Long Time No Blog, or What I've Been up to for the Past Four Months

Oh, my darling bloglings! It's been too long! My guess is that you're either asking:

Where in the world have you been in the last four months?

or

Who are you again?

Of course, there's a third option, that no one is actually reading this since I have all but abandoned my poor, dedicated bloglings.

I will try not to dwell on such unpleasant possibilities, and attempt instead to rectify the situation by catching you up on what's been going on in my life since I last posted four months ago, because, well, it's been one hell of a season. If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you'll know that I rarely talk about my personal life. I'm not a naturally shy person, yet for some reason I have censored myself when it comes to revealing details about my life.

This is all about to change. You may also know that I started a podcast in the past year (one of the soon-to-be-mentioned reasons for my lengthy absence). I don't seem to have the same bashfulness when it comes to podcasting, and I'm pretty open about my life when I'm on air, so I figure, all my personal business is already out there and it's too late to get it back, so I might as well mention it here too from time to time.

So without further ado...

This winter has been one of the busiest, most exhausting, and most exciting in recent memory. It started out with a bang as I threw a bridal shower for a dear friend in early November. She's mad about the Etruscans (and in particular bronze Etruscan hand mirrors) and so it made perfect sense to throw her an Etruscan-themed bridal shower! I may have had more fun planning this shower than the bride-to-be did attending it. To put it briefly, I went a bit overboard, making Etruscan-themed decorations, treats, and even an Etruscan Bridal magazine.

Can I tell you how much I geeked out when I discovered the Etruscan font? For those of you who aren't lucky enough to have a close friend obsessed with the Etruscans, I'm here to tell you their language reads right to left.

Most of the shower games were Etruscan-themed as well, but I think the piece de resistance was the cupcakes decorated with fondant bronze hand mirrors. These beauties, which were as delicious as they were adorable, were made by the uber-talented Alexandra of Cupcakes in Rome. I made the red currant scones you see on the left. Also very yummy, if not quite so pretty. The recipe for those came courtesy of my fellow Rome blogger, the fabulous Trisha Thomas, aka Mozzarella Mamma.

 

 

Later that same day, I had the pleasure of participating in a segment that will be aired on the Travel Channel later this year. The hour-long feature on Rome is part of a several-part series on some of the world's greatest cities. The series is called Metropolis and should air sometime in June.

The segment I was featured in was on the art of aperitivo in a glorious piazza. Here I am with three friends enjoying Aperol Spritz in Piazza di Pietra at one of my favorite spots in the city, Salotto 42. I'll be sure to let you know when it airs so you can hear me trying not to embarrass myself on camera.

Aside from these fun events, what I really dedicated myself to during the month of November 2014 was something called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as its participants affectionately call it. If you've ever dreamed of writing a book, but just can't seem to find the discipline to sit down and do it, NaNoWriMo is for you. The idea is, you and literally hundreds of thousands of other writers around the world make a commitment to write a 50,000-word novel in just one month, the month of November. That works out to 1667 words per day if you manage to write every day. I didn't start out too strong, so felt like I was constantly playing catch up. But I eventually got into the groove, and seeing the number of words I needed to write to stay on track shrink every single day was enough impetus to force myself out of bed well before six am most days to get my writing in before heading to work.

I earned this badge with early mornings and lots of Earl Grey.

It was an exhausting month, and I'm not one who functions well on too little sleep, but it was worth it when, by November 30th, I had an (incredibly rough, aka nearly unreadable)  first draft of my second novel. Yes, that's right, my second. My first novel took a great deal longer than 30 days to write. I'm actually not sure if I've mentioned it on the blog before, but I wrote an art mystery for young readers that takes place in Rome (where else?). It's for the Middle Grade age group, which is roughly between 9 and 12, give or take a year on each end. I'll leave the details of the book for a future post, but I will confess that I have been working on this labor of love on and off for the past five years. And while, no, I didn't write the first draft in a month (closer to a year, actually), the revision process was a good four times longer. No one warned me that writing the first draft of a book is the easy part! It's the (seemingly endless) revisions which test a writer's mettle and perseverance.

But persevere I did, and by the summer of 2014, I finally had what I believed to be a draft that was in good enough shape to send out into the world. I started querying literary agents last summer. After several months of this disheartening process (which tests a writer's perseverance even more than revising, I'd wager) without any offers, I took a break from querying to participate in NaNoWriMo. It was just what I needed to get my creative juices flowing again after months of stagnation and rejection letters. I dove back into querying in December, and that brings me to my next big accomplishment of the winter, which happened just after the New Year. Excuse the all-caps but I can't help shouting:

I GOT AN AGENT!!!

[source]

For any other writers out there, or for actors, performers, and musicians too, you know what a life-changing accomplishment this is. In a writer's case, signing with a successful agent is probably the most important step in their career, maybe even more significant that that elusive first book deal.
And mine is not just any agent, but one of the best in the business, the legendary John Silbersack of Trident Media Group. I am so incredibly honored and thrilled to have him representing my work that it's honestly hard to put it into words (a worrying sign for a writer!). Suffice it to say, there are a lot of happy dances going on in my apartment these days.

As I expected, my agent (my heart still does a mini-swoon when I write the words "my agent") had a long list of revisions for me, and I have dived head-first into those. I've given myself the Ides of March as a deadline, I spend all weekend, every weekend chained to my desk attempting to wrestle what I thought was a final draft into an even final-er draft. I hope that this explains why, although one of my only New Year's resolutions of 2015 was to WRITE A BLOGPOST AT LEAST ONCE A WEEK, it's already the 20th of February and I'm just finally getting around to my first post of the year. Mea culpa!

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of time, but in a very enjoyable way, is my podcast, The BitterSweet Life. It's hosted by myself and the amazing radio producer extraordinaire, Katy Sewall, who just happens to be one of my closest and oldest friends in the world. When she moved to Rome last year, we decided to do a podcast all about what it's like to be an expat, either for the long-term or the short-term. It's casual, light-hearted, and most of all, non-scripted. We chat about lots of different topics that expats encounter such as homesickness, foreign language, visa problems, integrating, becoming alienated from your native culture, and dating the locals. Oh, and our mutual obsession with Caravaggio, which is slightly off topic, but we don't care.

We finally started a Twitter account, @BitterSweetPod, so be sure to follow us there if you want to be kept up to date with new episodes. Katy, who is currently back in Seattle, recently posted a photo from a recent interview she did that has somehow taken Twitter by storm. Katy interviewed a little girl earlier this week who loves and feeds crows. They bring her shiny gifts in return and this is her collection.

Here's the original tweet:

Interviewed a little girl this morning that feeds crows and they bring her gifts in return. Here's her collection. pic.twitter.com/kqNrlAa4Ie
— The BitterSweet Life (@BitterSweetPod) February 16, 2015

When Katy posted the photo three or four days ago, I thought it was wonderful, but I had no idea it would go viral. And viral it has gone, with over 4600 retweets, 4800 favorites, and hundreds of comments to date. Not bad for an account that had (at the time) just 100 followers. People across the world are so moved by this story, not to mention an entire sub-culture of people out there who are absolutely passionate about crows! Who knew? I'm starting to develop a soft spot for them myself!

My last big project of the winter is my collaboration with an awesome new app called VoiceMap. If you love to dig deep when you travel but don't always have the time or money to hire a private tour guide, this app will make you squeal with glee. The app is the brainchild of some very enterprising and creative people down in South Africa. The idea is that storytellers in cities around the world take listeners on a tour of a neighborhood by way of a smartphone. If you're the listener, all you have to do is walk where the storyteller indicates, and listen to him or her bring the city to life right in front of your eyes.

This video explains the project better than I could:

If you haven't guessed already, I am narrating a walking tour of Rome's Trastevere neighborhood. It is exciting to be a part of a project that I find so meaningful and useful at the same time, although my lack of technical skills has slowed me down more than once, and it's taking me a bit longer than I had expected! I will report back as soon as my walk is ready. I hope you will download it and let me guide you through this neighborhood I adore the next time you're in Rome.

If I have learned anything in these last four months is that synchronicity is real, and that working on projects that push you in the direction of your dreams bring more and more opportunities and amazing people into your path. Leaving The Pines of Rome blog out of this equation just isn't acceptable to me anymore. I'm lucky enough that all my passions intermingle in such a beautiful way, each one inspiring another. So I'm going on the record and making a commitment to post once a week from here on out. The posts will probably be shorter than usual, simply out of necessity, but since I'm not convinced anyone reads through to the end of my novel-length posts anyway, that might be a good thing for all concerned!

All photos by author except where indicated

Tweet

Save on Delicious

Twelve Months a Pope

© AP/Alessandra Tarantino [source]

This post has been about a year in the making. I meant to write it right after Pope Francis was elected one year ago today, in order to share with you, my dear bloglings, what I experienced that unforgettable night. Honestly, I did.

But the truth is, I was so sick and tired (mostly tired) of blogging by that point that I just couldn't face it. I kept putting it off and putting it off, until the papal election wasn't news anymore and there didn't seem any reason to write about it. But now everyone's favorite pope's first anniversary is here, and I finally have an excuse to write that post I've been meaning to write for so long.

Now, before we go any further, I don't want you to think that I'm still sick and tired of blogging. That was a temporary thing. You see, when dear old Benny (remember him?) decided he'd had it with the whole Supreme-Pontiff-of-the-Holy-Mother-Church/God's-Representative-on-Earth/Vicar-of-Christ/Must-always-Wear-White-no-Matter-the-Weather gig, I was swept up into a blogging (and tweeting) frenzy. As Rome moved toward conclave it got even worse. I ate, slept, and drank nothing but conclave. I became obsessed, my friends, obsessed. I even got added to the Huffington Post's list of conclave-related tweeps. That's how bad it got.

I'm sure you all know how long winded I am by now (case in point: this post), but my conclave-related blogposts defied all the rules of how long a post should reasonably be before you can assume your readers have given up and picked up War and Peace for some lighter reading. I blogged about Pope Celestine V, the only other pope who has willingly resigned, I blogged about the entire history of the papal conclave, which up till then had been my longest post ever, but then I topped myself just three days later when I blogged about every single minute (and probably useless) detail and rule of conclave that you have never wanted to know. What can I say, I was on a roll.

Then exhaustion hit. After spending something like 15 hours straight on that last post, I didn't even want to see my computer, let alone turn it on (and conclave hadn't even officially started yet!). But then I thought about Mozzarella Mamma. Big-time journalist, mother of three, she was running around the city, live tweeting from press conferences at the Vatican, interviewing the likes of Cardinal Timothy Dolan, and doing chimney watch from her perch atop Bernini's colonnade in St. Peter's Square, all the while baking red velvet cupcakes for her kids and hand-sewing them Carnival costumes. (OK, maybe I made that last bit up.) But still, I thought to myself, here is a woman with a crazy intense job, and three kids, and if she has the energy to blog about conclave every other night, surely I should have it to too.

So I eked out one last post on the first day of conclave, listing some of the most likely Papabili to take home the big prize. I left out our dear Frankie--just as the experts did--although I did predict an Argentinian, let it be noted! If the conclave had gone on for several days (or even weeks) as many people predicted, I don't know what I would have done. But as it happened, Pope Francis was elected the very next day, and afterwards I promptly collapsed and didn't post again for well over a month. Meanwhile Mozzarella Mamma posted a wrap-up just two days later--how does she do it???

Well, here, at long last, is mine. (Whoa, six paragraph preamble--I really need to learn the art of succinct blogging. Next time.)

Everyone knew the pope wouldn't be elected on the first day of conclave. With only two scrutinies, that would have been unprecedented. But most people didn't think he'd be elected the second day either. Unlike when Benny was up for election and a complete shoe-in, no one had any idea who'd be elected this time around, and we all assumed it would take at least three days. All I knew was, I wanted to be there when it happened.

I had missed the white smoke and first papal appearance back in 2005, and I wasn't going to miss it this time. Only problem was, I had tickets to the opera for the 3rd night of conclave, and I couldn't miss the chance of seeing Riccardo Muti conduct Verdi, especially as I had just interviewed him. If that hadn't been the case, I might not have gone to St. Peter's Square on the 13th at all, assuming it was too early anyway and planed to go the next night.

As it happened, I met my friend Jill (officially the most Catholic person I know) to take a leisurely stroll toward the Vatican around 5:30pm on Wednesday March 13th. Neither of us were expecting to see white smoke that night. When we arrived in the square, the atmosphere was jovial. Everyone was having a good time and no one could imagine the intense night that was ahead of them. Finally, at around 7pm, as we were milling about the back of the square, laughing with an American family we had just met, we noticed the smoke. At first it looked black, but nevertheless, just seeing the smoke was exciting, and everyone gasped gleefully. But then the smoke got grayer, and then it turned white. A collective whoop arose from the crowd as we realized we had a pope.

The very first sight of the smoke. It still looked gray at this point. © Tiffany Parks

Instantly everyone began pressing forward, and I knew what I had to do. I grabbed my friend's hand and took off, fighting to get as close to the Benediction Loggia as possible. How many times in your life do you get to see a newly elected pope appear on that legendary balcony? Not many, and I wanted a front-row seat.

Can you see the tiny puff of white smoke behind me?

Being short has its advantages, and I was able to push and dodge and squirm my way up nearly to the very front of the metal barricades until finally we could get no further. I dug out my phone and texted my maritino, telling him to high-tail it over here. Jill assured me we had at least 40 minutes before the new pope would be announced. Even so, my maritino ran. It was raining by this time and he just put his head down and ran. He described to me later the streets of the city, traffic stopped, just full of people running, all running toward the Vatican. I don't know how but he got there in 15 minutes (usually it's a 45 minute walk).

In the fray. White smoke clear as day. © Tiffany Parks

Somehow in that crowd of tens of thousands of people, we managed to find each other. We also managed to secure a prime spot, just behind the statue of St. Peter (appropriate). The wait seemed eternal but at last we heard those historic words, "HABEMUS PAPAM." It gave me goosebumps, not because I am the world's biggest fan of the institution of the papacy, but because I knew I was witnessing a historic moment. When the name Bergolio was shouted, I was truly stumped. That wasn't one of the names I had painstakingly researched. The maritino was quicker, he shouted, "Argentino!" and I was happy just for that--without knowing anything about him--just that he was from South America. Just that was enough to make the election historic.

We were so caught up in the announcement of who the new pope was, we completely missed his papal name at first. Then we heard far-off voices, Roman voices, shouting "Francesco! Francesco! Francesco!" Could it be? we asked ourselves. It's not possible that he chose that name. Another first.

Pope Francis's first appearance. © Tiffany Parks

But the moment no one who witnessed it could ever forget waswhen our new pope appeared. After the deafening cheers quieted, the newly minted pope stepped out onto the balcony and, with a humble smile, uttered the two words no one had expected, "Buona Sera." As if he were just talking to old friends. The entire square gasped and then exploded into even more cheers.

But surely the most moving moment was when he asked that, before he bless the crowd, (and give us all our hard-earned indulgences--no purgatory, yay!), that every person in the square should first bless him, and pray for him. He bowed his head with unimagined humility, and for a long moment that exuberant crowd of tens of thousands was absolutely silent and focused and reverent and it was powerful to be a part of.

I don't know how they managed to print this so fast. It was available before we left the square that night. © Tiffany Parks

Tweet

Save on Delicious

The Best of the Blogs: Rome and Beyond

I’m excited to announce a new feature on the blog: This Week in Rome. Every weekend, I will be linking to my favorite articles, blog posts, videos and other goodies found on the Internets that week. Although I’m calling it This Week in Rome, and I expect the majority of items I post will be about this lovely city’o’mine, it will not be limited to Rome, but may include anything from around Italy and the world that I think would be of interested to my readers.

Now you all know how good I am at keeping up with my weekly posts! You’ll recall my weekly bi-yearly history posts I dash out every Monday whenever I can find the time. But this is going to be different! I can no longer keep these gems to myself. When I read something fascinating, or hilarious, or spot-on true, I’ve just got to share it with you beloved bloglings, and this is where I plan to do it.

Before this feature is officially unveiled at the end of next week, I’d like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of just a few of my very favorite blogs, although there are many more wonderful ones out there. They are all on my blogroll, but a list of names often do not do justice to the uniqueness of each, so I want to give you a little taste of them here, as they are sure to show up often on my weekly review posts.

So, in no particular order:

Mozzarella Mamma

Patricia Thomas is a foreign correspondent for Associated Press Television News, and one of the few foreign journalists with accredited access to the Vatican. Although her blog covers many fascinating news stories, it is also a chronicle of her life as a mamma in Italy, raising three children with her Italian husband, juggling her career and family life in a land where being a mamma comes with some enormous expectations.

Un’Americana a Roma

If you’re interested in delving into the complex psyche of the average Italian, this blog is the perfect primer. Shelley Ruelle has called Rome home for over a decade, and in that time has garnered a keen understanding of the workings of the Italian mind. She blogs about everything from Italian politics to Roman culture to the random absurdities of life in Italy, all with a refreshing dose of honesty and plenty of hilarious commentary.

Revealed Rome

This is the perfect blog for people who are planning a trip to Rome and want all the insider advice and tricks. Amanda Ruggeri is an indefatigable writer who will fill you in on all of Rome’s best kept secrets, and make sure you don’t fall into any of the many dreaded tourist traps this lovely city so helpfully provides. She’s got her finger on Rome’s pulse, and doesn’t miss any of the most important cultural events that hit the city.

Parla Food

There is one question I get more than any other from friends, friends of friends, clients, and anyone I have ever come into contact with, who is planning a trip to Rome: Where should I eat? And my response is invariable: ask Katie Parla. Katie is a certified sommelier and holds a Masters in Italian Gastronomic Culture, so it’s safe to say she knows what she’s talking about. She has spent the last 10 years exploring Rome’s culinary jungle, her taste is impeccable and she tells it like it is. She blogs about every gastronomic option in the city, from greasy street food to Michelin-starred excellence, from craft beer to organic wine, from traditional Roman cuisine to authentic Ethiopian, Korean or Indian, and everything in between.

Diario di una Studentessa Matta (Diary of a Mad Student)

Melissa Muldoon may not be an Italian resident, but this linguistically gifted American woman has mastered the Italian language more than many of us who live here full time. After falling in love with this undeniably gorgeous language during her many trips to Italy, she decided to perfect it by regular blogging… IN ITALIAN! To be honest, I don’t know how she does it. I have a hard enough time stringing together a coherent sentence in my native tongue. If you’d like to improve your own Italian skills, reading is one of the best ways, so hop over to her blog to read her musings about Italy, all in Dante’s glorious Tuscan.

Letters from Florence

When I feel like laughing until I practically burst a spleen, all the while nodding my head in emphatic agreement, and crying with gratitude that there is somebody out there who has the same gripes and 

frustrations with life in Italy, but is able to express them with hysterical and beautifully crafted prose, I visit this site. Elizabeth Petrosian lives with her family near Florence and writes about all aspects of life in Italy, with side-splitting hilarity and not a grain of sugar-coating. Her most priceless posts tell of the antics of her almost unbelievably horrid in-laws.

Senza Bidet

There are quite a lot of us American expats living in Rome and blogging about the craziness that such a life entails. But what if the shoe were on the other foot? Laura is Italian, born and raised in Rome, with an American husband and two half-and-half kids. They live in LA and Laura blogs in Italian about the things that madden or bewilder her as an Italian expat in the US. For example, why does her doctor not acknowledge the dangers of colpo d’aria, why are her American friends so shocked when she tells her little boy, “Se non te stai zitto, t'ammazzo di botte!” (I’ll beat you to death if you don't shut up), and why, God, why, are there no bidets in America?!

Check out these amazing blogs; I promise you won’t be disappointed! I only hope that after you’ve discovered them, you’ll still have time to visit my little blog! Stay tuned for my upcoming This Week in Rome feature, to be inaugurated next weekend.

What other exceptional Rome or Italy blogs do you love?

All images are copyright of the authors of the respective blogs.

Tweet

Save on Delicious

Celebrating 100,000 hits!

(I'm sure there's a hilarious mobster joke to be made about that title somehow, but it's just not coming to me.)

I am excited to announce that my itty, bitty blog reached the (to my ears) impressive figure of 100,000 hits yesterday! I know that there are many blogs out there that receive 100,000 hits a day, so in the grand scheme of things, 100,000 in the 2 1/2-year life of a blog sounds like small potatoes, but I'm still excited and proud!

Image source

To my faithful bloglings out in the ether, thank you for every single one of your clicks; they have brought me steadily closer to this milestone! In spite of the stats that I can regularly check, and the wonderful comments that I receive, it is sometimes hard to believe that anyone is actually out there, reading my humble thoughts and musings. As a blogger, you send your missives out into the great void and hope that someone is out there reading. A number like this is an assuring proof that my readers actually exist.

But where do all my lovely readers come from? How do you find my site? Could it be that it's just my mom and a few loyal Facebook friends and Twitter followers? Luckily, Blogger makes it possible for me to see where the bulk of my traffic is coming from, and the overwhelming majority of it is from Google searches. And what are you searching for that leads you to my site? The top queries that have pointed people to my blog are, in order: Caravaggio (what a shocker), Illuminated manuscript, Numa Pompilius (it turns out I've written four posts about the guy), Pinturicchio, the Last Judgement, and the Mars of Todi. What I've taken from this is that the more obscure the subject I write about is (with the exception of Caravaggio of course), the more likely people searching for information on it will come to me, since fewer sites have written about it.

My traffic from Facebook and Twitter is surprisingly insignificant by comparison. This is probably my own fault as I don't post to those sights all that often, although I have read that Facebook now shows your posts to only a small percentage of your page's fans (unless you pay them), but that is a topic for a different post.

And then there are the occasional bursts of traffic when an important website or publication mentions my blog, like the Irish Times or the Fatto Quotidiano, and that is always a plus.

But mostly it's people's curiosity, facilitated by Google, that leads thems to my site, and hopefully many of them like what they find and come back for more.

Another interesting question is where do all of you lovely readers live? What countries are tuning into The Pines of Rome the most? Topping the list is the United States (not surprising since I'm from there), followed by Italy (I live there and write about it) with the UK coming in third. Rounding out the top ten are Canada, Germany, France, Australia, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. I am always thrilled when unexpected, distant and diverse countries pop up on my traffic report, and there have been many, including Vietnam, Mauritius, Algeria, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Chile, Qatar, Iraq, Pakistan, Ghana, Ethiopia and Mongolia. Readers from at least 109 different countries have visited my blog. This makes me very, very proud.

But perhaps the most important question is, what are you reading? Which posts have the most visits? The overwhelmingly most popular post is Michelangelo's Last Judgement and Marcello Venusti's copy (who would have guessed?) with 6343 hits to date, more than double the second most popular, Six months a wife and an illuminated manuscript. In third place we have Caravaggio, you devil!, followed by Numa Pompilius and his calendar, Salvador Dalì: Renaissance-inspired Surrealism, and The Borghese Gallery and the fate of an ill-gotten collection, part 2. I am particularly happy to see that last post on this list as it is one of the ones (together with its prequel part 1) that I am most proud of.

And speaking of, what are my personal favorite posts? Probably my absolute favorite is Siamo Romane.... Trasteverine, written back in 2010 when I thought I was leaving Trastevere forever, an ode to my beloved neighborhood. This post has garnered very few hits, as I wrote the title when I didn't know anything about SEO (P.S I still don't, but I do know to write my post titles in English now). I had particular fun writing Are Italian women really unhappy?, The Borgia Pope, Pinturicchio, and La Bella Farnese, The lost art of writing by hand, A Room with a View, fate and the allure of Italy, and So you want to move to Rome? My advice: do it!

As you probably know by now, I'm not that into self-promotion (except in this post, of course), but I will take the opportunity of this blogger-milestone of 100,000 hits to ask you to help The Pines of Rome continue to be more and more read. If you like this site, please share it with your friends and family and anyone you think might enjoy it. If you have a blog of your own, consider adding mine to your blogroll. You can follow the blog directly if you have a Google account, or you can subscribe to get new posts delivered to you by email. If you are on Twitter, please follow; if you are on Facebook, please "like". And, for goodness' sake, comment! Reading your comments is truly a joy, and I respond to every single one.

My goal is to rack up another 100,000 hits in less than half the time it took to get the first 100,000. That is, I aim to reach 200,000 hits one year from today. I can't do it without my lovely bloglings, so keep reading, friends! And, in the meantime, if anyone would like to explain to me (using small words) what pings and backlinks are, I would be most happy to learn!

Tweet

Save on Delicious