Have you ever run across any­one that is totally liv­ing a slice of life that you had imag­ined for your­self? I don’t mean some fan­tas­tic anom­aly like being a rock­star or mem­ber of roy­alty. I mean a sim­ple life deci­sion that you could eas­ily make now if it weren’t for all those darned respon­si­bil­i­ties you have weigh­ing you down.

I “met” one such per­son. An Amer­i­can who moved to Rome and is liv­ing there like a local. Her name is Jes­sica and she pub­lishes a won­der­ful Blog called RomePho­to­Blog. A pho­tog­ra­phy blog aimed at cap­tur­ing the city of Rome through the eyes of a some­one who lives there.

Each day I visit her blog to get a quick fix of one of my favorite places. Like a box of fine Ital­ian choco­lates, you never know what you are going to get…a snap of cock­tails and nib­bles at a local bar, an empty piazza or foun­tain lit at night, a veg­etable ven­dor or a “glad­i­a­tor” chat­ting with a friend on a bike.  Whether you have been to Rome for a quick vaca­tion, long stay or never at all, Jes­sica man­ages to give you the feel of look­ing through a friend’s trea­sured photo album with lovely anec­dotes and expla­na­tions of each picture.

Once I got a glimpse of RomePho­to­Blog, I was imme­di­ately smit­ten and wanted to inter­view the per­son behind it. I can’t tell you how delighted I was that she agreed to the inter­view and that she took the time to give such detailed answers. Thank you Jes­sica!

I have only met Jes­sica through Twit­ter and a cou­ple emails.  Through her daily Tweets, I get brief flashes of La Dolce Vita..vicariously. You know what, I can live with that.

So let’s get started shall we..andi­amo…let’s go!

Tell us a bit about Jes­sica…
I’m from a small town in Mass­a­chu­setts called Hop­kin­ton (most peo­ple know it as the start of the Boston Marathon).  I was lucky enough to have a his­tory teacher who took us on class trips to Europe, and made my first trip to Italy when I was 16.  I didn’t real­ize it at the time, but that really shaped my life and caused my to take an art his­tory course dur­ing my first year at Boston Uni­ver­sity, which then led that to become my major.  I’m also from a fam­ily with Ital­ian ori­gins (on my mom’s side), which I guess had sub­con­sciously made me inter­ested in Ital­ian culture.

Where did you study?
I did my under­grad­u­ate degree in art his­tory at Boston  Uni­ver­sity.  It was there I began study­ing Ital­ian lan­guage and had the oppor­tu­nity to study abroad in Padova for a semes­ter.  That expe­ri­ence helped me believe that Italy could be a place that I could actu­ally live.  I then did a master’s in Renais­sance Stud­ies in Lon­don at Uni­ver­sity Col­lege Lon­don, which just helped give me more of a push to live abroad.

Where do you work in Rome?
I work for a great orga­ni­za­tion called Con­text Travel.  We orga­nize small group (6 per­son) walk­ing sem­i­nars with schol­ars through­out Italy, as well as Paris, Lon­don, Istanbul, and New York.  I work in the office man­ag­ing our Rome and Venice pro­grams, which is a per­fect job for me.  It allows me to stay in con­tact with art and cul­ture, as well as the schol­ars who love it as much as I do.  Bring­ing that love and knowl­edge to trav­el­ers is really satisfying.

Where do you live in Rome
I live in a res­i­den­tial area in the north-east part of the city known as Mon­te­sacro.  I enjoy liv­ing a bit out­side the his­toric cen­ter, as it’s still a very Roman neighborhood.

How did you learn Ital­ian, how long did it take?
I started learn­ing Ital­ian in col­lege, with one year of lessons behind me before I went to Padova.  When I got there, what a shock!  What I real­ized is that even though I was good at lan­guages, in the class­room learn­ing can’t sub­sti­tute for real life expe­ri­ence.  In the four months I was there, I grew enor­mously from liv­ing with an Ital­ian fam­ily and inter­act­ing with peo­ple in town.  I learned you can’t be afraid to make mis­takes, oth­er­wise you’ll never grow.  From there I kept up my Ital­ian with classes and also when I lived in Lon­don, as there are a lot of Ital­ians liv­ing there.  Here in Rome I live with two Ital­ians, which I did pur­posely, as I work mostly in Eng­lish.  I would say I’m pretty flu­ent now, but there is always room to grow and there are def­i­nitely still some things I don’t under­stand.  It’s a con­stant learn­ing process, but I’m not afraid of speak­ing with any­one and Ital­ians are very sup­port­ive of you speak­ing the lan­guage.

How have you been accepted by the locals?
That’s a tough ques­tion.  In many ways, yes.  In gen­eral Ital­ians have a very warm atti­tude towards Amer­i­cans and I think in gen­eral peo­ple appre­ci­ate you when they see you are curi­ous about their cul­ture and way of life.  I’ve made some great Ital­ian friends and acquain­tances here.  That being said, Italy is still fairly new to let­ting in other cul­tures.  You def­i­nitely hear a lot of stereo­types being thrown around about cul­tures, includ­ing Amer­i­cans.  But I can under­stand this, as unfor­tu­nately most of what they see is from tele­vi­sion and film.  One thing about liv­ing abroad is that you def­i­nitely become a bit of an ambas­sador for your cul­ture, whether you like it or not.  So if I can break the stereo­type of what an Amer­i­can should be for some­one who has never met one before, I think that’s great.

Do you plan on mov­ing back to the states ?
If I had a quar­ter for every time I heard this ques­tion!  The answer is, I really don’t know.  For now, no.  I have my life here, my career, my friends, my apart­ment, etc.  Rome is home and it’s the place I’ve lived the longest besides home.  That being said, I have no idea what the future holds.  But I always say that as long as it’s good here, I’ll stay.

Top 3–5 things  (or more) you love about liv­ing in Italy?
I love the “mom and pop” feel of Italy.  Going into the local bar each morn­ing to get my cof­fee, where they know me and I can chat with the wait­ers.  Going to the mar­ket and mak­ing friends with the ven­dors.  It gives Rome a smaller feel than it is and that’s com­fort­ing when you are away from home.  And of course, the food!  The amaz­ing pro­duce and ingre­di­ents you get here.  I didn’t real­ize what a dif­fer­ence that makes.  Also, being an art his­to­rian, all the art and his­tory you have around you.  It’s incred­i­ble to me that I have all these his­toric places at my fin­ger­tips to go to when­ever I want.

Top 3 –5 things you miss/don’t miss about the U.S.

The top thing I miss would be my fam­ily and friends.  You can’t replace that of course…now I need to con­vince them all to move here!  Another thing I miss about the US is what a melt­ing pot we really are.  Just see­ing all dif­fer­ent types of cul­tures and eth­nic­i­ties come together.  I also miss the vari­ety of food we have in the US.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Ital­ian, but you just don’t find the dif­fer­ent mix­ing of food cul­tures here.  My friends and I often lament the lack of a good Mex­i­can restau­rant in town.
What sur­prised you about mov­ing to Rome and/or leav­ing US.
Not too much sur­prised me when I got here, just because I’d already had expe­ri­ence liv­ing away, first in Padova and then in Lon­don.  I think what I learned from those expe­ri­ences what that you need to bring some pieces of home with you, even if it’s some­thing tiny to put in your room.  You also need to find some­one to con­fide in, some­one you click with, as it’s not easy being here away from things you know.  Ha, ha, what sur­prised me what how much I took for granted in terms of the sim­ple things.  Ques­tions like, where do I go to buy clothes hang­ers or a hair dryer?  It took time to fig­ure out those things, and a lot of stuff I’m still learn­ing every day.

Do you get home sick?
Of course, and I think I always will.  Not so badly that I want to go home, but I think every­one has times when they just wish they could be around the peo­ple who know them best.  That being said, I’m lucky enough to have some really great peo­ple here in Rome that have become like fam­ily and who I can talk to when I’m feel­ing like that.

How do Italy/Italians and US/Americans dif­fer in every­day things you have noticed?
Oh wow, that could be a whole inter­view on its own! One big thing I’ve noticed is that Amer­i­cans tend to keep things to them­selves more.  Like if we observe some­one on the street wear­ing some­thing strange, we may say in our head “Why are you wear­ing that?” but we wouldn’t voice that opin­ion.  Here every­one has an opin­ion and they aren’t afraid to voice it, from “What are you wear­ing?” to “Why are you eat­ing that?”  That took some get­ting used to.  Ital­ians are more laid back, how­ever, and I like that money and career aren’t the only impor­tant things to them.  They know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to pull back and relax.  That’s some­thing that a lot of Amer­i­cans have a hard time with.  I see a lot of peo­ple on “vaca­tion” but still attached to their Black­berry or tak­ing con­fer­ence calls.  They maybe don’t take that extra time to really spend it with their fam­ily because it’s all about work.

Favorite spot in Rome for: Gelato, meals, shop­ping, shoes, peo­ple watch­ing, cock­tails etc.
For gelato, I’m a big fan of Gela­tone on via dei Ser­penti (in the Monti neigh­bor­hood).  There also a place called the Cre­me­ria by the Pan­theon that makes this amaz­ing thing called a cre­mo­lato.  It’s kind of like a mix between sor­bet and gelato and it’s incred­i­ble.
For shop­ping, I often go to Zara on the via del Corso, as it’s afford­able and fash­ion­able.  If I want to splurge, I shop in Monti at the Con­testa Rock Hair store (Piazza degli Zin­gari) or the B Out­let on via dei Ser­penti.  If I really want some­thing unique then I head to my friend Jes­sica Har­ris’s store in Traste­vere, as she designs and makes every­thing there.  The store is called 38 Leop­ardo and is located in Traste­vere on, appro­pri­ately, vicolo del Leop­ardo.
Any of the piaz­zas make for good peo­ple watch­ing, but I usu­ally do it from the benches.  Sit at one of those café’s and you’re going to pay the price!  Piazza Navona is a favorite for the amaz­ing Bernini foun­tain, as well as the plethora of street per­form­ers and artists.
For drinks,I have a few wine bars (enote­cas) that I fre­quent.  Al Vino Al Vino on via dei Ser­penti (yes, I go out in Monti a lot), Angolo Divino on via dei Balestrari (right near Campo de’ Fiori), and a really cool wine bar call Palatium on via Frat­tina that focuses on wines just from Lazio.  For aper­i­tivo, which is like a pre-dinner cock­tail that also comes with a buf­fet of deli­cious food, I like Freni e Frizioni in Traste­vere (via del Politeama) and Soci­ete Lutece (near Piazza Navona in the tiny Piazza dei Montevecchio).

Have you learned a lot about cook­ing?
Yes def­i­nitely.  My mom cooked Ital­ian all my life, so I had a good base there, but I learned a lot in Padova, where the cui­sine is very dif­fer­ent and I con­tinue to learn here.  It’s amaz­ing because Ital­ians are ingrained with things like the sea­son­al­ity of veg­eta­bles and what sauces go with what shape of pasta, etc.  I’m still catch­ing up and learn­ing new things every day.

Things you still want to do in Italy?
There are a lot of places I still want to visit, like Sicily.  I want to con­tinue to grow and learn the lan­guage even bet­ter, try to under­stand more about the cul­ture and how things work.

What blogs do you fol­low? About Italy or any­thing?
I have friends that write some really great blogs about Rome and I keep up with those.  The first is writ­ten by Katie Parla and talks about her adven­tures in Rome and else­where.  I also read Food in Rome for yummy restau­rant sug­ges­tions.  If you can read Ital­ian, fol­low 06blog, which I read to keep updated on news in Rome.  I also love read­ing NYC/Caribbean Ragazza, as Arlene’s obser­va­tions on life in Rome crack me up.  And of course, my guilty plea­sure is Perez Hilton , which keeps me up to date on all the pop cul­ture in the US.

Favorite Ital­ian moment(s)?
One of my most vivid is from when I was study­ing in Padova.  It was one of my last week­ends in town and I’d made a trip with friends to Rome.  Walk­ing through the Villa Borgh­ese on my own, I all of a sud­den real­ized that I was no longer ner­vous about speak­ing with strangers in Ital­ian.  I don’t know when it had hap­pened, but I’d become com­fort­able with the lan­guage and that was one of the most tri­umphant feel­ings I’ve ever had.  Another vivid mem­ory is about food.  I had a room­mate from Salerno and I remem­ber one week­end he went home for a visit.  On Sun­day he called and told me “Make sure you don’t eat din­ner, I’m bring­ing home a sur­prise.”  When he got home he had a huge sty­ro­foam crate full of fresh moz­zarella di buf­fala, made from a famous farm near his house.  We put the balls of moz­zarella in a huge bowl and just gorged on them.  They were so incred­i­ble, like noth­ing I’ve had before or since.  Ha, ha, I even called my mother to brag!
Another crazy mem­ory was rid­ing a train from Verona to Rome with a friend over a hol­i­day week­end.  We hadn’t thought to buy tick­ets in advance and had no seat reser­va­tion so had to ride for hours lit­er­ally stuffed in the cor­ri­dors with every­one.  It was mis­er­able at the time, but just one of those things you shake your head at and know you’ll always remember.

Tell me some­thing I wouldn’t know about liv­ing in Rome , Italy or it’s peo­ple.
That’s a tough ques­tion, there’s so much and some­times I take for granted at this point that things are so dif­fer­ent.  That actu­ally the nice thing about doing my blog.  By tak­ing pho­tographs of things I see as nor­mal now in Rome, it really forces me to look crit­i­cally at things and explain them to read­ers who live out­side Italy.  I would say that for all of Italy’s faults and any frus­tra­tions I might feel at times, over­all Ital­ians are wel­com­ing and will­ing to help.  I’ve really been amazed by the amount of times some­one has been will­ing to go out of their way to explain things to me that I might not under­stand.  I would also say that Italy is a coun­try and the verge.  Both par­a­lyzed by, but also amaz­ingly unique, in their tra­di­tions. I’m really curi­ous to see where the coun­try will be in ten years, as we are also suf­fer­ing with a lot of eco­nomic prob­lems and with the bright­est minds in the coun­try going else­where to find work.  I really hope that mov­ing for­ward things will change and those peo­ple will come back because Italy has a lot to offer to the world, not just for what they did in the his­toric past, but also for the future.

What mem­ory or feel­ing or Rome/Italy will you most carry with you when you leave?
I think just the small things, the every­day rou­tine that is so dif­fer­ent than how I would live in the US.  Tak­ing the bus into work, walk­ing down cob­ble stoned streets, going to be my morn­ing cap­puc­cino and espresso.  And all the peo­ple that I’ve met, the friends who have opened their doors to me and made me feel like family.

Any thing else you would like to share and think would be fun, inter­est­ing or some­thing a Diva would have to know!
I guess the one piece of advice I’d share is to go after what makes you happy and to have no regrets.  I wasn’t sure if mov­ing here would work out, but I made a leap so I would never regret not hav­ing tried.  And I would also say to just take a step back when you are out of your ele­ment and try to under­stand where the other per­son is com­ing from. The world is so large, don’t be afraid to go out and explore it.

Well…don’t you feel like you have taken a quick trip to Rome? The one ques­tion I for­got to ask, where is the best place for cap­puc­cino or espresso?…maybe she will answer in the comments..

For a daily dose of La Dolce Vita, why don’t you sub­scribe to the RomePho­to­Blog or Fol­low Jes­sica on Twit­ter?