A bit of catch-up

Rewind back to November...

     On the morning of the 19th (Friday) I went to Stazione Termini to pick up Andrew! He took a pretty early flight- I think he left his room in London at 2:30 or something. The reason for this madness was so he could come to my make-up architecture class at 1:30! We were both glad he came for the class- it was a really good one, as usual, and afterward we were right by Chiesa di San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, which he wanted to see. We did a lot of checking out cool architecture, which was fun! Roma certainly has a lot of it. We headed onto the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Giolitti, and Piazza Navona, where we looked in S. Agnese. For dinner we went to a good place in Prati, away from all the touristy areas!
     Saturday was our three-year anniversary! It was also the first anniversary we've been able to spend together... somehow we never managed to do that when we were in Tennessee and Georgia, but we did when we were in England and Italy! Since Andrew had been to Rome twice already, I wanted to show him some of the places that are not so touristy. We went to a bunch of places with interesting architecture, such as Palazzo Farnese (hey, that was on my final...) and S. Ignazio and Piazza S. Ignazio. Since on Friday I took Andrew to the most famous gelato place in Rome, on Saturday I took him to the tiny hole-in-the-wall gelateria by school that my roommates said is tied for the best in Rome- it is literally a hole in the wall, since you can't actually go into the place, you just order from the street. From there we went to the Gianicolo Hill. I've been before during the day, but we went when the sun was setting and the view was fantastic. All the lights in the city were starting to turn on, and it was beautiful. Our anniversary dinner was very... hilarious! We wandered around Prati, looking for a good place. We finally came across one which was very Italian, and I got to speak to the waiter in Italian, which was fun! I continued to attempt this after Andrew's food arrived- he got tortellini, which had meat instead of cheese inside, which we didn't know. I tried to communicate to the waiter in Italian (English translation of my beautiful Italian):

Me- "Is it meat?"
Waiter- "Yes, tortellini has meat"
Me- "She's a boy vegetarian" *points at Andrew*
Waiter- "Oh..."
Me- "Menu?"

Brilliant, I say! I got the gender of "vegetariano" right, but I called him "lei" which means "she"... oops. Needless to say, we got the point across, and they didn't seem to hate us TOO much!
     On Sunday, we walked down by the Tiber to the Ara Pacis museum, technically outside the museum, and I did my dorky tour guide thing looking through the windows. I also wanted to show Andrew the museum itself, which is extremely modern and very controversial. Many Italians hate it- there was picketing in Rome the day it opened. I did my nerdy spiel also on the Mausoleum of Augustus and his Campus Martius developments in general (this is what I wrote my term paper on...haha) and then we walked to Piazza del Popolo, the Leonardo da Vinci museum, and Piazza di Spagna. After that we did a lot of walking around, particularly in circles because of my incredible sense of direction. It didn't help that it was pouring rain and looked like nighttime! My umbrella flipped inside out, broke in half after an especially harsh gust of wind, and flew down the straight while I chased after it. As I was standing up from picking up the umbrella, one of those umbrella street vendors was somehow RIGHT behind me going "ombrello ombrello??" and Andrew just died laughing... they really are everywhere when it rains, and they will harass you to buy an umbrella even if you are carrying one! Andrew and I went to the apartment to dry off and defrost before going to dinner, where we found another good place in Prati (no surprises there) where we got Andrew some gnocchi alla sorrentina! We also discovered that we out-Italian the Italians... Italians are known for eating slowly and having long dinners, but when we were finishing our dinner we realized how many people around us came and left, and that the waiters were hinting that it was time to go by coming and looking at us!
     Andrew was leaving Monday afternoon, but we had time in the morning to go to the top of St. Peter's Cupola. We climbed up 551 steps, stopping once at the inside of the dome and climbing up a very cramped staircase to the outside of the cupola! It was an incredible view- I never realized how high the dome was before then. We were able to see the Vatican city behind St. Peter's, and it was finally not raining so the sky was clear! I was so glad we did that- it was definitely something I had to do before I left. After, we went to the shuttle stop by Termini, where I said bye to Andrew. It was a great weekend- I can't believe we managed to visit each other in London and in Rome!!

    On the 23th I saw Harry Potter in English with Italian subtitles with API's movie night. Again, horrible sense of direction: somehow I ended up in Piazza Navona instead of Piazza del Popolo (seriously?) so I ran all the way to Piazza del Popolo, making it just in time for the movie! Phew.

     Wednesday I went to see the Pope with Liat, Catherine, and her friend from UGA. It was actually kind of funny, and completely not what I was expecting. The crowd was like that at a sporting event- when the people on the stage were reading the names of the big groups who had come to see the Pope, and they were all cheering and stuff like it was a spirit competition or something! People were chanting Ben-edict-o! Ben-edict-o! and waving posters... crazy! Afterward I went to my architecture class in Garbatella, which I loved. It's a public housing city away from the main city center, and it was beautiful. It's one of Rome's Garden Cities from the early 1900s, and the gardens and architecture were amazing. If I could pick one place to live in Rome, that would probably be it. It has such a strong sense of community- my teacher had some great stories, since one of her family members grew up there.

More catching up eventually... going to spend lots of time with my roommates today and having a packing party! Our program ends tomorrow, so I will be saying bye to everyone tomorrow morning when they leave and then going to my hostel in Rome, where I will be staying until the 24th!

Orvieto
Rome: Katie and Andrew visit
Rome: Pope Party, Garbatella, and some other stuff

From the worst blogger ever

Wow, it's been a month since I last posted something...

I've had this saved for a little while and was waiting until I was caught up to post it, but I'll just post what I have now and the rest later! Sound good? Ok...

Katie visited me in Roma! It started out a bit stressful since her friend Trisha was supposed to come with her Thursday night but missed the flight, but we figured out a way for her to get there Saturday morning. On Friday, I got to be a big dork and be Katie's tour guide around Rome! We walked to Piazza Venezia, Largo Argentina, Campo di Fiori, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, Piazza Colonna, Fontana di Trevi, Piazza di Spagna, the Mausoleum of Augustus, the Ara Pacis, and Piazza del Popolo! It was a lot of fun and we talked a lot about history and linguistics, which was awesome. In between our famous monuments and piazze, I made sure to take Katie to Giolitti's, the famed best gelato in Roma! We went to dinner with my roommates, which was also a lot of fun. Most of us were going to see Katie again when we went to Paris! (Strange tenses writing this now, since we already went to Paris...) On Saturday we met Trisha, and went to some of the highlights from yesterday that she had to see. We also went to St. Peter's Basilica before meeting with my roommate Liat and her friend at another one of our favorite ristoranti in Prati. I had one of my favorite pastas in Rome there, spaghetti with fresh and sundried tomatoes... but I digress... after dinner I went back to Katie and Trisha's hotel room and hung out for awhile. The next morning we went to the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, Colosseum, and Circus Maximus. Somewhere among these things Katie's shoes finally died... sad day... the French cobblestone is apparently much tamer than Rome's! We took advantage of an appetizer bar in Prati for a quick and cheap dinner before going to Termini, where Katie and Trisha took a shuttle to Ciampino for their flight the next morning at 7... gotta love low-cost airlines. They love it when you miss your flight, so they make them difficult to get to... anyway, it was great to see Katie in Rome, and when we said bye it was like "bye, see you in Paris!" How crazy is that??

I learned that I really like Baroque architecture... Rome hosts some awesome examples of it, and my architecture class covered many of them! This gives me even more reason to love Piazza Navona and Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. The Piazza di S. Ignazio is also really neat- the shape of the actual piazza itself is very Baroque!

A few weeks ago was the last API trip- so weird... we met at Piazza Trilussa at 9am and went to the Catacombs of an Callisto and St. Paul's Cathedral.

That was rather short... hopefully I will post soon, but finals are going on right now- yikes! I can't believe in less than two weeks I will be home!

Milano, Orvieto, and more Roman Exploring

An update, finally! *is bad at this*

     Let's see, last Tuesday my morning on-site class was cancelled, so I went to S. Ivo della Sapienza and read in the beautiful courtyard for awhile before going to my next class. My teacher for Politics and Power in Roman Architecture gave us a two-sided sheet of paper with a list of things to see in Rome, and I have been working to see everything on the list. It is very worn and has holes where it's always folded and re-folded, and I've found some pretty neat stuff with it!

     I registered for classes next semester! I'm taking all theater, Latin, and classics classes, all of which are required for my majors and sound really interesting. Also on the perhaps less-exciting note of my academic life, I have been spending time in the library finding sources and information for the term papers for both of my on-site classes. Whoohoo, putting the "study" in "study abroad!"

     Last Saturday, Claudia, Kate, Catherine, Liat, and I went to the Gianicolo Hill, which is the second-largest hill in Rome. I've been trying to do all the outdoor walks and parks now before the weather gets too cold. It was a beautiful day- we climbed to the top of the hill and saw the Church of San Pietro, which is where the ancient aqueduct Aqua Paola used to be. Outside the church is a fountain, and across from it is a spectacular view of Rome. We played Name That Monument, which is exactly what it sounds like. There's the Pantheon! There's the Wedding Cake! There's St. Peter's! No, wait, that dome is St. Peter's! Or is it THAT dome? Anyway, then we went searching for, wait for it, a cannon! It goes off every day at noon as a tradition to mark the exact time. It was really neat to see it go off, even if it made all of us jump! Afterward, we went to the Jewish ghetto for lunch at a place right by the Porticus of Octavia and sat outside, which was neat. When we were done, Catherine, Liat, and I continued to walk around the ghetto and Tiber Island, where we walked around the island on Tiber level and saw the broken bridge and the ruins of the temple of Asclepius.

     On Sunday, I went to Milan with Catherine and Kate. We flew Easyjet, and everything going there went smoothly. We had some trouble finding out hotel, but we eventually found it. We went to see the Last Supper, but reservations to see it were full for the next two weeks! So, we moved on to Castello Sforzesco, a very picturesque castle which was beautiful despite the rain. Inside the castle is now a museum, and we saw lots of Renaissance art... and a weird contemporary furniture room? We were kind of confused about that. After, we had a nice lunch before the museum Pianoteca di Brera, where we saw more Renaissance art. We then headed over to see the Dali exhibit, but seeing as the line was three hours long, we decided to go back on Monday! We kept walking and stumbled upon the Duomo- we just looked up and there it was, a great, lit-up Gothic cathedral. It was breathtaking. We walked around the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and listened to a pianist playing in the covered courtyard. After meandering through some stores, we saw some people in costumes doing a zombie walk- Happy Halloween! One guy popped up behind me and scared me, haha. Creepy! We kept walking until we found a restaurant that wasn't crazy expensive. It was a good pick, because I had some great pasta and the waiters were funny. They kept looking over our shoulders and sneaking up behind us! After some good food and conversation, we went back to the hotel and enjoyed having heat, which we are still missing in our Rome apartment.

     In the morning, we went to the top of the Duomo. I love climbing up these tall cathedrals and looking out the tiny windows as I get higher and higher. It was so beautiful at the top, and the rain just made it even more so. Unlike the Duomo in Florence, there was a lot more area to walk around, and much more architecture at the top to see. I've decided I really like Gothic architecture. After walking around and soaking it all in, we took pictures jumping at the very top with our umbrellas and attracted some onlookers! Haha. We went back down and went inside the Duomo, where an All Saint's Day mass was going on. Next we went to Palazzo Reale to see the Salvador Dali exhibit. We were in line for hours, and a woman asked to wait with us after about two hours. She seemed nice and genuine, saying she changed to a later train back just to see the exhibit which she desperately wanted to see, so we agreed, and she talked with us for the rest of the line. She ended up paying for our nine euro tickets and wanted to take pictures with us! The Dali exhibit was really cool- I liked examining the paintings and noticing things that didn't appear right away. Sadly, after the exhibit, it was already time to go, so we walked back to our hotel, went to the airport, and found out our flight was delayed three hours! It wasn't so bad, though; I finished the play I was reading and read another one.

     Friday I went to Orvieto and the thermal baths with API. The bus left bright and early at 7:30. When we got to Orvieto, we saw a beautiful panoramic view of the city. Orvieto is in the Umbria region of Italy, which is kind of like Tuscany but less touristy. We walked down to the bottom of an old well (and back up!) which was neat. In the town area, we saw another pretty Duomo, but I didn't have time to go up in this one. We had a short while to wander around the town and explore. Even though I was there for only a little while, I really liked it- it was very small, open, and not crowded at all. Next, the group met up again and went for a tour of some underground tunnels at the restaurant where we had lunch. The tunnels were carved out of the tufa. Orvieto has lots going on underground, not just tunnels, but the hot springs that feed the thermal baths and an extinct volcano! After a tasty lunch which we ate in the tunnels, we drove to the thermal baths. It was so weird to be swimming around in a hot pool and seeing the fall foliage! The closer you get to the springs feeding the pool, the hotter the water is. It was very relaxing and and also fun- at one point, one of the API directors decided to get a large part of our group to do water aerobics, which was so funny!

    Today (woo, finally caught up!) I went to the Baths of Caracalla with Claudia and Kate. We walked around and took pictures of the ruins for awhile. We were trying to follow a walk from Claudia's guidebook, but after Point 1 (the baths) we got a bit lost... so we ended up just walking around a new part of Rome, and I went back to the Piramide and the non-Catholic cemetery with Kate and Claudia since we were close by and they had never been. 

I cannot believe that I'm over halfway through my semester abroad- I have less than two months left! That is so crazy and a little scary... suddenly my study abroad time seems so finite. I feel like I still have so much I want to do here!

Picture albums:

Rome

Milan

Londra, Firenze, and more Roma!

Wow, so much to write about! I really need to blog more often...

     On October 7th I went to LONDON! I left my last class 30 minutes early, walked very quickly to Largo Argentina, waited about ten minutes for the bus (which seemed like a lot longer) which took me to Termini, where I literally ran to the Terravision shuttle station- it was about 5 minutes before the shuttle was supposed to leave and I couldn't find the place, so I was frantically going around until I saw the bus and then I started running! Whew... so after that panic, I waited like 15 minutes for the bus to leave (...) and about an hour later arrived at Ciampino airport. It's a tiny airport, so I just wandered around until about an hour before the flight took off. I flew Ryanair, so I waited the last hour in line just to make sure I got on (and got a good seat!) I sat by the window and had a spectacular view of Rome at night. The flight was only about 2 hours, and when I arrived in London, I ran to my second shuttle in a panic (deja vu?) which took me to Baker Street! I got there a little early, so I waited a couple minutes until I saw Andrew walking down the street! :) We took a double decker bus- a good first thing to do in London!
     Friday morning, we went to Trafalgar Square, where we took uber touristy pictures with the huge lions; Westminster (which has Big Ben, the Thames River, Parliament, and the London Eye), where we took pictures of a couple from the US who forgot their camera and is now going to send us a copy of their book when they get home; Leicester Square, which isn't pronounced how you'd think; Chinatown, where we took way too many pictures because of Andrew's new camera lens; Piccadilly Circus, which isn't a circus but a circle to us Americans; and University College London, the beautiful college where Andrew is studying this semester. For dinner we went to an Italian restaurant. Yes, Italian. I seriously will never get tired of Italian food. I eat pasta in Johns Creek, I eat pasta in Roma, and I eat pasta in London. After dinner we went back to Westminster, which was really cool because at night it was all lit up, and for some reason that night Parliament and Big Ben were lit with colored lights.
     On Saturday, we saw Portobello Market, the beautiful Kensington Gardens, V&A, Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral. After dinner we went to the Globe theater and saw Henry IV Part II! While not exactly the most thrilling, understandable play this century, we got to be groundlings and lean right up against the stage, and we definitely had some good laughs. It was so cool to see Shakespeare performed in London, in the Globe, with accents and all! We stood for more than three hours, and there was a closing bit since we went on closing night- we were very lucky because they added shows that season- it was so worth it!
     Sunday we were again very busy! We went to the Monument, where we climbed 311 spiral steps up inside the huge Doric column for an awesome view of London, and Greenwich, where the Prime Meridian is located. We went to the British museum with about an hour before it closed, so we saw the main attractions of the museum, such as the Rosetta Stone and pieces from the Parthenon. When the museum closed we went to King's Cross Station, where we dorkily asked a security guard where Platform 9 and 3/4 was! He was confused, so we specified, "like, in Harry Potter?" He wasn't sure where it was and we couldn't find it- we found Platform 9, and Platform 10, but no 9 and 3/4! It was pretty funny, though, and I think he thought we were crazy. Those Americans.
     Monday morning Andrew had class, so I started working on a paper for my own class. Afterward we walked around and had lunch at a nice cafe before I had to get on the shuttle to London Stansted. The journey back was relatively uneventful- I had a great view again from my window seat.
     I hope I didn't make that too long- I tried to keep it relatively short! It was great getting to see Andrew and as much of London as possible in one weekend! :) I can't wait for him to come to Rome!

     The next weekend, I went to Florence with my roommates on an excursion with our program, API. We went on a tour of the city and saw the Duomo, the Medici family house, and Ponte Vecchio. Afterward we spent a lot of time around the markets and had some fun looking at jewelry worth hundreds/thousands of euros! For dinner we went to a small ristorante, which was delizioso.
     Saturday morning we met for breakfast at 7:45 and then headed to the Duomo, the huge cathedral that Florence is famous for. It is covered with beautiful colored marbles, and we were there at 8:30am sharp when they opened the doors so we could climb the almost 500 stairs up to the top. We had to meet with the rest of API at 10:30 to go to the museum, so we wanted to do it before the museum to avoid the long line to go up. At the top, it was an absolutely beautiful view. It was a clear, cool morning- perfect weather. After climbing back down, we went to the museum where we saw the David by Michelangelo. I'm not going to pretend to be an art expert or anything, it just looked pretty impressive to me! I've seen pictures of it, but I've never noticed how expressive his face is before. Or how big his head and hands are...

   On Sunday, Claudia and I went to the Circus Maximus where a bunch of Ancient Roman reenactment groups were doing performances. There were soldiers, gladiators, and dancers, and the whole place looked like a Roman military camp. It was a lot of (geeky) fun! We saw soldiers demonstrate military tactics and a lot of costumed people do a full Roman wedding, which was very colorful- people think of the Romans as all wearing white, but that's not the case.

     Midterm week can be summed up pretty quickly. Study sick study stress study still sick study midterm study stress next midterm study tissues last midterm DONE. I survived, and I think I did pretty well?

     Friday I went to the tour of the Vatican Museum with API and got to see many famous things, such as the statue of Laocoon and the Sistine Chapel! Also, among the not-as-famous things, I saw the Borgia room- the tour guide talked about how corrupt they were, and I was just standing there like hehe possibly my ancestors.... on Saturday, I went to the Villa Borghese Gardens, which was very pretty, and Sunday I took a walk to Palazzo Spada, where I saw the really neat illusion by Bernini- it's a corridor that was made to look much longer than it actually is, and the statue at the end looks life-sized when it's actually about 3 feet tall! After I left, I people-watched in a piazza for a little while and had fun understanding pieces of the Italian that people were saying.

Photo albums!
Tarquinia
Marino Wine Festival
London
Florence
Vatican Museum and Villa Borghese Gardens

Roma-Roma-ma-ah!

 Just so you know, it's October. CRAZY.

Let's see, I'll just start with some highlights since the last post.

I did my oral report on the Theater of Pompey for my Ancient Rome and its Monuments class... I think it went all right- I can't remember the last time I had to do an oral report!

On Thursday I visited Villa Farnesina. It was on the list my architecture teacher gave us of places to see, so I thought I'd check it out. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to! The villa was built in the 1500s and the interior walls are covered with incredibly ornate frescoes by painters such as Raphael. The frescoes all depict scenes and characters from Greco-Roman mythology and I had a lot of fun figuring out what everything was. When I was about to leave, I found a book by the entrance of the descriptions of what the frescoes were, and I was happy to see that I guessed most things correctly- I'm such a dork! Afterward I had some time between when the villa closed and my first class, so I had a had a snack at Piazza Trilussa and people-watched.

Friday I went to Tarquinia with API. I didn't get to go with my roommates (kind of complicated story having to do with a single make-up class) but it was still really fun. We biked through the medieval town of Tarquinia, which also has strong Etruscan roots, and made stops along the way to see churches and beautiful views of the countryside. For lunch we ate at an agriturismo, which is a farm that serves the food it grows to tourists vacationing there. It was dee-licious! After the lunch, I somehow got started talking with the wine connoisseur who talked for a really long time about wine tasting, and I told him my family was from Italy. He asked for the last name and where they were from, and I said Borgia and Cavallo, from Colliano. It's so funny telling people here Borgia- it always gets a good reaction!

I walked around with Claudia and Liat on Saturday, which was nice. We were heading toward the Crypt of the Capuchin monks, which was cool yet eerie- it's a crypt with several rooms decorated entirely of the bones of the monks from 1500-1800. I wasn't allowed to take pictures, but I'm sure Google has some.

On Sunday, I went to the Marino Wine Festival and hung out mostly with Catherine and Liat. I wasn't planning on going, but that morning, right before my run, I decided I might as well, so I ran, quickly showered, and went out the door to the metro station. We took the metro to Termini, then figured out our train tickets and took the train to Marino. As soon as we climbed all the steps to get to the town, the atmosphere was like bam, FESTIVAL! People were dancing in the streets, singing in Italian along with the loudspeakers everywhere, wearing inflatable crowns... there was a parade and then at 4:00 wine was supposed to flow out of the fountains, so I went with Catherine and Liat because they wanted to get a spot by the fountain early. Turns out so did everyone else- we were packed in a mob of people all crowding around the fountain, and I seriously couldn't move. It was crazy! When the fountain finally started spouting wine, I was trying to get AWAY from the fountain, but everyone else was trying to get TO the fountain, and no one could get anywhere! We finally made it out of the crowd alive, then walked around more and hung out on some steps in the main piazza, talking and people-watching. About a half hour before our train was supposed to leave, we went down to the train station and waited. There was much confusion about which tracks the train was going to come on. When the train finally did come, it was even more madness. I looked down the length of the side of the train and saw about four people's feet sticking out of the windows- people inside and outside the train were lifting/pushing lots of people through the windows, many of whom didn't even have tickets. Catherine, Liat, and I got crushed against the train and couldn't get to the door, so we actually missed the train and had to wait 50 minutes for the next one! So chaotic.  We finally did make it back to Rome on the next train! It was crazy and fun and we were all very glad we went!

Video of the madness:

Also, I am going to London this weekend!! I am leaving my last class on Thursday 30 mins early, walking and taking the bus to Termini, finding the Terravision shuttle, taking the shuttle to Ciampino airport, flying to London-Stansted on Ryanair, finding the bus, then ending up wherever Andrew is! Whew! So excited!

Another Rome album!

Walking and Hiking Everywhere

I don't even know the names of many streets around where I live in Georgia, but I am getting a pretty good sense of direction around some areas in Rome, especially in Prati, my neighborhood. Check this out.


Via Guilio Cesare
Via Pompeo Magno
Via Cicerone
Via Plinio
Via Ottaviano
Via Vespasiano
Via Vergilio
Via Ovidio
Via Tacito
Via Terenzio


Can you guess why? Because these street names are not made up, they are CRAZY AWESOME. Because not only am I walking around the streets of Rome, almost in a mesmerized daze, I'm like, whoa, I'm walking on the Via Vergilio right now. How cool! When I walk along the Tiber, I often see a boat named Rhea Silvia go by. 


Let's see, last weekend I went to Tivoli with John Cabot and hiked up Monte Catillo and around Villa Gregoriana. We hiked for 2.5 hours up the mountain, which was beautiful and exhilarating and steep. At some point up the mountain, there was a forest of cork trees, which was really neat- the air on the mountain smelled amazing and full of fall, and in the cork forest it almost smelled sweet! The experts are still trying to figure out why the cork trees are growing there. When we got to the top we had lunch, then hiked back down the mountain. We saw wild horses once on the way down, about four of them and a foal! Once we reached the base of the mountain, we headed to Villa Gregoriana. Several waterfalls and rocky grottoes made for some beautiful views, even though it was rainy. There were tons of stairs there- we were going in loops or something, so every time we went down stairs we knew we had to come back up! At the end of the long day (about 6 hours of hiking) we hopped on the bus and came back to Rome. 


Lately, I've been doing lots of wandering. Last Sunday Claudia and I wandered around and found a really neat flea market in a piazza by our apartment. After and between all my classes this week I've been walking around wherever my on-site classes end. My architecture teacher gave a list of places we should see, so I've been trying to get to those places and enjoying whatever I find on the way. On Monday I didn't have class and I did about 5 hours of walking! This weekend was also a wandering weekend with my roommates Claudia, Kate, and Catherine. On Saturday, we wanted to see the Bocca della Verita, so we decided to have a slow day and get to the Bocca della Verita, but take our time and find lots of places in between. On the way, we went to Piazza del Popolo and people-watched, visited the DaVinci museum (which was fascinating and very impressive), checked out many little shops, had lunch in a trattoria on a small side street, hung out by the Pantheon, and did some more people-watching by the Temple of Hercules while we sat in the grass. We all agreed it was a day well-spent! Sunday we went to a flea market in the morning and stopped and had lunch. When we got back I went for a run since the weather is incredible- high of 75 degrees Fahrenheit! As I was saying before, I'm getting to know my way around this area, so I didn't even have to run in big loops over and over like I have been. I just ran around every corner that looked pretty. It was a very good run! Observation: jogging scares pigeons. 


Blogger is giving me some trouble uploading my pictures into the post, but here are the links so my Italy albums thus far! :)


Rome
More Rome
Sperlonga 
Mt. Vesuvius, Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii
Mt. Catillo and Villa Gregoriana

Italian/American Differences

Pretty much says it all in the title. Here we go.

1. Italians are much, much more laid back than Americans. I think it's that the concept of time is so different. I doubt anyone ever uses the phrase "time is money" here. From 1:00pm-4:00pm is siesta time- all the shops close because people go home to have lunch and nap. Walking on the street, eating, drinking, everything is done at a relaxed pace. Even the laundry takes its time- a cycle can last up to six hours and the clothes are hang-dried. When walking on the sidewalk, I have to remember this when it seems the people in front of me are moving at a snail's pace. It's a different speed of life- the atmosphere is contagious since no one seems stressed out. I suspect this is one of the main reasons the Italians live so long, not just the Mediterranean diet and all the walking.

2. Italians dress more modestly and formally than Americans. I'm not saying they walk around in fancy clothes, but I have only seen one person wearing sweatpants, and no one wears t-shirts (unless they're walking around in a tour group). The one exception seems to be the beach. Every beach is a topless beach, some are nude, and speedos and thongs are all over the place.

3. Everyone smokes.

4. Italians are much more personable at shops and restaurants. I remember the first night, at the API welcome dinner, when not many people ate the dessert (we had already had an appetizer and 2 courses!), the chefs came out to talk to one of our program advisors about why no one finished the dessert, and if they should make another one (we were a group of 75 people). In Italy, when the waiters come out and ask how your food is, they really want to know! If you don't finish your meal, be prepared to be asked why not, and for weird looks (even a refusal) if you ask for a to-go box.

5. A bar in Italy is completely different from a bar in America. An Italian bar is pretty much a little restaurant, sometimes outside, where people will order some wine or something and hang out. Italians do not drink to get drunk, they drink slowly and in moderation (see #1). If you see a loud, drunk person, that's probably an American study abroad student...

6. Traffic lights are more like...guidelines. Crossing the street with a "Walk" light certainly does not mean that someone isn't going to keep on driving down that road. On the flip side, pedestrians cross whenever they feel like making their way through a couple lanes of moving traffic. So, not sure what those silly lights are for.

7. The American first floor is the Italian ground floor, and the American second floor is the Italian first floor, etc.

8. Paying at restaurants (I use this term generally to mean any place that serves food, haha) can be confusing... First, there is sometimes a sitting fee, usually around 2€. This is instead of tip. Then, the bread they bring out to you may or may not be free. It depends on where you are. In Rome, the bread could be free, or else you might get hit with a 9€ charge on your bill at the end of your meal to split among everyone. When my roommates and I were in Sorrento, no one touched the bread- it looked and smelled delicious, some kind of focaccia, and we all stared at it longingly. When the waiter came by, he looked at us with a really confused look and asked why we didn't eat the bread. Turns out it was free- he laughed, and we demolished the bread. Also, water is never free. You have to specify mineral water senza gassata (without gas) or else you'll probably get the natural bubbly kind, and always without ice! (Ps. places don't open for dinner until around 7, and even then you'll be the only one in the restaurant!)

9. At an Italian supermarket, the customers are supposed to bag, weigh, and price-sticker their own fruits and veggies- but don't think about touching the food without a plastic glove!

10. You've never seen PDA until you've been to Italy.

Well, that's all I can think of for now! I feel like I've gotten used to to many of these differences already, and some of them were hard to think of because they already don't seem that odd. I pretty much love the Italian culture. I'll update later about my weekend, and I'll post more Italian/American differences as I think of them! :) Ciao ciao!

Epic First Post

So. BLOG. I have been meaning to start this for a really long time! I need to get started somewhere... so to get myself warmed up, I'm going to do a super-quick summary of everything so far! (Yes, everything!)

August 29: I start out the whole adventure 30 minutes late (go figure, it's me) because I slept through all my alarms. I woke up at 5:30, finished last-minute packing, left for the airport late (surprise), took stuff out of my suitcase because I was afraid it was too heavy, said bye to the family, saw Linda at the terminal before our flights took off, flew to Washington DC, waited for 6 hours, got on the 777 plane to Fiumicino, and slept for most of the plane ride. Whew. There was a map on the screen behind every seat, so I always knew where I was, which was neat. I saw mountains one time from the plane when I got up to stretch my legs- so pretty!

Big plane!

August 30: Plane lands in Roma!! By this point I am tired, hungry, and thirsty, but I really don't care because I'm so excited and my nervousness has been gone ever since I got on the plane to Rome. I found the API people and started meeting my roommates. My first meal in Rome was lunch at a trattoria, and the waiter didn't speak hardly any English but he was really interested in all of us! After lunch my roommate in the hotel, Tori, and I took a much needed nap before heading to the API meeting and welcome dinner. Afterward, we walked around and stumbled across what I now know is Piazza Navona!

Piazza Navona at night

August 31: In the morning we had our monuments of Rome tour, which was so incredible it was almost surreal. In a matter of hours I saw the Pantheon, Colosseum, Arch of Constantine, Column of Marcus Aurelius, the Palatine, the Roman Forum, the ruins of Caesar's Palace (the real one), the Theater of Marcellus, and the Circus Maximus. It was amazing- all these major historical monuments that I've been learning about existed in my mind as a picture in a book or as a mythological place in a story, but I saw them all one right after the other with my own eyes- and the whole time, brilliant me is thinking something along the lines of "whoa... it's real!!" I really cannot explain how crazy it is. I'm kind of tired now and this is coming out as mumbo jumbo. In addition to my ancient monuments, I also saw the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona again with the Fountain of the Four Rivers, Campo de' Fiori, and the Piazza di Saint Ignazio. Also, during the tour, I got my first real Italian gelato! Completely blew the Colosseum out of the water. Just kidding. I bought a cell phone and went to dinner with a bunch of people, then hung out at a piazza with my roommates.

It exists!

September 1: Move-in day! Started out kind of stressful since my other roommates called Tori and me at 8:24am and we had to be on the bus at 8:30am or it would leave without us and we would have to get a taxi to take us. Thank goodness they called us, and we were able to throw all our stuff together and make it to the bus on time! Our apartment is beauuutiful, I love it!! Here's the video tour! We have 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, two balconies (one of which is connected to my bedroom), a living room, and 2 bathrooms! My awesome roommates are Kate, Catherine, Tori, Liat, and I am sharing a room with Claudia, which was decided because she wakes up early and I... don't wake up. For anything. Anyway, I especially love the view from the kitchen balcony- I love hanging my laundry out there because I feel like such an Italian! I went to lunch and the supermarket with my roommates, and later we cooked dinner all in the apartment- a gourmet Italian meal of spaghetti and bottled tomato sauce. We still have the noodle on the ceiling from when we were testing to see if it was al dente! It was a really fun day and I enjoyed spending a lot of time with my roomies!

View from the kitchen balcony- many pictures stitched together

September 2: We had our orientation at JCU which was relatively uneventful... later that night Catherine, Kate, Claudia, and I went to visit another apartment in the Vaticano neighborhood. It was a longer trek than expected, including a ton of stairs to get up to the apartment- we definitely need to find a different way to get there next time. We practically ran all the way back in order to get gelato before they closed, and when we got back we just hung out in the apartment which was fun.

Running down the stairs with Claudia, Catherine, and Kate to get to the gelato place

 
September 3: Around noon we had our Christian Rome tour, and we went to Castel Sant'Angelo and Saint Peter's Basilica. I enjoyed these a lot more than I thought I would- Saint Peter's was incredible. It was so ornate and beautiful, and of course I took a million pictures.

Bernini's Baldacchino in Saint Peter's

September 4: The only thing I remember about today was Catherine's now-famous dinner... the waiter came out and served her pasta out of an enormous hunk of Parmesan cheese. Enough said.

September 5: Sperlonga beach day! My roommates and I went with a tour group. The whole town was absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to spend another couple of days there just floating around in the water looking up at the town. I would love to live there- there's not much else to say about it other than just repeating how beautiful it was, so if you really want to know, proceed to my Facebook and take a look at my ten million pictures.

I didn't know which way to look, toward the town or out toward the ocean- both were so pretty!

September 6: Since I have no Monday classes, I had a pretty relaxing day. I went to the open-air market, made the video tour of our apartment, and walked to the John Cabot campus (which took me an hour and five minutes!). 

No other pictures for today, so I guess I'll put up this one of my lunch after the market!

September 7: First day of classes (and Laura's birthday!) First was Ancient Rome and its Monuments from 9:30am-12:15pm. We walked to the Circus Maximus, the Palatine, and the Roman Forum. At each stop, my teacher talked about the monument/area and its history. I am really excited for this class, and I wish it wasn't just on Tuesdays! I went back to the apartment for lunch and then was 10 minutes late for Italian (2:15pm-4:05pm TR) since I waited for the 271 bus for like 25 minutes... stupid phantom bus! The teacher kept speaking to me in Italian which was basically awkward because, um, I don't speak Italian, so I kept staring at her blankly with no reply. Thirdly was Literature and Society in Ancient Rome, 5:15pm-6:30pm TR. Claudia is also in that class, and we love the teacher- elderly kooky Classics professor!

On-site Monuments class- legend says that Faustulus found Romulus and Remus washed up under this arch by the Palatine Hill!

September 8: First Politics and Power in Ancient Roman Architecture class (1:30-4:15 W). We met in a classroom since it was the first day and went over the syllabus and et cetera, but I am really excited for this class! On the way back to my apartment, I stopped by the open air market in Prati (my neighborhood) and all of the people who work at this one stand were talking about me... there was one guy who could speak English who asked how old I was. There was much gesturing and chatting and I figured out they were so surprised that I was 20 since they all think I look 15! It was pretty funny but awkward... they were referring to me as "bella signorina" so I was pretending to not understand that and then skedaddled away as soon as they were done weighing my food. (By the way, at the supermarkets, if you don't bag, weigh, and price-sticker your own food, they get annoyed... I think they also charge you if you don't have exact change, but I don't really know!)

The peaches here are the best ever!

September 9: Italian teacher continues to speak in mostly all Italian, so I got kind of confused. In Lit. and Society, the teacher gave a brief history of pre-Rome, which was cool- I am loving this history thing.

September 10: We left in the morning to go to Sorrento! During the drive, I saw signs saying Naples and Salerno... so close to Colliano, where my family is from. Hopefully I will get to visit them! We drove up Mt. Vesuvius on the bus. Picture this: thin, winding roads, and European drivers on both sides. After a somewhat precarious drive up, we stopped and hiked up the mountain- everyone was dressed for a hot day, and it was super windy and cold! Nevertheless, it was beautiful and exhilarating. I very much enjoy the outdoors, and a nice chilly hike up a dormant volcano with a view of the bay of Naples was pretty sweet. At the top, my roommates and I all took silly posing pictures on a rock, which was fun, and we got some good pictures! After we hiked back down, we headed on to Sorrento. I had the Sorrento-style gnocchi for dinner, which was highly recommended to us, and then we wandered around the town going into little shops for the rest of the night. Oh, and some awesome gelato from another shop that was recommended to us!

September 11: It was kind of weird being out of the US for this day. In the morning, we took a ferry to Capri, and if I thought that was beautiful, the boat tour around Capri was breathtaking. I took a million pictures and still had plenty of time to put my camera down and just enjoy the wind and the smell and the views. It was probably my favorite part of the day- the ocean and islands were gorgeous, the weather was perfect, and the boat was fun! After the tour, I tried finding the Venetian steps, but the people I asked either spoke Italian and probably knew where it was, or spoke English and had no idea. I ended up finding some random steps and walking up to Capri town, which was cool because I saw a lot of pretty entrances to houses. I can't imagine coming home every day to one of these beautiful villas overlooking the water. In Capri town, I met up with people and had lunch and then wandered around the shops. Capri has beautiful ceramic stores and I wanted to buy everything. Back down at the shore I put my feet in the ocean... the water was so clear, I just stood there enjoying everything until we had to take the ferry back.

Capri!

September 12: We checked out of our hotel and went on a tour of Pompeii. The city felt so real; I could really sense that it was once a thriving town full of real people. It was amazing how there were intact frescoes and tracks on the road from chariots. Eheu, Caecilius, Metella, Quintus, Grumio, Clemens, and Cerberus... I wanted to stop by and say hey but I couldn't find them. Going into one of the villas might have been my favorite, since I felt like I was seeing all the things I first learned about the Romans in Latin I- triclinium, impluvium, cubicilum... hehe!

Chariot tracks between the stepping stones- don't get your toga wet when it rains!

September 13: I went with my roommates to the supermarket and the open-air market... now the guys at the open air market are all calling me Sabrina, so I am confused. The last time they asked my name and pronounced it Si-VAH-nah, so maybe they forgot? Later, I finally made it to the bookstore by the Spanish Steps to get my textbooks (all but one... gotta go back I guess). I wandered around the area and found this awesome pasta place and omg. Pasta is like my favorite food and this place was full of different kinds of pasta, so it was heaven, or at least would have been if everything wasn't so expensive! Disney pasta, little Mexican hat looking pasta, black squid ink pasta, Christmas pasta, and... not sure what to call it... genitalia pasta? For real. And it's not the first time I've seen it, either. For dinner, I experimented with making eggplant. It turned out pretty good, except I cut my thumb AGAIN while chopping... really, I never do that at home, but this is the second time in like a week where my thumb has been bleeding profusely and I ran to Claudia asking for a Band-Aid. Tonight was my first night of doing homework- it was fun to be doing homework again (yeah I know, I'm a dork). My classes are all so interesting!

l'emporio della pasta

September 14: I walked to the Piazza del Popolo for my on-site Ancient Rome and its Monuments class and actually made it on time without any problems. We met by this huge Egyptian obelisk and then proceeded to a museum where we talked for the rest of the time about Etruscan artifacts. It's really neat learning so much about the Etruscans- it's so important for Roman history because the Romans got so much from the Etruscans! I could go on but I don't want to bore everyone... after Lit. and Society in Ancient Rome, I learned of Claudia's groundbreaking (teehee, there's kind of a pun in that) theory- after the teacher talked about how important water was for the Romans (their cities are all around water sources and they were experts at getting water into the cities- hello, aqueducts) she told me that obviously, the Romans were water-benders. I agree completely. In fact, she continued to inform me that Moses was the avatar. Red Sea, burning bush, etc... so true.

Funky angle yet not the best picture, I had to stop and take notes... hundreds of tons, brought to Rome by Augustus in 10BC

September 15: Dude, this is TODAY! Awesome! I am finally caught up in my blog! On Wednesdays I only have one class, Politics and Power in Ancient Roman Architecture. It was awesomeee! Well, first of all, I should have walked, because Google maps said 46 minutes walking and it took me about an hour taking the metro. Still, it was really odd being like, “Ok, I need to get off at Circo Massimo after the Colosseo stop” and there being COLOSSEO really big on the walls in the metro station! I was 10 minutes late and had to call my teacher- she gave us her phone number in case we couldn’t find the location so we wouldn’t miss the whole three-hour class. I finally found where we were, and it was pure amazingness from then on. (History nerds, continue reading.) We talked about the Roman triumphal processions, and then walked the route that Roman triumphs took. We started were the Porta Triumphis used to be, a huge gate that only opened for triumphal processions. We walked through the Circus Maximus- I asked the teacher if the processions actually went through it, and she said yes- the Circus Maximus was made for having thousands of spectators, so the triumph would go through with thousands of Romans cheering them on from the stands. We walked along the Via Appia to the Colosseum, where we imagined we walked under the Arch of Constantine (walking under the arches isn’t allowed anymore in order to preserve the monuments). The arch straddles the Via Sacra, which we followed to the Arch of Titus, through the Roman Forum, and to the Arch of Septimius Severus. Because we already had our tickets for getting in the Roman Forum, my teacher wanted to end class there, but the ending place was very close and I have been there before with my other class: the triumphs would stop at the base of the Capitoline hill, kill the captured slaves from the conquered side, and then ascend the hill to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. At each monument, she would stop and talk and we would take notes. SO cool. A bit more nerdiness here, and then I’ll be done: the Roman triumphal processions were not only celebrating the emperor, or the army, or the victory, but also romitas- “the quality or condition of being Roman” (the dictionary term) aka what I think is about feeling superRoman- no wonder the Romans were so proud! When I first went on the monuments of Rome tour, with my little plastic earbud in my ear, chasing after my tour guide with a mob of other tourists, I was awed and impressed. I can scarcely imagine how Romans, especially those in the triumph, would feel being on this same path, except for everyone is screaming and cheering around these same monuments that signify Rome’s other victories. Wow, sorry, this was a really long ramble- apparently my posts will get longer when I’m writing about things that happened earlier today rather than weeks ago! Anyway, after class, I wandered around the Forum for a little over an hour and really really enjoyed it. I got stuck on the Palatine for a bit, but then I found a bus stop and made it back to Prati. Claudia is awesome and made dinner for all the roomies- I need her to teach me how to make eggplant (and not cut myself…) then I finished typing this blog! Whew! Now I need to go read book III of the Livy!

The Forum Romanum and the Colosseum