my birthday!

thanks to everybody who sent a card or an e-card. I opened them just now.

Flathunting in Genova is very hard. It seems everything available is very expensive. This would be ok if it was the going rate, but everyone else in the department rents rooms for € 250 ish, whereas being a foreigner and staying only 6 months and arriving at (apparently) the wrong time of year, i'll be paying in the region of € 400, which seems pretty steep. That's just for a room in a shared flat as well. My whole bedsit flat in Karlsruhe was only € 330, so I'm having trouble adjusting..

The other depressing thing is you have to pay one month's rent to the agency as a fee. So € 400 straight down the drain, not like a deposit that you get back, just a one-off charge. If you're going to stay 3 years maybe it's not so bad, but it's a bit rough for me.

On the plus side, lots of friends from Edinburgh are arriving in Genova today for a workshop which starts on Monday, so we'll be able to go out and celebrate my birthday. I booked a restaurant last night. Well, I hope I did. We'll see what happens when we turn up there tonight..