I've just realised my Itali-versary came and went without me noticing. I arrived in Rome on 30th January 2000 aged 22. I didn't know a single person in the city, or even possess a mobile phone. It was absolutely terrifying, and very exciting.

I brought about five novels & just reread them in rotation. I listened to the World Service on a longwave radio I'd bought at Heathrow, there was a soap called Westway that made me nostalgic for London flyovers. Even in current circumstances everything felt much further away then

I did a CELTA course, who found me a room in an apartment with a lady and her teenage girls by San Giovanni who mostly shouted at each other. I got a job at Berlitz (I went round language schools on foot with my CV in alphabetical order). They sent me to the EUR school,

and by all accounts never paid the National Insurance/pension contributions for the year I worked for them. I spent a very long time lost on public transport in the Roman hinterland and beyond (a particularly horrible gig was two days a week at Texas Instruments outside Avezzano)

On Wednesdays I left the house at 6.30am to teach a lesson to the (very nice) man at the press office at Cinecittà Studios. I then went to Avezzano (tube, train, bus, walk along dual carriageway) where the creepy manager in charge of training courses repeatedly pinched my bum

By now I'd changed schools. The winter of the hanging chads. I used to get back home at 9pm on a dark Wednesday. That was a long day for a total of 5 hours teaching at 18,000 lire (then £6) an hour plus about L.30,000 of transfer time. So about £40 for 14 hours of traipsing.

I eventually told the (really terrible) school I couldn't travel all that way to suffer low level (but very tiresome) sexual harassment. They said we can't guarantee you'll be able to keep your classes. So I quit. The other, nice, language schools I worked with gave me more work

and I stipulated I only wanted to work in central Rome. Suddenly it was bliss. Nice classes, no dual carriageways, walking everywhere. I often wonder about that (American) director of studies at the horrible school who dismissed my complaint

and told me I had to keep going despite the creepy bloke or lose my job. Tram-Tube-Tube-Train-Bus-Dual Carriageway-Lech–Dual Carriageway–Bus–Train–Tram. And that was just Wednesdays. His daughters will be older now than I was then.

Then I started working for a tour company, and embarked on the never-ending process of the professional guide exams of the Province of Rome. I know I'm extremely fortunate, but none of the nice wandering around Roman churches just happened.

(That is to say the daughters of the director of studies who sent me there, the lech was mid-fifties)