La Corsia della Vergogna

I was in Washington when my apartment was assigned to me and when I asked the Housing staff if it had a terrace they said, "no, well not really, well there is a sort of terrace but you don't have access to it and it is more like a small cage anyway. You won't want to go out there." The U.S. government owns four buildings in Rome: Villa Taverna, the official residence of the Ambassador, is an historic building in Villa Borghese and the largest single family home in Rome; Villa Pinciana, another historic building, is divided into luxurious apartments for the most senior officers in the embassy; and, two decidedly non-historic apartment buildings that have approximately thirty units between them. My apartment is in Building A. We also lease apartments and houses all over Rome for the large numbers of personnel at Embassy Rome but the U.S. government actually owns these four buildings.

When you are assigned to Rome, unless you are the Ambassador or one of the four senior staff members at the embassy, you have a choice of furnished or unfurnished housing. If you prefer, as I did, furnished housing, you will be assigned a unit in one of the two government owned apartment buildings. The advantage to living in government owned housing is that it's furnished, it's relatively secure and in decent condition and any necessary repairs are performed by the embassy maintenance crew. The biggest disadvantage is that it falls under the benevolent tyranny of the Overseas Buildings Operations unit or OBO. OBO is responsible for all construction projects on all government owned buildings overseas.

Before I moved into my building, OBO had decided that it definitely needed to have a very ugly fire escape added to the outside corner right by my two bedroom windows. I was told that they had originally wanted to add the external fire escape to Villa Pinciana but were told in no uncertain terms that adding a very ugly external structure to one of Rome's historic buildings occupied by very senior staff was not going to happen under any circumstances. So they had a perfectly good, albeit ugly, fire escape and no building to burden with it. The Italian government and the Ambassador made it perfectly clear that Villa Taverna was also completely out of the question and, as both Villa Taverna and Villa Pinciana are guarded by units of the Italian army, OBO soon looked towards our apartment buildings. Finding no Ambassador, no senior staff, and no uniformed men with machine guns to chase them away, OBO decided to hang the fire escape onto Building A.

The fire escape, a rectangular box of steel and wire mesh, was built onto the northeast corner of Building A. Because my apartment is on the first floor (which is one floor up from the Ground Floor in Italy) it didn't have a terrace. This was important because the other apartments above me all accessed the fire escape from their terraces and without a terrace my apartment wouldn't have access to this life saving construction project. So OBO built a terrace outside my bedroom window leading to the fire escape. For 'security' reasons, the entire terrace was enclosed in a steel mesh cage and a steel mesh door was installed at the end to prevent anyone who gained access to the fire escape from then gaining access to my terrace or apartment. When I arrived I was shown the terrace from the bedroom window and I understood that in the event of a fire, I would have to climb out the window and access the fire escape in that manner. That was fine with me.

The bedroom window OBO wanted to remove, with a view of the cage.

Then I received word that OBO had decided to put in a door leading out to the terrace. The first message I received said that they were going to install a door by removing one of my two living room windows. I pointed out that this would be a major construction project and I did happen to actually be living in the apartment now. They said they were sorry but they had to do the work anyway and described their plans to open a gaping hole in my apartment wall, install a door and then seal up the side gaps. In February. I then pointed out that after they removed a living room window and installed a door, the door would open out onto a twenty foot drop to the pavement below, as the terrace did not, in fact, extend as far as the living room. They said, "oh."

Time passed. OBO contacted me again to say that they really meant that they were going to remove the window in my bedroom and install the door in there and they were really serious this time, no kidding. Again, in February. I began the process of respectful and courteous dissent. I felt that to do a major construction project (did I mention, in February?) while I was living in the apartment constituted a major imposition. They disagreed and we tussled back and forth. Finally, we struck a compromise and the work crew arrived to begin removing the bedroom window and installing the door. In April. The embassy escort said that they were ready to begin taping up my bedroom closet because that was part of our agreement but she didn't quite understand why it was necessary.

"Because all my suits are in there and this project will create a great deal of dust. OBO has agreed to either tape up the closet or clean the suits, take your pick," I said.

"OK," she said, "but we're not going anywhere near your bedroom."

In fact, they were planning to punch through the wall in the dining room not through any of the windows and install the door in a corner of the apartment. I pointed out that if anyone had actually told me that instead of insisting that they were going to break through my bedroom window, I wouldn't have had any objections at all. We all laughed. They began work. I looked forward to having access to my terrace (hey, even though it's in a cage it's still sort of a terrace!).

Here is the outside of the bedroom window and, at the far end, the wall that eventually became a door.

The contractor completed the work more or less on time and did a fine job. I moved a table and a couple of chairs into the cage and enjoyed my first cigar on my new terrace. I mentally hung a couple of baskets of plants. I looked down the terrace towards the fire escape and noticed that the steel mesh door between my terrace and the fire escape didn't seem to have any kind of a handle. I walked down to the door, examined it and realized that it was locked, had no handle and couldn't be opened from my side without a key. I didn't have a key.

No problem. I asked the contractor for the key they'd been using. "I'm sorry," she said, "we're not allowed to give you the key. It's for security reasons."

Here's the very secure steel mesh door that prevents me from actually getting to the fire escape.

So there you have it. OBO spent a fortune designing and building a very ugly external fire escape on a relatively pleasant neighborhood apartment building, added a terrace to my apartment, broke through a wall and installed a very nice door to that terrace from my dining room and then trapped me like a rat in a steel cage. And people say the government doesn't have a sense of humor.

EER season is upon us once again. This is the time of year when we all stop working so we can very honestly and factually describe our achievements and all the work we have done during the previous year. I use 'honestly and factually' here in the sense that those words mean 'wildly exaggerated, unbelievably embellished figments of our depraved imaginations'. It is with your EER that you must convince a panel of complete strangers, at some appointed time in the future, that you are worthy of tenure and promotion. The Tenure and Promotion Panels have nothing other than your EERs to base their decisions on so we take them quite seriously and strain to shine a light on anything positive that we've done.

For example, my afternoon excursions in search of gelato will become "networked with local community small business leaders while improving Italian language skills." The day I hit the Carabinieri jeep on my way to work becomes "interacted with local law enforcement officials on ways and means of improving traffic safety." The forty-one demarches I've done in ten months now demonstrate conclusively that I've "single-handedly saved a failing Italian economy and strengthened our bi-lateral relationship." I know that it's not as impressive as when I "made Pakistan safe for Democracy", but Italy is already pretty safe for Democracy and the Promotion Panels like to see that you're developing new skills.

Three people have input into your EER. The Rater is your immediate supervisor and his/her section is vitally important to your career. Most Raters will look to you for bullet points and suggestions as they draft their section of your EER. The Reviewer is usually your Rater's supervisor and he/she gives your achievements an over-all blessing with one or two carefully chosen examples from your body of work. You are the third person to have input. Raters and Reviewers often have several subordinates to write up, so they are generally grateful for as much help as you want to give them in drafting their sections. In practical terms, if you're willing you can end up writing all three sections and your biggest challenge will be to identify a mandatory 'area for improvement'. You are discouraged from using, "Larry really has to learn to stop working so hard."

Hyperbole, exaggeration and embellishment are the norm. People are damned by faint praise and careers are enhanced by the use of carefully chosen examples to bolster key precepts. I hope to translate my volunteer activity at the dog shelter into "this officer took community outreach to new levels while bringing a sorely needed sense of organization to a small NGO. His tireless work on behalf of a local shelter demonstrated his clear understanding of information gathering and analysis and showcased his leadership skills by organizing the physical rehabilitation of the facility." Pretty much what I actually do is show up on Saturday or Sunday, clean kennels and feed the dogs. I fix the odd thing here and there and try to keep out of the other volunteers' way. I enjoy the time I spend there and will only include this 'accomplishment' on my EER because I'm desperate for things to write!

My tour in Rome is a 'Rotational' tour. That means that I'll spend my second year working in the Consular Section as Vice-Consul Gemmell. I'll rotate jobs on June 1st and will begin going over to Consular as often as I can from now on to get a refresher on the training I took over a year ago. I have thoroughly enjoyed working as a reporting officer in the Economic Section but I'm really looking forward to Consular work too. Rotational tours are a great opportunity to get as wide a field of experience as possible in a very short time. In my first three years I'll have done GSO, Econ and Consular. Now, if I can just find a Political/Public Diplomacy rotation for my third bid, I'll have the hat trick...all five cones in the first five years.

We tend to talk about people in other countries as being 'terrible' drivers. "Oh, Italians are terrible drivers," we say. I don't think that this is necessarily so. It's true that some Italian drivers are terrible drivers but so are some people from Connecticut. I think that people develop very specific sets of expectations when they learn to drive based on what they've been observing as they grew up. I'm amazed that things that would lead to serious road rage in the States don't even raise an eyebrow here. Zipping up the shoulder of the road to pass a line of slow moving traffic on the right and cutting back in at the front of the jam never causes one horn to beep, one finger to be raised in salute or one shouted challenge to the offender's birthright. No one seems to mind. An Italian waiting on a side street to make a left turn onto a road with heavy traffic will wait a minute or two then slowly begin to creep out into the lane causing the first few cars to swerve into the oncoming lane to avoid him (or her). Finally, he'll move so far out into the lane that traffic will have to stop and then he'll slowly begin nudging his way into the lane he needs. This practice doesn't seem to upset anyone either. After all, he did wait two or three minutes and how long can a man be expected to sit patiently while the world passes him by?

Most drivers here prefer to drive in the far left lane. They go as fast as they can and if they can get up onto the bumper of the car ahead of them and flash their lights to ask him to move over and let them by, their day is made. The center lane is used as a temporary holding lane until you can get back into the left lane and make someone else move over. The right lane is only used by trucks, grandmothers and foreigners. The Italians even have a name for it, they call it La Corsia della Vergogna or The Lane of Shame.

I'm strongly considering putting it into my EER that I've never voluntarily driven in La Corsia della Vergogna. It's all about attitude!

The Coliseum behind me is also gated and locked and they won't give me a key for it either.

Diplomacy at Work

She seems to be saying, "Play nice, children!" and could very well be the patron saint of diplomatic meetings.

As I thought it might interest some people to experience 'diplomacy' in action, I'll briefly describe some meetings I participated in over the past couple of days. The subject under discussion and the parties involved are not of particular interest so you can be assured that we were not bringing peace to the Middle East, ratcheting up sanctions on Iran or setting troop levels in Afghanistan. No, this was your everyday diplomatic negotiating session to agree to the wording on a memo, a non-binding memo that proposes to create a framework in which we can, mutually, proceed forward to discuss substantive projects.

Some background might be helpful. The Economics and Political sections of our embassies are called the Reporting sections. These two groups are responsible for facilitating the flow of information in their respective areas between Washington and the host country. Good reporting officers establish contacts in the host government and, over time, develop a rapport with them that enables the officers to provide Washington with high quality insightful information. This rapport also eases the flow of information from Washington back to the host country.

From time to time, as is their wont, our colleagues in Washington decide that it is critical that they personally give or receive the information. Unsurprisingly, the decision that their personal presence is required is made much more frequently when the host nation is Italy than when it is, for example, Mali. The immediate drawback to this plan of course, whether they are in Italy or Mali, is that they do not, personally, know anyone in the host government. So we are called upon to set up meetings for them with our carefully nurtured, highly valuable contacts. That's an expected and accepted part of our jobs and, frankly, we're happy to do it. Most of our visitors from Washington are very senior people and have attained a certain level of importance, some are even legends in their own minds.

Recently, a group of State Department folks in Washington realized that Spring had come to Rome at the very same time a memo needed to be discussed and flew over to, personally, do the discussing. Because one of the Italian government contacts they needed to meet with was mine, I would be included in any meeting he attended. There are several reasons for embassy personnel to be included in any meetings between host country officials and our Washington visitors. We generally brief our host government contacts on the expectations of the visitors, thereby giving them an opportunity to prepare for the meeting. We are also there to ensure that our visitors arrive on time and at the correct ministry and to introduce the two parties. One of the embassy members of our delegation will always serve as a notetaker during the meeting and will be responsible for writing a reporting cable immediately after it. If and when appropriate, we are there to add our own insight, ideas or opinions to the general fray. Finally, we are there to assess and evaluate the level of damage control required after our visitors have met with our contacts.

We try, whenever possible, to keep the numbers of participants on each side equal. Unfortunately, we are notorious for arriving with last minute unannounced additions to our team. This happened on the first of the two days of meetings I sat in on last week. Our Italian counterparts expected seven of us and ten of us arrived. The start of the meeting was, therefore, delayed while we waited for three Italian 'subject matter experts' who had, unavoidably, "been detained in a previous meeting" but were definitely supposed to participate in this one too.

When the three 'experts', one looking suspiciously like my contact's secretary, arrived, we began the Dance of the Table Positions. The two principals sit in the center facing each other and the rest of the delegation arranges itself in equal numbers on either side of them. There is a tendency, especially on the part of our visitors, to want to sit as close to the principal as possible and the subtle jostling and nudging is entertaining to watch. However, eventually the music stops and everyone has to sit down, with the victors on the principal's right and left hand and the lesser victors in descending order away from the seat of power. As a general rule, the embassy staff take the seats at the far ends and avoid the unseemly jockeying for position.

The meeting began with the usual pleasantries and then our team stated in several thousand well-chosen words what they hoped to accomplish over the next two days. Their team politely acknowledged what we hoped to accomplish and then carefully explained why that would be impossible to achieve. Undaunted, our team re-explained, using many of the same well-chosen words, what they felt was essential to accomplish during the course of the meetings. Unfazed, their team carefully explained the pitfalls inherent in overly ambitious expectations. Back and forth it went until an agreement was reached. It took the better part of an hour to reach an agreement on how the meeting would proceed!

"If they don't begin making progress, I'm throwing this water down on them!"

Once we got into the meat of the discussion, things really slowed down. Those in the center continued to beat horses long dead and those of us on the wings amused ourselves as best we could. The man sitting next to me, who had come from Washington, was playing a game on his BlackBerry and my contact, sitting across from me, was surreptitiously working on a Sudoku puzzle. I happened to see that he'd put a 7 where a 5 needed to go so I texted him and suggested that he might want to change the number. He read my message, frowned, changed the number to a 5 and then smiled and nodded his thanks my way. Diplomacy in action!

The meeting lasted two days, gave the folks from Washington an excuse to visit Rome, didn't destroy our bilateral relations with Italy and produced a non-binding memo that suggests a potential way to begin exploring possible areas of mutual interest. Both teams agreed that it was a highly successful encounter and promised each other that they'd have a follow-up meeting in the near future. It's Cherry Blossom time in Washington, so I think their team will find it necessary to visit us there.

This was the look on the face of the principal Italian negotiator when we said, "Yes, but..." for the twentieth time.

I bought an app for my ipod. It's a beginner's running program designed to take couch potatoes and turn them into 5K runners. In fact, it's called C25K, clever huh? The premise behind the program is that if you follow the instructions three days a week for nine weeks, you will be in shape to run 5 kilometers or 30 minutes at a stretch. You begin with a relatively easy routine of walking and jogging and progress from there to a steady 30 minute run. The ipod app just puts some bells and whistles onto the program. It tells you when to walk and when to jog and when you're halfway through so you can turn around and finish up back home in the end. You can listen to music while you walk/jog and the whole experience isn't much more strenuous than getting up out of the La-Z-Boy to fetch another beer. The concept is that exercise shouldn't be painful; if it doesn't hurt you, you're more likely to continue doing it.

There are actually several apps dedicated to the C25K program and I took my time before selecting the one I chose. It had many positive reviews by people who had used it and one of them said, "I'm a fat old man and I can run 5 kilometers now. This really works!" Well, I thought to myself, I too am a fat old man and I would like to be able to run 5 kilometers, so I bought the app. It is very important to commit the same three days a week for nine weeks, so I decided that Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday worked best for me and planned to begin the next Tuesday. Tuesday it rained.

I was quite certain that the originators of the C25K program never intended for me to run in the rain (although they were curiously silent on the point in their instructions) so I postponed getting started until a Tuesday when it wasn't raining. The following Tuesday I worked late and it was pretty dark when I got home. Surely, no one would expect a beginner to run in the dark, that's madness. I was impatient to get started but not foolhardy, so I decided to wait another week. On the third Tuesday I had prior dinner plans so I was forced to wait until the fourth Tuesday after I bought the app to get started.

Tuesday came, it wasn't raining and it was still quite light out. I started off and paid close attention to the commands to walk and jog and walk again. Halfway through the 30 minute program I was notified and I turned around and retraced my steps back home. I arrived home feeling very good and quite pleased with myself for completing the first day of my C25K. In fact, I was already looking forward to Thursday which would be the second day of my journey to running a 5K.

Wednesday morning I got out of bed and nearly fell on my face. The pain in my knees was intense and neither of my legs seemed to be under my direct control any more. I wobbled around for a minute or two and then ate a hearty breakfast of aspirin, Advil and Tylenol. By Thursday I could walk with a limp, but without groaning out loud, and couldn't even think of jogging without causing knifelike pains to shoot through my knees. Saturday wasn't much better and I've realized that I just might not be a 'runner', some of us aren't. I have also had time to reflect on the review that persuaded me that I could do this and I think that it should be mandatory for people to state exactly how fat and how old they are when they make these absurd claims.

"...and then I ran from here all the way over to there..."

Speaking of exercise, I have a compiled list of 26 of the most highly recommended gelaterias in Rome. I've downloaded an app for my ipod that has allowed me to map each of them and plot the shortest route there from my apartment. I can also enter my comments and evaluations in a very high tech manner. Every weekend, on whichever day I don't go to help out at the kennel, I will visit one of the 26. Although I will always order the largest size they have, personal restraint will keep me from having seconds. It's all about will power. Today I plan to visit Giovanni's over on Via Eleonora Duse. There's a light rain falling and it's getting dark out now, Via E. Duse is about a mile away, but a man can't let minor inconveniences interfere with a mission. Like they say, if it begins to hurt, I'll stop!

The Pantheon - built by a whole bunch of guys who also never did the C25K.

La Nuova Cuccia

"Wear rubber boots and bring rubber gloves," they said. I'm the new guy at an animal shelter with a population of 250 well fed dogs and two very nervous cats. La Nuova Cuccia is a shelter, located 31 kilometers north of Rome, with a notorious past. Approximately ten years ago, the shelter was taken over by the Italian government for being more of a gulag than a rescue society. At that time there were about 700 dogs crowded into a chaotic warren of ramshackle kennels. They lived in filth and were slowly starving to death. It is against Italian law for an animal shelter to euthanize an animal, or to abandon one for that matter, so neglecting 700 dogs was a very serious situation indeed.

A new group of volunteers took over the shelter and began to care for the animals. They fed them, gave them fresh water, cleaned the kennels and tried to let them out of their runs at least once a day. They solicited donations and received food, doghouses, blankets and supplies. Their goal was, and still is, to find homes for the dogs or to care for them until the last dog dies. La Nuova Cuccia doesn't take in animals anymore and it will shut down after the last dog goes. But for now, there are still 250 dogs (and two very nervous cats) to be cared for every day. On Sundays I try to get up there to lend a hand.

This little guy is named Yorkie. I guess when you have to name 700 dogs creativity suffers somewhat.

The shelter is divided into sectors and each sector contains 12 to 15 kennels, each kennel has one, two or three dogs and each dog has its own doghouse in the kennel. The kennel floors are concrete and slope downwards to a drain set in the front. I work in Settore Violetta and look after 28 dogs. Two by two, I let them out of their kennels to run in the sector's open space while I go in with a bucket and a mason's trowel to clean up the floor. Then I bring in a hose and wash down the floor with a stiff broom. I dump their water buckets and refill them with fresh clean water, then I take all their bedding outside and shake it out. When I've finished cleaning the kennel, I put the two occupants back in and move on to the next kennel. There are 15 kennels in Settore Violetta so it takes me a good two hours to clean them all.

This is Furto. I suppose the name English Setter was already taken.

After the kennels have been cleaned, we begin feeding the dogs. Some dogs have special diets and others need to be fed apart from their kennel buddy. Nio and Sheila, for example, share a kennel and are the best of friends but if Sheila wasn't fed outside the kennel, Nio would never get a second bite of his food. One of the other volunteers mixes up big vats of food and we bring it to our sectors in wheelbarrows and serve it to the dogs on disposable plastic plates to eliminate the need for dish washing. With the few required separations and the three dogs that have special diets, it takes almost two hours to feed them all.

This is Laika.

Once everyone has been fed, I start back at the beginning and let the dogs out two by two for a little bit of exercise/socializing time. Usually there's a bit of cleanup maintenance to do during this period but mostly it's a time to play with the dogs or just talk to them. All the dogs are pretty fluent in Italian and, surprisingly, none seem to be the least bit bi-lingual. I chatter away in what I assume is Italian and they listen politely as long as I hold a treat in my hand. In what has turned out to be somewhat of a mixed blessing, none of the other volunteers speaks any english either. That's good because it's forcing me to use Italian much more than I usually do but it can also be a drawback when it comes to receiving basic instructions. I was working in Settore Violetta when another volunteer entered and gave me a lengthy set of instructions. I understood most of them perfectly but missed the part about not leaving the sector for the next fifteen minutes while a very dangerous dog was being exercised in the adjoining sector. Fortunately, he was being put back into his kennel when I wandered out to see what was going on and I didn't have to demonstrate how capable I am of vaulting a fence when pressed. Most of our dogs are senior citizens and enjoy just sitting out in the sun for a few minutes. Some of the dogs like to chase a ball and some prefer to just wander up and down the row of kennels checking things out like nosy old men. When it's time for them to go back into their kennel, I give each dog a chunk of liverwurst as a treat and close them up. This part of the day takes over three hours to complete.

Pluto is the biggest dog in my sector.

The facility is still ramshackle but at least now it's clean and orderly. The animals are cared for daily by a rotating corps of volunteers and visited regularly by a veterinarian. People still come to look them over and adopt them or they drop by to donate food, blankets or money. In the past two weeks, two of the dogs in Settore Violetta have been adopted (the oldest and the youngest) and now some reorganization will take place this week. Compatible dogs will be moved into the kennels and, on Sunday, I'll put on my rubber boots and begin letting them out two by two...

Perla is the shyest of the dogs in Settore Violetta.

At work, part of my portfolio covers Italy's aid to developing nations. When Haiti was struck by the earthquake several weeks ago, I was tasked with monitoring Italy's relief effort and reporting it back to DC. This put me into contact with the Protezione Civile, Italy's disaster relief corps. Within a day, the government of Italy decided to send a C-130 mobile hospital unit to Port-au-Prince with a medical team specially trained in crisis care. They dispatched the aircraft but it was diverted to the island of Guadeloupe because of the chaos at the Haitian airport in those first days. My contact at the Protezione Civile asked me to confirm that the US government had control of the airport and to help them get a landing permission for their plane. The Department of State had opened a 'Haiti Task Force' so I called them and they referred me to an Air Force command center who referred me to a Lt. Colonel in Arizona who was actually trying to bring order to the confusion at the airport in Port-au-Prince. He immediately cleared the Italian relief flight for landing as soon as they could get airborne and the first Italian relief mission arrived just three days after the earthquake struck.

In addition to the mobile hospital, Italy sent teams of disaster relief specialists, medical and humanitarian supplies and their aircraft carrier, the 'Cavour', with its hospital, a group of 300 engineers, several helicopters and 90 pieces of heavy construction equipment. As their contribution to the reconstruction effort, Italy has committed to build a physical rehabilitation facility in Port-au-Prince that will specialize in manufacturing prosthetic limbs. As my contact at Protezione Civile said, "Unfortunately, we have some experience in earthquake disasters after Abruzzo." He quickly noted that even though the scale of the two disasters was not comparable, he felt strongly that they had gained valuable experience in dealing with the aftermath of such a crisis. After touring their command center and witnessing the immediacy and the generosity of their response, I'd have to agree.

There was a bit of a drama the other day when I had a small 'incidente' with my, formerly, mint condition 1995 Mustang. I decided to drive into the Embassy one day because I wanted to use the car on the weekend and it needed gas. There's a gas station between the Embassy and my apartment and it's convenient to stop there on the way home. Having my car at the Embassy would also give me an opportunity to stock up at the commissary. Due to construction on one of the gates into the Embassy compound, I had to use an alternate gate and drive down a chute made of metal barriers on one side and a sidewalk on the other. The chute was narrow but wide enough for my car. At least it was wide enough until I hit the carabinieri jeep parked on the sidewalk. The sound of my passenger side mirror being knocked off was the first clue I had that I might have used just a bit more caution as I barreled down the chute and past the jeep. My first instinct was, naturally, to blame someone. The carabinieri were the obvious choice, but it's difficult to hold them responsible as they were, in fact, parked, stationary, not moving in broad daylight. They were also, I might add, standing outside their jeep looking at me in utter disbelief. Their jeep wasn't even scratched, I learned the word for idiot in Italian and diplomatic immunity came into play. My mirror is now held on with duct tape and I forgot to get gas on the way home that night. As my friends all say, "It's been Romanized."

Il idiota is the guy on the right.

It snowed in Rome on Thursday and we all managed to truck on in to work and put in a full day. Sure, less than half an inch fell and even that was quickly washed away by an afternoon rain, but this was the first snow to fall in many years in Rome and we all soldiered on. Shortly after I arrived in Islamabad, it snowed there too. No one felt the need to abandon their post there either. In other words, snow fell, work went on. However, let a few feet of snow fall on DC and the whole place shuts down. If they really cared, they'd have used dog sleds to get to work. Hey, dog sleds. More snow is expected this week and I happen to know where we could find a bunch of willing dogs who'd be delighted to have the work! All I need to do now is figure out how to say, "Mush," in Italian!

Trust me, you do not want to be this tree in Settore Violetta. Oh, the indignities it suffers.

Civita di Bagno

The Coliseum on a rainy Roman day.

The Number 19 tram runs right by my place. This makes visiting the Vatican relatively easy, because the Number 19 tram ends its run one block away from St. Peter's Square. Friends of mine assured me that this was the case and so, on a blustery cold Saturday about a month ago, I stood in the rain at the tram stop on Viale Regina Margherita for about twenty minutes before climbing aboard the first Number 19 to come along. It may interest you to learn that there are, apparently, two Number 19 trams with two very different final destinations. The Number 19 tram that I boarded made a right turn where all the Number 19 trams headed for the Vatican make a left and stopped in a very nice neighborhood about five miles from St. Peter's Square or, as the crow flies, farther from the Vatican than I had been when I started out. I decided to just sit tight and wait until it began its return journey across town and give up on the Vatican that day, after all it was now raining quite heavily and the wind had picked up. Unfortunately, the driver explained as he kicked me off the tram, this one was going out of service and I would have to catch the next one to go home. By the time I made it to the doorway of a nearby apartment building to wait for the next tram, I was soaked to the bone.

I mention this because that was my most pleasant trip to the Vatican. Four friends came to spend New Year's Eve in Rome with me and they wanted to see as much as they could in the few days they were here. High on their list was a visit to the Vatican and the Vatican Museums with the Sistine Chapel. I hadn't been to the Sistine Chapel since its restoration in the 1980's so I was looking forward to seeing it too. We got up early to get a jump on the crowds and caught the Number 19 (it has to say "Risorgimento" on the front or it's the wrong Number 19) which, as promised, dropped us off a block away from St. Peter's Square. The line to the entrance of the Basilica was six across and already curved back past the famous colonnades.

After counting their feet and dividing by two, I estimated that there were 1,000,000 people in line ahead of us.

However, we were in good spirits and the line was moving slowly but steadily so the time passed relatively quickly and within half an hour or so we were in St. Peter's Basilica. The church is massive and easily accommodated the crowd. We took our time and wandered around admiring the artwork and architecture. People would wait patiently for others to move before taking their photos and apologize if they walked into someone else's shot. It was all very civil and we were able to see and photograph everything that interested us.

The roped off center aisle is where the Pope was mugged by a mentally disturbed woman as he walked towards the altar to celebrate Christmas Mass.

The Papal Altar by Bernini. Only the Pope may celebrate Mass at this altar.

Then it was time to visit the Vatican Museums and the Sistine Chapel. There is little I can say about that experience that Dante hasn't already covered in "The Inferno". To visit the Museums, you must exit the Basilica and walk around the Vatican to a separate entrance. The line, again six deep, for the entrance to the Museums began right outside the colonnades and went up Via di Porta Angelica, turned left onto Via Pio X which eventually became Viale Bastioni de Michelangelo and made a final left onto Viale Vaticano. We stood on this line, shuffling forward inches at a time, for three hours. Once past the entrance doors, we shuffled gamely forward until the ticket seller could relieve us of 15 euros each and then we shuffled along with the crowd towards the various exhibits.

An anonymous visitor to the Museums upon learning that there is no way out.

I'm told that the artwork in the Vatican Museums rivals any collection anywhere in the world but I'll have to take that on faith. If you visit the Museums, you do so in a press of humanity that staggers the imagination. You move in lockstep up and down hallways and corridors like cattle in the slaughterhouse pens. Stopping to actually admire any of the art on display is impossible as you are being pushed, shoved and jostled by the horde coming along behind you. There are no side corridors and the route is laid out to march you past the entire collection and then deposit you into the Sistine Chapel. If you decide that you've had enough and no longer have any interest in seeing the Chapel, you're out of luck because there is no way to escape once you enter the first corridor. It took two hours for us to get to the Chapel, half an hour to work our way through the five or six thousand people jammed into that small room and another half hour to follow the long and twisting road to freedom. Like any self-respecting museum, the Vatican exit route dumps you into a series of gift shops selling tasteful memorabilia like Sistine ceiling coffee mugs and calendars of 'hot' priests. The 'experience' itself had lasted just over six hours and was memorabilia enough for all of us, although one of my friends did buy a 'hot' priests calendar. "Just as a joke," she insisted.

When we finally hit the street, we put our backs to the Museums, walked away and didn't look back. While we were wandering through the neighborhood north of the Vatican, one of my friends spotted a small trattoria and we decided it was time for a meal. She went down the steps, tried the door and came back saying it was locked and the restaurant was closed. However, there was a small sign on the door and I thought it might have the time the place would open for business so I went down the steps to look. The sign said (in Italian) "We keep the door locked. If you want to come in, ring the bell on the left." When I tried the bell, a very pleasant woman opened the door, asked how many we were and said she could seat five right away. The restaurant was quite small but there was one open table and they quickly set it up for the five of us.

I asked her why she kept the door locked and she whispered, "Well, we don't really want tourists in here." Bene, molto bene! The food was excellent, the wine plentiful and the desserts homemade.

Civita di Bagno

The 'hill towns' of Central Italy are iconic and Civita di Bagno, although not very well known, is especially picturesque. About an hour and a half north of Rome, it's located just outside of Bagnoregio on a hill that has been eroding away for centuries. When the path across the valley between the two towns finally became too narrow and steep to provide safe access, the long footbridge was built. Until recently, all goods going to Civita di Bagno were moved on the backs of donkeys but now tradesmen use three wheeled motorscooters with small pickup beds to carry their wares. During the winter, the town only has about twelve permanent residents but its population swells to well over 100 in the summer. Many of the small homes and apartments have been bought by Romans looking for a weekend escape from the summer heat in the city. There are half a dozen restaurants, several small shops selling crafts and artwork and two or three bed & breakfasts.

The entrance gate to Civita di Bagno.

The side street.

One of the restaurants was open and my friend Kathleen and I shared a plate of mixed bruschetta with ground olives, truffles and crushed tomato toppings, another plate of mixed local cheeses and then a pasta course of tagliatelle with wild boar sauce. Espresso and panna cotta for dessert wrapped up a perfect meal for a cold foggy day. I could have used one of those donkeys to carry me back to the car.

January 6th is the Feast of the Epiphany and a national holiday in Italy. It is also the day La Bufana, a witch, comes to people's homes during the night to give candy or coal to nice or naughty children. The kids hang up stockings the night before and hope for the best. For the rest of us, it means that work more or less gets put on hold from just before Christmas until the week after the Epiphany. Tomorrow marks the day when everything should kick back into gear.

This year a woman managed to elude security and tackled the Pope as he made his way to the altar in St. Peter's to celebrate Christmas Mass. She, according to all reports, had also tried to knock him down last year but had been stopped as she reached the ropes. The press uniformly described her as "mentally disturbed" but I think that such persistence of intent can only have been born while on line for the Sistine Chapel and if you search her coat pockets you'll no doubt find in them a frayed and crumpled ticket to the Vatican Museums.

Io non sono un tourista.

Motorinis

For Thanksgiving a small group of us rented a farmhouse in Umbria and cooked a feast for nine people in an oven not much bigger than a ten pound turkey. Everyone brought a dish to contribute to the meal and, while the kitchen was the size of an inadequate closet, the turf battles for stove, oven and sink were often surprisingly civil. I was responsible for the turkeys (two ten pounders in anticipation of the smaller European ovens) and assumed that I'd have some sort of priority in the line for the oven. I quickly discovered that my priority number was just behind four of the women in the group who managed to elbow me out of the way with such skill, finesse and charm that I didn't even mind the bruises on my ribs. "But I have the turkeys," I whined. Their replies were shockingly direct and impressively descriptive and I retreated to the table to have a glass of Prosecco and reflect upon the evolution of diplomatic language.

When it was safe, I popped the first turkey into the oven and began to fight for one of the four burners on the stove. This time I was adamant and no amount of abuse could chase me away. I was able to commandeer a pot of just the right size and I put the giblets with water, broth and spices into it and began to simmer them for the gravy. Because chivalry is not dead, I then surrendered the field to the ladies and retreated to the porch to have a cigar with a couple of the men. When the cigars were finished I decided to go back in and check on the stock I'd left simmering on the stove. All four burners were occupied by pots filling the room with the wonderful smells of Thanksgiving, not one of which was my gravy stock. Where did my pot go? "Oh," said one of the women with an angelic smile, "I put it in the sink for safekeeping." Make a note, this is the exact moment when chivalry died.




Don't let the pretty smiles fool you, they'd eat their young before they'd give up their places at the stove.

After a brief argument over when it was appropriate to begin playing Christmas music (I still maintain that it is appropriate as soon as the turkey goes into the oven), 'regular' music played, wine bottles were opened, the table was set and Thanksgiving dinner was served. The food was amazing and there was so much of it that we were able to have a complete second dinner the next day. I ate enough to shame a wolf and still outreached the woman seated next to me for the last piece of sweet potato pie. Although everyone had had their fill, there was enough turkey left over to have sandwiches on Sunday. Time not spent cooking or eating was spent hiking, watching movies, reading and just sitting around talking. By any measure, our Umbrian Thanksgiving was a huge success and I'm hoping it will be repeated next year and, if so, that I'll be invited along again.



I opened an Italian bank account because the automatic withdrawal option makes it easier to pay my bills here. Without a local bank account you pay your bills at the post office every month and that entails standing in long lines and then being advised that you have been on the wrong line and must now stand on another even longer line. Along with my bank account I received a debit card which I was told could be used on the highways to pay the tolls. This might not sound like such a big deal but at every tollbooth there are three marked lanes; one with no line at all for cars using Telepass, one with very short lines for cars using bank cards and one with a line stretching all the way back to your original entrance to the highway for cars using cash. On my way up to Umbria, as I exited the highway, I pulled into the bank card lane and saw several slots that looked as if they would be where I should put my card, but I wasn't sure which one to use. Fortunately, there was an attendant in the booth and I asked him if I could use my bank card to pay and I explained that I'd never paid a toll with it and wasn't sure how to do so. He smiled and said, "Certamente!" then came out of the booth, took my card, turned his back to me and, blocking my view, paid the toll in one or another of the slots. Grazie!



"You Blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things: O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome..."

Shakespeare almost certainly had motorini riders in mind when he penned that phrase in the opening scene of "Julius Caesar".

Motorinis are a cultural thing. The humble motor scooter is used here as a form of mass transit and for 'mass' I use the Webster dictionary definition, "a coherent, typically large body of matter with no definite shape." Motorini is the word Italians use when referring to the motor scooter riders who zip in, out, around and through the traffic on the streets of Rome. It is already plurale and only Americans add the 's' when there are more than a single motor scooter. In the 1953 movie, "Roman Holiday", Audrey Hepburn takes Gregory Peck on a wild ride through bizarrely empty streets in Rome on, apparently, the only motor scooter in town. This little machine would have been called a motorino, but since 1953 the singolare of the word has been restricted to phrases such as, "Vincenzo hit a motorino today on his way to church. Grazie Dio, our car received only a small dent!" or "Look, Isabella, those boys on the motorino have your purse." Apart from that, it is impossible to spot a single motorino and they are always motorini, or if you're an American, motorinis.

If you grew up in Italy, I suppose that motorini traffic isn't all that unusual. It, much like famine, pestilence and death, is just there. Always has been (post-1953 anyway) and always will be. There don't seem to be any actual rules of the road for motorinis apart from "if there is a space you must occupy it." At every traffic light you must weave and wend your way to the front of the line of cars, even if that means temporarily trespassing into the oncoming traffic lane and, in anticipation of the light turning green, blast away in a pack during the last micro-seconds of the red light. Sidewalks, center dividers and every single square meter of roadway are all fair game for motorini. Yet, these zipping buzzing impediments to sanity and safety don't seem to annoy Italians and surprisingly few drivers bother to make a rude gesture or two or loudly question the riders ancestry. I watched a motorino run a red light in front of a police car the other day and no one was more shocked than the rider when he was pulled over. A pedestrian alongside me in the crosswalk said, "Beh, don't they have better things to do, it must be a very slow day today for the police." This from a man who had almost been knocked down by that motorino.

There is a piece of legislation sitting, largely ignored, in Parliament that would require all bloggers in Italy to apply for permits to continue to publish their thoughts online or risk being fined as 'unlicensed journalists'. While it is unlikely that this legislation will ever be passed or survive the inevitable judicial review if it were, it is almost certainly aimed at Beppe Grillo. Grillo is a political activist who supports freedom of the internet, opposes political corruption and uses satire and ridicule to lampoon Italian power structures and the government. I stand foursquare with him. I too support freedom of speech and oppose corruption, I too am willing to risk fines and imprisonment for civil disobedience or rather I would be if I weren't quite certain that I'm protected by diplomatic immunity.

The Christmas holidays are upon us and it's time for this unlicensed journalist to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. May your feasts be plentiful, may you always find the short lines and may the motorinis miss you in the crosswalks in 2010!

From the Halls of Montezuma...

...to the Palazzo Brancaccio, the United States Marines put on an excellent show! An annual event at our embassies worldwide is the celebration hosted by the Marine Security Guards to commemorate the founding of the Corps. The Marine Ball is a formal affair, held on a weekend around November 10th, that offers a perfect opportunity to break out your tux and dancing shoes. Our Marines in Rome arranged to use the Palazzo Brancaccio (http://www.palazzobrancaccio.com) for their Ball and I have to admit that I felt a little like James Bond that night. Ok, I felt a lot like James Bond. An older, less sophisticated, fatter James Bond, but James Bond nonetheless.

A small group of us, comprised of the founding membership of the Rome Rooftop Whiskey Drinking & Cigar Smoking Society and our friends, arrived together, spent the evening drinking Prosecco (Italian champagne), applauding our Marine hosts, eating a tolerably decent meal, taking an album full of pictures, smoking cigars by the fountains, dancing and, finally, falling into the limousine for the ride home. Our Marines threw a great party and were the inspiration for the Rome Rooftop Whiskey Drinking & Cigar Smoking Society to incorporate a dress code into our bylaws. Henceforth, all irregularly scheduled meetings of the Society will require the membership to wear black tie.


Founding members of the Rome Rooftop Whiskey Drinking & Cigar Smoking Society


My friend Allyson petitioning for membership!

The Marine Security Guards are a very special group of men and women charged with protecting the classified materials in our embassies. It is their responsibility to ensure that all classified materials are properly secured each evening or, in the event of an attack, thoroughly and completely destroyed. After hours they inspect the secure areas of the Embassy to ensure that all classified material has been properly stored away. Each of us bears sole responsibility for properly securing the classified material we handle every day and a failure to do so bears consequences. A first minor infraction, such as leaving classified material on your desk even in a locked office, will result in a written security warning. A second infraction can result in the loss of your security rating. If you lose your security rating you can still do many things but you can no longer be a Foreign Service Officer. So if, hypothetically speaking, one should awaken from a deep sleep at, oh say, two-thirty in the morning and happen to remember that he not only left classified materials on his desk but actually highlighted the bits that were marked 'secret', one is best advised to run not walk, even if, hypothetically, a cold black rain is pounding down outside, back to the Embassy to secure said classified material in a very non-hypothetical manner. This purely by way of illustration, of course.



In Rome I am an Economic Officer. Economic Officers and Political Officers are known as 'reporting' officers and that pretty much describes the job we do. We each have assigned areas of responsibility that we study, research and then report on back to Washington. These areas are called our portfolios and we are expected to become the local experts on the various topics in them. We are also required to interact with our appropriate counterparts in the Italian government on these topics. Therefore, a big part of the job is developing our contacts in the various Italian ministries. I, for example, now have contacts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economics & Finance and the Ministry for Economic Development. Diplomacy, it turns out, is both hierarchical and rank observant which goes a long way towards explaining why Prime Minister Berlusconi hasn't returned my calls requesting a status update on Italy's aid to developing nations program.

Of course you realize that I never actually placed a call to Berlusconi; unfortunately however, I did attempt to establish Franco Frattini as one of my contacts. This would have been akin to having the guy who mows the lawn at the Italian Embassy in Washington establish Hillary Clinton as his contact on the proper use of Spring fertilizer. As my boss put it when he discovered that I was looking for Frattini's number, "You're kidding, right? You're kidding, right? No, really, you're kidding, right!" Umhhh, yeah, I was just kidding. Diplomacy is not actually saying the word "idiot" but having all parties involved fully understand that it was said. In my defense, Frattini is Italy's Foreign Minister and he is responsible for Italy's aid program so it seemed to me that he'd have the most up to date information.

My workload evolves something like this: someone in Washington becomes interested, curious or concerned about some aspect of Italian policy on a topic in my portfolio and 'tasks' me with either getting information from or delivering a message to an appropriate contact. Often I am called upon to request the Government of Italy to support a position we've taken or intend to take in our own foreign policy. Official communications of this nature between governments are known as demarches and I've done a ton of them. For example, we are encouraging our European allies to increase their aid to Somalia and because Italy's aid to developing nations is part of my portfolio, I am tasked with bringing our request to rank appropriate contacts in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Economic Development. After a few days have passed, I go back to my contacts for their response, reaction or reply to our request. Then I draft a cable with that response and send it to Washington. Washington sends me a brief note of thanks and then arranges a dinner in my honor for having helped save Somalia.

Okay, so the whole 'dinner in my honor' thing is an exaggeration, as is the 'brief note of thanks' and, in fact, as is the 'send it to Washington' bit too. The literal truth part ends at 'draft a cable'. Then my cable goes into the clearance process, followed by the re-writing process, followed by additional clearance processes repeated as required, followed by the approval process and then, finally, by the sending to Washington process. We call this 'feeding the beast' and ever since George Keenan wrote his Long Telegram in 1946, our reporting cables have been held to an unachievably high standard. Strangely enough they must be factual, concise and accurate. Paradoxically, they must also be intelligent and informative. I tend to ramble, offer mutually exclusive explanations, digress into cul de sacs of misinterpretation and summarize by missing the point entirely. Cable writing, State Department style, is an art form I'm struggling to master.



I mentioned to a young woman who works in our commissary that I was going to dinner on Saturday with some friends to a restaurant in her neighborhood. "Oh, wow," she said, "you're going clubbing!" No, Emma, I did not go 'clubbing', unless going to a restaurant that didn't open until 10:00pm with bouncers the size of small glaciers admitting only a select few past the ropes, with hundreds of very energetic young Italians dancing to music loud enough to compress your eardrums so fully as to cause your eyes to move slightly forward in your skull, with a bartender who mixed tequila slammers directly into your mouth and effected the loss of three of your five senses could be construed as clubbing. Then, yes, it seems I went clubbing on Saturday.

My Italian is improving slowly, but improving nonetheless thanks to the excellent language program offered by the Embassy. I managed to carry on a full conversation with the barber who cut my hair this weekend. He's been cutting hair in the same location for forty-eight years and I'll attempt to incorporate some of his views on Italian aid to developing nations in my next cable draft. Something along the lines of, "we should give more money to old barbers and not worry so much about people in countries I've never heard of." I have found one of the very best gelaterias in Rome and, thankfully, it's far enough away from both my apartment and the Embassy to require making a special trip whenever I have the time. If it were closer, I'd have to have my tux altered. Little by little, I'm exploring the city and seeing the famous sights. However, I really just enjoy wandering through the streets and soaking up as much of Rome as I can get in an afternoon. Friends of mine have begun taking cooking lessons at a restaurant in Trastevere and invited me to join them for their next lesson. It sounds like an excellent way to enjoy just another part of living here. For Thanksgiving a group of us have rented a farm in Umbria and we're bringing turkeys and all the fixings to cook our feast together. Umbria is just across the road from Tuscany in the rolling Italian hill country. It should be an excellent time.

I'd like to say a little more about my adventure in clubbing, but the phone is ringing and it might be Berlusconi finally returning my call. If he plays his cards right, I know a great restaurant where we can discuss Italy's aid program over tequila slammers. Semper fidelis!



You can drink the water from any fountain in Rome. It's a fact!

Embassy Rome

This photo was actually taken in Florence. It's only an hour and a half by train from Rome.

When in Rome, they say, do as the Romans do. All roads lead to Rome and, if I remember correctly, it wasn't built in a day. The whole "Rome wasn't built in a day" thing clearly defines the prevailing attitude towards installing an internet connection in private apartments!

After finishing my Italian classes, HR informed me that I was required to take ten days of Home Leave before I could depart for Rome. Home Leave is mandated time off that must be taken in the States after overseas postings and it is given to us in addition to our accumulated annual leave. So, on August 8th I left Washington DC and flew up to the beach house in Maine to join my family for ten days of reunion and relaxation. Then I flew down to NYC for two days of consultations with DHS before finally boarding a plane for Rome. I arrived in Rome on August 19th, was met at Leonardo da Vinci Airport by a colleague from the Embassy and taken directly to my apartment. On the 20th, I went in to the Embassy to begin the 'check-in' process.

In this day and age, virtually the first thing everyone does is set up an internet connection at home. Unfortunately for me, I arrived here in August and Rome is closed in August. I use 'closed' in the sense of the word that means 'not open', 'shut', 'unavailable' or 'gone fishing'. This includes the various internet providers. So, I began the process of acquiring the internet right after Labor Day and signed my contract with Fastweb on Sept. 8th. On Sept. 17th I received a call from Fastweb informing me that they would come to my apartment the next morning at 9:00am to install my connection. Bene! The next morning I received a call around 7:30am from the technician letting me know that he was on his way. Bene! At 3:00pm I gave up on waiting for him and went to work. Not so Bene.

No one at Fastweb could tell me why the technician hadn't shown up, but they made another appointment for me and assured me that the guy would be there at 9:00am on Sept. 22nd. Sure enough, he showed up promptly at 9:00am, pulled several covers off of various electrical junction boxes, cut my phone lines, shook his head in despair and left. Now I had no internet and no home phone, but I had seen an actual technician so I felt that I was making progress. The good people at Fastweb had a very long and involved explanation for me that boiled down to "something seems to be wrong and we'll take care of it".

I twisted the wires back together for my phone and waited. And waited. And waited. On Oct. 16th another technician showed up, listened to my dial tone, fiddled around a bit, nodded his head with a very self-satisfied look on his face, called his office and left. This time Fastweb disconnected my phone somewhere at the source and, once again, I had no internet and no phone. However, because they hadn't actually destroyed anything on this visit, I once again felt that I was making progress. They called me at my office that afternoon to say they'd be at my apartment bright and early the next day, Saturday, to hook up my phone and internet connection.

Then, surprisingly, on a Saturday, the original technician arrived, slightly early, connected a modem and a wireless router and, just like that, a mere eight weeks after I arrived, I was back online. My phone even works. Tutto Bene!!

Housing assignments at our embassies are second only to bid lists for onward tours in terms of personal interest to Foreign Service Officers. All housing tends to be magnificent but, sadly, some housing is more magnificent than others and this can, inevitably, lead to 'housing envy'. In a remarkably futile attempt to forestall complaints the Dept. of State has created written regulations to help determine the housing assignments. Housing is assigned based upon rank, family size, job requirements and, to some degree, personal preferences. Embassies have Housing Sections in the GSO (General Services Office) and it is the responsibility of the Housing Section to maintain the post housing pool by leasing or purchasing suitable properties for the post. As bid lists are completed and onward tours decided, the Housing Section is notified of new arrivals and they send housing questionnaires to those folks asking for their input before any housing is assigned. A typical questionnaire will ask for the number of people traveling on your orders, their ages, whether you have pets with you or not, whether you will have a personal vehicle with you or not, if you have a preference for an unfurnished or a furnished home, if you have a preference for a large or a small yard, whether you or a member of your household has a problem with stairs, etc. Many officers, and I use 'many' in the sense of the word that means every single living and breathing one, believe that the housing questionnaire is a firm guarantee, a contract if you will, that actually determines the direction their housing assignment will take.

No. It is used by the Housing Section to try to suggest an appropriate housing assignment for each arriving officer, one that will satisfy the officer, if possible, and the rest of the post staff as a community. Then the Housing Section makes up a slate of all their suggestions and that slate goes to the Housing Board which makes the final formal assignment. Post Housing Boards are generally composed of representative members of the various agencies and sections in the Embassy and the Board has the final word on which particular house or apartment you get. In most cases, the Board approves the slate suggested by the Housing Section, but there are instances where the Board will require the Housing Section to reassign an incoming officer for one reason or another. If, upon arrival at post, you are dissatisfied with your housing, you must make an appeal directly to the Housing Board. Appeals are granted very rarely and, typically, only for reasons of security or safety.

In Rome, we have a wide variety of housing. We have furnished apartments and unfurnished apartments, houses with yards, places in every neighborhood in the city and some in the surrounding suburbs and each has unique benefits and drawbacks. If you want to live in the Centro or Trastevere, you'll get an unfurnished apartment that might be smaller and older but with great views in the liveliest part of town. If you prefer a house because you have kids and pets, you might end up with a small villa in one of the suburbs but have a two hour commute to work. There are tradeoffs for every type of housing but the pool is so varied that nearly everyone can be given something that will make them happy.

Unfortunately, it is the nature of the beast to complain. Mark Twain once said, "Man is the only animal that blushes...or needs to!" and I'm embarrassed to admit that I joined the whiners upon arrival in Rome. In my defense, before I even left Washington I was led to dislike my housing assignment by the unfortunate remarks of one of the Locally Employed Staff in the Housing Section. My housing assignment complete with photos and a floor plan was sent to me while I was still at FSI and, after looking it over for a few days, I emailed the Housing Section with two questions. Did my apartment have a terrace and, if so, was it large enough for me to put out a table and chairs and a grill? Was the third bedroom furnished as a bedroom or could I convert it into an office?

I had asked for and been assigned to a furnished apartment within walking distance of the Embassy. My apartment was newly renovated, had secure parking for my car, brand new carpets, appliances and furniture and was a twenty minute walk to work. Perfect! I was delighted. Then I received the reply to my two questions. First, I was on the ground floor (one floor up in Europe) and the terrace was completely enclosed by a heavy wire cage and was inaccessible except in an emergency. I was assured that I would never want to go out onto it. Second, the third room on the floor plan was "small, dark and damp like a cave with only one electrical outlet that blows out the electricity for the whole apartment every time it is used so it probably cannot be an office. Sorry".

Now my newly renovated, beautiful, large apartment in one of the best neighborhoods in Rome had just become "small and dark, like a cave" and I was preparing to file my appeal upon arrival. The volume of my whining would have drowned out a small jet and I hadn't even seen the place yet. I was going to be paid to live in Rome for two years and, at any other time in my life, I'd have been happy to live in a tent to have that opportunity but now I was fully ready to moan and complain my way into more 'suitable' quarters than the furnished three bedroom apartment to which I'd been assigned. Don't they know who I am? I actually wrote back to the Housing Section asking for a reassignment before I even left the States. Mark Twain obviously had me in mind.


One of the parks right around the corner from my apartment.

Fortunately for me, reassignment was never an option. I arrived and discovered that my apartment is absolutely great. The room described as "like a cave" is perfect as an office and the single electrical outlet works just fine with one computer plugged into it. It's true that I don't have a terrace and, therefore, will never feel pressured to put a bunch of plants in pots and watch them die, but I have access to the rooftop terrace and a few of us have established the 'Rome Rooftop Whiskey Drinking and Cigar Smoking Society' up there. The Embassy is a twenty to twenty-five minute walk from home or a ten minute drive. I have a secure parking spot for my car and two of Rome's nicer parks are just five minutes away. In the end, I'm living in an apartment I couldn't afford to pay the rent on and it's in Rome. Life is sweet!


This place serves excellent gelato!

All roads may very well lead to Rome, but not all streets, it turns out, lead from my apartment to the Embassy. The first few days I walked to and from the Embassy with colleagues who live in my building and they led the way. Finally, came the day when, due to schedule conflicts, I had to go solo. The beauty of Rome is that there are many different ways to walk between any two points and we had gone, on different days, through the park, down a very heavily travelled city street with many different stores and shops, along a less travelled route and, finally, on a road that went past the local Ferrari dealership. So, on a bright midweek morning I struck out, confidently, on my own and walked along admiring the architecture and morning bustle of Rome. People hurrying along to work, people sitting at sidewalk cafes having coffee, vendors opening stalls and shops and kids running to school. It took me about an hour and a half to realize that a) I was totally lost and b) I had left my map and phone back in my apartment.

Fortunately, thanks to my 'fluency' in Italian I was able to ask several passersby for directions to the U.S. Embassy. Unfortunately, there is a tendency among Romans to give you very specific and detailed directions even when they don't have the slightest clue themselves about how to get to your destination. So, I spent a very pleasant morning wandering and chatting and wandering some more until I happened, just by chance, upon the Via Veneto and from there even I could find the Embassy.


Friends of mine who have the good sense to always bring their maps along.

My work is very interesting but I'll save a description of it for another time. Today I intend to walk down to the Pantheon and have lunch in Trastevere. I'll take my time and I won't bring a map. When the mood strikes me I'll stop at a 'bar' for a coffee and talk to whomever is standing next to me. Now I'm in Rome and it's what the Romans do.