back up blog

For me, the closest I have ever come to an elightening and life-altering religious experience is chanting with gusto  ohmygod, ohmygod... oh.my.god  as a cute American pinned me up against the wall outside an Italian coffee shop with his hand in my pants one time. And as I wandered around the Basilica Di San Pietro yesterday (You know. The big church thing that marks the entrance to The Vatican) this is what I kept thinking to myself. Because like, God and shit... it's not real, is it? And actually, not long after I had this inappropriately sexual thought for the two-two thousandth time (are there any sexual thoughts that are appropriate?) I knelt on the floor of the building to take a photograph of the light coming through the duomo and a security guard in a suit tapped me on the shoulder. 'You cannot be on your knees in the Basilica, ' he told me. 'Figures,' I replied.  Although I bet that isn't what the bishop said to the priest.  Sometimes, stuff it so beau

And then suddenly, I had a new life in Rome. The church in Piazza Navona by night All at once this is both utterly amazing and surreal and bizarre, and absolutely No Big Deal. If, Internet, you so desire to continue the illusion that I am my own heroine in a shitty B-list Hollywood chick-flick (I DO) I think this is the point at which the first act has seen its close. The pavement-pounding, frustratingly un-concrete, misunderstanding-fuelled scenes of the first 30 minutes where I had no home, no money, and no prospects have given way to the bit where I just Get My Head Down And Get On With It. Because I am so good at that. Getting On With It has seen me walking around my new (FUCKING FLOODED) apartment in my underwear for the past two weeks, thinking all four of the men I live with are gay. (And actually, let’s just tidy-up the flooded apartment story whilst we are here: the flat downstairs were on holiday when it happened and just got back two days ago. Their ceiling was ruined. We

Internet, where do I even begin? The Roomie arrived back to the Bumble-Fuck-Nowhere B&B late on Monday night, as I was tucked up in bed writing about 18 year old boys. "Any danger of a smile?" I asked him, noting his dour expression.  "We can't have that room," he said, by way of reply. I frowned. "The room we have already been told we're moving into tomorrow morning?" "One and the same. He changed his mind. The room is only available from November now." I turned on the gas and went to stick my head in the oven.  "Of course he changed his mind," I reasoned. " He's Italian ." The Roomie and I had to think fast. In a blind act of faith we had already settled our bill with the owner of the Bed and Breakfast, promising to be out by morning. We thought we had that room. The room that was my favourite. The room that had the great location. The room that was in the apartment with two of the cutest specimen of the male

As it stands now, I feel like the heroine in a C-rate Hollywood movie about a small town girl who leaves the familiarity and comforts of everything she knows to Make It Big in the city. See: the blonde girl in that film with all the dancing on the bar . Cue several montage scenes, to the music of Leann Rimes or similar, as the heroine (ME) pounds the pavement of block after block of city street, each bearing an increased resemblance to Stab Alley, newspaper in hand with all of its red-penned circles of ‘Maybe this will be the perfect place to live!’ hopeful glory. Every time the heroine reaches the 10 th floor of the next dull, unlit broom cupboard in her limited budget, the smile she has grown in a naïve attempt to Stay Positive drops to the floor and she realises that Nothing Comes Easy. See: Christina Aguilera in that movie she did with Cher. Overweight southern landlords and skinny geeks with glasses and bad breath fire words as if from a shotgun in staccato-ed Italian, and she ca

“Ready for the big move to Rome, then?” my friend asked me by way of email. “Absolutely,” I wrote back. “I’ve got a couple of hundred Euro and a single packed suitcase. Let the adventure begin.” I didn’t add that I am shitting bricks the size of baby elephants in anticipation of it all. I can say all the right things to the right people in order to make it seem like moving to another country to start a life for myself it like, totally chill, but well. You know. Moving to another country to start a life for myself is actually a pretty big deal according to my mother. And my bowels. I got as far as the check-in desk of East Midlands Airport when the Ryanair official told me my bag was over the weight limit and I had to compensate by way of a fistful of cash that I don’t have. Fucking adventure my arse. “I’ve already paid for an extra 5 kilos,” I explained to her. “I see that,” she replied, “But you are over still. Do you want to take something out?” “Can I do that here?” I asked, noting