After a month of weekends spent in Rome, visiting and revisiting many of the city’s best known historical sites, we decided it was time to leave these beautiful urban confines. It hasn’t been an entirely easy transition to European life with a stroller. The ancients weren’t necessarily thinking about baby problems when they designed and laid out their streets. So one of our biggest concerns about leaving our home area, even for a few hours, is how to manage with a six month old. We ultimately decided to test out leaving the stroller behind, only bringing a carrier and hoping Aleksander’s head doesn’t bobble too much napping for a few hours strapped to our chests.
The destination we decided on was the seaside town of Ostia. Ostia is well-known amongst Romans as a quick and easy summer escape from the concrete, heat and crowds of peak tourist season in the Eternal City. It’s a very convenient 20-minute city train ride from Rome and the train was busy with beach seekers, young and old, keen to return to a normal post-pandemic summer life.
Since one of my main life goals while living in Rome is to be a member of a beach club, I was thrilled to see the sand and lapping waves of the Mediterranean. The hot sun was buffered by a cool seaside breeze and we kept ourselves and Aleksander hydrated at every step. We took pictures on the Ostia pier, sat down for a wonderful seafood lunch, grabbed a gelato (of course), walked the boardwalk (assessing beach clubs) and even dipped Aleksander’s toes in the water.
Dalia is essentially a mermaid who loves the water so we’re thrilled to have a beach within such a short distance from our home. We look forward to further exploring Ostia in future, as well as working through all the ‘beaches to visit’ lists we can find.
Dad in the world will hopefully soon become dad on the beach!
This weekend, we’ve officially been Roman residents for one month. It’s been an enjoyable but intense first four weeks in the Eternal City and since I’ve always believed that initial impressions capture something magical and crystalline, I thought I’d jot some down here.
The first thing to note is, at the beginning of the end of the covid pandemic, Rome belongs entirely to the Romans. All the world class sites, postcard views and historical remnants are currently just the backdrop for everyday life; and not the draw of bus, plane and train loads of international tourists. This has worked out quite well for us. We take Friday strolls to the Colosseum, walk into St. Peter’s with no lineup and manage to take pictures at the Trevi Fountain with not a single unknown stranger in the frame. It feels like you’re the first one in a nightclub and you know eventually you won’t be able to move, but now the place is yours.
The weather has been cooler and wetter than we expected. Dalia and I both visited Rome in April some years ago and remember a sweltering and manic city, with heat radiating from the concrete with barely anywhere to hide. Thankfully, we now have a comfortable apartment to retreat to and more time to discover and linger in spots we enjoy, like the Villa Borghese park, our nearest and favourite big city green space.
The Romans have been very kind, energetic, welcoming, sincere, sometimes outlandish, most times impeccably mannered, elegant and straightforward. They ooze Italianness in a way that I don’t think I can describe any more precisely than that. Most people look good, their clothes seem to fit them all very well. They wear on average two more layers than a Canadian who’s just arrived but that’s ok. They love their families and take all the generations to the park on weekends. They talk to their dogs very seriously, which is particularly entertaining to someone who, like the dog, doesn’t understand the language. They’re emphatic when they talk on their phones – with no one, or everyone, around. When they’re with each other, they’re not on their phones. This is almost as astonishing as an empty Rome to a North American. We still stand out because we use our phones almost all the time for directions, pictures and translations. Eating in Rome is a rhythym we still haven’t figured out. Lunch is a hard stop by 3pm and dinner starts at 7, 730, earliest. So ya, no pizza or pasta when the belly is empty after work around 5 or 6. More coffee and gelato have become the caloric stand-ins of choice.
We’ve also had our fair share of linguistic challenges thus far. One of the main drawbacks of there being no tourists arounds is that no one expects you to be a tourist. In the best cases, we stare back blankly when locals machine-gun respond to us in Italian, somewhat like untrained monkeys. In the worst cases, we exit to hyperventilate and make a mental note to never return to the establishment where our entire family legacy has just been tarnished. It’s a bit of an exaggeration but also, in a very real sense, our biggest challenge, maybe one of the only challenges, until now. There’s something almost indescribably frustrating and embarrassing about not being able to understand the simplest things in a new language. No matter how many degrees you have or how solid your CV is, not being to understand a cashier ask you if you want a bag or teenagers ask if you want whipped cream on your three gelato scoops, makes you feel so humbled that you almost disappear.
Finding time and energy for language study, or any other ‘nice to have’ has been very hard to come by in our first month. With a new job in a new country with new colleagues; a gorgeously demanding six month old; and the myriad of things one needs to do to set up life: internet, groceries, SIM cards, pediatricians, ironing, there’s not much juice left for other concerns. Dalia tries (and mostly succeeds) to squeeze in a workout during Aleksander’s morning nap and I’ve averaged one workout so far every two weeks (far from a blazing start!). We haven’t eaten out because of covid, we haven’t travelled because we don’t quite know where to begin, and we haven’t shopped much because it just hasn’t really made much sense yet. We did buy an espresso machine and are perfecting our morning cappuccinos. We’ve tried almost every gelato shop in our neighbourhood and manage about 3 – 5 cones per week. And we’ve narrowed down some solid pizza options and toppings for any given moment.
All in all, our first month has been great. We feel incredibly lucky for an opportunity like this at a time like this. We look forward to the eventual visits of friends and family; to Aleksander’s first steps in the streets of Rome; and to the ability to share our thanks and gratefulness with Rome and the Romans in their mother tongue, without embarrassing either side.
I’ve been meaning to write this next blog post for the better part of the last four months, but somehow I just couldn’t get pen to paper. Pandemic, newborn, Christmas, return to work, then… move to Rome! Now, finally, on our loaner Roman Ikea couch, with Aleksander sweetly sleeping and local Italian radio playing in the background, I can write.
The next major event we were anticipating after my last post about Aleksander’s first month, was Christmas. One of the few obvious benefits of our posting to Rome being cancelled last summer was the fact that we’d be able to spend more time with our families in Canada and Aleksander could meet his grandmas, uncles and aunties. In that regard, Christmas was the holiday that we had circled on our calendar for months.
Alas, life in the covid era side-swiped another well-intentioned plan as we made the difficult last minute decision to stay home and not travel to Toronto to spend the holidays with our families. At the time, this was devastating in the way that this year has been filled with many lowkey devastating micro-moments. But we pivoted quickly, I ran down to Ottawa’s Polish grocer and organized my best attempt at the traditional 13 course Polish Christmas Eve feast. Needless to say, the two of us were stuffed beyond belief and the final spread was but a weak imitation of my mom’s many decades old, perfected holiday table. But we had a gorgeous natural Christmas tree, dressed up Aleksander for some photos in cute Santa outfits and exchanged gifts and wishes amongst ourselves. Made the most of it, as 2020 life was wont to do.
Christmas also marked the end of my relatively short two month parental leave – a time, that without hyperbole was amongst the best of my life. Being able to single-mindedly focus on family, support Dalia, and witness all of Aleksander’s first two months of moments, was absolutely brilliant and something I’ll always be grateful for.
A few days after we quietly rang in the New Year, I returned to work (from home). Anticipating in advance how ideal this set-up was, Dalia and I were both surprised at how disruptive my return to gainful employment was, even if I was mostly within earshot, working from the dining room table. We had developed a fine-tuned daily rhythm and weren’t entirely prepared for my newfound duelling dual responsibilities.
I have to also add, for me personally, that the mental space work occupied in my head pushed out many other pleasurable concerns and musings. I no longer freely tweeted the daily joys of being Aleksander’s dad, I felt rushed being with him during the day as work-related tasks loomed nearby, and I watched as Dalia bore more of the parenting burden, increasingly tired as she was. It was not easy and it was not awesome. And it’s probably also one of those parenting truths that you only learn from the school of life. We have to work in order to provide the plenitude of things required to raise a human – diapers, beds, clothes. But this same endeavour detracts, pretty much proportionally, to the time, energy and emotion that you can devote to your little one. If anyone ever figures out this fundamental crux, please drop me a line.
Otherwise, the new year took on its own set of novel routines, and to add to the mix, my offer of posting to Rome was reinstated. Aleksander began to discover his hands and toes, and then slowly the rest of the world outside his grasp. And Dalia and I began to dream of journeys and adventures, pizza and gelato, beaches and Tuscan villas, in a way that had become completely muted in the latter half of 2020.
We plodded through the first quarter of the year, in and out of changing colours, urgencies and levels of lockdown; out from under the occasional seasonal Ottawa snow dumps; and on top of the million tasks one needs to do when changing their country, city and apartment during a global pandemic. All while watching and helping Aleksander grow.
He started to smile, then laugh. Look around, then look at us. Reach out for things, hold our fingers. Make pseudo-conversation sounds and cry only when he had a reason. We continued to parent and learn to parent moment to moment. Googling things in the middle of the night. Asking occasionally for advice and more often than not, getting more unsolicited (well-intentioned) tips than we were able to absorb or implement. Looking at each other often, saying: ‘he’s ok, he looks ok, everything’s ok right?!’ Somehow things kept being ok and we kept figuring out what to do as needed. That also included how to be married alongside a baby who seemed to need more of our attention and time than there were hours in the day.
Our families snuck in as many visits as they could muster to acquaint themselves with the newest arrival to the brood. Grandmas treasured their moments and provided timely relief with their expert holds, walks and lullabies. Our siblings got unfettered glimpses into the joint joy and exhaustion of child-rearing. And the odd friend dropped by and mostly said: I can’t believe you have a kid now. Ya, us either.
As my posting date drew closer, a feeling of disbelief mixed with waves of excitement and anxiety dropped into our already complicated stew of daily emotions. There were so many administrative details to take care of that suddenly my to-do list was keeping me awake at night instead of Aleksander’s cries. But, alas, things kept progressing. Before we knew it, the entirety of our belongings were packed up, leaving only stacks of boxes on which to change diapers. We checked into a downtown hotel with a cinematic evening view of the Canadian Parliament and did our best to line up the timings of our covid tests to get us through France and into Italy.
The stress persisted as we debated and advocated to board our flights in the empty airports of both Ottawa and Montreal. We finally collapsed into our seats and flew over the Atlantic in what somehow felt (again) like the first flights of our lives. Once landed in Europe, no one thought to ask for our covid test results and, in a long-awaited jet lagged haze, we were dropped off at our new Roman apartment, home for the next two years.
Aleksander definitely handled the journey the best out of the trio. “He’s born to travel,” said one of the flight attendants. Oh lady, you don’t even know the half of it!
Dad In The World 