Rosso della Casa

Well lookee here. The blog is back— live and direct from Rome, Italy. As most of you know, I’ll be here for the next seven months as Natalia secured a consultancy with a UN agency here. As for me, I am now a consultant for my former organization and looking forward to what life has to offer next. So there’s no better reason than to get back to the blogging. Its been a while. I look forward to bringing you all on the ride with me...
We got into Rome yesterday and are settling into our digs for the next month. Here is a photo of our front door and the view down the street. (That building you see at the end of the road may look familiar…lions once attacked Russell Crowe there.)

Most notable so far is how things have changed since I last traveled through the Eternal City in 1996. Upon graduating from UCLA, Eric, Rich, Jim, Clark, Luke and I traveled through Europe for a few weeks. (I believe Francis crashed on our hostel floor one of the nights too.)Back then, the Euro was non-existent, which has seemingly made things quite expensive compared to the US these days. Also, the Internet was nowhere near what it is today. I remember having to call home to ask my Dad to help sort me out a ticket from LAX-SFO upon my return. Today, I could do everything via the web. (Perhaps most interesting to some is that I am currently watching the Dodgers-Mets game live online as I type this. Gotta love the web!)

Despite the web making the transition much smoother than ever before, there continue to be some difficulties in the transition. Most notably, the language barrier. Natalia’s Italian is definitely passable and has gotten us through some situations already, but my language is sparse to say the least. Hopefully, Rosetta Stone and further interactions will get me up to speed. I am already familiar with ‘rosso della casa” (house red wine), which I believe will be useful in the coming months. Arrivederci.