Greetings from the Boot part 14: Tessa Vrijmoed in Rome

"I'll be home in half an hour." Tessa Vrijmoed, who turns 42 this year, divides her time between her family, teaching at the Dutch school, writing and publicizing her beautiful novel Marina's song. The children are the cause of the delay. Home is an apartment, not far from the hip Trastevere district, in an unromantic 70s neighborhood. Most Romans do not live in stately 19th-century palazzos.

The student

Tessa was 17 when she got off the plane for the first time in Rome, even for the first time in Italy. It was the Rome trip from the gymnasium where she was in her final year and the city has never let go of her. That was her bond with Italy and Rome: antiquity, Latin, art and culture.

'I heard a lot of Italian at home in Bussum. My father is fond of opera, but we certainly weren't italophiles. '

She moved to Amsterdam where she studied classical languages.

'I was just sad that Cicero and Euripides would end and I didn't really know what else I wanted to do.'

With her master's degree in hand, she went to Florence for a long summer to learn Italian.

'Living with an Italian family gave me the best of both worlds. We ate at home la pasta della mama and in the evening I went into town with two Florentines and their Italian friends. During the day I was at school with the international students, a completely different world. It was amazing.

Florence will always have a special place in my heart.' Back in the Netherlands, she completed teacher training and taught at a secondary school for a year, while her student friends went abroad for a year. Their enthusiastic stories and adventures inspired Tessa.

'I also wanted to leave and I couldn't get Italy out of my head.' She knew she had to do it now, otherwise she would spend her entire life with the stability of a good job and a permanent position.

Less than a year later, she arrived well prepared in the Eternal City, on August 15, Ferragosto or the Assumption of Mary, a national holiday in Italy.

'So I hadn't prepared myself that well.' She can laugh about it now.

'I had my diplomas translated. I hoped to work as a teacher of ancient languages. That never happened.'

The adventurer

She wanted to spend a year getting to know the city and living with the Romans. That also had to be paid. The embassies, international organizations and schools were not an option. 'I didn't want the expat bubble dive in. I wanted Italy.'

With a stack of resumes under her arm, she entered the subway in search of work.

'Everywhere I thought I would like to work there, I knocked on doors: cinemas, bookstores, you name it.' And it worked, even though the first company failed after 3 months. She found a new job each time and immersed herself in Roman life.

"It was so wonderful that I actually didn't want it to end." For a 26-year-old, a year seems like a long time, but Tessa decided after just 6 months that it would be too short.

'If you leave for a year, you start counting down after 6 months and I didn't want to return to the Netherlands at all.' She was enjoying her big adventure too much.

This is how she moved from one job to another. She worked at a campsite, as a guide in Sint Pieter, for a law firm and started teaching at the Dutch school. She still does, after a hiatus. For half a day a week, children of expats or with one Dutch parent receive lessons from Tessa in Dutch language and culture.

And she started writing, first for Time to Momo (publisher of travel guides, ed.). The walks in their guides needed to be updated and she was also allowed to add ideas of her own. She is still happy with her top 10 Roman film locations. It was a great way to get to know the city even better.

One year turned into 4 and Rome became more and more Tessa's home.

The writer

For 8 years she filled her website with blogs about Rome, Italy and everything related to it.

'I always hoped to eventually be able to make it my job. Too bad it didn't work out, but it doesn't matter.' She wrote 3 books about the city: the travel guide 100% Rome, Let your crickets sing, Past the Colosseum en Past the Colosseum again.

The last 2 are no ordinary travel guides. These are stories in which Tessa introduces you to life in Rome and to the city, which is so much more than the Colosseum, St. Peter's and the Roman Forum. Of course she doesn't know Rome better than most Romans, but she knows it differently, she says modestly. 'There are certainly Dutch people who know Rome better than I do.'

Why is she still in Rome? Didn't she ever think the adventure was over?

'I stayed here for the first 4 years because I loved the city.'

Because she worked as a guide, Tessa felt she needed to brush up on her French. The language school organized a appetizer in a bar in Monti, a neighborhood in Rome.

'I sat next to an Italian man who also wanted to work on his French. I remember well that I immediately thought, I don't want to lose this boy, he has so much to say and is so nice.' They texted each other for the first time that same evening and never stopped chatting. Thus began the next part of the adventure.

'Riccardo is not a typical Roman or Italian. He lived on his own, was certainly not grandmother, not a mama's boy, and he knows so much about the city that he can still tell and show me and the children new things every time. '

Those children are now also part of the adventure. She got to know so many new sides of life in Rome. Things she had never thought about before. Even the question of which restaurant you can change a baby in became an adventure and a blog.

She remains curious, always wants to see and experience new things. So she arrived like a real tourist in Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer residence.

'I had just been a mother for a year and the story of the end of WWII and the story of the 40 children born in the Pope's bed grabbed me by the throat.' It wouldn't let her go anymore.

'I kept it a bit of a secret. This was the book I wanted to write.' She stopped blogging after the corona lockdowns and published last year Marina's song, the historical romance novel she wrote about it.

The emigrant

'I feel Dutch on the schoolyard. Especially when, for example, I am annoyed by the rusted fences that were replaced by new ones a year ago, but the old ones are still standing against the school building, waiting to be finally picked up.'

Then she cycles to Trastevere, orders a cappuccino and two Dutch people sit on the terrace next to her. 'Then I suddenly feel like a Roman again, I feel that distance.'

In the Netherlands she often feels Italian. 'I want a hot meal at lunchtime and the Dutch are so organised, they plan everything. Here it is much more, last minute and we make time for it. The Dutch also do their shopping in such a measured manner, while I assume that someone would always be able to join us.'

Yet she is still very Dutch. She notices this, for example, when she simply approaches strangers at a drink and starts real conversations. 'Italians ignore the situation or keep it very superficial. It often takes 4 or 5 meetings before they become a little more open.' She hesitates for a moment. 'Of course it could also be my personality.'

At home she sees her Dutch roots every day at the front door, where the birthday calendar hangs, but much more important is of course the language she gives her children. They speak perfect Dutch and she is proud of that.

'Language is a connection and it's great that Ricardo is also good at languages, so we can speak Dutch at home without me feeling like I'm leaving him out.' She knows that many friends who are married to Italians do not have that luxury. 'So almost no Dutch is spoken at home.'

And then of course there are the children's parties with streamers and just at home. 'We decorate cakes and play games, very Dutch in the 80s. Italian parties are always in a bouncy castle or something and with a clown folding balloons.'

The Italian

'I still enjoy Italian, speaking and the puzzle every day. That's my passion after all.' What else does she enjoy most? 'The delicious food, the weather and the whole life here. I'm almost a walking cliché.'  

At first she was very concerned about the way Italians don't finish things, the lack of planning and organization. 'That they open up the street and then there is a mountain cobblestones, cobblestones, remains where it is never cleaned up, because another service is responsible for it, or something like that.' She has tried to go after it in the past, but it took so much effort and time.

'I have become very Roman about that again, leave it, never mind, a kind of defeatism, so to speak.'

But she cannot imagine living anywhere else, she enjoys the adventure that her life was, is and remains too much for that.

3 tips from Tessa Vrijmoed to make your emigration to Italy a success

• If you want to work in Italy, don't compare Italian salaries with Dutch ones.
• Would you like to have a chat with an Italian? Then ask what he or she ate last night.
• Ask for one 'brusketta' if you have a 'bruschetta' means.

Want to know more about Tessa, her blogs and the tours in Castel Gandolfo that she organizes? Visit her website: tessavrijmoed.com.