Sicilia, Accident, Pokémon-What a trip we had

Ok I left off on last Wednesday. On Thursday we had our program trip to Sicilia. We had to be at center of town at 7:30 AM to catch the bus which was wayyy to early for all of us. Once the bus arrived we all got on and took our seats. Mike had brought his laptop so we played Pokémon Emerald for the duration of the ride to Reggio Calabria, a town on the coast where you can take a ferry to Sicilia. Once we got to Reggio Calabria, the weather was absolutely amazing. Ruggero took us to a museum where they were restoring two ancient Greek bronze statues. After that we went and got lunch and chilled on the beach until we had to meet back up to take the bus to the ferry. The ferry ride was fun, we all went on to the top deck, hanging out in the sun and taking pictures of Calabria and Sicilia. They are only a mile apart so the ferry ride was really short. Once we arrived in Messina, the town in Sicilia on the opposite side of the crossing, it was our first view of Sicilia. I thought Messina was a very beautiful town. We went to the Duomo of Messina which was rather beautiful and then had Cannoli at a place that Ruggero, Claudio and Rita (our tour guide from Venezia came with us to Sicilia) claimed to make the best cannoli in all of Italia. They were completely right. It was the most delicious cannoli that I have had here in Italy. Absolutely amazing. After that then it was back on the bus to drive to our first hotel (and of course to play Pokémon in the interim). Our hotel for that night was absolutely gorgeous. I was in a four person room with Molly, Erin, and Casey. The room was huge, with a kitchenette and a gigantic balcony. The hotel also had a pool, gym, bar, restaurant and was right on the beach. It was fantastic. But that’s when the our luck changed. We were all just settling into the hotel, changing into our swimsuits and ready to head out to the pool/beach when one girl accidentally ran through the glass door to her room’s balcony. She cut open her leg in multiple places, one so deep it actually cut through muscle and tendon. We called the teachers and an ambulance immediately. Ruggero handled the stress of the situation beautifully but Claudio only made it worse. When he showed up, all he could say was “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.” Not helpful when people were trying to keep the girl calm because she still had shards of glass sticking out of her leg. When the ambulance came they took her with them because the cuts were so deep. Yet she still managed to somehow laugh and wave at all of us as they carried her down the hallway on a stretcher. She’s seriously one tough cookie. After they took her to the hospital, our excitement about being in Sicilia had definitely been killed. Everybody was really shaken by the accident. Some people still went to the pool and swam, but I went out to the beach and chilled on rocks to watch the sunset instead.  At dinner later, Claudio and Ruggero told us that Chelsea had to go in for minor surgery to repair the super deep cut on her leg and that she wouldn’t be released from the hospital for several days. They decided to continue with our trip though and leave Rita behind to stay with Chelsea at the hospital because we couldn’t afford to stay at this hotel multiple nights in a row. After dinner a bunch of us went out to the beach to hang out and watch the waves at night. I was still feeling a little sick from my cold still though and it was really windy so I ended up going back to the hotel room and attempted to go to sleep. Key word: attempted. Once I got to the room I could still hear everybody from the beach they were so loud. And then they got cold and decided to go play mafia in the room directly next to mine. Lovely when I’m trying to sleep. They were so noisy! The next morning we went and played on the beach for a few hours before getting back on the bus (back to Pokémon), and driving to Castellamare del Golfo, a town an hour or so past Palermo. We drove through Palermo at one point and I was really surprised by it. I expected to see a really idyllic Italian town and instead it looked like Albuquerque, New Mexico (for those of you who have never been to Albuquerque, we have nicknamed it the “armpit” of the US). Palermo just seemed very rundown and sketchy. I was glad we didn’t stop there. Castellamare del Golfo was a very beautiful town, once we got there. Sadly though, there was no real beach at our hotel, only a marina and a bunch of rocks. Our hotel was extremely nice though, 4 stars, which I was amazed that we could afford it, but I think the location, lowered the price. We decided to go explore the town and see if there was a decent beach near our hotel. We found one beach but it was extremely rocky. Two of us went swimming there anyways though because the water was really nice and the day was rather warm. After our little swim we walked back to the hotel to have dinner with everybody. All 27 of us students managed to fit into one restaurant (they just gave us the top floor). That was a really entertaining dinner. It was fun having all of us together again because we’ve all been missing each other. After dinner we discovered a bar next door to the restaurant that was having a karaoke night, which of course we were all over. We stayed there and sang many songs and had a lot of fun until late in the evening. The stares were worse here though than they ever were in Rome. I’m not sure the Sicilians knew what to make of 4 American girls singing Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” very very badly off key. Good night overall. 

 Saturday: Saturday morning we had an optional field trip with Claudio and Ruggero to a famous hilltop town in Sicilia called Erice. The weather was terrible that day and I wanted to see more of Sicilia anyways so I decided to go. Most of the other people on our program decided to go too, which definitely made the trip more fun. As soon as we got to Erice we expected a tour of some kind, but Claudio and Ruggero told us to just meet back up at that spot in 2 ½ hours so we were free to roam around the town. Erice reminded me a lot of Assisi. It was the same medieval town style complete with castles and everything. Right as we started to explore it started to drizzle a little bit. Brent, Mike, and I went to go explore the castle. The castle reminded me of all the castles in I saw in Ireland. Ancient and crumbly and surrounded by green. We tried to look out over the valley below the castle, but right as we went to do so, a huge bout of fog rolled in so thick you couldn’t see 10 feet in front of you. We stayed there for a little while when a bunch of our friends showed up and we all took a group picture. As soon as we took the picture the fog cleared and you could see for miles! It was absolutely stunning, you could see the ocean and mountains and the valley all laid out before you. After that the a couple of us went of to explore some more castle ruins and the rest of the town before grabbing some lunch. Once our trip in Erice was over, Ruggero and Claudio decided to take us to an area famous for making sea  salt. That was an interesting field trip. There were just miles of saltwater flats for miles around. We stopped at the museum for the area and it was just a total dump so after only spending half an hour there we got back on the bus and headed back to Castellamare del Golfo. We were supposed to head back to Rogliano on Sunday, but Chelsea (the girl who had the accident) wasn’t supposed to be released from the hospital until Monday so Ruggero and Claudio made the executive decision for us to stay in Sicilia one more day and drive home with Chelsea on Monday. Once we got back to our hotel we wandered around the town for a little while before all going out to dinner together again. After dinner we all went our separate ways and I hung out in my room with a ton of people watching Italy’s Got Talent (it doesn’t by the way). At least in the American version some people are talented; most of the acts on the episode we watched were absolutely ridiculous. Example: One man came out dancing in a speedo and then ripped it off to reveal a g-string thong with a bulls head covering the you know what. May I add the man was 60. Hilarious and creepy, but definitely not what I would call talent. After that I went over to another groups room to watch a movie (which no one had warned me was an awful slasher film). That was not fun. I hate movies that are gory and disgusting just for the sake of being gory and disgusting. After that I couldn’t find my roommates (who had the key) to get back in my room so Mike and I ended up playing Pokémon (naturally) until they got back.

Sunday: Free breakfast at the hotel Sunday morning before we had to pack up all our stuff and hop back on the bus. We were heading back to the hotel we had stayed at the first night near Messina. The weather was terrible so we didn’t mind spending the 4 hours on the bus (playing Pokémon the whole time of course). Once we got to Messina the weather was a little better. I was feeling totally restless from the bus ride so almost immediately after we checked into our rooms I went for a long walk on the beach exploring and just having a ridiculously fun time. Once I got back from my walk I discovered that everybody was playing a gigantic game of volleyball so I joined in. Soon we saw Claudio and Ruggero so we waved them over to join us. It was so much fun! Claudio scored so many points for our team! He was awesome! Ruggero, sadly, could not hit the ball without falling over, though he did score the winning point for his team. We played that for over an hour before a bunch of people ditched to go for a swim (it was really windy so I didn’t swim because I knew I would just be cold). After that we all had dinner together at the hotel’s restaurant. The program paid for dinner which was totally awesome. After dinner we all went out to the beach and then back inside to hang out, play games, and have a good time. Mike and I played a little Pokémon (as you’ve probably noticed we got a tad obsessed over the weekend)  and then went out to the beach to chill out and watch the ocean. It was really windy out there and out on the ocean it looked absolutely pitch black even with the waves whipping up everywhere. It was totally cool to see. Then we headed back inside to watch X-men: Wolverine Origins (Hugh Jackman is so hot in that movie) with some people and then off to bed.

Monday: Last day in Sicilia. L We were all sad about leaving Sicilia but we all felt awful for Chelsea. The hotel told us we didn’t have to check out until Chelsea was released (I think they still felt guilty about the fact that it was their glass door she had fallen through) so we spent the morning playing volleyball (which I’m absolutely terrible at by the way. I managed to hit the ball backwards off the court multiple times), swimming, and playing out on the beach.  Mike and I had an epic stick battle with giant sticks we’d found around the beach. His stick totally destroyed my stick, but it was hilarious to watch it get smashed to pieces. I think someone took pictures. We thought we were supposed to be leaving by 2pm that day, but Ruggero and Claudio ended up not being able to pick up Chelsea until 4 so we didn’t end up leaving the hotel until 5. Then it was back on the bus to Messina, then a ferry ride, then from Reggio Calabria to Rogliano. By the time we got back it was super late. Our family was waiting for us though in the main plaza when we got home. Francy came and gave me a huge hug and then we went home and had dinner because they had waited to eat for us.

Time Spent in Sicilia: 4 days

Time spent on a bus: 18 hours

Time spent playing Pokémon: 16 hours

Trip=Success

Part #2 from a while go

So where did I leave off yesterday? Oh right, the party. The party was so much fun. It was the first night in Italy I felt like I really just got to be myself and have fun not caring what anybody else thought (Nick always says my natural habitat is the dance floor. He’s totally right). The party was on the driveway of Mike and Brandon’s house and even had a DJ. Their host dad was out there dancing away like there was no tomorrow, it was one of the funniest things to watch. One of the other host parents told us that if we got him drunk enough, he would do hand stands. By the end of the evening Enzo had danced on chairs and done handstands. My friend Mike claimed at one point that he didn’t know how to dance so I taught him all my best nerdy dance moves, a.k.a. Wax on wax off, Q-tip throw it away, bus driver, monkey, and the sprinkler. He, in turn, taught me how to head bang. After the head banging and nerdy dance moves he asked me to teach him how to spin and dip a girl so we practiced that a much (he only dropped me a few times though I thought it would happen more). The rest of the evening was spent dancing and being ridiculous. After the party ended Enzo brought out fresh steaming hot croissants filled with Nutella for everyone. That croissant was one of the best things I’ve had in my entire life. Amazing. After that we decided to walk up to the bar in Rogliano and hang out, but once we walked all the way up there we saw that the bar was completely packed with people celebrating that the Milan soccer team had won the championship so we ended up leaving and walking home because it was just too crowded.

Sunday, I got up early to go to the Sunday Market in town. It was sunny and gorgeous outside (finally) and it was a lovely day to walk about the town. We walked around for an hour or so before coming back to the house to have lunch. After lunch we had to write an essay that was due on Monday and that took absolutely all afternoon. The essay was 3 pages in Italian about our impressions of the monuments in Rome. Crazy. After dinner we went and chilled at Mike and Brandon’s to use the Internet. Ended up staying there for too long, watching tv shows and hanging out. By the time we left my cold had gotten much worse so when I woke up Monday morning I was very sick and very miserable.

Monday was the day I had to register. Boy was that stressful. I got a ride over to Mike and Brandon’s (MB from now on) and set up all my class schedules so I could register when it opened to me. Of course as soon as it was time to register my classes got messed up and I ended up not getting into a single class I wanted. I couldn’t get into Italian because since right now I’m registered in “foreign study” the website wouldn’t believe that I had the prerequisites to sign up for 201. So that messed up my schedule and then I tried to sign up for Communications 201 and that was closed so I tried Comparative History of Ideas: Biocultures and the quiz section I wanted was full so it wouldn’t let me sign up for the class. Ended up having to register for Psych 101 and CHID: Intro to intellectual history. Then I emailed the Italian department so they could place me into an Italian class. Then after that I figured out how to get into the CHID class I originally wanted. It of course only took me over an hour to finally get my schedule right but now it’s set and I’m not changing it! After that it was time for class so Enzo drove Brandon and I to the Casa Della Cultura (which is the town’s library and where we currently have classes). After class we went home and had dinner and almost immediately after dinner I went to bed because I was very very sick, coughing up a storm. I haven’t been this sick since I had bronchitis in September! Managed to prop myself up with enough pillows in the middle of the night though that I managed to sleep without coughing and actually felt better on Tuesday. On Tuesday we had class in the morning, watched a movie called “Il Gattopardo” in Italian culture with Ruggero. It’s an Italian movie but the main actor is American, Burt Lancaster (From Here to Eternity anyone?). It’s a really well done film about the dying age of aristocracy in Italy when Italy became a unified country in 1860. After class we went home to eat lunch then off to MB to use the internet and chill. Brandon and I downloaded virtual Gameboy advanced onto our computers so now we can play Pokémon Red Version on our computers. We are now in a competition to see who can do the best hahaha. After that home to eat dinner, play with Francesco for a while (who won’t stop talking about Stephanie ever since I showed him her picture, “belllaaaaa” is what he said). It’s very cute. He told me last night he wants to write her a message and I told him I would translate it into English for him. Then everybody went to bed and I went to MB to hang out. Then home to bed. Woke up feeling much much better this morning. Today was our first day of teaching at the Elementary school! I got to teach 1^st grade with two other people from my program. It was so much fun!! I always forget how much I love little kids until I’m around them again. We worked on colors, names, and the weather in English. Now we have to figure out what to teach on Monday. I was thinking maybe an easy kids song (like really easy. They’re still learning Italian). If anybody has any ideas let me know!

Rogliano Week #1 part 1

Last week in a nutshell

On Tuesday the grandparents and Francesco came back from Genova. The house was so much noisier once they came back! But much less awkward. Francesco is really quite the crack-up. He really lightens the awkwardness every time he’s in the room. He likes to make jokes a lot and screw around. Typical 10 year old boy. He and I get along really well as do he and Brent. Meals that day had way less awkward silences and Brent and I felt like talking in Italian became a lot easier. We spend most of our late evenings at our friends Mike and Brandon’s house because they have internet and we don’t. Our host family talks about their host son Corbin from last years program every single day. I don’t think I have had a single conversation with them so far that didn’t mention Corbin in some way. Here are some of the following things we’ve been told about him: He didn’t like the other people on his program so he never left the house besides for school, spent all his time playing with Francesco outside, taught his family to play beer pong, wrote Francesco a long letter at the end of the program about him being his “fratellino” or little brother, spoke very good Italian, was very very handsome (our grandma and host mom stress this) and was essentially the perfect host child. They talk about him so often we feel like there is no way we can live up to his standard which is really hard. Our nonna told us that Corbin “will always be first in her heart”. A couple days ago he wrote Francesco an email saying in italian “there are no words to describe how much I miss you”. Awesome. I think it’s really cool how close they were/are to him, but it’s hard feeling like there’s no way we can be as close to them as he was. That’s rather frustrating.

Anyways, Wednesday we didn’t have class until 5 so I got to sleep in. Played with Francesco and that evening I went and hung out with Brandon and Mike after dinner which was fun. Mike and I ended up taking a night walk to Marzi, wandering around there, visiting the cemetery (which is really cool with a bunch of old mausoleums), and then sitting and talking for an hour before walking me home. That was a good night. Thursday, we had class from 10-1 then hung out with Francesco and the fam the rest of the day. Friday we went on a tour to Cosenza with Ruggero. We got to see the Duomo of Cosenza which was awesome and then we all hung out together and shopped and had lunch together.  Those of us that became really close in Rome have really been missing each other so our day in Cosenza was our day to catch up. It’s really strange not living with my girls any more and it’s weird not being able to hang out with all the boys every night. Don’t get me wrong, I love Rogliano, but I had just settled into my life in Rome and had really started to love everything about it and then we moved here. Oh well. I really hope I can keep all these friendships with these people when we get back to UW because I really like them all. We had chinese food for lunch (which actually wasn’t that bad) and then took a train ride back to Rogliano. Hung out with the family for a few hours, playing with Francesco, had dinner, and then that night there was an “American Party” at the bar in Marzi. Pretty much everyone went to that and the bar was completely packed. All 28 of us, plus many many more Italians (mostly males). I didn’t have that much fun that night because I was starting to get a sore throat and some of the guys at the bar started to creep me out. One guy had been going to multiple girls in our group almost every night last week, asking them if they thought I would have sex with him. Creepy creepy creepy. So not down with that. Hella creepster. That’s kind of putting me off Roglianese guys majorly. Not cool at all. Saturday I hung out with my family for the day, I woke up a little bit more sick but still ok. I took a nice long nap after lunch so I could go to a party Saturday night. Mike and Brandon’s host dad was throwing a “birra festa” for only the American kids and their older host siblings. So much fun. Best night I’ve had here so far. I got to wear my sparkly shoes that I bought in Rome and my blue dress that I love. 

Week 1: Rogliano

I woke up before Brent, got up took a shower and headed downstairs to hang out with Giusy. She made me breakfast and I showed her pictures of my friends, family, and horses that I had with me. Francesco’s favorite animal is a horse so she told me I have to show him the pictures when he gets back on Tuesday. After a while Brent came downstairs and had breakfast with us. After breakfast Brent and I walked up to the main piazza in town where they had their weekly Sunday market going on. We walked through the market and wandered around town taking pictures until it was time to go home for lunch. When we got home we had lunch with Giusy and her grandfather, which was really fun. We couldn’t understand him at all though because he only spoke in dialect. We had so much food for lunch though. A delicious meal of penne alla Bolognese, salad, chicken, and meatballs. Then we had multiple desserts along with an espresso before we finally escaped from eating more food. After lunch we walked to the house of some of our friends because they have Internet. We hung out with them for a couple hours before going home to have dinner with our host mom: mozzarella, tomatoes, cucumbers, fish sticks, along with an apple and multiple desserts. I’ve never felt so full in my entire life as I do here every single day. It’s crazy! We hung out with our host mom for a while after that, watching italy’s version of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”. That was really entertaining to watch and it was good bonding time for the three of us. Brent and I are speaking a little bit more Italian every day, which is good. We’re feeling a bit more confident as we go along. 

Trip to Paestum and first two days in Rogliano!

Giovedi: Thursday morning we left Rome forever. :( We got up really early, finished packing everything up, cleaned our apartment really quick, and then dragged all of our bags down the stairs and out of our apartment and then we had to walk a half mile with our bags from the apartment to the bus stop. Once we got to the bus stop, Claudio and Ruggero were there but the bus was not. We waited a while for the bus before Claudio figured out it had gone to the wrong place, but finally they got it figured out and we all got on the bus. We were on the bus for a couple hours when finally we stopped in Paestum for the day. Paestum is a small town in Italy that was originally settled by the Ancient Greeks 2600 years ago. The ruins in Paestum are older than Rome. When we first got to our hotel we discovered it was right next to the beach so immediately we all changed into our swimsuits and ran off to the beach. We spent an hour or so at the beach playing soccer, playing in the sand (I built Mt. Doom from sand) and playing in the water. After that we all went and got lunch before Ruggero and Claudio took us on a tour of the ruins. That was really fun because we just got to run all over ruins, really getting to explore everything. After the ruins tour we went back to the hotel to have dinner. After dinner a couple of us just hung out chatting for a while before going out to the beach to see it at night. I'd forgotten how much I love the beach at night. It always reminds me of a book I read when I was little called the "Big Big Sea". Then off to bed!

Venerdi: Friday I got up early to go to the beach before we had to leave for Rogliano. I was surprised that I was the only one from our program out there because the weather was just gorgeous. I laid on the beach and took a walk until one of the girls came to tell me that checkout was an hour and a half earlier than we expected and that we needed to go clear out our stuff. So I went back to the hotel and packed up all my stuff and took it down to the bus before going back to the beach for a little while to hang out in the sun before we had to get on the bus. Since we had to leave so much earlier than expected and we weren’t supposed to arrive in Rogliano until a certain time along the way we stopped at the monastery of San Lorenzo. It was very obvious that this monastery was not normally a big tourist attraction for foreigners so it was cool to see something unique that was more of the typical southern Italy style. After the monastery we got back on the bus and rode for another couple hours before getting to Rogliano. When we drove into Rogliano there was a huge crowd of people waiting for us including the mayor. They herded all of us into this big room and then introduced us one by one to our families. Brent and I met our family which consists of nonni (grandparents) Ida and Pino, una madre Giusy, and un fratello Francesco. We met our family and then we said goodbye to our friends for the first time in 6 weeks and we went on our way. Brent and I each had two bags so in our host mom’s tiny car we ended up having to take two trips to get everything to our new house. The house where we live is huge. I think it’s originally meant to be apartments because there are 3 floors and each one has multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen. The grandparents sleep on the ground floor and that’s the floor where everybody hangs out and where all the cooking is done. The rest of us each have our own bedrooms on the 2^nd floor and Brent and I each have our own bathroom. The house is very very cold though. It can be 70 degrees outside and it will feel like 60 degrees inside the house. They don’t use indoor heating and it’s just not hot enough outside to warm up the house so every single room is cold. At night I’ve been sleeping in multiple layers of clothing in order to stay warm. Outside though, the weather has been beautiful. Once we got to their house they showed us our rooms and then made dinner for us. So much food! Brent and I each had two portions of lasagna, two salads, two pieces of pork, and multiple desserts along with several glasses of wine that the grandfather made himself (he is very proud of his wine and every time our glasses were empty he would fill them up again). The grandparents are very sweet and Francesco is just a crack up. After dinner though, the grandparents and Francesco left to go to Genova until Tuesday for a family member's first communion. Once they had left the house was really quiet with just Brent, Giusy and I. We chatted with Giusy for a while (kind of one sided chatting, she talked a lot and we just kept saying "si" so she knew we understood) and then went upstairs to our rooms to finish unpacking and then went to bed. 

Sabato: Today was day 1 with my Roglianese host mom, Giusy. She had told Brent and I to sleep in so we got up late and had breakfast with her. Just a muffin and a cup of yogurt. After breakfast, Brent and I walked around town exploring. The town is very beautiful and I love how secluded it feels out in the country. Hills and green trees everywhere, I feel content. And we’re only 20 minutes by car from the beach. YAY! After a while though we felt lonely because we didn’t see anybody else from the program and we got stared at a ton, especially because of how tall Brent is (6’6” and a red head to boot). Somebody tried to ask him how tall he was in italian and he had no idea how to convert his height to the metric system. Every single person he meets asks him if he “giochi basket” (plays basketball). It’s rather entertaining. We got stopped by one old man who asked us if we were Italian and when we told him we were from the US he bought us Fantas from the bar, spoke to us in Spanish, and then sent us on our way. That one was pretty random. After that we went back to our house where Giusy made us lunch (Spaghetti alla Carbonara, tomato and cucumber salad, and chicken in a white wine sauce with mushrooms). She claims she’s not a very good cook, but Brent and I both thought the food was delicious. After that she told us we should go upstairs and take naps. Our house is super cold though so we ended up going outside on the balcony and chilling in the sun because it was so much warmer than inside. We were out there for a long time when we saw two other girls from my Rome apartment walking down the street and they told us everybody was meeting in the center of town so we went downstairs to tell Giusy we were leaving and walked back to the center of town. It was really fun seeing everybody and swapping stories about our respective host families. We were also all missing each other because it had been the longest amount of time we’ve gone without all of us being together since the end of March. We all got rather attached to each other. Then we all walked around Rogliano and Marzi, walking around to see everybody’s houses. After that Brent and I went back home but when we got there Giusy was gone and the door was locked so we ended up just hanging out outside until she came back. She was at the supermarket getting Fanta (because we came home with some earlier from that guy she thinks its our favorite drink now) and had ordered pizza. She took us with her to go get the pizza and when we got to the counter they handed her 4 pizzas for the 3 of us! At dinner she at half of one and then expected Brent and I to eat 1 ½ pizzas on our own. I had to tell her that my stomach is too small to eat that much pizza :P After dinner we went to visit her friend who is also hosting one of the girls from my apartment and we had espresso and strawberries before going on our town church tour with the rest of the program and Ruggero and Claudio at 9. After the tour a bunch of us ended up hanging out and meeting up with people’s host siblings at a bar, just getting to know more people. That was really fun, but I’m starting to get tired of being stared at all the time. It’s even worse than it was in Rome! 

Soooo far behind! Last week in Rome!

Sunday: Sunday I woke up early in the morning to go to the Vatican and see the Beatification of Pope John Paul the 2^nd. No one else in my apartment got up because they were all too lazy, but one of the guys decided to walk around with me. It was 7AM and the police had already closed St. Peter’s square because it was so packed with people. There were people everywhere all over the area that it made it difficult to cross the street, especially since the Police kept blocking off areas to keep more people from getting to close. By 7:45 we knew there was no way were going to find our way anywhere near the Vatican so I ended up going back to my apartment and chilling until 10 am and I watched the beatification on TV as it was happening half a block away from me. That was completely crazy. After watching the beatification on TV for a while, we decided to get away from the Vatican area before the people started dispersing all over the city and making crowds a nightmare. So a couple of us walked to Campo to get kebabs for lunch and hang out with the guys a little bit. After that we walked up to an orange garden at the top of hill so we could look out over the city. The weather was beautiful so we ended up staying there for a long time before meeting back up with everyone else and going to get gelato. We got gelato at a place called the Frigidarium, where they dip all of their ice cream in chocolate after you order it. That was delicious but I somehow managed to get it all over my face and my hands while I was eating my ice cream. Lovely. Then we walked over to the Villa Borghese, which is this gigantic gorgeous park in Rome. We wandered around there for a long time just exploring the sights. It was quite the enjoyable afternoon. After that we went back to the boys apartment and made Mexican food for dinner, which, while not quite the same here as in the US, it was still good. I made quesadillas for everyone.  Then we went home and went to bed.

Lunedi: Monday was our first day of class with Claudio. His teaching style is definitely different from that of Ruggero, but we will be speaking more Italian in his class, which I think is more beneficial for the remainder of the quarter. After class Chris and I decided to go try and find a post office to figure out how we could mail stuff home before we go to Rogliano. We found the post office, but it was tiny and nobody spoke any English at all so we ended up heading back to the Rome Center to ask the people there what to do. While we were walking back, a camera crew stopped us. They were filming a tv show about fashion for an Italian style Disney channel and the host of the show wanted to take pictures of my dress. Then they made us sign all these forms to release our images to the public. So apparently I’m going to be on TV even though I have no idea when! After that we went to the Rome Center and the ladies who worked there told us about a Post Office that was rather far away but that spoke English and were very helpful. So we took the address down and then I went home to start packing a little bit. After I finished packing the bag I wanted to mail home, one of the girls and I got gelato before catching the bus back to the Rome Center because they were doing another movie viewing. The movie was called, “La Doppia Ora” and was kind of a psychological mystery romance film. Afterwards we got to do a question and answer with the three screenwriters who had written the film. That was really cool listening to them. After the movie screening we went back to the boys apartment and made dinner, chicken and pasta, and just hung out and played games. After that we went home.

Martedi: Tuesday morning we started the day off with a tour of the Macro museum, a museum of contemporary art. It was very different from everything we’ve seen so far in Rome, but it was nice having that change.  After the tour a couple of us stuck around the museum and explored a little more before they kicked us out for not having a ticket (Ruggero had it). So then we walked back towards the bus stop to catch it back to campo and on the way we spotted an Italian Mexican restaurant. Of course we had to stop and check it out. The food was decent but nothing like real Mexican food. I don’t think Italy even has the same ingredients to make Mexican food that we have. After lunch we got the bus back to Campo and went to class. Day 2 of class with Claudio was hilarious. Our class has a great energy to it with him as a teacher. I haven’t laughed so hard in class since class with Sra. Herbert and Mr. Lang in high school. After class we all went and got gelato at a place near the Pantheon that the boys really enjoy. Then we all went and hung out at the boys place until we decided to go out and get dinner in Campo for the first time. The food was delicious, but the restaurant was definitely a tourist trap kind of place. Some of the people I was with ordered a bottle of wine that ended up being much more expensive than they originally thought. Luckily I was just drinking a liter of water so I didn’t get caught in it too. After dinner we went back to the boys place and played games until we decided it was time to go home.

Mercoledi: Last day in Roma!! Boy was this a crazy day. Class had been moved back to late in the afternoon so Chris, Rosin and I decided to go to the post office in the morning and mail some stuff home before our trip to Rogliano the next day. We got to the post office at 12:30 and it was the one the ladies at the Rome Center had recommended as very helpful and English speaking. Let’s just say they were not helpful and they did not speak very good English and the only Italian they spoke was the Roman dialect. We couldn’t understand anything they were saying. Thus our “quick trip” to the post office last 3 whole hours. 3 hours of a lot of gesturing frustration and awfulness. We finally got our packages off and sent but at that point class had already started and we still had a 25 minute walk back to Campo so we essentially missed class because of the post office. Chris and I decided that if there is a hell it is the Italian post office. So since we had missed class we met up with some of the older kids that were already out of class and I went with the girls to go walk around Rome (the girls wanted to go to Sephora and Zara). After that we met back up with everybody and got gelato. My last gelato in Rome. :( It was delicious. After gelato we went with the boys to buy groceries to make our last dinner in Rome and then we went back to finish packing. After we finished packing we met back up with the boys and walked around Rome for a couple hours, exploring the city by night one last time. Then we got crepes and headed home to go to bed for just 2 hours before we had to get up and do the trek from our apartment to the bus stop. 

Last weekend in Roma!

Friday was by far our longest day. We got up early in the morning for a tour with Ruggero around Rome. We went to the Piazza del Popolo, the first Church of England in Rome, the Spanish Steps, a french church and the Crypt of the Capuchin monks. Quite the long tour for just one morning. The Cappucini crypt was definitely the strangest of everything we saw. It's a crypt where some monk hundreds of years ago had the bright idea to dig up all the graves of old monks and make Christian art out of the bones. The entire crypt is just lined with heads, spines, femurs, you name it, all in artful positioning (see picture above). After that we went to get lunch near the Trevi fountain where I had Vodka Spaghetti (the same one Steph had last year that she still raves about). It was quite delicious. After Lunch we walked to the Vatican for an afternoon tour of the museums, on the way getting gelato from my favorite place (but they were out of blood orange gelato:(! ) Then Ruggero gave us a tour of the Vatican museums, saw the Sistine Chapel, Raphael's rooms, the old Roman statues, and their current missions in Australia rooms. Very interesting to see. After the museum tour we went to the grocery store to get snacks because we were watching the Godfather II that night. The movie was good, but definitely not as good as the first movie. After the movie we went and hung out at the boys apartment, playing games and just chilling until late in the night and ended up just crashing on their couches and sleeping.

This morning we all woke up really late because the boys apartment has very few windows and it looked as dark as night at 11am. We got up and some of the girls went to the grocery store and we made chocolate chip pancakes, sausage, and eggs for breakfast. Then we just chilled with the guys, watching the Big Bang Theory on one of their computers until we finally decided it was a good idea to go home and shower. So we did that and then hung out at our apartment for a little while before going out and wandering around the Vatican area. The beatification of John Paul II is tomorrow and the entire area around the Vatican was already packed with people at 6 camping out for the beatification tomorrow at 10am. Craziness. There are people of all nationalities carrying around flags and singing. They actually moved all the bus stops around to account for the people. We had to take the bus back to Campo so we ended up wandering around for a long time just trying to find the bus. Once we found the bus stop, we took it back to Campo, met up with the guys and went and got gelato before going to dinner. After dinner we all came back to our apartment because the beatification starts so early tomorrow if we want to be able to see anything. So we're going to get up super early to be able to go see it!

Midterms, Villa Borghese, Bourne Identity, and new host mom

Venerdi

Got up this morning and went to our tour of museums at Villa Borghese. One was of a really cool museum of modern art and the other the house of sculptor. After that we caught the bus back to Campo de Fiori. From there I walked all the way past the Vatican to get Old Bridge gelato for lunch and then back home to work on our presentation on Easter for class today. We finished our presentation, caught a bus back to class  and went to the Rome Center. We all gave our presentations, had a quick meeting with Claudio and Ruggero about moving to Rogliano next week and then we had our class about Ancient Rome. About ten minutes into the class, Ruggero's computer decided to shut down for no reason, officially ending class for the day. Then we headed home to just chill for a while, we had dinner, watched the Bourne Identity on TV, got friended by my host mom on facebook (Giusy Angotti) and am now headed to bed.

Mouth of Truth, Freak Rain Storms, and Dinner with the Teachers

Wednesday:
We got up and went to class where we had our last grammar lesson with Ruggero. Starting next week Claudio will begin teaching us for the rest of the quarter. Then we headed back home to eat lunch and work on our presentation on "Easter in Italy" that we had due today. The weather was super hot and muggy, but very sunny. Then at 3:30 Claudio was leading an informal optional tour of Rome to the Boca della Verita and Santa Maria di Cosmedin. We all met up for that and then started walking. I got picture with the mouth of truth and we toured the inside of the church and then walked up a hill in Rome to see the garden of oranges at the top. Right as we got to the top it started to sprinkle rain. It started to rain a little harder so we decided to end the tour for the day and head back to Campo de Fiori. But right as we started walking back down the hill a full on deluge of rain started. Claudio actually took cover underneath a bush and a bunch of us followed him. Then we started hearing thunder and seeing lightning so we, in all our infinite wisdom, realized the downpour wasn't going to be stopping any time soon so we decided to make a run for it back down the rest of the hill. At the bottom we took refuge in a small church with some nuns for a few minutes before deciding to keep going. I had my rain jacket on, but not my hood because it was full of water and one of the guys, not realizing it was full of water, tried to put it on my head and a ton of water just went streaming down my back. Whereas before I was relatively dry beneath my jacket then I just became soaked. The roads actually started flood as we ran across them trying to get back to Campo and finally by the time we got close the rain started to lighten up a little bit. We were all so soaked at that point that a few of us decided that "what the heck"why not go to the Pantheon to see it rain through the occulus. So me and a couple of the others kept going while everyone else went back to the boys' apartment to dry off and we ran to the Pantheon. Of course by the time we got the Pantheon it was just sprinkling rain again, but there were a ton of people inside who must have been watching it during the downpour. I bet it was really cool to see. Then three of the boys and I decided that naturally, since we were so soaked, why not go get gelato at a really great gelateria nearby? So we split off and went and got gelato. We got so many stares from people everywhere. All the tourists and Romans were either under cover or using umbrellas. Of the group, I was the only one wearing a rain jacket; the boys were just wearing thin button up shirts. We were absolutely sopping wet. The guys who sell umbrellas kept coming up to offer umbrellas and then realizing it was a lost cause since we were obviously too far gone for an umbrella to help. It was quite entertaining. After we finished our gelato we went back to the boys' apartment because the whole program (including Claudio and Ruggero) was coming over for dinner that night and we were helping to make it. Once we got there, I immediately begged for the boys to spare me some clothes which the other girls making dinner had done the same. We all looked ridiculous in the super oversized basketball shorts and t-shirts. Then we all made dinner and hung out. One of the guys tried to teach me how to play guitar and then took my iPod and put over 400 songs on it that he believes I need to listen to. By that time a bunch of other people started showing up so we girls changed back into our now warm and dry clothes from the dryer. Ruggero and Claudio showed up an hour late (typical Italians :P) and it was a really fun and entertaining dinner. We were eating off of plastic plates and of course within the first five minutes I managed to crack my first plate at the bottom so hot chicken sauce spilled all over me so then I got a second plate to put beneath it, which then broke about 20 minutes later so I had to get a third. My pants were covered in sauce by the end of the night. Then I helped one of the boys make cannoli's for everyone. Claudio and Ruggero ate their cannoli and then took their leave of us. After that we were all just hanging out until some of the guys and girls decided to go to the Irish Pub for discount night and the rest of us went home to go to bed.

Assisi #3 and the rest of the week-McDonalds, Trains, La Bella e La Bestia, e Qui Da Noi

Monday morning we all woke up when one of the girls, who had woken up early, came back to let us know that checkout was in half an hour. We all frantically jumped out of bed and packed up all our stuff, turned in our sleeping bags, checked out, and then went to go shower and change in the campground bathrooms (which had no toilet paper or soap, by the way). After that we had a quick breakfast at the campground and then hiked back into town to catch the bus back down the mountain to the train station. Once we got there, first the ticket machine was broken so we had to wait until people arrived at the ticket window a half hour later and then we bought the first tickets out of Assisi. We still had an hour and forty five minutes to kill after that and we were all starving so we ended up going to McDonalds (Yuck, yes I know, I didn't want to do it). McDonalds was completely packed. It took us a good 30 minutes just to get through the line and the food was more expensive than in the states, but it also appeared to be much better quality. I got a fried chicken sandwich that was actually quite delicious. Then we headed back to the train station to wait for our train. Our first train ride only lasted 10 minutes and then we had to to transfer to a different train for the rest of the trip. Not too bad. We ended up getting back into Rome by 6 and we just hung out, did homework, and watched Inside Man (which happened to be in English on our TV for some odd reason) with some of the boys that had come over. They finally left and we all went to bed.

Tuesday:
Tuesday morning we had to get up early to go on a tour of Villa Torlonia. We had no idea where we were going and Ruggero wasn't answering his phone so we ended up just getting on a bus and hoping it was the right one to take us where we wanted to go. Luckily it was and we ended up at the right spot, but it was looking pretty sketch there for a while. The Villa Torlonia was really beautiful and entertaining. The original owner had become an aristocrat through gaining wealth rather than by blood so to make his property more prestigious he added fake ruins and erected gigantic fake egyptian obelisks. The house on the property was really cool, each room had been dedicated to a different art style through the ages so it was kind of a mish-mash but cool to see all the different styles. The last owner of the house actually rented it out to Mussolini for 20 years before the end of WWII and then the American troops took it over in 1943 which also happens to be when the house sustained the most damage (whoops). Then there was another house on the property dedicated solely to stained glass. Absolutely gorgeous. So much craftsmanship goes into those things. After the tour we had lunch in the Piazza Bologna at a delicious Pizzeria and then I went back to the Rome Center to study for a quiz we had that day. Then we had the quiz and a break where I got a nutella crepe with strawberries (delicious!) then a short culture class and the school day was over. After that we went home and chilled, made dinner, and then Irma and I got ready to go to a play. Irma and I went to see La Bella e La Bestia (Beauty and the Beast: the musical). It was so amazing. My favorite night in Rome so far. The acting, singing, and dancing were all absolutely fantastic, the costuming was gorgeous, and even when I couldn't understand what they were saying (since it was in Italian) the play followed the storyline of the Disney movie so I understood what was going on. My favorite song was "Qui Da Noi"-the italian version of "Be Our Guest". It looks very cool on stage. I ended up buying the soundtrack afterwards (I can never resist a good soundtrack). Then we left and got gelato, then went home, did homework for a little while and went to sleep

Assisi #2-La Massa di Pasqua, Santa Maria, and more wanderings

Wow I'm falling behind so fast!

Sunday-
Early Sunday morning, me and 3 others woke up early (disturbing everybody else with the super squeaky bunk beds) got ready and headed to Easter mass at San Francesco. I had never been to mass before so it was a whole new experience for me. We walked in the church and it was absolutely packed with people. The the service started and everybody started singing and crossing themselves and we had absolutely no idea what to do. Once the actual sermon started I could kind of follow it because it's easy to figure out the word "Cristo" and "Gloria" "Alleluia", etc. There was standing room only and we ended up standing right behind this family with a little boy. He looked to be about 4-5 and he was the cutest darn kid I've ever seen. You could tell he was really bored because he kept trying to find stuff to do. At one point he ended up playing "I can't see you until I peep my head around my dad's leg and then I'm going to hide again as soon as you see me" game. It was so adorable. Then his dad picked him up and he leaned around his dad's neck and kept playing peek-a-boo. I love little kids. Then during the service there was communion and then one last song and it was over. I was very surprised because it was only about 45 minutes long. When we had first gotten to the church it was really rainy and overcast, but when we walked out of the church sunlight was just streaming down around Assisi. I looked up and the clouds had parted in a perfect circle just around Assisi but everywhere else there were clouds as far as the eye could see. It was totally cool. After that we all went and got lunch at a little restaurant and then wandered around Assisi, accidentally running into the rest of the group. They then went and got lunch because they hadn't eaten yet and we wandered some more around the town. We saw the building where San Francesco was born and we had pretty much covered the whole town within a couple hours. Then we caught back up with the rest of the group at Santa Chiara, saw the tomb of Santa Chiara and then wandered around the town some more. We ended up at the top of the town overlooking a gorgeous view of the surrounding area. Right next to the spot where we were was a little church called Santa Maria della Rosa. We went inside and instead of a church it was an art exhibition. The artist had created this statue of the Virgin Mary out of 33 different kinds of wood from all around the world to represent the unity of christianity and the age Christ was when he died. Depending on the direction you're looking at the statue it represents different parts of Mary's life, such as, the annunciation, being pregnant, carrying the baby Jesus, and holding her arms open to protect and love the world. On it's side it represents a dove.  There was big giant version, supposed to represent Mary and her love and protection for the world and a little tiny one that can fit in the palm of your hand to represent Mary and her love and protection for you. It was a very modern statue, but very moving. I ended up buying the smallest version of it because it was just haunting me when I first left the church. After that we wandered a bit more around town before going and eating dinner at this restaurant near San Francesco that overlooks the entire valley. It was a little pricey but we got to sit out on the balcony and the food was absolutely amazing. I had handmade ravioli and chocolate mousse for dessert. It was the most delicious dinner. After that we walked the long walk back to our bunkhouse and stayed up late playing Mafia, drinking wine, and just in general being silly and ridiculous. Then we all went to bed.

Assisi#1- Roughing it, San Francesco, Castles, and "That's hella defensive" Mafia

Saturday
Early on Saturday morning we got up and went to the train station to catch our train to Assisi. We bought our tickets, met up with the boys and caught the train. On the train ride over I slept and read and chatted with everybody. Once we got to Assisi we had to catch a bus from the train station up to the old medieval town on the top of this big hill. The buses were packed and two of us actually got pushed out because everybody was pushing and shoving their way on. So Rosin and I ended up taking a different bus (much nicer, with very few people). Once we got off the bus and met back up with the rest of the group only to discover that the road we had to take to get to our hotel was all uphill for at least a mile. An exhausting hike up to our hotel and when we finally get there they told us we couldn't check in yet. So we left our bags there and wandered around the property for an hour. The area had a hotel, a youth hostel, a campground, and several bunkhouses on it, along with a kids playing area and several miniature donkey pastures. We went to the kids area first and played on a spinning wheel thing and the slides first before going off to go find the miniature donkeys. I loved this whole area because it smelled strongly of pine trees, which remind me a lot of home. When we found the donkey pasture we found a momma donkey with her little albino donkey baby. Most adorable thing I've ever seen. Then we saw a dog that looked almost identical to Brandy (my dog at home for those of you who don't know) and I petted her for a long time before we finally went to lunch. Lunch at the hotel was decent and cheap, which is always a relief. After lunch we decided to go explore Assisi. We walked back into town and decided to go see the fortress castle at the top of the hilltop first. That was amazing. The climb up there was beautiful, but that's when my camera battery died and I had no way of charging it all weekend. :( We walked up to the castle and then wandered around inside. It was a really old and cool medieval castle. We wandered around all the tunnels and towers before we ended up sitting on this wall at the top of it that overlooked the entire surrounding area of Assisi and all of the region beyond. Absolutely gorgeous. That was my favorite part of the entire weekend. It was drizzling rain a little bit, but it was just so peaceful and beautiful that a couple of us stayed up there for a long time just talking about life. After the castle we went down into the town and explored all the churches there. The churches were all very old and beautiful. My favorite was la Chiesa di San Francesco. The church itself is part of a franciscan monastery and it has two basilicas on two different floors along with the tomb of St. Frances beneath. The painting inside were all gorgeously done medieval art and the entire church was just fantastic to see inside and the multiple floors made it especially cool. After we finished wandering around the town we walked back up to our hotel to check in. That was an interesting experience. Because there were 10 of us, the only place they had for us to stay was this tiny bunkhouse in the middle of the property. We walked in and there are 12 bunk beds with no pillows or blankets and no heating system. None of us knew it was going to be like this so none of us came prepared. We ended up having to ask the hotel for blankets and luckily they were able to lend us enough military style sleeping bags for everyone. Then we decide to go check out the bathrooms on the property and of course they have zero toilet paper and soap, most of lights don't work on the bathrooms and there are bugs everywhere. We were truly camping. After we finally settled in we went back to the hotel restaurant for dinner. I had the most delicious hot chocolate there. It was essentially like drinking a cup of melted chocolate bar. Amazing. Then we ended up going back to our bunkhouse and played Mafia and drank wine until late into the night. I fell asleep long before everybody else and apparently they kept yelling my name to wake me up but I was so out cold that I didn't hear them. I did wake up in the middle of the night though, completely terrified, having no idea where I was and believing that I had no idea where everyone else was. It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out I was still sleeping in the same room as everybody else and that nothing bad had happened. Totally weird.

Well that was a long one and it was just one day so I'll stop for now and write the rest tomorrow.

"Leave the gun, but take the cannoli"- The Godfather

Thursday-
Thursday morning we got to sleep in because we didn't have class until 2. Yahoo! We just chilled, ate breakfast, and headed to the Rome Center in time for class. Class was interesting because we talked more about the roles of women in Italian society and how that has affected italian law. Only recently were laws abolished that stated 1. If you caught your wife, sister, or daughter in an illicit relationship and you killed her, you could only serve up to 7 years maximum in prison because you were defending your family honor. 2. A woman that got caught by her husband in an affair could be sent to jail for 1-2 years. 3. If a man raped a woman, in order to "restore" the family honor he could offer to marry the woman. If she accepts, all honor is restored and life moves on. If she refuses than shame and abuse was heaped upon her for being a) dishonorable to her family and b)no longer pure because of the rape. Crazy stuff, I'm telling ya. After class I walked to the grocery store to buy some food and then went back to the apartment to make dinner and then got ready to go out for the night. There was a "Ladies Night Out Pub Crawl". This was quite an interesting experience. We went to two bars and one club and then got a free t-shirt. The bars were fun because we got to meet a bunch of foreign exchange students from Australia, Germany and England. After the bars though we went to a club that was just awful. It was packed with people, everyone kept stepping on my toes, smoking was allowed inside and I swear a guy almost lit my hair on fire when he was lighting his cigarette. Then a guy came up and danced with me and I kept having to push his hands off me and then he grabbed my face and tried to force me to kiss him which is when I just walked away. So gross. Then another guy came and danced with me who was absolutely terrible at dancing which is always a buzz kill for me. After that we decided we were done with the night out and we wanted to go home. We went and grabbed our pink "Ladies Night Out" free t-shirts and hopped a taxi for home.


Friday-
We had to wake up early on Friday (today) which meant we got an average of 4 hours of sleep from going out the night before. We rolled out of bed on time though and headed to class, downing some capuccinos along the way. Today's tours were of 4 churches in Rome near the Rome Center; 3 Baroque churches and the only Gothic church in Rome: Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. The first two churches we went to were the two first Jesuit churches in Rome and they were incredibly ornate and decorative, very much in the baroque style. I liked Santa Maria Sopra Minerva the best because it was a Gothic church, which happen to be my favorite style. I like the tall ceilings with flying buttresses and lots of stained glass windows. This church also happened to have the body of St. Catherine which was cool to see. Then we saw a french church that housed some Caravaggio paintings and finished our morning tour. After that we were all hungry so went and grabbed a quick lunch of pasta. Then we went back to the boys apartment to chill until 3 pm, when we had a movie day in the Rome Center watching the Godfather. I had never seen the Godfather before and boy was it an interesting experience. I can definitely see though, why it has received so many accolades because it is a very well made film. After that we went to get dinner and then tried to go to the Coliseum where the Pope was putting on a torchlight processional for Good Friday. We got there a little late though and it was completely packed so we ended up being so far away that we were able to see nothing but a burning cross they had placed on a hill across from us. That was cool, but we got cold after a while and headed back to the boys apartment to grab our stuff from earlier. This ended up with us staying at the boys apartment for another hour or so playing the childhood game Mafia (which is actually a very fun game). Then we caught the bus home to pack for Assisi tomorrow since it's rise and shine in just a couple hours so we can be at the train station by 7AM. Oh joy. I'll write when I get back on Monday.

Fairly boring day

Mercoledí
Yesterday, we finally sent Kelsey on her way out of Rome. Casey and I were sad to see her go! She walked with us to school and then caught a bus to Termini while we went to class. Class was just an hour long so afterwards we went back and chilled at our apartment for a while and then later met up with a girl from the other apartment to go shop. Some of the girls wanted to buy dresses to go out clubbing in tonight. After that we went back to the boys apartment and made them dinner because it was our turn. We made spicy chili with noodles and bread. After dinner we went to get gelato at the gelateria the boys claimed was better than our gelato place. They didn't have blood orange and their cioccolato was substandard so I gave it a B-. They did have champagne ice cream though, which, surprisingly, tastes like champagne. I just tasted it though because I felt that buying champagne ice cream takes it a little too far. After that we wandered around to the bars which were completely packed because of the double soccer matches going on so we ended up back at the boys apartment playing card games until we went home and went to bed!

Movie Screenings, Bars, and Soccer Games

Monday-

Trying to catch up on my blog as fast as I can. On Monday we went to class for the first time in a week! My life is so awesome. After class we met up with Kelsey, had lunch, and then walked to show her the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. The Pantheon is so cool and it was fun showing Kelsey around Rome. After we did our little tour we took her to Zara, which she had never been to before. I saw those sparkly shoes I was eyeing last time and I still love them! But I'm saving my money for my shoe purchase until the last week in Rome. After that we walked around some more and then went back to the Rome Center where they had set up a movie night. We watched an italian film called La Nostra Vita and as soon as it was over the director came in for a question and answer. It was such a well done movie and the director was so awesome! I definitely recommend that movie for movie lovers and foreign film lovers. The cinematography was fantastic, most of the script was improv and very well done, and the entire thing was filmed and edited in only 10 weeks. Crazy. After the movie we ended up going with the boys to a greek place for dinner where we had kebabs. Totally delicious. I enjoyed it a lot. Except they mosquitoes there and I ended up getting three mosquito bites, all, of course, on my face. Since I have that weird reaction to mosquito bites, one of them looks like I just have a gigantic goose egg on my forehead. Lovely. After dinner we went back to the boys apartment to hang out for a while and then we went out to the bars because we found one where they were doing a 2 for 1 drink special for students. I definitely got a little drunk and decided it would be a fantastic idea to drunk dial Mom and Stephanie. Luckily, they thought it was hilarious. After a couple hours at the bar (we ended up leaving when they closed at 2) we all headed home and went to bed where I learned the joys of the room spinning when you first lay down when you're drunk.

Martedi-

Our morning field trip was cancelled today so we didn't have class until 2 so I didn't even get out of bed until 11:30. Such a wonderful relaxing morning. I caught up on homework and blogging and it was just a wonderful morning. Then we grabbed some pizza on the way to class. Class was interesting today. In 103 we talked about suffixes and number ordinals. All very fascinating stuff. But I learned how to say swear words! "Parolacce". Then we had the culture class where we talked about the Italian Family, the attitudes of men towards women, and the laws that go along with that attitude. We learned about how divorce only became legalized in Italy in 1973, but even then you had to be separated for 7 years and have proof for the judge that you tried to work it out before a judge would grant the divorce. All of this is a direct influence of the catholic church on italian politics. It took until very recently for them to be able to lower the amount of time you have to wait from 7 to 3 years. Then we learned about how 50% of Italian men admit to cheating on their wives and 40% of italian women admit to cheating on their husbands. Cheating is considered to be the lesser evil compared to divorce in italy because if you cheat, you confess to your priest and get in minor trouble, but you get divorced and you're barred from every taking holy communion again. It's all very political. 

After class we walked home and made dinner real quick before we had to walk to the Piazza del Popolo to go to a soccer game with our entire program! It was Inter Milan vs AS Roma. I still think soccer is boring, but watching the crowd was so much fun. It reminded me of high school basketball games where everybody knows special cheers and songs and when to use them and everything. Totally fun. They were waving flags and yelling every swear word that exists in Italian (I officially know them all now), and throwing fireworks on to the concrete part of the field: M-80's, flares, and other smokers and sparklers. Totally freaked me out when I first heard an M-80 go off. Inter Milan scored the only goal of the game. We all left 5 minutes early though so we could beat the crowds. One of our professors is from Milan and he said it was very hard to restrain himself when Inter scored (he was wearing a AS Roma jersey so he wouldn't get beaten up. All the Inter fans were in a tiny section surrounded on all sides by security guards). Then we walked back to Campo for crepes and then back home to go to bed! And now I am officially got up with my blog. Finally. Buonanotte!

I'm getting so behind!-Venice part 2 and the weekend

Sorry it's been a while. The last couple days I've been super busy, but more on that later!

Friday-
Friday morning I had a nutella and banana crepe for breakfast. A great way to start the day. :) Then we all met up with the rest of the program to go on our tour for the day. The weather was a little bit chilly in Venice the entire time, but that day felt especially cold. We took a ferry from Venice to Burano with our tour guide. Once we got to Burano though, they let us loose on the island to go explore, take pictures, and observe. Burano was so cool and colorful! Every house was painted a different color. We wandered around taking pictures, going through small alleys, and adventuring about. At one point we found a little kids park and spent a good hour playing on all of the toys, taking pictures, and just generally acting silly. It was really fun. After that we wandered around the island a bit more. Burano is famous for making lace and boy was there lace everywhere. There were lace table clothes, clothes, bread baskets, toilet roll hangers, handkerchiefs, you name it, it was there. I bought my great grandma, Mimi, a present there that I'm excited to give her when I get home. After some more wandering we stopped for lunch at a restaurant in the main part of town. This was by far the most tourist trap oriented place I've been so far. They had a 10% service charge, a cover charge per person, as well as a bread charge. This is the first restaurant we've been to that added that many charges. Stupid. Lunch wasn't all that great either. But after lunch we went to a pasticceria that was quite fabulous. I had a little tart and a chocolate mousse thing that was so sweet I almost couldn't eat it. Then we went and saw some famous person's house and I don't remember what his name was, but his house was by far the most cool and colorful of them all. Then we met up with the rest of the group and headed back to Venice. Back in Venice, we went back to our hotel room to rest for a few minutes and then wandered back out again into the city. I took some of the girls to a store called Promod that I'd been to last time I was in Venice. They had a great time shopping there. After that we met up with some more people and went mask hunting because everyone wanted masks. I bought a little tiny one that has gigantic green and black feathers surrounding it's head. It's really cool. We then took a gondolier ride because everyone needs to do that at least once in their life. Our gondolier man was really funny; he bought asparagus from a passing boat while he was taking us around. After the gondolier ride, we wandered a bit more and then headed back to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the program. From there we all went out to dinner where they gave us a very strange seafood apperitivi and pasta and a delicious tiramisu and chocolate tort dessert. Then our tour guide gave us all little easter presents and they sent us on our way. It was still pretty early, but we were tired so we just went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

Sabato-
Saturday morning I woke up early and walked with Irma to get a croissant and cappuccino for breakfast. On the way back we popped in to a beautiful small church that was on the same street as our hotel. It was very pretty inside, but not as ornate as a lot of churches I've seen. Then we all met up and took the train back to Venice. On the train ride one of the boys lent me their iPod to listen to a remixed version of the Tron soundtrack by Daftpunk. That was awesome. I enjoy cool techno music. After the train ride we went back to our apartment to rest, we went to the grocery store and then that night Kelsey Ondrak, a girl from Chi Omega who has been studying in Spain came to visit us. She's spending Saturday through Tuesday night with us, which so far has been really fun. She, Casey, and I just sat around our kitchen table and talked for hours after she arrived.

Domenica
Sunday morning we got up late, completely forgetting it was Palm Sunday. Some of the girls went to mass, but four of us decided to take a bus to a really beautiful park we had heard about. It was really hot on the bus ride over, but of course the second we got to the park with our little picnics, the weather turned cold. The park we wanted to go to, Villa Alda, was also supposed to be really big and the park we ended up at was very small so we honestly have no idea where we were that day. Once the weather turned cold we ended up going back and catching the bus. Right after we got on the bus it started to rain so we were glad we left! We ended up getting gelato (Nutella, Cioccolato, e Arancia Rossa) and then going back to the apartment to chill. Right after we got back to the apartment, the rest of the girls showed up with the entire boys apartment. They had brought dinner to make us and a movie to watch. Dinner was delicious and then we watched an old comedy called Grandma's Boy and then the Hangover. It was a fun and entertaining night.

We came, we laughed so hard we cried, we luckily didn't fall in the canals-Venice Part 1

Wow it's been a while. Venice was an awesome trip with our entire program. All 30 of us, including the teachers went. I'm gonna go day by day with this like I did for the Florence blog entry.

Wednesday:
Wednesday morning we all rolled out of bed packed our stuff really quickly, did the dishes, and ran out the door to make it to Stazione Termini on time. We met up with the rest of our program and our teachers at the Nike store in Termini before we all headed to the trains. Ruggero and Claudio were like mother hens the entire trip, making sure we were getting off the train at the right stops and that we were all ok and enjoying ourselves. They were hilarious. On the train I split my time between sleeping (I was so exhausted from the night before) and reading the Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The book was good and so was my nap. Our group took up almost the entire train car which made for an enjoyable ride. Once we arrived in Venice we met our tour guide, Rita, just outside and she walked us to our hotel which was on the other side of Venice from the train station. If we had all had suitcases, we never would have made it. At the hotel, our room was very nice. I stayed with three girls: Katie Bradner, Irma, Dorantes, and Erin Murray (first and last names are so you can Facebook stalk them if you wish :p). Our teachers gave us a twenty minute break before our first tour so we went and got sandwiches and coffee. I had the most delicious espresso that was called caffe macchiato, which was just milk, espresso, and cocoa powder on top. Delicious. After that Rita came and took us on a tour to Ponte Rialto, which is the big stone bridge that traverses that grand canal. Then we walked over to see San Marco square. They let us loose after that and we decided to walk inside the church San Marco. It was absolutely stunning. The entire ceiling had gorgeous paintings set on top of gold backgrounds so the entire church glowed on the inside. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. Totally cool. After that Irma, Katie, and I ended up getting separated from the rest of the group so we decided to go wandering off on our own. We walked along side of Venice that borders on the Ocean which was really cool because there was a storm brewing and you could see it whipping the waves up a couple miles away from us. We then decided to wander through tiny alleyways and streets and we stumbled across la Chiesa di San Zaccharia. This church was much smaller than San Marco, but had a much bigger impact on me. The walls were lined with gorgeous post-renaissance paintings, each of them incredibly intricate. Some of them have gotten so dark over the years you could barely tell what it is now. There was a back room you had to pay 1 euro to get in to which we decided to do. Back there you could see all the items the church was renovating, including a gorgeous all gold triptych altar. We also got to see the crypt back there which was eerily cool and the path through it was surrounded by water. Katie was so engrossed with taking pictures that she accidentally stepped in the crypt water. For days we were making jokes about how her foot is gonna fall off now from gangrene or some other gross disease.
After San Zaccharia we just wandered around Venice, looking at all the really cool mask shops that are almost every other store. Then we walked back to our hotel for a short break before meeting up with the rest of the group for dinner. Dinner with the group was awesome because the program paid for dinner instead of us. Yay! I got pasta, chicken, salad, and the most amazing desert. It was called a Profiterole and consists of a gigantic cream puff that is covered in chocolate. It was the most amazing thing I have ever had in my entire life. I wanted to just eat only Profiteroles forever and ever. After dinner we walked back to the hotel which has a bar right beneath it. During the day they sell smoothies and at night they sell Sangria and other mixed drinks. I had a vodka sour which was just a bunch of blended strawberries with a teeny tiny bit of vodka in it. I liked it because there was so little vodka I couldn't even taste it. Awesome. I still fail at this whole being a college student and "liking alcohol" thing. Oh well, whatever.
Then we all walked back to Rialto bridge to enjoy the view for a little bit. While we were up there a huge group of people came up and asked us if they could take pictures with us. They were a group of turkish tourists in Venice for only 2 hours and naturally they wanted to take pictures with the Americans. Weird, but funny. They took a bunch of ridiculous pictures with us and then went along their merry way. After that we just went back to the hotel and slept.

Thursday:
First morning with the curtain-less shower (see pictures on Facebook). Stupidest invention ever. The bathroom floor had two drains in it, but they didn't seem to accomplish anything. By the end of my shower the entire floor was covered in water. Not helpful for getting ready in the morning. We all got up and got ready and then had a breakfast at a little café by our hotel and had yogurt, a croissant, and a cappuccino. Then we all met up for our tour with Rita. For that day she had decided to show us the non-tourist part of Venice which was really cool. We walked all throughout the Cannareggio region of Venice which is where a lot of the locals that still live in Venice have their homes. It was a much quieter tour than the one the day before, but it was cool seeing the more normal parts of the city. We saw some guys repairing a boat and parents taking their children for walks. It was cool. After our tour, a small group of us decided to walk to the opposite side of Venice from where we were so we walked through San Marco to the Accademia bridge and wandered around over there looking at mask shops and just generally got lost. We saw the Antonio Vivaldi museum of music and helped an old man with directions to get back to his boat. We oggled all the designer stores as we scoped out their crazy expensive window displays. We had pastries and pizza, saw some unique masks and at several points had zero clue as to where we were. Eventually we ended up back at the hotel, but about half an hour later we ventured back to where we had been to eat at a restaurant we had seen in our wanderings. Best. Dinner. Ever. The food wasn't that great. I had lasagna that looked like it had been regurgitated, but the company was fantastic. We laughed so hard we cried for pretty much the entire dinner. Our group of 9 was louder than the group of 20 german tourists that were also eating dinner at that restaurant. It was so much fun. By the time we left, I laughed so hard my stomach muscles hurt. Thursday was also the day I learned to at least partially roll my "R"s finally too! I've had a problem with this ever since I was a kid and I've never been able to figure out how everyone can do it. I'm the only member of my immediate family that can't so it obviously wasn't a genetic thing. One of the girls in our group, Katie, is majoring in Linguistics and she is the one who taught me how to do it. She said that in English 50% of people learn how to say their R's one way (rolling) and 50% learn how to do it another (flat). I just happened to only learn the flat way so my tongue muscles for rolling my r's just never developed. By the end of the day practicing it I could say most of my r's with a roll and after several days of practicing I can roll pretty much all of them. YAY! Katie is my lifesaver so now I don't have to sound like a stupid American with my accent when I talk in Rogliano. My life is now complete.

That's all I'll update you on for now. More to follow tomorrow on Friday-Sunday.

Sono Stanca

Today has been a rather long day. We got up and went to the Campo de Fiori where we met Claudio to go on a tour of a museum he had never been to. He was all worried that not all of us would make it on to the bus so I volunteered to be in charge of group two if anything happened. Because of this he now knows my name and was very impressed by me. Yay! The museum was different but cool. It was a museum that was in a building that orginally was a steam making factory. Now they display industrial art with classical statues to have an interesting counterbalance. After the museum trip we all took a bus back to Campo de Fiori and went and had lunch. I had the quattro formaggi pizza which is quickly becoming my favorite pizza here. Then I had some amazing lampone (raspberries) and cioccolato gelato for desert. Then we had class which focused on the Italian economy. Apparently the future of the euro is dependent on the future of Italy's economy. If italy declares bankruptcy like Greece, Ireland, and Portugal it will send the euro down the tubes. After that lovely piece of information we had a short break and then a quiz on "si impersonale", "espressioni negativi" e "espressioni pronomi indiretti e relativi". I believe I did really well on the quiz. After the quiz we got to leave early so I went back home and took a nap before we all had dinner and then went out to Scholar's Irish Pub again for karaoke night. That was fun. I got to sing twice this time, Raise Your Glass-Pink and Hungry Like the Wolf- Duran Duran. Fun times. Had my first Tequila Sunrise which was apparently very poorly mixed according to the others who tried it. Who knew that Italians would be bad at making Mexican drinks? :P Then back home to pack real quick for Venice and then up early to go to the train station tomorrow.

I probably won't have internet access in Venice so expect the next report on Saturday. Ciao!

Lunedi

Oggi é Lunedi. Monday. Today was a good day but not super exciting. Got up this morning and went to school where we were supposed to have a test which I had crammed for on the train last night. But when we walked in to class today Ruggero said that since we had all been gone this weekend he wanted to move the test to tomorrow and just review for today. 10 points for Ruggero!!! That was rather exciting. After class we went to the grocery store and got some food to eat for the next two days before we go to Venezia and then we just chilled at the apartment, reading awesome books for the rest of the afternoon. For dinner though, the boys apartment invited us over because they wanted to make dinner. So went over, taking a bottle of wine and some bread with us. One of them made flank steak with a pesto tomato pasta. It was soo good! I was actually rather surprised. I did not believe they could cook, but the proved me wrong. Later we were all just chilling, sitting around in their living room while they passed a guitar around and one of them decided it would be a great idea to make all of us take shots of absinthe. Most disgusting thing I have ever tasted in my entire life. Worse than Robitussin or Nyquil cough medicines. I chased it with coke (I hate coke) and I thought it tasted fantastic compared to the absinthe. Then we all went out to a bar and the boys convinced me to take a shot of strawberry vodka. That was a little better but still gross. Surprisingly it didn't make me that drunk at all which is good, but all of the boys and the older girls promised to take care of me if anything happened anyways. Then we all walked to the Trevi fountain which was beautiful and empty at night. We just fooled around taking pictures and goofing off before coming home to go to bed. That's all for now folks! :)

Firenze Part 2

Saturday:
Saturday morning we got up and had the terrible free breakfast at the hotel. It was essentially some rolls of bread and terrible coffee. Then we walked to l'Accademia to see the David and the rest of the paintings inside. The musuem was really cool, showing off half finished sculptures by Michelangelo in the hallway leading to the David and a ton of medieval tempura paintings. After we saw that we decided to walk around Florence and explore a bit. We walked just a few short blocks and saw Firenze's il Duomo which was just gorgeous! The line was fairly long to climb to the top of the dome, but we decided to do it anyways. It had these super small spiraling stairs going almost all the way to the top. A lot of the girls got dizzy and claustrophobic while we were going up, but I thought it was fun. The stairs right at the top were super steep and actually curved out so it was steepest right at the middle. Very strange. The view from the top was absolutely fantastic. You could see all of Firenze laid out before you. After that we were waiting for the boys to go up through the Duomo and we got some gelato. That was an interesting mistake. The gelato place was set up so you got your gelato outside and then paid inside and they had no prices anywhere. So I got a waffle cone because those are my favorite back home and I was craving one. The kid piled ice cream onto it ridiculously high and then told me to inside where they told me it was 15 euro! Ridiculous! Every other place I saw waffle cones they were 7 euro at the absolute max not 15. We found little tourists traps like that all over Firenze which is weird because we haven't found that in Roma at all. But I ate that entire stupid ice cream because there was no way I was going to let it go to waste. Luckily it was quite good, but definitely not worth 15 euro. After that we went down to the Piazza where the David originally stood which was quite beautiful. We wanted to go to the Uffizi at that point but the line was about 3 hours long so instead we went inside il Palazzo Vecchio, an old Medici residence. That was super cool, the paintings on the ceilings in every room were very detailed depictions of ancient Roman/Greek gods to exemplify the divine right of the Medici family.   After that we went up with the boys and walked across Ponte Vecchio, the bridge filled with gold and jewelry sellers. The jewelry was gorgeous, but priced insanely high. Then we walked around Florence shopping for a new birthday dress for Katie since we essentially celebrated her birthday all weekend long.
After that we met up back up with everybody and we went and had a delicious dinner. I had Spaghetti Pomodoro which is awesome with fresh tomatoes. Then we all went back to our hotel and got changed to go out to a club that night. Once we were all dressed up and ready we went to the area around the Duomo to figure out where to go for a club called "Space". While we were wandering around the piazza looking for it we ran into a young American couple who were looking for the exact same club and they were from Portland! What a small world Firenze is. Once we figured out where the club was we walked there and went inside. It was the first club I had ever been in and it was an interesting experience. It was loud and crazy and packed with people (mostly guys, very few girls). First we went to the bar and they gave us all a free shot of peach schnapps for being first timers at the club. Disgusting. I still can't stand the taste of hard alcohol so I didn't drink any more after that even though we were all supposed to get a free drink by paying the cover charge. Then we decided to all go dance and the guys swarmed on us like leeches. It was ridiculous. I had one really sweet Spanish kid come and ask me to dance. That was an interesting experience because he spoke very little english and very little Italian. He was from Madrid and only spoke spanish. I thought that I still remembered some, but clearly after attempting to talk to him in spanish it was a complete fail. He did manage to tell that he was "professional dancer in Madrid" which he definitely didn't dance like it, but he told me I was a good dancer after he tried to "teach" me how to dance. It was a very strange dance, but did involve spinning me around a lot which I did enjoy. After that us girls went to go find the rest of our group who had somehow managed to find a group of people from Washington that are in the army and just happened to be on leave in Firenze, Italy right now. Crazy! They were all nice, but a little on the older side for my taste. They were all hitting on us along with the five billion italian guys crowding our little area, but they were also willing to help us get away from the Italian guys which was nice. One italian guy who was a little older and rather unattractive asked me to dance and when I said no we ended up sitting and chatting for a while, him speaking in English to me and I spoke Italian back to him which was fun. Then after a while he grabbed my hand and dragged me on to the dance floor. I really was not into dancing with him he was way too touchy feely, but at least he wasn't a groper which was good. We danced for a while and then one of the girls came and grabbed me and told me we were headed home so I walked back with them to the hotel and we went to bed.

Sunday:
Sunday morning I was planning on getting up early and going to the Uffizi right when it opened, but I was so exhausted from getting home so late from the club that I didn't manage to get myself out of bed when my alarm went off. So instead we all slept in and checked out of our hotel and then went to go spend the day in Firenze until our train at 5. We went to a small bar cafe for breakfast where we had amazing pastries and fresh squeezed blood orange juice. Absolutely amazing. Then we were planning on walking down to the Uffizi to check out the line but we got distracted by the leather market we found on the way there. We weren't planning on spending a long time there, but we ended up spending a couple hours just wandering around. At one point I accidentally got separated from the group (the market was like a maze) and ended up just walking around randomly looking at stuff when I saw somebody I knew.

Now let me give some background on this person. Last summer my mom, my sister and I came to Italy for my graduation present and we came to Firenze. While in Firenze we came to this same leather market, wandered around and checked out all of the leather jackets. At one point we ended up going into a store where the owner, a man named Paolo, was super sweet and totally had the hots for my mom. We bought jackets from him and he gave us gigantic discounts on them and then he just stood and chatted with us for a good hour. Right as we were about to leave he asked if he could take us all out to dinner that night at a local restaurant. We said yes, met up with him for dinner that night at a restaurant called ZaZa (the same one I went to Friday night actually) and had a great time hanging out with him and talking about Italy and the culture and everything. His english is flawless because he went to NYU for college. At the end of the night though we all said goodbye to him and never thought we'd see him again.
Well I was walking down the line of leather shops when I saw him sitting in a chair in one of the stalls. It totally surprised me but I went in and asked if he remembered my mom, my sister and I. It took him a few minutes (apparently he was really hungover), but his assistant remembered me and then he started to remember too. I ended up standing and talking to him for an hour about Italy and school and life and everything. He totally remembered Stephanie and how smart she was and how pretty my mom was. He was actually upset at first because I hadn't come the day before to say hi. He said because I came the day I was leaving he couldn't show me good "Italian hospitality" like he normally would and said next time I come to Venice I have to go see him first. Very funny. Finally I told him I had to go find my friends and he gave me his business card and told me if I get into any trouble at all to call him and he'll come help me. He was very sweet. After that I went and found my friends (who had bought beautiful leather jackets while I was gone) and we shopped around a little bit more before deciding to walk to la Basilica di Santa Croce and get gelato on the way at a place Rick Steves (the travel guy) reccommended because they have rice gelato. That was weird. It tasted like tapioca pudding. Definitely not as good as the gelato here in Roma. After that we wanted to go inside the Basilica but you had to pay to go in and we felt that on a Sunday you shouldn't have to pay to go inside a church. So instead we walked along the river, taking funny pictures, got more gelato and then went back to the hotel to grab our bags and go to the train station. The train ride was really long again and we were all exhausted by the time we got home. We all loved Firenze but we were happy to be home last night in Roma.

Firenze part 1!

Wow what a crazy few days it has been. Sorry this one is gonna be kinda long. I'll start with Friday and go from there.
Friday:
Friday morning we had a tour la Basilica di San Pietro at the Vatican. We all especially enjoyed this tour since it was right next to our apartment and we didn't have to get up early to walk somewhere. San Pietro is such a magnificent church. It's crazy how ornate and detailed the entire inside and outside is. After we toured the inside of the Vatican we also took a short tour beneath the Vatican to see all the tombs of the popes. We got to see the Tomb of John Paul II who will be canonized as Saint in just a few short weeks on May 1st. The had several Swiss guards guarding his tomb and the entire thing was covered in flowers from people. That was really cool. After our Vatican tour we went back to the apartment, grabbed a quick lunch and our bags and then went and caught the metro to Termini and from there we got our tickets to Firenze (Finally!).
The train ride was long (about 4 hours), but we were going through the beautiful region of Tuscany and it was fun to just sit and stare out the window. I ended up sitting by the most adorable young italian couple. The wife spoke a little english so she practiced her english on me while I practiced my italian on her. I could understand most of what she was saying too, which I felt was a good improvement. At first though, they didn't realize we spoke italian and the husband flat out asked her to go have sex with him in the bathroom. She said no. Hahaha I don't think he would have said that if he had known me and my friend understood him! But later on we spent a good hour talking to them and learning more italian from them. After the train ride we walked to our hotel which was kind of a hole in the wall place, it was just two floors of a five floor walk up right at the top. That was quite the hike every day. After we checked in we all decided to go out for dinner because it was one of the girls birthdays. While we were walking to the restaurant the weirdest thing happened. There was a girl walking down the street and I wasn't really paying attention to her until she got closer. She was actually a girl that I went to church with in Spokane. She used to work with me at the youth group for the little kids. Weirdest coincidence ever. Apparently she is studying in Florence, but goes home in just a couple weeks. Oh what a small world it is. After that we went to a restaurant called ZaZa that was quite excellent. I had the most amazing Rigatoni con Mozzarella e Pomodoro and we all at an absolutely delicious torta di cioccolato for dessert in celebration of Katie's birthday. After dinner we walked around Firenze and went to a bar called Astor. It was a weird bar. There were gogo dancers there who were dressed in strange fifties housewife see-through nightgowns with pin-up lingerie underneath and they were walking around the room spraying random things with Windex. Weird. They were also terrible dancers. At one point though we managed to get the entire bar to have a dance party with us in the middle of the room. Awesome. After that we got tired and walked back to our hotel and went to sleep.

So this doesn't get too ridiculously long I'll stop here for the night and fill you in on the rest of the weekend tomorrow morning. Buonanotte!