The Long Goodbye

Today was my last day in Rome, making this the final post for my blog. My past two days were spent exploring Rome with my family, who came to visit me because they were jealous of my experience (even though they won’t admit it). We saw the museum at Borghese and revisited the Castel de San Angelo. I’m not complaining. Like I’ve said before, I’m going to live in the castle one day, so why not get reacquainted with it now?

I’ve never concluded a blog before, so I am unfamiliar with proper protocol. Should a goodbye blog be quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid? Or should it be a heartfelt reflection on my experience, where I say something that legitimately means something to my readers and to me? I really don’t know. I guess I’ll take the latter route, as ending a blog in “holla” might not be the best decision I’ve made.

Here’s a short list of some observations and opinions I’ve had over the course of my stay:

• Italian cuisine isn’t as different from the states as one might think. It’s just better here because the ingredients are fresher.

• Real Italians do not put olive oil and parmesan on their bread. Butter is also non-existent.

• I hate al dente pasta. It’s undercooked and chewy. Give me the dried out stuff any day.

• You really can live off of pizza for a month. Just make sure you get some buffalo mozzarella on it and you’re good to go!

• Gelato is a gift from the Roman gods, as is Nutella. Also, M&Ms are better here. It’s a fact.

• Pizza cutters, window screens, peperoni (as we know it), and parking/driving laws do not exist.

• Don’t try to blend in with the culture. They already know you’re an “Americano” because you’re not wearing pants and winter jackets in 80 degrees Fahrenheit weather.

• Saying “no grazia” to a street vendor does not mean “no grazia.” It directly translates to “please chase me down with your stolen goods.” I’m not kidding.

I should probably start the more thoughtful part of this goodbye. The past three weeks have been some of the best weeks of my life. I learned bits and pieces of a new language, tried new foods and made new friends. I saw some of the world’s greatest monuments, visited museums holding the world’s greatest works of art, and saw the graves of the world’s most revolutionary people. I lived in a different country, I submerged myself in a totally different culture, and I survived.

I’m sure many people assumed I would miss Bloomingdale, but I won’t say I’m homesick. My family is with me now, but being in Rome for three weeks was no different than being at school and not seeing them for three months. I had the five greatest roomies I could have asked for, and they become my family, even in the short amount of time we had together.

I want to thank my parents for giving me this amazing opportunity to study abroad. I may have learned a little bit about Italian cuisine and marketing, but the life experience, memories, and friendships I have gained through this summer abroad course will be with me forever. I appreciate all that you do for me and I truly cannot thank both of you enough.

And to my readers: thank you for following me on my journey. I know much of my writing was random and seemingly pointless, but I hope I at least provided you with some entertaining anecdotes and pictures about the last few weeks of my life.

In the words of Brooks & Dunn, it’s a long goodbye. And it’s a goodbye I’m not quite ready for. While I’ll be returning to the states soon, a part of me will always be thinking of home sweet Rome.

You Belong In The Sun

Ciao! I suppose to today is my final “real” blog post. There’s really no point in writing one for tomorrow as there’s only four more hours until we leave, and much of that time will be spent sleeping. I’ll do a recap blog later in the week, though.

For our last full day in Rome (and the first legitimate day of summer without school), we decided to hit up the beach. We started walking toward the bus to take to the train when we realized we hadn’t eaten breakfast. Pizza Boom, the trusty shop down the street was open, and low and behold, sold pastries! I’m much more enthusiastic about this than I should be. I had a Nutella-filled sugar doughnut for .50 euro. Are you kidding me?! I wish I would have known about the deliciousness and cheapness of these pastries prior to my last day in Rome, but what’s done is done. We also picked up a porchetta sandwich to eat at the beach.

The train we were supposed to take to the beach was next to the Roman pyramid. Since I first heard Rome had a pyramid, I’ve been on the quest to find it. When the time came to see it, I was disappointed. It looked like a two-story cinderblock pyramid with some ancient words chiseled into the side of it. Some things just should have been left to the Egyptians.

Back to the beach: on the bus, we saw some people dressed in beach gear, so we stalked them all the way to the station. We didn’t really know where the station was or which train was ours, so our at-a-safe-distance creeping made our trip much more convenient. We also looked to see which stop they got off at, since three stops were supposed to be near water. The bikini-clad, cooler-carrying locals led us to our destination.

We passed a sign for a restaurant called The Med, so I’m assuming we were at the Mediterranean Sea. It was gorgeous. I’ll admit that it wasn’t the most beautiful beach I’ve been to, but given the hot train ride and the sweat rolling down our foreheads, it was definitely the most refreshing beach I’ve been to in a long time. The water was ice cold, but became the perfect temperature after floating around for a few minutes.

When we weren’t in the water, we were sitting on the grainy sand, so I read a book. It’s a self-helpish style book about persuading people. I know it sounds boring, but the writing style was so unique that I enjoyed what I’ve read thus far. To give examples about debating, the author talked about the Roman Forum. I found it incredibly cool that I now know the history of such things and have been to those monuments. I was reading a book about Rome while in Rome. It’s nerdy, I know.

Eventually we needed to pack up and get back to our apartments to get ready for our farewell dinner. Although I applied a sufficient amount of sunscreen, my entire body is crispy. I’m not talking about just a little color; I’m talking about “wow, do you need Tylenol to help ease the pain” crispy. I may look like a tomato, but I don’t feel it. Honest. In a few days I’ll be tan.

Our farewell dinner was quite pleasant—and the only meal I entirely enjoyed at Gusto Lab. We ate zucchini, pesto pasta with pine nuts, beef and potatoes (it was glorious), and this pistachio half-gelato half-cake dessert. Mmm, good. We then had to say our goodbyes and get back to the apartments to pack for our 6:30 a.m. meeting tomorrow.

My evening and early morning was consumed with packing and hanging out with everyone for the last time in Rome. As I’m writing this, I’m feeling a little bittersweet. I’m actually quite upset that I’m missing the plane ride home, as I won’t really get to say goodbye to everyone at the airport. On the happy side, I’ll be staying in Rome for a few more days with my family, which is always a fun time.

Goodnight from Rome!

Vatican City Isn't Oz

Today was our second to last full day in Rome. It finally hit most of us that time’s a wasting, so we decided to finish all of our touristy destinations. For this reason, my morning started bright and early at Vatican City.

Here’s a little fun fact: Vatican City is an actual country with a population of about 800 people. How cool would it be to have a passport from there? Apparently they’re very precious and Vaticans (people from Vatican City, I guess?) can basically bypass any line at airport security.

We found a tour guide and began our venture through the world’s largest museum. There are most than 1,700 rooms in the museum, so we only saw a small portion of the collection. The paintings, tapestries and sculptures were all brilliant. In every direction I looked, I wondered how anyone could possibly have made that by hand, especially without modern tools.

We even passed sculptures of Greek gods and heroes, which I thought was pretty neat (probably because I took a Greek myth class last semester). I turned around and thought, “Wow, that’s Hercules! What’s he doing at the Vatican?” I don’t know if I was more surprised that Hercules was chilling in the Vatican or the fact that I accurately remembered who he was by the lion’s skin he was carrying. After walking through the museum and learning some sweet tidbits about famous works of art, we made our way into the Sistine Chapel.

There was no “awe” moment. No “Michelangelo dedicated four years of his life to this ceiling alone” moment. No “you are standing in one of the most renowned buildings ever created” moment. I was honestly disappointed in the Sistine Chapel.

Don’t get me wrong—the paintings were all gorgeous—but it was not what I expected. I walked into an extremely loud room that was flooded with tourists. Security guards were shouting “No pictures!” and clapping every minute, hoping their authority would somehow prevent pictures from being taken. The lighting was also very poor, so the paintings were all very dim. It took me a couple of minutes to even realize that I was standing directly under the iconic Hand of God portion of the ceiling. If the lighting was better and the ambience was more church-ful, I might have enjoyed the chapel, but that just didn’t happen.

We moved on to the catacombs to see the tombs of deceased popes. It was sort of neat, but really pointless. The tombs were all beautifully chiseled in marble and whatnot, but the tourist overload also ruined the mood. We were not even permitted to take pictures of Pope John Paul II’s grave room, so I guess my picture of Pope John Paul I will have to do.

We then moved onto St. Peter’s Basilica, which was much more moving than the Sistine Chapel. While it was still filled with tourists, it didn’t feel like it. This building was HUGE. Everything was awesome (in the original sense of the word). Everywhere you looked, there was something that caught your eye and demanded your full attention. My pictures don’t do it justice, but they’ll have to suffice for now.

We contemplated climbing the duomo, but we couldn’t find our way back to the line. Although I know I’ll regret it in a few weeks, I know it’s for the best. The stairs are supposed to be very tight and at some point, you have to use a rope for a handrail while crawling up the spiral staircase. Also, what happens when I pass out from lack of oxygen and claustrophobia? My Florence climb was good enough for one trip, thank you very much.

After the Vatican, we had our last day of class, complete with presentations. Our group presented on pizzerias in Rome and talked about how they differ from those in the states. After class, we grabbed some dinner and gelato. We went to the supposedly best gelato place in all of Rome, and I wholeheartedly concur with that statement. While it was not as good as my gelato in Florence, it was definitely the best I’ve had in Rome. It was artisanal and the place served very obscure and succulent flavors. If I’m not broke by Thursday, I may have to return to try out some more flavors.

Our last full day in Roma (for school) will be spent at the beach. I don’t know where the beach is or what body of water it is near, but I know that it’s the final thing we’ve been waiting for.

Just A Recap

Well it’s very late as of now, since it’s taken me far too long to catch up on the posts from this weekend. Here’s an extremely brief version of today’s activities.

Our apartment awoke to an empty kitchen, so we found a cute little shop down the street and scarfed down a delicious Nutella-filled pastry. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home so we wouldn’t starve the rest of the day. I found this amazing cereal that has plantains in it. Seriously, it’s the best almost healthy cereal ever.

We met up at Saatchi & Saatchi Roma for a tour of the agency. The tour became a presentation about the company and what they do. Interesting? Not really. Informative? Somewhat. It was cool that I was actually able to visit an advertising agency, as I haven’t been too motivated to visit them in the past. I wish we could have chatted it up with some creatives or account managers, but we didn’t.

We tried to go to the Trevi after class, but (as you probably have guessed by now) we got lost. We ended up walking completely around it, so we just decided to go home. You would think we’d know our way around Rome by now. Oh well, it’s a little too late to start learning now.

I finished up some homework and worked on a presentation before heading out for dinner. We went back to the aperitivo establishment we visited before and feasted on everything non-Italian. It was amazing to eat something that wasn’t covered in cheese and sauce, as much as I love cheese and sauce. I did some more homework after dinner and have spent the last few hours catching up on all these blogs I missed.

Tomorrow’s activities include a trip to the Vatican and giving class presentations. I’ll let you know how it goes. Ciao!

The Series of Unfortunate Events: Days 2 & 3

This whole post-something-every-day shenanigans it getting a little tiring. I know my future self will resent my present self for combining the next two days, but that’s what I’m going to do. Hey, at least it’s still documented.

We woke up early on Saturday to bask in the last couple of hours we had left in Venice. After taking the bus back into the city (without getting lost) we found a gondolier and took a ride. I know it’s super touristy/cheesy, but it was just the coolest thing. Claudio (yes, that was his real name) took us around the city for about a half hour, telling us historical tidbits and facts about the city.

Fun fact: Venice has about 300,000 tourists every day. That’s a lot of excess people, given that the population is about 40,000. If you want to know the exact population of people living in the city, the ever-changing number is posted one of the bridges in the city.

After the gondola ride, we did a little shopping and toured more plazas. Before we knew it, it was time for us to depart Venice and move on to Florence. That train ride was much more enjoyable, as it was during the day and a lot less creepy.

We made our way to our hotel, which was surprisingly close to the train station. We unloaded our bags and then headed off to catch dinner with my other roomies (Kristin, Jen, Eileen and Brooke) at a British restaurant. It seemed like I hadn’t seen them in weeks, when the reality was that I hadn’t seen them for all of 24 hours.

At this point, we were all a little sick of Italian food, but that doesn’t stop me from ordering yet another pizza. After dinner, Laura and I toured some of the plazas on our way back to the hotel. It was a glorious evening: the weather was perfect, the plazas were all lit up, and live music played in the background.

We got back to the hotel and I stuck the key in the door to open it (we had three keys to get into our room). Using the rationale of the keys at our apartment, I put one key in the key hole and turned it. Wrong move. While the key fit in the hole, it did not mean that it was the proper key. The key broke and the nice bartender across the street took out his spare key at let us in the building (at least that means I’m not the only idiot this hotel’s ever seen).

We crashed yet again, still tired and worn out after another long day.

In the morning, I told the desk about the key and they were very nice about it. I honestly think my Italian-sounding last name helped me out. Anyways, they served us a nice breakfast of….cereal! Yes, the perfect grain to wake up to in the morning. As much as I love Nutella-filled croissants, it was nice to eat something remotely healthy to start my day.

We then made our way over to the Statue of David. The museum was gorgeous and I even read a majority of the plaques to see what the hubbub was all about. I didn’t let my eyes cheat on the way to the statue, so when I finally turned around, I was in awe. The statue was made from unwanted marble, which Michelangelo turned into arguably one of the most important pieces of art this species has ever seen. A hoard of Asian embassy members (at least that’s what they looked like) stormed into the building with cameras and video cameras, so naturally, we joined in on the taking-pictures-even-though-you-shouldn’t mess. Just call me a rebel child.

The rest of our day in Florence was primarily spent shopping. We dropped off our backpacks at the train terminal so as not to carry them all day. That’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Most people were looking for something made of leather, so I figured I might was well look for my cowboy boots. I was unsuccessful (which was probably best for my wallet) but I did end up getting another scarf.

Midday, we were looking at one of Florence’s famous bridges when we got the call that we had to climb to the top of the Duomo de Santa Maria. Jane and I were über hungry and thirsty (unlike Rome and Venice, there are no water fountains in Florence) so we found a neat-o looking gelato place. It looked amazing, and Florence is known for their gelato, so we each got a cone. The woman gave us Oberweis-sided cones and filled them all the way (unlike any other cone we’ve had in Italy). My Nutella cone was literally covered in Nutella. Pure heaven—until we went to pay. The cashier knew we were tourists and we didn’t know that she had purposely given us the largest cone they had. Therefore, she charged us 15 euro--each. I’m still very disappointed in her conniver-y. Don’t ask me how, but I’ve been able to rationalize this purchase in the back of my mind.

Anyway, we sped walked through the city consuming our cones as fast as we could before climbing four hundred and some odd stairs to the top of the tower. Huffing and puffing (quite loudly, at that), we made it to the top of the Opera de Santa Maria del Fiore. Once again, I was just amazed. Not only did we get a great view of Florence, but I felt as if I could see the entire country from the top. The sky was clear, so we could see the mountains surrounding us far out in the distance. The gelato didn’t feel too good by then, but the view was most definitely worth it.

Our day concluded in a small church somewhere in Florence (possibly called the Opera di Santa Croce). The church was gorgeous, but the treasures it kept were much more scintillating. (That’s not the best adjective for that sentence, but I feel like the sound the word makes gets my point across.) This church housed the bodies (among others) of Machiavelli, Galileo, da Vinci, and Marconi. I stood in the same exact room in which these brilliant men. I have no idea why, but I was genuinely touched just staring at Marconi’s grave marker. I might have been the only person in our group who knew that he invented the radio, but just knowing that I was in his presence was somehow fulfilling.

The moment was lost when we realized we should probably head back to the train station so as not to miss our four-hour long ride back to home sweet Rome. Of course, this train was by far, the most comfortable train we had ridden all trip.

You may be wondering why this post (and the previous one) is titled The Series of Unfortunate Events. It’s a reasonable question with no reasonable answer. It was just one frustrating thing after another. We didn’t get any sleep, we got lost (on more than one occasion), the hotel key broke, I paid a ridiculous amount of money for gelato, and the list goes on. As irritated as I was at the end of the day, I can honestly tell you that this was one of the best, if not the best weekend I have ever had. I saw sites I never thought I’d see and had “moments” every hour, shocked that I was standing where I was standing.

As sappy as this will seem (and that’s because it is), I’m so thankful that I was able to share this weekend with the people I did. This weekend would not have been the same if it weren’t for Team Awesome, consisting of--you guessed it—some of the most awesome people ever: Laura, Becky, Eric, Jane, Kristie, Jordan and Dave.

The Series of Unfortunate Events: Day 1

It’s been quite a weekend and I’m very excited to get to this blog. I’ll be writing a blog for each day I was gone, but this post (for Friday) will cover Thursday night, as it was much more eventfully than originally planned. Some parts will be less detailed than other because I’m very far behind on this writing and it's just too time consuming.

My Thursday’s post ended with us going to the vineyard. Let me tell you: if I ever move to Italy, I am living in the vicinity of that vineyard. The view was gorgeous. It was in the middle of luscious greenery, surrounded by mountains. One of the houses on the property looked like the Burrow from Harry Potter.

Please note: many aspects of this weekend will somehow be related to Harry Potter. It is completely by accident. I didn’t know how realistic the series was until now.

Back to the story: little did we know, this trip to the vineyard included a dinner, which made our entire group (of eight) frantic because time was short and we had a catch our night train to Venice.

We made it to our station with little time to lose, but at least we made it. The platform (unfortunately not 9 ¾) was filled with creepers. There’s really no better way to put it. We eventually filed into the train and sat in our Hogwarts Express cabins. These cabins were anything but magical. We were split into six and two, with me being in the group of six (if you want to hear more creeper stories about the other cabin, you’ll have to talk to someone else).

We finally got settled in, pulled the curtains and tried to get some rest on our seven-hour ride to Venice. Fail. We tried about 50 different seating arrangements before giving up. Laura was the only person who got an almost decent night’s sleep, with the rest of us napping for maybe a total of two hours. The most comfortable position I could find was using my neighbor’s knees for a pillow, if that’s any indication of how comfy we were.

Some passengers didn’t have assigned seat for this train, so they stood out in the hallway--for the entire train ride. There were some pull-down seats on the wall to sit on, so the creepers happily popped a squat right outside of our cabin and proceeded to look forward, right into our cabin. We happily closed the curtains, hoping to never see these people again.

Our cabin awoke to this woman ripping the door to our cabin open, staring at us, and then yelling at us in Italian at 4 in the morning. I wish I could be more detailed in this awakening, but my glasses were off and I was busy fearing for my life. Why she was yelling was beyond me. All I know is that I wish to never be wakened in that manner ever again. Although a midnight train going anywhere might have been the best option for members of Journey, it was not the best option for us.

Our train pulled into the station at 5:30 a.m., so we just ventured around Venice for a few hours until anything opened up. The main streets are all waterways, so it was a nice break from Rome by not worrying about getting run over by a Vespa. It was neat to see how the markets set up in the morning, and we also were able to see Piazza San Marco without it flooded by tourists. It was just amazing. Kristie had been to Venice before, so she served as the tour guide, telling us interesting tidbits and getting us to our locations. We saw the Doges Palace, which had room after room of glorious paintings and war paraphernalia, and then just walked the streets taking picture after picture of buildings.

As usual, Jane and I got lost, and then found. I have decided that getting lost is the greatest thing that could happen to someone in Italy. If you never venture past the touristy locations, you never see what life is really like in the city. You also stumble past some pretty cool piazzas along the way.

We eventually needed to make our way to the hotel, which was located in a suburb (if Venice has suburbs) called Malcontenta. Let’s just say the name of the city was appropriate for it. Since Venice doesn’t have too many streets with cars, we had to find the one and only piazza with busses. We hopped in the correct bus number and rode for a while until we asked a passenger if our stop was soon. He told us to get off a.s.a.p., so we did. The bus we were one has 2 routes—one through Malcontenta and one past it. Naturally, we were on the wrong bus. We played tourists for a half hour, bumming it on the side of the road until our real bus drove past.

We finally made it to our hotel, which was super quaint (in a good way). It was off the main road, but very close to the bus stop. After walking for 12 straight hours (carrying our lives on our backs and receiving very little sleep from the night before) we crashed for an hour before heading back into Venice. We grabbed a bite to eat and walked next to the channels. It was just so calming and peaceful and perfect. After a very hectic day, it was just what we needed.

The night was not young before we hopped back on the bus and turned in for the night.

Sidenote: Jane stashed some M&Ms in her purse for a late night snacking. I have never tasted a more delicious sugar coated candy. Best M&Ms I’ve ever had, bar none.

We all fell asleep within a matter of minutes after going to bed, knowing that our backpacking weekend was far from being over.

Oh, What A Beautiful Morning

So I just realized that I didn’t really have a post planned for today’s activities. Below you shall find a brief version of my oh-so-exciting day thus far.

• woke up
• showered
• ate a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich
• wrote down hotel reservations, addresses, etc. so when we get off the tram we'll at least have a destination in mind

Yep. That’s been my productive morning. I still have to pack, which should be an interesting experience. It’s supposed to be scorching hot this weekend, so a backpack filled with running shorts and tank tops should suffice (uber touristy, I know).

In a little bit we’ll be heading off to board a bus to the vineyard. (Yes, Mom and Dad, I know.) We’re supposed to be having a wine tasting, but maybe they’ll just let me eat the grapes instead? I can only hope.

If anything else happens today that is super spectacular and needs to be known to the world, you’ll just have to wait until Sunday. Ciao for now!

Harry Potter & Pretty Pretty Princess

Hello again. It has been brought to my attention that while I occasionally mention some people by name, other are unfortunately left nameless because they are incorporated into that tiny little word English speakers refer to as “we.” In general, my use of “we” includes (but is not limited to) my roomies: Laura, Eileen, Kristin (my immediate roomie), Brooke and Jen.

I just wanted to throw it out there that I could not be blessed with a better group of friends. We all get along amazingly well and are drama-free (it’s the way to be). We’re constantly smiling, laughing and laughing. (That sentence may have been redundant, but it’s the truth.) I honestly believe that my current Roma experience would not have been the same if I hadn’t met these rad friends.

Sidenote: Rad is a pretty sweet word that seems to have gotten lost in a previous decade. Please help me find it and bring it back to the twenty tens.

With that said, thank you Jen, Brooke, Kristin, Eileen and Laura for being awesome—truly awesome in every sense of the word.

Ok, well I should probably get to the post-y post part of a blog. Today was a free day, so I guess I’ll tell you about my day. (Isn’t that exactly what you’re not supposed to say? Probably. But yet again, I’m practicing for my future career as an insomniac and am running on very little sleep.)

This morning started bright and early. At 6:30, my alarm woke me up and I got dressed. Making sure to cover up my scandalous shoulders and knees, we (aka: the roomies and I) jetted off to the Vatican for the papal mass. We didn’t pick up our tickets last night, so we needed to get them this morning. Unfortunately, no one had read the e-mail we received saying that our tickets would be held at a place not near the Vatican. Go figure. A few members of our large group hopped in a cab and eventually returned with the tickets. This process was much more complicated, but I figured you wouldn’t want to hear about it.

We found some seats and the pope eventually emerged in his pope mobile. Everyone stood on their seats to get the best views, but my short stature made it difficult for me to get a good picture. I did see him, so that’s a plus!

The papal mass begin and we sat there for seemingly forever (sorry, Grandma). You think regular mass isn’t too thrilling? Try sitting through 90 minutes of a “mass” in foreign languages. The majority of this “mass” was spent announcing different groups of people from different dioceses in different countries, complete with a rambunctious cheer from the aforementioned group.

Eventually mass ended, so we found a nearby pizza place and I consumed a calzone. It wasn’t anything spectacular, so a picture is not included. Please don’t be disappointed. Our extremely large group eventually split up to see the sites.

Eric and I ended up at the Castel de Sant’Angelo, and what a castle it was. I felt like I was in the middle of Harry Potter meets the most epic childhood game of “house.” (Is that not Lord Voldy in the picture?!) I’m not kidding. This castle was just “AHHHHH!!!” (This is not an adjective, but it perfectly describes my emotions while I was inside the structure.)

It was sort of a war museum, with a few exhibits in some rooms. We saw canons, rifles, battle gear, swords, and the like. Other rooms were artsy, as they had beautifully painted ceilings and relics inside of them. We even saw one of the flags that used to fly on the building (which was cleverly deduced by my excellent ability to read Italian words as if they were in Spanish).

Some of the relics dated back to the 15^th century, so it was just really neat to see how well preserved everything was. The irony of this is that, while everything looked in near perfect condition, there was no preservation technique. Pieces of plastic covered the front of the paintings, but any attention deficit tourist could easily touch the painting by either going over or under the plastic.

When we were not exploring the war/artsy parts, we plundered the castle. That’s not quite the word I was looking for, but I’m sure you get the gist of it. Most of the castle was free range, so we could explore corridors, jail cells, terraces, and even the very top of the building. The view from the top was spectacular. You could see the tops of most every basilica in Rome and it was just so freeing to see life beyond the polluted streets on which we so often walked.

For dinner, a group of us intended to visit Bir & Fud, but we forgot to make a reservation. We ended up at the same restaurant we ate at for Jen’s birthday and I got my meal of tasty chicken (again). The remainder of the evening was spent eating Nutella and finalizing plans for this weekend.

A group of us will be traveling to Venice and Florence for the weekend (eek!) so my Internet access will be non-existent. Upon my return to Rome, I’ll be posting for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Therefore, this will be my last post for the next few days.

Before I go, I just wanted to throw out a very happy early 19^th birthday to mi hermana, Krista. Sorry I can’t be with you on your special day, but I’m sure you’ll have no problem eating my share of your birthday cake.

I Should Be Sleeping

I should be sleeping ‘stead of keeping these late hours I’ve been keeping. Thank you, Emerson Drive, for accurately describing my life through subpar rhyming lyrics.

I should probably warn you: this entire post may be a digression of some unknown ambiguous topic (to both you and me). It’s pretty late and the day was uneventful, so I feel that this post may be uneventful as well.

Today was a very relaxed and kicked back sort of a day. For once, I finally slept in. Even if I do miraculously hit the sack at a decent hour, the constant running around eventually wears you down.

We’ve recently discovered that this weekend will be our last weekend in Roma. (If we paid any attention to the syllabus, we would have known sooner—but that’s just too easy.) With just a couple of days left to embrace the Italian culture, we decided our weekend would be best spent in Venice and Florence. While this all sounds great in theory, the practice of planning of fun weekend is difficult.

We looked up some tram tickets on the Internet yesterday (fun fact: Internet is always capitalized in print), but none of the times really fit our schedule. We’d either spend a couple of hours at each location or be dirt poor when we returned to the states. For this reason, we decided it would be best if we bought our tickets at the station, where someone could find schedules and prices that fit our needs.

We headed over to Termini and attempted to use an electronic machine to find tickets. If you think eight students from U of I would be fully capable of working a simple ticket machine, you would be wrong. Our failed attempt led us to an in-station travel agency where an English speaking man helped us plan our route. The prices and times were much better than anything we found online, but we thought we’d let our decision simmer over a quick lunch, making sure to consider the other options we had (ie: flying).

Our simmering took place at a Mickey D’s near the tram station. I know you are all wondering why I would want to consume a nasty McChicken and fries while I’m living in the greatest food coma country in the world. We Americans yearn for convenience in food, and this was the most convenient restaurant we could find. There’s no time for two-hour lunches in our schedule.

Anyway, we made it back to the tram station to purchase our tickets. As there were eight of us, they gave us a better deal than we were previously told. Soon enough, the tickets were in our hands. I concede that they’ve yet to be specifically in my hands, but that’s probably for the best. I did a little happy dance, super stoked for the weekend ahead.

We had a short lesson today on branding and worked a little bit on our group projects. After school, Jane and I explored the city (mostly on accident, as we got lost on our way to a dress store). We also ran to the grocery store in preparation for the fiesta planned for the evening.

Our apartment decided that we needed a break from going out to eat (insert carbohydrate here), so we cooked up a Mexican meal consisting of homemade tortilla chips, chicken fajitas, guacamole and bean dip. Cinda, our trip coordinator (one of the sweetest people you’ll ever meet) and her husband joined us for dinner. It was just a super-fantastic and desperately needed evening.

It felt so movie-esque with all of us running around the kitchen to prepare a feast. I was originally put in charge of cutting up the chicken and removing the fat. If you’ve ever eaten something I’ve created, you know that I should probably stay as far away from the food as possible. My fat trimming skills are not up to par (my grandpa sets that bar very high), so I eventually switched over to cutting up the tortillas, which was a safer bet for all of us.

After dinner, our Venice/Florence group booked hotels for the weekend. Everything’s set and ready to go, and I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m still smiling.

I haven’t really done much else today, other than eat Nutella. I bought a jar at the grocery store yesterday and it’s delicious. The recipe for Italian Nutella is slightly different and better tasting than the recipe used in the states. I’m hiding the jar in my room so as not to tempt my detoxing roomies, but the jar’s already halfway gone. And no, I didn’t eat all of it. The roomies discovered that these “con crema de riso al latte” cookies that sit on our kitchen counter serve as the perfect surface on which to spread the hazelnutty goodness.

Tomorrow (which is really today), is our papal mass. As we’re leaving in three hours, I should probably go to bed now. My roomie currently has my memory card, so as soon as I get it back, I’ll post some pics from today. Scratch that—the only picture I took today was of Eric purchasing a piece of luggage from a shady street vendor to take to Venice. I’ll try to make up for my lack of pictures in my next post. Oh, and happy June!

Detox Diets

Today was a fabulous day. Nothing too spectacular really happened, but it was just a great day.

After all the fried carbohydrates we consumed over the weekend, our apartment decided to go on a detox diet. We failed. We all woke up pretty early so we could stop at a market on our way to school to pick up some fresh fruit to start the day. We ended up at Roscioli’s bakery/pizzeria and I consumed this delicious chocolate pastry. Detox fail. We did make it to the market, but I was so full from the pastry that I didn’t buy any fruit I originally intended on purchasing.

Our side trip lasted a tad bit longer than expected and we ended up being twenty minutes late to class. In this timeless nation, it really didn’t matter. Everyone else was just as late as us, if not later.

Diana gave us a short lecture and attempted to help us upload our blogs. We then headed over to GLUB for a presentation by Laura Ravaioli. In case you don’t know who she is, like many of us circa a few hours ago, she is the Italian version of Rachael Ray. She showed us a few clips of her show in which she talked about foods specific to different regions in Italy.

After her lecture, she made us a very special dessert specific to Italy. It was originally described to us as a sugary pretzel that was served with jam. Little did we know that it would be a funnel cake. Yet another detox fail. I’ve never had funnel cake with jam, but the blueberries only make it more sugary and delicious. Seriously, you need to eat funnel cake with blueberry jelly. You won’t regret it. She also passed out the recipe so we would be able to make it at home. We all gladly took the recipe, only to realize that it was in Italian. It’s worth the translation into non-standard units because it was just that good.

We spent the afternoon working on a group project, which consisted of typing up notes about the various pizza establishments we have visited in the past weeks.

Our roommate Jen’s birthday was tonight, so we went out for a fabulous and fabulously cheap dinner. It was at a casual, yet fancy sit-down restaurant, but it was exactly what I wanted/needed. In fact, they served chicken: the magical meat this is completely absent from any and all Italian diets. I was so happy that finally had a delicious and healthy meal that I devoured it. Detox success?

The rest of my evening will hopefully be consisting of catching up on sleep and final episodes of TV shows that I’m missing in the U.S. Heck, I even tried to watch Secret Life (in Italian) at the pizza place yesterday. My translation of it didn’t work out too well, so hopefully I can find Chuck in English—I’m missing our favorite nerd herder.

Tomorrow is a pretty casual day. We have class in the late afternoon and Eileen’s cooking us a fiesta dinner complete with fajitas, guacamole and salsa. Chipotle is never far from home.

Professor McGonagall

Oh glorious Sunday! This post is the final post from this weekend’s adventures outside of Rome.

Much like yesterday morning, breakfast included Nutella croissants and juice. We then departed for Salerno to visit the Minerva Garden. These botanical gardens grow herbs and use these herbs to treat illnesses with outdated pharmaceutical theories. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, making it one of my favorite stops of this weekend. The gardens had many benign plants, but it also contained poisonous species and very potent plants. I am still curious as to why there are poisonous plants (right next to harmless plants) in a garden that is meant to cure illnesses.

Anyway, we drank some teas made of crushed herbs with some sweet biscuits. The iced teas were quite refreshing after a long day on the bus. We had some time to explore the city then ate a “pocket lunch” consisting of a prosciutto sandwich, tuna and ham mixed with rice, a banana and buffalo mozzarella balls.

You may think that I’m exaggerating the amount of cheese I’ve been eating. I’m not. These people eat cheese by the handful. In America, you take one or two cheese cubes. In Italy, you eat a mozzarella ball the size of your fist for one of your four courses.

We then boarded the bus, returned to Rome, and crashed for the evening. I am supposed to make the video/photographic blog for our garden visit earlier today, so hopefully the Internet will soon agree with me and allow me to post my project.

Tomorrow’s activities include a presentation by Laura Ravioli, the Italian version of Rachael Ray. Should be fun!

Say Cheese!

Oh, Saturday. How I long for the weekend. While longing for the weekend is not the same as a long weekend, this day was long in every sense of the word.

Once again, we arose at the crack of dawn. At least we enjoyed a Nutella croissant and a glass of orange juice for breakfast. I’m convinced that there’s no better way to start a morning than with Nutella.

Our first stop was at Vannullo buffalo mozzarella farm. We toured the production process and visited some buffalo. Fun fact: Young male buffalo are worthless to these farms, so you can purchase an entire buffalo for five euros. We learned that this all-organic mozzarella was made fresh daily and sells out quite quickly. If there is an excess of cheese at the end of the day, it is smoked. Whatever you do, don’t put fresh buffalo mozzarella in the refrigerator. It makes the cheese hard and ruins the flavor. They treated us to freshly made buffalo mozzarella balls. The milk poured out of the buffalo cheese balls. Yet again, it was super fresh.

We then boarded the bus to visit an herb farm. Why did we visit an herb farm? That’s a great question with no reasonable answer. Jane and I (both very afraid of snakes) had to walk over a dead one to get to the farm. That didn’t bode well for the rest of this side trip. They showed us various herbs (that ironically can also be found in the U.S.) and showed us the process by which they turn the herbs into oil or dry them out. They offered each of us a lavender plant to take home, but we politely declined, as airport customs could not surely be happy about that.

We boarded the bus and took it to Acciaroli, a quaint town on the Mediterranean. I grabbed a bite of lasagna and headed down to the beach to get my feet a little wet. The water was ice cold, but somewhat refreshing once I got used to the temperature and the sun came out.

We then left the beach to visit Improsta farm, an area set aside by the government to host all plants specific to that particular region. The property was covered in plants bearing lemons, olives and cherries. We toured the farm from the bus, which was super convenient. We were all tired and the farm was very large. At one point, we got off the bus to try some cherries. They were very sweet—and endangered.

Yes, there are such things as endangered cherry trees and we were eating the fruit from the nearly extinct plants. There were only three trees left of that variety in the world, so why were we encouraged to pick the cherries was beyond me. A fellow student spit out the cherry because it had a “bone” in it. He had only ever eaten maraschino cherries and was unaware that the unprocessed fruit had a pit in it.

We took a quick break in the hotel and headed two blocks down the street for a traditional Mediterranean diet—but there was nothing typical about our meal. I have absolutely no idea what’s so special about the pizza, pasta, buffalo mozzarella balls and strawberries we ate, but apparently it’s supposed to help us live longer. The food was all very delicious, but it could not compete with the entertainment.

The owner of the restaurant set up a karaoke machine and treated us to Italian song after Italian song. You would think that we’d know more words than “Volare oh oh, cantare oh oh oh,” but we don’t. My personal favorite song of the evening was “Hey Jude.” At least we could sing along to that one. The night ended on a high note to the ever-popular “Old McDonald Had A Farm.” I couldn’t think of a more appropriate song to end the day with.

Because we didn’t eat enough buffalo mozzarella for the day, we ventured over to the town’s Buffalo Mozzarella fest. By the time we arrived, most of the stalls had closed down. We left without trying some cheese, which was fine by us. There’s only so much cheese one can eat in a day and we certainly surpassed that limit. We were off to bed for a long Sunday return to Rome.

Tour de Factories

This weekend was quite the experience. Because I do not want to miss any important details or write one extremely long post, I will post three separate times. Here’s the post for Friday, May 28^th.

Bright and early, we awoke to take a four hour long bus ride to Cilento. Little did we know, some UMass students would be joining us. Taking cue from the world’s greatest movie, I used the buddy system and sat next to Jane. Within 15 minutes of boarding the bus, I conked out for some much needed rest. Sure, I did just wake up, but the apartment beds aren’t the greatest and we had a LONG day ahead of us.

The first stop we made was at the Guatemala Coffe factory. We learned how coffee beans turned into coffee and most of us did some taste-testing. As a failed coffee connoisseur, I stuck to the pastries and a green goo beverage. Green goo? Yes, green goo. This flavored ice beverage was very bizarre with a green apple taste and a mint aftertaste.

We then checked into a super nice hotel (with heated towel racks) and an almost human-sized shower. We ate lunch at the hotel, which was catered by Intavola. This is the same company that caters to the Vatican and other prestigious places in Italy. I wasn’t too hungry, but everybody else raved about the meal. I just can’t get over my aversion to pasta al dente, which apparently everyone else on this earth enjoys.

Dinner ended with an olive oil testing. What is that, you ask? It’s a nasty process where you are supposed to take a swig of olive oil, swish it around in your mouth, and swallow it. Gross. I took just a few droplets because the large serving of olive oil was as disgusting as strep throat medicine—and I’m not talking about the pink one. I’m talking about the creamy white glob of medicine that you have to choke down.

We then toured the Intavola kitchen to see how everything was made. It was interesting to see the process by which our food was cooked, but it was a tad bit unsettling to see a group of 30 students standing in the middle of a kitchen were food was being cooked. Sanitary standards are almost non-existent in this country.

We then headed down to the Mediterranean Sea. It was a gorgeous view of green hills, farms and villas, but we had to wait seemingly forever for a fisherman’s boat to dock. They gave us shrimp fresh of the boat and it was so tasty! It didn’t smell fishy and it had the perfect texture. Heck, it didn’t even taste like normal shrimp. It was just so good.

We made our way to a restaurant called Ciri Pizza. On our touring streak, we ventured through their kitchen, did some taste testing, and then sat down for a multi-slice dinner. One of the courses was an antioxidant pizza. The crust was made with three types of flour and eight vegetables. The pizza was also topped with vegetables. The table confirmed that this entire meal was the best pizza we’ve consumed during our time in Italy. All I know is that we had a slice of Nutella dessert pizza and that was the highlight of my day.

On our way back to the hotel, we had a lackluster attempt at a sing-a-long. You think I sing off-key? Try having 30-some people all sing the same song on the same key. It just doesn’t happen. Back at the hotel, I turned into my pull-out couch bed, hoping a good night’s rest could cure my recently formed headache.

Eat. School. Eat.

Good afternoon, my fellow followers. Here’s a somewhat brief update of what when on in my world today.

As this is summer school, we had a group project to work on in the morning. Our group is studying pizzarias (it’s a tough job), so we needed to visit a few pizza places in Rome. We clearly have eaten lots of this specialty, but we had not yet visited a famous restaurant called Bir & Fud. The owner of this eatery is obsessed with yeast. He travels all around Rome to find new and forgotten forms of yeasts, feeds them (literally) and uses them in his pizza dough. We traveled to the restaurant, getting lost along the way.

In case you haven’t noticed, getting lost has become a current theme in my daily schedule. We asked three different establishments where the restaurant was located until we finally found it. We wouldn’t have missed it if we turned our heads to the left when crossing the street. Anyways, it was closed.

We headed over to a little-did-we-know fancy restaurant to eat at. It was called Fabrizio’s. How Italian is that!? I just ordered a slice of bruschetta and it was quite interesting. I couldn’t really read the menu, but apparently it’s covered in little clams. Delicious? Yes. What I expected? No.

Having just a couple hours before going to class, we did a little shopping. I didn’t buy anything, but one leather store had a very tempting supply of purses. Many of the stores were also closed. Roman store hours are so bizarre. Nothing’s open when you want it to be: restaurants are closed at lunchtime and shops are closed in the early afternoon. I just don’t get it.

After visiting a few shops, we briefly returned home to unload our bags and then hopped on the tram to get back to school.

The optional activity we were participating in was not what we expected. We all thought we’d be traveling the streets of Rome with a (maybe) professional photographer who would help us get some sweet shots of the city. Instead, we broke into groups and played paparazzi. Our group was on the hunt for pictures of foods that are only found in Rome. We had no idea what we were looking for (and neither did the other groups in their respective categories) so it was sort of a waste of time. What’s done is done.

Our group returned to Bir & Fud for dinner and feasted on deliciousness. Just cutting into my slice of margherita pizza, I knew there was something different about the crust. It was airy and soft and oh-so-good. Another meal, another success.

On the way home, we stopped at a shaved ice stand Fabio had pointed out in one of his lectures. I ordered lemon, watermelon and mandarin orange flavored ice and it came with some black cherries, a lemon wedge and a slice of coconut. Finally, we figured out where all the ice in Rome was hiding. It was a great refresher after a long day of walking.

The day’s just about over (well, it’s technically past midnight here, so it is over) and I’m almost ready for bed. The entire group is leaving bright and early tomorrow to visit Cilento for the weekend and I still have to pack. I don’t really know what to expect, but it should be fun. Maybe they’ll teach me how to spin pizza—I can only hope!

As for my blogging over the weekend: it’s not happening. I will probably write a summary post of the weekend when we get back to Rome. Internet access over there is super sketchy and I don’t think I’ll have the time.

Take a gander at the stars tonight. If you see the big dipper, I’m right below it. Anyway, see you on Monday!