Quattro

“qua” as in “quality. “tro” as in “astro-turf.”

Alrighty then, so it’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these. Much has happened since my last adventure. Where to begin….

So, I had class in the Colosseum, which was pretty stinkin awesome. Oh, and the day before that, I went to mass at St. Peters. It was the first time I had been inside and it is un.be.liev.able. Seriously, that place is crazy ridiculous. It was hard to concentrate in church because there is so much stuff to marvel at. Also, there was the cutest Italian kid two pews up and I spent a lot of time thinking of ways to steal him (don’t worry, I didn’t). Oh, and then there’s the whole mass being in Italian thing, so that made it hard to focus as well. I could understand the order of things and what was happening when since all Catholic mass goes in the same order, but the priest lost me during the homily. Something about brothers and sisters, and then he just went off. He was pointing all over the place and raising his voice, so I think it was something important. When I am fluent in Italian at the end of the semester, I will know what is going on and I’ll report back on how the Pope thinks you should be living your life. Be ready for that.

Back to the Colosseum and its awesomeness. It makes me a little sad that it has been destroyed by man. During the Middle Ages, people took all the metal and bronze supports out of it, so that is why there are holes all over the outside. What were those fools thinking?? It had already been there for like, 1000 years! Also, interesting fact, it has been struck by lighting twice. I mean, that only happens like, once every 1000 years...but since its been there for 2000, it makes sense. Another interesting fact, the only reason people had to stop destroying it was because some pope way back when declared it a tribute to martyrs since many Christians were executed there (before Catholicism was the cool thing to do) and now the church is still in charge of it and they do stations of the cross there during Lent. So we might go try to see it sometime. Speaking of Lent, I think I am going to give up soda and possibly sweets. Giving up Nutella and gelato would be pretty tough, since they are basically the loves of my life, but when in Rome….give up something important or the Bennedetto will find out and be upset. Oh, and back to the Colosseum, its funny because outside, there are all these men dressed up in Gladiator or Senator outfits and they stand around and smoke cigarettes and try to con you into taking pictures with them. Some guys from our class did and then they’re like, ok, 5 euro please. And then its like, crap, I have to give it to him because he has a sword. I mean, I doubt he would chop your head off, but I wouldn’t want to take any chances.

Moving on to my big adventure, Barcelona! We left wicked early Friday morning (3:00 AM) and flew out of Rome at 6:55 AM. I would not recommend such early flights out of anywhere. Other than there being no traffic at this hour, there are not many other benefits to ridiculously early flights. Anyways, the flight and getting to Barcelona went smoothly and we made it to our hostel in one piece. Turns out they had overbooked the hostel, so they set us up in the apartments next door. And the man was all apologetic because we had to be on the fourth floor (which meant a lot of stairs) but the apartments turned out to be really nice, so it wasn’t bad at all. We had our own bathroom, a kitchen, tv, a washing machine, and rooms to ourselves (instead of 16 other people). It was four of us, and then 4 other random people. We met 2 other girls who were from Switzerland and were really nice, so it was fun to talk to them, even though they made me feel really dumb because they both knew like, 6 languages and I was struggling along with my pathetic Spanish and even worse Italian. But whatever, my English was better than theirs.

Anyways, Friday we were all really tired (again, early morning flight, no good) so we took a nap, and then wandered around and went shopping. Spain is sooo different from Italy so it was really interesting to be in a new country. First of all, they are much more commercialized (I think that is the word I’m going for). They have much more chain restaurants, shops and different cultures thrown in there. Instead of just McDonalds, they had Burger King, KFC, Dunkin Doughnuts, Starbucks (they seriously had 80, all within 15 minutes of each other), Subway (woo hoo!), and something else random I can’t remember. They also had a lot of Spanish chains, which Rome doesn’t have too many of. I honestly did not really enjoy the food I had there. Granted, I had to eat pretty cheap, so I mainly had sandwiches, but even those were not very good. Especially compared to panini’s, which are very fabulous. I broke down one day and had Burger King. Don’t judge! I was starving and I knew I would actually like it. Plus, it was the first hamburger (beef, really) since I’ve been here. And it was delicious, so I am not ashamed. They also give out free ketchup and mayonnaise there, so that was nice. Oh, how I’ve missed mayo. The best meal was Saturday night when some girls we met cooked authentic Spanish food for us. I don't what it was exactly, but with the extremely cheap Sangria we bought, it was fabulous. I know we had cheese crepes for dessert, but the actual dinner, I don't have a name for, other than delicoius wonderfulness.

Barcelona also had a totally different atmosphere from Rome. In Rome, there are these crazy people trying to sell you umbrellas, fake purses and sunglasses, mini statues of THE DAVID, or something else completely useless all over the place, but there wasn’t any of that there, which was really nice. They also didn’t have as many people begging in the streets. Instead, they have people dressed up in these crazy outfits that sit perfectly still until someone gives them money, and then they do something retarded, like wave or bow and you’re allowed to take pictures with them. They get really pissed if you take pictures without giving any money and will yell at you, so you have to be sneaky and get a picture while someone else is posing, so they don’t really notice you. I didn’t take any though, I am always nervous they are going to flip out on me and I’ll get beat up by someone dressed up as a mummy or something. However, Spain isn’t too much better because instead of homeless people in the streets, there are prostitutes…but at least they are offering some sort of service for your money and not just sitting there with a cup in front of them. That made it a little sketchy to walk down the street at night (they were there during the day too though), but otherwise, it was ok. The street our hostel was on was a little skeezy, but nothing bad happened. And, it was right by this park that had a giant cat statue in it, so that was cool. I didn’t get a picture of it because my piece of crap camera died while halfway through the trip, but trust me, it was crazy big.

So we didn’t do much Friday except spend an excessive amount of time in Sephora and Zara (possibly the most fabulous stores I have ever been in) and wandered around looking for somewhere to eat. Saturday we went on this bus tour thing where you could get on a tourist bus (double decker!), ride around to all the cool places in Barcelona and get on and off wherever you wanted. We went to this church called the Temple of the Sacred Family, which is seriously the most ridiculous building I have ever seen. It was a mix of every architectural style you can imagine. I didn’t go inside because it cost money, but I did admire it from on top of the bus, and across the street at Starbucks, where I enjoyed a caramel frappacino, which later turned me into a psycho because caffeine makes me crazy. The sugar high later put me running a million miles a minute, it was interesting. Anyways, we were supposed to see a parade for Carnival, but we missed it, so we went to see the magic fountain instead. I don’t have any clue as to where we were, but there was this huge building at the top of a hill, with fountains going all the way down to this big square, that had an enormous fountain in the middle of it. There were millions of stairs we had to go up and down, but I was still high on the frappaccino, so I ran up and down them, no problem. The fountain was magical because starting at 7, it did a little song and dance for everyone! It had lights and music and the water would do all kinds of crazy things. We watched for probably 45 minutes, it was soo cool! It was definitely my favorite part of Barcelona. I took a ton of pictures and then I got the fabulous idea to take video and then my stupid camera died, so I only got like, 10 seconds. Sad times. And since you cant hear it, I will tell you that the “BARCELONA!” theme song sounded like it was sung by Queen, so props to Barcelona for that.

Well, since this is already a novel, I’ll wrap by saying we went to a bar that night, there were lots of people dressed up in crazy costumes for Carnival, and some jerk playing a xylophone, so we didn’t stay long. Sunday the weather sucked, so we rode around on the bus some and then went back to Sephora and Zara, where it took a lot of self control not to spend the rest of my savings. Oh yeah, I spotted 46 mullets over the 2 days (I didn’t start the tally until Sat)…those people were mullet crazy! And there were all sorts of varaties…including dread lock mullets! WHAT?? Spain was pretty progressive everywhere except the hair department..it was very sad. Anyways, we had a metro adventure, but other than that, the route back to Rome went smoothly. The plane ride was interesting though, everyone was like, cheering and clapping when we took off and landed, it was bizarre. Crazy Italians. Getting home from the airport though was a big pain in the butt, but I learned not to depend on the night buses and to spend the money on a cab. Next week…Naples and POMPEII!!! So pumped!

Ciao ciao!

Tre

Roll the r.

Ok, so I have been watching a lot of Olympics lately (they're in Torino, I've been there) and there are a lot of crazy sports that I didn't even know existed! Until today pretty much, I was under the impression that the winter olympics consisted only of skiing (just generic downhill skiing), snowboard (again, generic), ice skating, hockey, the luge, and bob-sledding. And bob-sledding I only knew about because of Cool Runnings. But no! There are tons of other stuff! For instance, tonight I watched ice dancing, ski jumping (which I definately want to try sometime...and yay, Japan is in 1st and 2nd right now! oh, nevermind Australia just took over), the skeleton (basically trying to kill yourself by flying down an ice slide on a piece of plastic), and a snowboard race type of thing. There is also other stuff that I don't know the name of...or the point of. Speed skating, but tag team style, for instance. All they do is take like, 50 laps around a ring and push their teammates into the action every 2 laps or so. It's very strange. But all the events are fun to watch, espcially when there are British commentators because they say things like, "imperious" and "now I'm going to find some sparkles and ribbons to celebrate with." Other thoughts on the Olympics...it makes me very sad that the Italians are not winning more medals. I feel that, as the host country, they should at least have more medals that Switzerland, who has never even hosted the games (I don't think).

Enough with the Olympics, I have figured out why Italians are so laid back and not hurried. Because the public transportation can't get you anywhere in a reasonable amount of time. So, if you can't get anywhere on time, why even care about starting anything on time. The metro is probably the most unrealible thing ever. You leave the house an hour ahead of class, even though it should only take 20 minutes to get there...you walk to the metro station, roughly 7 minutes away and even though its the middle of the day, its closed! Awesome, so you walk 3 more minutes to the bus stop (sometimes 6 minutes if you don't catch the light) and wait around for the bus to even get there....4 more minutes..and then wait some more until the bus driver decides he wants to leave. Then, you go across the bridge, traveling probably a mile, but stoppping at least 12 times, and have to get off before your stop because there is a protest against the vatican going on and the busses can't drive through town. So then you get off and walk the 50 miles to school. Maybe not 50, but even speed walking, it takes you 30-40 minutes to get there. And heck no, you're not taking a taxi! That would be like, 10 euro! This is all hypothetical of course, but should you really be counted tardy? I think not.

Speaking of class, we for real learned about how the mafia kills people in class on Thursday. In my notes, it seriously says: strangling-most convient way of killing; no noise and no blood. can tie hands and feet together so person strangles himself and then body is easier to put in a trunk for transport... ISNT THAT CRAZY??? I can't believe I am really learning about this stuff. Honestly, it makes me a little nervous. I hope no mafiosa find out I know all their secrets and decide to kill me, dissolve my body in acid, and then wash me down the drain (no evidence). And for Rome class on Monday, we are going to the Colosseum! I am so excited!

Anyways, today we set off an a mission to find the zoo, which we eventually did (yay for maps!) and on the way, found some really cool stuff. We didn't actually go into the zoo because it was about to close and it cost 8,50, but we walked through the Spanish steps and Spanga Piazza (its all under construction so its not so cool looking right now) and then took this pretty little side street to come out to Piazza del Popolo, which like every other cool piazza, has amazing fountains and churches. And it was such beautiful weather, it was the perfect day for exploring. To get to the zoo, we had to walk through this cool park which had more cool statues and fountains and fun little pond! It was a good day. Until I had to take the crazy metro back...it was soo crowded..I mean, its always ridiculously crowded, but this time I had to wait until the 3rd one came before I could actually get on. And even then, I was squished up against some old woman and a pole...it was most uncomfortable. But then, I ate Chinese food and.....gelato!! so it was all better.

More later...ciao ciao!

Due

Due

Pronounced doo-aye. Remember that.

What a freakin week! I am going to try to go chronologically, but I am just so excited about everything that is going on, I don’t know if I am going to be able to contain myself, so just bear with me.

First, classes. They started Monday. They are awesome. Photography, we’ve had 2 photo shoots…not only do I feel like a real photographer, but I also feel like a model since everyone in the class has to pose as well. Today, I posed in the Piazza Navona. Very cool. Rome through the Ages, my teacher is so cute and has the best accent! He is also very smart and knows lots of cool stuff about Rome (very appropriate). Today we went to the Roman Forum. I HAD CLASS IN THE ROMAN FORUM. I mean, Neville is cool, but THE ROMAN FORUM. History of the Italian Mafia, a very cool class. Today we learned about how they kill people. Suffocation, poison, guns, etc. Just kidding..but I’m hoping that will be a future class. Italian, I don’t really like..I know, what the heck, its probably the most useful thing I’m doing, but its just kind of boring. I would rather practice on real Italians. Even when they laugh at me.

Last week, I did a lot of running around trying to buy books and notebooks. Regular, spiral, lined notebooks are very hard to find. It was rather frustrating. I also spent a lot of time being lost. Seriously, I got lost going to school, from school, going home, basically, wherever I went. BUT, I always found my way and I am very proud of myself. I am the master of public transportation. UM, not really. I definitely got fined 50 euro for not stamping my bus ticket on time. Yeah, that sucked a lot...but lesson learned. In my defense though, I had only been on the bus like a minute. And no one ever stamps their ticket! Whatever. The busses and the metro are amazing when you know what you’re doing, they are running properly, and you have at least 1 and a half to get where you’re going. So pretty much, I walk A LOT. But its cool because I like to think I walk off all the amazing food I stuff my face with everyday. Today, for example, I had at least a loaf of bread…by myself. With olive oil. And then the rest of my meal. And gelato. But it’s a lot of walking…

Thursday night I went to the most ridiculous “jazz” concert I have ever been to in my life. Seriously, it was terrible. Apparently it was “experimental jazz.” We didn’t learn that until afterwards because we couldn’t understand the Italian introduction. Anyways, it was so bad…it was like monkeys banging on trash cans. But it was so entertaining because 1. all the musicians were really really into it. 2. Everyone I was with was either sleeping or looking around like, wtf? Is this for real. You kept thinking it was going to get better..but it never did…it got worse and worse. And just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, one guy started playing notes with the spit in his trumpet..and then another started yelling/moaning in gibberish.

So, Friday to celebrate the opening of the Olympics, we had a party! We all represented a different country and watched the opening ceremonies. I, of course, was Japan. We were supposed to dress accordingly, but with a limited budget and no Italian goodwill around, I only had a white shirt and a note card with a red dot in the middle of it. It was kind of sad, but I tried.

Saturday I went on a very extensive walking tour of Rome. A group of us wandered around Tratesvere (sp?) and found this really cool park with confetti and statues and real grass (theres not much here) and ducks. It was great. The walking part ended up being way more than we anticipated because there was a riot or something and all of the bus lines to our apartment were shut down. So, we hoofed it back and as a treat, we stopped at Old Bridge gelato by the Vatican and it was seriously the best gelato I’ve had since I’ve been here. And as you can tell by my pictures, I’ve had quite a lot. I think the Pope blesses it or something. I wonder if the Pope eats gelato? He should. That night we went to a soccer game, Lazia (the local team) vs. some other team we never learned the name of. Of course, we were hardcore Lazia fans, even though it ended up being a tie. We had to leave early though because my roommates and I had to leave on a midnight train to…Georgia. JK…a train to the OLYMPICS!!! That’s right, 7 hours later we were in Torino!! And it was sooo cool! Literally, it was freakin freezing there! We got there really early and had to wait around on things to open up but we went to the OLYMPIC village and the official OLYMPIC store and saw the OLYMPIC torch and rode up to the Swiss Alps to look at more OLYMPIC stuff. And to end the day, we went to a women’s OLYMPIC hockey game and saw USA kill Germany 4-0. It was very exciting. There was passion living all over the place! “Passion lives here” is the Olympic motto or something, and it was everywhere! I thought it was really funny, so I took lots of pictures. Check it out. Then we took another overnight train back to Rome, got in at 7:30 and I went to class at 9. The ride back was better than the ride there though because we figured out how to work the heat. The way there was miserable and freezing. But it was ok because it was worth going to the OLYMPICS! For anyone interested, it makes me happy when both the US and Italy win things.

Tonight, we had some boys cook chicken parmesean for us. It is completely backwards over here! JK…they were really just using us for our kitchen, but whatever…it was really good. My cooking so far has consisted of sticking bread in the oven and heating up tortellini on the stove, so I was most grateful. We watched Olympic ice skating on TV, and were like, oh yeah, whatever, we’ve been there. Russia won in case anyone missed it.

Anyways, that was my week. More adventures to come this week, I’m sure. We’re going somewhere with a lot of fountains on Friday (the name escapes me right now) and then just hanging out, doing touristy stuff on the weekend. And the weekend after that, I’m going to Barcelona! Let me know if you know of any cool things to do in Spain. Other than just being there, because I think that is pretty freaking cool. Anyways, until next time…ciao ciao J

Uno

10.02.06 (date, European style...Feb 10, 2006)

Yay!! I finally am able to start this thing up for all you beautiful people to read. I decided to number these by Italian numbers so not only can you see what Im up to, but you can also learn to count in Italian!! Entertaining and educational!

Ok, well just to do a quick recap, since this was started late in my journey....I arrived in London on Jan 12, had a hellish time at the airport, but spent three days and hit all the highlights London has to offer. The weather was really crappy and everything is crazy expensive there, so I was ready to leave. The pound is worth $2!! To put that nonsense in perspective, I exchanged $80 for 40 pounds. And I just barely made it the three days with that, I had to eat some really cheap meals. And you would think you were getting a good deal...like a crappy sandwich, some weird chips and a water for say, 5 pounds. But then you would think about it, and it was like, wtf? I just paid $10 for this terrible meal! It was no good. But I did get to go to a Russian Winter Festival...it was really interesting. There was some crazy entertainment.

Moving on, I was ready for Italy. We spent the first 3 weeks in Florence, which is such a beautiful city. There I took an intensive Italian language class. It wasnt too terribly hard, but of course, since I am retarded, I made a B+. I still dont really know how that happened, but whatever...at least I didnt fail. We had the cutest and nicest teachers with the greatest accents. I loved being in class just to listen to them speak. We would do 2 hours of grammar stuff and then 1.5 hours of conversation. While we were there, we stayed in the Hotel Porta Rossa, which was right in the middle of the city. It was not far from the Florence Duomo (it took me awhile to realize that every city has a duomo), which is this enormous church in the middle of town. Seriously, its huge. And its so weird because youll just be walking down the street, mouth watering over gelato in the window and all the SALDI! (sale) signs and then BAM! The duomo and its enormity would hit you in the face as you turned the corner. Everywhere we walked was just amazing. And every day on the walk to school, we walked across the river and could see the Arno and the Ponte Vecchio, which is the main river and the really famous bridge in Florence. Also while we were there, we took a 3 day weekend to Venice. This is probably my favorite place so far. It was soooo beautiful. It is everything you see in pictures, only a thousand times better. I seriously want to go back and live there at some point in my life. If not live, at least get engaged there. I am going to have to decline my future fiancee unless he proposes on a gondala, in Venice. I dont ask for much. Anyways, the weather was crappy when we first got there, but it was beautiful the last day and a group of us took a gondala ride. It was soo pretty. Of course, the batteries on my camera died, but I am going to steal pictures from friends as soon as I can. Our gondolier was kind of lame, he talked on his cell phone some on the ride, and I think he was just making stuff up about where people lived and stuff. And, he didnt sing or anything. But it was still amazing. And we went to a bunch of churches and museums while we were there. We had art historians as our guides, so we learned a lot of really cool stuff. There is so much art here..espcially Christian art. Jesus and Mary are huge here! Everywhere you go! Its interesting, but I am so excited about getting into the mythology stuff and everything. We also went to Siena for the day while in Florence. It is such a cute little town. Its very quiet, but it was a nice break from busy Florence. There is this huuuge square in the middle of town (i forgot the name..St. Marks maybe?) where they have this crazy horse ride every year that lasts like, 10 seconds. Anyways, this quick recap is getting long so...Florence was amazing...on to Rome!

Rome is HUGE! There are soooo many people, everywhere you go it is soo crowded. But, I LOVE IT! There is so much to do and see, I am never bored. Me and 3 other girls (2 from Minnesota, one from Virgina) live in a Residence a couple blocks away from the Vatican. We got the crappier end of the apartment stick, but its ok because we have wireless, a porch and most importantly, hot water. And, its ok because we have fun together and there are a lot of other international students in our building that are fun. And, we dont have to worry so much about making noise at night, esp when we have crazy wine parties (jk).

Classes are good as well. For photography and Rome through the Ages, we get to go on site to so many cool places, I am so excited! Monday we are going to the Colosseum and we get to underneath and everything, where most tourists dont get to go. And for my history of the Italian Mafia class, we get to watch all these crazy mafia movies including The Godfather (which Ive never actually seen all the way through) and its just so interesting to learn about it. I look back at my notes and Im like, what am I doing?? I am taking notes on the infrastructure of the freakin MAFIA! I am also in conversational Italian, which I dont really like, but it is very helpful. I now know how to order a beer, talk to a policeman, and buy a train ticket. All very useful conversations to know.

The food here is amazing. When I go out, I usually get ravioli or pizza, or I pick something random to try, which usually turns out to be delicious. Once, I got steak it was amazing. But, its kind of expensive, so I usually go for cheap. We have these food ticket things that most restraunts accept, which is really nice. The grocery store does too, so we spend a lot there. It kind of makes you feel like you are on welfare though, its like using food stamps or something. But whatever, my appetite is bigger than my pride. At home, I have been eating mozzerrella cheese and balsmic vingerette like its going out of style. I also eat a lot of Nutella, which is the greatest thing ever created. My roomies think I am so weird, but I dont care. We also keep a abundant supply of wine, bread, and olive oil. And we go out for gelato...a lot. Gelato might be the best part of Italy. Cream caramel is definately the way to go. Its all pretty delicious though.

Well, this is crazy long, so I am done for now. I miss everyone a lot but I am loving it here! The title of my blog, btw, means "This is the life!" (I think...my Italian struggles). I love getting emails from everyone, so keep them coming! I will try to get pictures up every now and then as well. I havent taken many in Rome yet, but Ive got time, no worries. Ciao ciao for now!