La Mia Casa

Click here for pictures of our apartment.

We are the first students to live in our apartment, and apparently Gianicolense (our street) or Gianicoolense as we call it, is very good neighborhood. The open air market is probably the best part of the deal, it has the best fresh selection of cheese, meat, and produce, and is only a few blocks away. We are in a really homey area where people walk their kids to school and old ladies fill the streets in the morning as they buy the fresh makings of that day's dinner.

Our furnishings are Ikea to the max. Most of it is really well done and more than we could have asked for in an apartment abroad, especially our living and dining room. That being said, we still chuckle at the color schemes of our bedrooms. Mine is a pre-teen - grandma fusion of bright green, red, blue, and yellow sheets with cream-colored, floral walls. Funky, but home.

The best parts of the apartment are the windows and their thin, linen curtains that move with the wind that slips through the cream wrought-iron gates. It is stunning in the morning when you pad down the hall with cold marble under your feet to find the warm sun is pouring through the window.

Walking home at night, you can look up to see the warm glow of the lights against the golden sand wallpaper of our living room. Laughter, music, and the aroma of cooking chicken and boiling pasta drift from the kitchen, flowing through the arches that connect our common areas and greeting you at the door. We have a fairly large dining room table, but why spread out when you can all squeeze around the wooden kitchen table, postponing homework for just a little longer?

After dinner, we reluctantly retreat to our laptops to play with Facebook, instant messenger, or email before actually starting the homework grind. (This is the stage in which I am currently taking part.) As the hours pass, each of us yawns and heads to bed, rolling down our wooden panels for both security and airflow before tuning out the sounds of the tram making its last trips up and down the street, returning its riders home safely before it, too, retires for the day.



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On an entirely different note, if you are in need of a smile or a good laugh, please watch this (Thriller), this (Rico Mambo), or any other dance by them. They are Filipino prisoners who like to groove.