M:

Now that school has begun, you can expect less sightseeing, less frequent entries and more prosaic material.

We had left some time on Monday morning to brush up on a few conjugations, but the basic plan for our four days of classes per week is to spend the morning doing domestic things and homework for a while, then to enjoy one of the many Rome walks en route to the school. Thus it was that yesterday, we headed north and spent some time near the south bank of the Tiber between Ponte S. Angelo and Ponte Umberto I. Via dell'Orso has seen its traditional livery stores replaced by antique and restoration businesses, and via Coronari (street of the rosary makers - good location close to the Vatican!) is likewise an antiquarian precinct. You peer into little shops where they do upholstery, gilding,framing, sell antiques and the like. It's good that people with such specialist skills can make a living in this way.

We stopped in a little supermarket (seems like a contradiction in terms - little/super!) and bought bread, cheese and drinks and wandered across the Tiber to a park outside a big institution for war wounded, and ate in the sunshine, sharing our crumbs with the pigeons and sparrows (Sparrows won hands down!). We then meandered slowly into the area where our school was. It is situated in the Prati, a more modern shopping precinct than we have been used to so far in Rome, and Nives runs her school by renting classrooms which are unused in the afternoon in a very grand, very old private school. The smooth unevenness of the timber floors in the room we were using gives evidence of hundreds of years of children's feet.

The building actually houses child care, pre-school, primary school and secondary school. It is called Istituto Scolastico Nazareth, and Nives' school is called Centro Interculturale Gaia. It would be fair to say that her school is just getting under way, so that what it lacks in the kinds of facilities you might get at a bigger place, it more than makes up for in personalised care and quality instruction.

We arrived at 2. The three of us chatted for a while in Italian. Then Anne did a shift for about 45 minutes, then me for 75. We then took a walk and had a coffee - speaking in Italian all the while, then returned and repeated the process until 6. It would have been a long day for Nives as I think she takes classes in a seminary in the morning somewhere else.

We were home on foot in under 25 minutes, had a meal and , as is the way with all good students, did our homework. I managed also to finalise a number of arrangements for later in the trip - accommodation for 3nights at the Cinque Terre, a flat in Florence, and accommodation for Beth, Anne and me on our last night in Italy, close to Fiumicino. I also discovered that while some sites indicate you can fly from Verona to Rome for 88 euro, when you probe further, it is really over 130, so the train seems the better option.

A:

The next day on our wanderings before class we stumbled on gold- in the church of St Catherine of Siena on the beautiful Via Giulia were some astonishingly good singers practising for a competition of Sacred Music that evening and the following two evenings. The woman who seemed to be in charge announced later in English that they were behind schedule and that they would have only four more performances and then a break and that everyone else would need to come back at 2. She then rattled the same announcement off in Italian, French and German without flinching!

We also saw the inside of two other churches- St Barbara's which is a tiny church close to our place. Barbara came to a nasty end at the hands of her father, who was then immediately struck down by lightning and died. Consequently she is the patron saint of emergency services such as police and fire fighters and those who may also come to a quick end. Another church was that of Santa Maria del Orazione e Morte which refers to prayer and death. (M: You have to admire the Catholic focus on deaths - sticky, flashy and otherwise) Inside this church there was a man building the parish nativity scene (presepio) which was due for completion a week before Christmas.

We ate our lunch Italian style- while walking to our class eating sandwiches we had prepared at home, and an apple. This may be the way to go- we have seen very few overweight people here, and those we have seen have been either Americans or Australians.

Our classes went well again and we walked the 25 or so minutes through the Piazza Navona (someone has to do it) to our flat for a home cooked meal put together expertly by Mick.

It was great to talk to Sandra, Rachel, Beth, Mum and Phil on Wednesday morning which was Wed evening Aussie time. The Aussies were gathered for what I am sure was the usual excellent meal and good cheer at Phil and Sandra's place. Our classes here are 2-6 pm our time and so this works out well because we could not talk to Australia at that time anyway as they would be asleep.

M:

Wednesday morning's objective was to buy tickets for the AS Roma game at the Stadio Olimpico on the weekend. First of all I need to say how nice it is to have only one objective for the morning! Secondly, I want to describe the experience. In our usual fashion we had done a bit of research about how to buy tickets. I can already hear some of you asing how difficult that might be. Turn up on the day, buy the ticket, buy a beer, sit down. Bing! Wrong.

You cannot buy tickets on the day. You can try your luck with scalpers but they are being prosecuted. You can buy online, but it's hard to tell the legitimate sites. The one I was sure of, ie the AS Roma site, wouldn't let me access the ticket office section. So, it was off to Piazza Colonna, 360 (right next door to 361 - it's one of those streets) near some of Italy's major government offices.

The fun didn't end there. You have to have a form of identity to purchase each ticket. Fortunately we were prepared, and we brought our passaporti, so for the princely sum of 54 Euro each, we got seats in the Centre of the Tribuna Tevere, just about half way in Bay 33AD (an omen perhaps?). We noticed that all the team gear is much cheaper here than Australia, but at the price of even lower end tickets, they can afford to give them away! Now all we have to do is find our way to the Stadio on Saturday night for a 2045 kick off - that's right, 8.45 PM!

We walked up the via del Corso all the way to the Piazza del Popolo - a striking public space with remarkable symmetry, and not too crowded at lunch time.

A:

We sat in the sun and ate our lunch in the Piazza and listened to the music (M: the Happy Gypsies were there again, with about the third different line up. The cimbalo that I had earlier described was replaced by a guitar today - and they didn't miss a beat. Their competition was a rather sad looking old guy singing along to Karaoke lift music. People seemed to be prepared to pay, although I couldn't be sure at the distance we were sitting if they were indicating they were paying him to leave - which he did after about 20 minutes, along with the world's oldest groupie. OK - maybe it was his wife :)) We watched the usual street sellers trying to sell scarves and roses. One came a bit too close and nearly pushed a rose into my hand which I didn't appreciate but other than that, we have found them not intrusive. We had been discussing these guys. They all look like they come from somewhere on the sub-continent, but we figured they had to be from somewhere in North Africa given recent events. In fact they are, according to Nives, mainly Indian or Bangladeshi.

M:

Classes started a bit later than usual because of the cleaning roster at the school. Today I got to discuss an article about an Italian book of quotes from immigrant children about their experiences. They were a bittersweet collection, but my favourite was the ten year old Chinese child who wrote that her friend said she would never eat in a Chinese restaurant because her mother had said that Chinese eat cats, and it must be true because it was in the newspaper. The Chinese girl's comment was: "I wonder what kind of papers they have here in Italy?" During the break we had our usual coffee at the gastronomia and admired the international foods on sale - from British HP sauce to Argentinian mate to Australian vegemite to American canned pumpkin.

The morning's roundabout walk had taken its toll, (A: on me!) so we packed up at 6 rather than staying on until 6.30 and walked across the Tiber in the chilly evening, through the Piazza Navona and on to via dei Chiavari, 8.

Looking forward to a trip to Orvieto tomorrow as we have no lesson.