for company and then walked back to the apartment in a state of total happiness- the sun was setting but it was raining really heavily and I was walking through some very beautiful back streets. It was rather perfect! I then finished my night with a Skype sesh with my SERFY family and popcorn and coke.
On Saturday Clare and I explored the back streets by the Colosseum and waited around an hour outside a vintage shop for it to open, spending our time looking at the pictures on each other's phones and taking selfies. The wait was worth it though, I bought a great oversized jumper from there! We had smiley faces, red pepper, salad and custard for tea and then went out and sat at SS Meetup for a while people watching and rejecting drinks and tat from far too many blokes. Honestly, I'm going to come home being so mean to male strangers!
Clare came with me to church yesterday which was lovely, and the German au pair was there again so we all sat next to each other. The sermon was taken from Hebrews 9:1-10 and was to do with Yom Kippur/Atonement. We sung To God be the Glory, What a Friend We Have in Jesus, Take my Life and Let it Be, and The Wonderful Cross (When I Survey but with an added bit) so a pretty good week hymn-wise! We had pizza twice yesterday...there's a really good cheap pizza place by the Pantheon that we're now recognised at, and we got lost last night and found another place that sells it according to weight and size rather than per slice, and that made a great addition to us finding our way back (I actually used a compass to figure out which way to go!). I also discovered that supermarkets close at 9; B and G had asked if I could get milk, and I left it until we were nearly home and only had mintues to spare - lesson learnt!
Ciao!

Day 28 (mainly 29!)

Back at the poolside! M and F go twice a week, so while it's extra stress when they're getting out, it's rather nice being there for them without them being entirely my responsibility for an hour on Mondays and Thursdays! The only downside is that I definitely have a cold; not the nose variety, but the sore throat and feeling tired constantly variety. So instead of getting up early and seizing the day I made myself a cup of Nescafé coffee mixed with Nesquik and took that and a box of Cheerios back to bed and finished reading The Fault in Our Stars. Yep, after refusing for months to read it I downloaded and read it over the course of yesterday and this morning. And yes, I cried, but not as much as at the end of Insurgent! However, this is not a book review, so that's all I'll say on the matter. 
(The only trouble with trying to write at the pool is that there's the constant distraction of athletic Italian men..but I didn't say that! It is quite nice for once to be distracted rather than the distraction - beginning to get fed up of male attention.)
I spent money I didn't really have with Clare this afternoon. By that I mean that I dipped into my savings because B hasn't got around to getting money from the bank for me yet, and all I wanted to do today was shop and eat fatty food - a side effect of being ill! So I bought the comfiest pair of trackie bottoms I've ever put on ever from Brandy Melville (the shop that had the late night sale) for 30€. More money than I'd usually spend on an item of clothing, but as I said, they're incredibly soft and comfy and I can see myself wearing them all the time (I'm wearing them now...I've become a person that wears trackies for non-sporting activities, and I'm not even ashamed!). Clare and I also found the best pizza place; fabulous, greasy, homemade pizza for 2,50€ per large slice, and we ate in view of the Pantheon which made it even more perfect and surreal. Plus, it's totally within budget, so we've decided to go grab fruit and water/buy multipack cans of pop from home and then just get that for lunch when we're out for lunch together. While it's not entirely healthy, we have the excuse of living in Italy, the home of pizza! 
Yesterday me, Maddie and Clare wandered around the park and found the zoo - we'll definitely be going soon, I think I can justify 20€ to go just about!
Ciao!