Apt woes

I’ve been searching in vain for an apartment for the past 2 weeks. I honestly had no idea it would be this hard. I lived in Manhattan for many years and moved around more times than I can count. Then I moved to Paris (with their equally notorious housing market) with only a place secured for a week. I moved 3 times before finally settling into my apartment in Oberkampf. It was definitely difficult and draining and stressful but nothing like this. The big problem is that I can’t give anyone a definite time frame for my stay here and no one wants to rent a room or apt to someone who will only be leaving in a couple months. I don’t want to lie and say I’ll be here for 6 months or a year when I very well could be leaving in 2 months. Reason being that my friend BB is getting married in Mexico in December and I promised her I’d come to her wedding—and I really do want to be there. So I’ll either go home just for her wedding (an expense I can’t really afford right now) and come back to Rome in the new year, or I’ll leave Rome for good in mid-December. Its all up in the air right now, it just depends on how thing go for me here.

I went to see a great apt near Argentina (a bus/tram hub in the center of the city). It’s a 3 bedroom and two black American women (one from LA, the other from Queens) live there now. They were really cool, women I would be friends with in real life. Both had come to Rome with the intent of staying a few months but have been here for about 2 years now, for various reasons. We spoke on the phone last night and they won’t be making a decision on their new roommate until they hold their second Open House next weekend—in they meantime they want to meet up for drinks this week. If I don’t get an apt out of it at least I’ll get some new friends :)

In the meantime, the old lady who owns my pensione is the sweetest thing and said that I could stay there for the month (and she would only charge me my rental budget instead of the 50 Euros/night I bargained her down to for my week long stay) if I don’t find anything else. The location isn’t too bad (between the train station and the Colosseum and within a 2 minute walk of my new favorite neighborhood, Monti) but I’m dreading living there because it just isn’t a home. There’s no proper kitchen nor is there any internet access (right now in the McDonald's 15 minutes away from the pensione using their free wifi but its loud and busy and cold and there’s no way I could come here every day and expect to get anything done) and I would have to deal with a slew of strangers coming in and out all the time. The plus side is that there is daily maid service and a free breakfast every morning. I guess things could be worse.

Anyway we’ll see. I’m still hoping I find something else but will probably stay where I’m at for at least a month… unfortunately living in a little pensione doesn’t exactly motivate me to want to stay in Rome long term.