Exactly 99 Mondays ago, I published my very first blog post here. And that means that this is the hundredth. A hundred blogs! One hundred weeks! Have you ever done something you managed to keep up with for a hundred weeks? I certainly didn’t before starting this blog, so that makes it my biggest personal victory so far.
Who takes all those photos of me? This last question is without a doubt the one I get most frequently asked
But how does it actually work, writing a blog? Does it take up a lot of time? And who takes all those photos of me? This last question is without a doubt the one I get most frequently asked. Straight away, it was clear to me that I wanted a picture of me above every blogpost. After all, this was a very personal blog, and so the readers should be able to put a face on it too, I thought. I have never minded being in front of the lens and for years already I was bringing my camera everywhere, but a new photo of me in a beautiful setting every single week? And preferably one that goes with the story in my blog, and not some kind of bad selfie? Even I considered it quite a challenge, especially when the coronavirus had us stay at home for months. But with friends who are secretly super talented photographers and other friends with the latest iPhones with supersonic cameras, I luckily have a database to always pick a photo from. And on the odd occasion that I didn’t find a suitable one, I put my camera on my tripod and organized a photo shoot with myself on the balcony.
Why did I start this blog in the first place?
Now that a hundred weeks have passed, I take a moment to look back. On all the stories, but certainly on all the photos too. Why did I start this blog in the first place? Well, I wanted to capture my daily life, those very first weeks and months in Rome that undoubtedly would turn out to be very special. I wanted to share my Italy with you. The whole picture, not just the Italy out of a beautiful summer holiday. That reminds me of a famous quote by Beppe Severgnini, the Italian author of “La bella figura”, addressed to all those foreigners visiting Italy:
“Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing”
“First of all, let’s get one thing straight. Your Italy and our Italia are not the same thing. Italy is a soft drug peddled in predictable packages, such as hills in the sunset, olive groves, lemon trees, white wine, and raven-haired girls. Italia, on the other hand, is a maze. It’s alluring, but complicated. It’s the kind of place that can have you fuming and then purring in the space of a hundred meters, or in the course of ten minutes. Italy is the only workshop in the world that can turn out both Botticellis and Berlusconis.”
I wrote about how men here always hold the door open for me and pay for my coffee like true gentlemen, but I also wrote about the violent street robbery and being harassed on the street
And that’s exactly how it is. Botticelli, the Italian painter from the Renaissance, who with his work “Primavera, the birth of Venus” put the woman on a pedestal as the loveliest creation ever, and Berlusconi, the former prime minister, who with his famous bunga bunga parties threw the woman off her pedestal again five hundred years later. This aspect also came back in my blogs. I wrote about how men here always hold the door open for me and pay for my coffee like true gentlemen, but I also wrote about the violent street robbery and being harassed on the street. And then I dedicated a whole blog to all the wonderful men who had helped me so much in the aftermath of the robbery.
There’s little I haven’t written about in those one hundred weeks
The one thing I hope to convey is my enormous love for life in general, which in Italy is often just that bit more layered, more emotional and more complicated than anywhere else. As if your own emotions are also magnified by the astonishing beauty all around you and the problems that seem so hopeless sometimes. There’s little I haven’t written about in those one hundred weeks. I wrote about my very first time house hunting, the first meetings with new friends, and pretty soon, unfortunately, about the first signs of some kind of strange virus that had suddenly appeared in Italy. Then it was about facemasks, curfews and lockdowns, but also about that first time eating outside in a restaurant again, about endless, sweet summers and about the many Roman puppies that had kept people company in the lockdown. I spoke about giant language mistakes, and my unmistakable Roman accent, about pasta workshops, carbonara confrontations and of course… coffee! About Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day, Carnival and holy name days and all the traditions that go with them. About how Italy became the champion of Europe twice this year, first at the Eurovision Song Contest and a month and a half later in the Wembley Stadium in London. About how I was part of it all as Delegation Host of Mäneskin and about how proud I felt of the national team, even as a non-Italian. I wrote about new friends, old friends and friends who came to visit me in Italy. About Naples, Venice, Molise, the island of Ischa, the golden valley Val d’Orcia in Tuscany and of course Rome, the Eternal City and my hometown that is never ever far away in my stories.
If I’d have to mention one thing that I have learned, then it is not to listen too much to what people say. That it would be impossible to find paid work here, or that it would be impossible for a Dutch person to “learn the language really fluently”
I am not that girl anymore that I was ninety-nine blogs ago, and at the same time I still am. If I’d have to mention one thing that I have learned, then it is not to listen too much to what people say. That it would be impossible to find paid work here, or that it would be impossible for a Dutch person to “learn the language really fluently”. That making friends with Italians is very difficult because they are mostly among themselves, and, this one I told myself, that I would never last more than a few months blogging.
It now only takes me two hours to write my blog instead of two days
Little by little, I overthrew all those false but stubborn beliefs, and here we are, ninety-nine weeks on. It now only takes me two hours to write my blog instead of two days, but I do it with as much love as ever. Thank you for being here, whether it’s once in a while or every single week. Thank you for all your kind words and comments. Especially when Italy won the Eurovision Songcontest, you blew me away. You made me feel as if I had personally won. And you know what? Actually, I kind of do, every single Monday again, and for that, I am infinitely grateful. Grazie di cuore. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.