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

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A Podcast is Born! The BitterSweet Life: Two Expats in Rome

I was 11 years old, sitting alone on an uncomfortable school bus seat on a cold Northwestern fall morning. After spending my entire elementary school life sheltered in a tiny private school, I was suddenly out in the big, scary world of public middle school. I was, in a word, daunted. And pretty sure I would never make any friends.

About halfway into the commute to school (in my memory this happened on the first day of school, but I can't be certain that was the case), a cute, dark-haired girl named Katy, who was just my size--maybe even an inch shorter (and I was always the shortest in my class)--got on the bus and shyly asked if she could sit with me. This, my friends, was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

With Katy, on the stage of Youth Theatre Northwest, Mercer Island, WA, about 13 years old

Fast-forward twenty-some years and I'm living in Rome, far far away from the beautiful, rainy Pacific Northwest and all the old friends I grew up with. Despite seeing Katy once a year or usually less, we've remained as close over the years as we always were. She's one of those people that, despite the distance that separates us, despite how infrequently we see each other or even talk on the phone, I just know will always, always be in my life.

So you can imagine my surprise and elation when she announced that she and her husband were moving to Rome for a year. It was an expat's dream come true. She has been here since September, and it has been one of my best years in Rome so far, because of her.

With Katy on her first full-day as a Rome expat, Gianicolo Hill, September 2013

Since Katy is an NPR radio producer, and I am (among other things) an expat blogger, we decided to put our talents and expertise together to create a weekly (free!) podcast discussing the ups and downs of expat life. Since we both live in Italy, we naturally talk about Italy and Italians a lot, but we also touch on many topics that expats in any country might encounter. Our combined experiences, mine as a long-term expat, Katy's as a short-term one, give us two complementary points of view, which makes for lively and (we hope) interesting discussions.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know I don't write much about my personal life. Yes, every so often I will wax poetic on my Italian ancestors, the fated path that brought me to Italy, or the battle of the sexes Italian-style, but nine times out of ten, my posts are about art, history, music, and curiosities here in Rome or the Vatican. As much as I'd like to post about my personal life, an odd sort of shyness often prevents me.

Well not any more! The podcast, The BitterSweet Life, is frank, spontaneous, and thoroughly personal. It is probably of particular interest to those of you who may be considering taking the plunge and moving abroad yourselves, whether to Italy or any other country. We welcome questions and try to address them all on the air. If you already are an expat, and are currently in Rome, and you think you might have something to add to the conversation, let us know! We also interview other expats from time to time.

There are two ways to listen to The BitterSweet Life. You can visit our website, where you can either stream each podcast, or download them for later listening. Or you can find it on iTunes, where you can stream, download, and also subscribe so that you never miss an episode. We post new episodes every Monday morning, and they are about 20-30 minutes long, (perfect for your morning commute!). In our first episode, we discuss our first impressions on becoming an expat, and in our second episode we discuss language: both living nearly your entire daily life in a foreign language, as well as living in a country in which you do not speak the local language. We can't wait to get more episodes up, and we hope that you will enjoy them! If you do, please share with your like-minded friends, and let us know what you think!

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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.

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The charmed life of a foreign correspondent in Italy

Is there a journalist alive who doesn’t—at least in some small way—envy Gregory Peck’s dashing character in Roman Holiday? And it’s not just about spending 24 hours with a classy, beautiful brunette like Audrey Hepburn. What would it be like to live on Via Margutta, zip around late-1950s Rome on a Vespa, spend your evenings playing poker with the international crowd, and dash off the odd article to your paper back home?

Ah, the life of a foreign correspondent.

Well, a foreign correspondent in Italy, that is. I imagine the life of a foreign correspondent in, say, Libya or Iran (at least these days) might be slightly more dangerous and slightly less picturesque. But in Italy, can you think of a more fantastic lifestyle? Ok, ok, I’m sure it involves a good deal of work, but, oh, the payoff...

...well, you get the idea.

100 years ago, 14 foreign journalists living and working in Rome, got together in their usual haunt, Gran Caffè Faraglia in Piazza Venezia, and decided it was high time they had an official association to represent them. The Foreign Press Association was born. Today its members are numbered at 443, and hail from over 50 different countries around the world. American correspondents are outnumbered only by their German counterparts, and include one of my very favorite expat bloggers, Patricia Thomas, (Rome’s own Mozzarella Mamma herself!)

Italy as seen by the world, a new exhibit at the Ara Pacis opened last week, celebrating this important 100-year milestone. It was thrilling to see snippets of articles, headlines and magazine covers from around the world, all with the same subject: il belpaese. Some articles dated back nearly a century; others covered news stories I can well remember since my own arrival here eight years ago. 100 years of top news stories, archeological discoveries, culinary culture, destination pieces, social commentary: it’s all covered in this fascinating exhibit, the first big opening of the season.

Here are a few images from the exhibition:

Historic Archive of the first headquarters of the association

Association members in an audience with Pope John XXIII

Hitler and Mussolini, Newsweek, 1936

Il Conchiglione (The Big Shell) in the conference hall of the Foreign Press Association © Chris Warde-Jones

An article on terrorism in Italy, Der Spiegel, 1977

The death of Pope John Paul II, Paris Match, 2005

President and Mrs. Obama in an audience with Pope Benedict XVI (my photo of a photo)

I imagine it’s fascinating for Italians to witness how their country and culture is portrayed to the world at large by the pen-armed foreigners who’ve made their home here, but who nevertheless bring along their own perspective, culture and experiences. As an expat I have learned so much about my own country, simply by getting an outside look at it. This is not always pleasant. In fact, I was surprised that the inauguration was packed with Italians. I would have expected the majority of those in attendance to be the very same foreign correspondents being celebrated in the exhibit, but I rarely picked up on a foreign language or accent, although there were a few international journalistic legends (whom I would never have recognized had the Maritino not pointed them out to me).

Mayor Gianni Alemanno, Ara Pacis, © Tiffany Parks

The mayor himself was also in attendance, and I don’t mean to be mean, but this was the first time I had ever seen him live and I couldn’t stop myself humming that line from Annie (the Broadway musical, eh, NOT the film!), “What other town has the Empire State and a mayor five-foot-two?” Now, I didn’t get out my tape measure, but even standing up on the podium of the Ara Pacis, he didn’t look a hair taller than me. Rome may not have the Empire State Building, but a Fiorello Laguardia-look-alike we do have!

I learned during the press conference that the "extras" in the last scene of Roman Holiday were the actual members of Italy's Foreign Press Association in 1959! (A shocking dearth of women...) This exhibit is on for less than a month, so don’t miss it! Check out my exhibits calendar for times and dates.

 
PS After months of sporatic posting, I'm aiming to go two-for-two with a post about the new Vermeer exhibit at the Scuderie del Quirinale tomorrow, so stop by!

Photo sources: 1, 2, 

3-8 courtesy of Zetema Ufficio Stampa, 

9-10 by author, 

11

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