It's a big game of Chicken

You know what, I feel like mixing things up; I'm going to start this one with odds and ends that I feel like sharing. Like how horrible my hair is here, I swear it must be the water because it has never been this coarse and difficult. For the most part we've all noticed it. I miss Seattle water. I also hate the whole electrical situation. Sure adapters are a hassle, but what's worse is that every time we plug anything in it flips the fuse for the whole apt. Sadly we're used to suddenly being in the dark--I just hope it doesn't happen when I'm in the shower, that would freak me out. But I love love how Italians do breakfast, simply a pastry and a coffee, it's such a nice way to start off the day. Today I had a cappuccino and a delicious chocolate croissant (all for under 2 euros), and it absolutely made my day. Finally, my fantastic roommate Mary perfectly described the Roman crosswalks yesterday--according to her, crossing the street here is a 'big game of chicken'. Apparently I "showed weakness" by running across half of the street when this car came at us without even slowing down. I swear they speed up when they see you! It's quite the showdown.

Also, for those who don't have a facebook and want to see pictures from the trip, I'm uploading them to Picasa at http://picasaweb.google.com/ndowns219 Enjoy!

Today was the first day of internships and classes. I know it was stressful because my right eye was twitching the entire day--not noticeably, but I could feel it. It started off with me and 2 of my roommates trying to meet our group at the Colosseo at 8:45 to take the metro out of town. Of course the course we plotted on the map took us right through the ancient Palatine hill where all the Roman ruins are. Who could have known there is a massive gate going all the way around this hill. In the end we were about 15 min late and had to ask 2 cops for directions around the hill. Now we know... Once we finally made it to the metro it was no problem, just the basic subway. Except I guess in Europe it's common for street musicians to play on subways, so we found ourselves in with a guitarist that was definitely a Beatles fan. At some point I started quitely singing along to Obladi Oblada, then Let It Be. Very fun. On the ride back we got a violinist (I'm better than he was).

After our prof got lost trying to get us to the right museum in what looked like the suburbs of Rome, we finally met up with the group of volunteers we'll be working with. There were about 10 of them, all were 27 yr old archeology students (except one was only 21). They told us about the Museum of Roman Civilization where we were, which I'm not exactly sure the significance of because it's on the outskirts of town near the National Gallery but houses only replicas. We all introduced ourselves, then hung out for a few minutes trying to converse in broken Italian/English. They asked about Seattle, if it was close to Alaska, and mentioned the "Seattle Supersonics" (we all started laughing and had to explain the situation with Oklahoma) and Grey's Anatomy. Afterwards we walked through the closed (freezing cold) museum and asked them questions about pieces for a few hours. 2 nice guys started following me around because I kept asking 'what's that?' ("cosa questo?" o "che e' questo?") and it gave them something to do.

Later they (and we) got bored and they offered to take us to un bar for lunch. I got a panini with what I hoped was turkey and mozzerella. I didn't want to embarass anyone so I got it with the full intention of manning up and eating the cheese. But it melted so that I could peel it off no problem, and I'm ashamed to say I did. I just couldn't bring myself to do it, I don't know how you all eat that stuff!

We made it back to the Campo dei Fiori after a metro and bus ride, then I got some gelato with my roommate Megan and we hung out in the classroom until class started. It was 1.5 hours of Italian review, and we were all so exhausted we could barely form sentences. We'll see how tomorrow goes, when we have 2 classes instead of only 1 in the afternoon... that should get interesting.

The rest of the day was fairly insignificant--finally. We bought some fruit at a produce shop around the corner, and ate grapes and bananas while flipping through Italian tv. Mary and I found this super old cartoon called Braceface from our childhood, and couldn't believe we remembered it; she even remembered the episode! But we were too tired to concentrate on understanding, so instead turned it to MTV for background noise and chilled. Later our landlord came by and explained how to work the stove/oven, toilet, bizzare-looking washer, and even turned on the heat for the next few days!! We're slowly thawing. And I was right, the gas to the oven wasn't on; what I didn't know is the valve to turn it on was right next to the sink. So we celebrated by eating our last meal out, and from now on the majority of our dinners are going to be cooked at home. We'll see how that goes as well. Vacation's really over :(

Playing tourist

Yet another eventful day. This one started out with a morning trip to a flea market a few blocks away from our apt in Trastevere. One or two girls were supposed to come with us, and thus call my new Italian cell phone when they were on there way around 10. Well, 4 girls showed up, and they did call but at almost noon. Somehow at that time I was the only girl awake--we blamed it on the daylight savings that happened the night before which we all ignored. So we threw on clothes and left without breakfast to go to this market. It was an interesting place, a cacophony of noise and language. It's much easier to ignore vendors calling at you when you don't know what they're saying. All I kept hearing was "Dai! Dai!" which I know means "give," but later looked it up and idiomatically it means "come on!" One vendor even looked at Kelsey and said to her "konichiwa!" which we thought was hilarious given yesterday's episode! We kept repeating it the rest of the day.

The market was mostly clothes, and my roommates and I didn't want to do anything but eat breakfast, so kind of a long morning. Plus this stupid market was at least a few miles long! It just kept going and going!! Thus the walk back was kind of rough, and it seemed like a sketchy part of town. We all grabbed some pizza on the way home so we didn't pass out--I have had pizza every single day for at least one meal, and I refuse to eat any more!! Then I led the way back to the apt and grabbed some apples before we headed back out on another bus tour.

We decided to use the bus to hit up the major sites that are furthest away from our side of the city, which turned out to be la Fontana di Trevi e la Piazza di Spagna. Trevi Fountain was magnificent, but packed. It's also kind of out of place, you are just walking down normal, narrow, insignificant streets and then all of a sudden there's a huge fountain in this tiny square. Of course it was packed, I don't know what possessed us to go on a Sunday afternoon. We all wanted plenty of pictures with it, so we claimed a spot on the stairs, and then went in shifts to throw coins in while the others took pictures for us. I have to say it worked out very well.

We went from the fountain to the Spanish steps, which I expected to be these grandiose stairs that took up almost an entire large piazza. Not so. I was shocked at how small they are!! Very disappointing really. The church at the top was impressive, called the church of Trinita' dei Monti (Trinity of the Mounts), but the steps themselves were a let down. They were also packed, tourists lining every step all the way up. While we were standing there deciding what to do, it started to rain a bit and people started to scatter. At that our hopes of getting good pictures on the stairs were lifted, but not for long. Then people began pulling out umbrellas and not moving, so we gave up and left.

On the way out of la Piazza di Spagna, we saw a McDonalds and decided to check it out. The most incredible McDonalds I have ever seen, way better than the Spanish steps!! It was literally a palace inside, with marble everywhere and statues. It was 2 stories and even had a salad bar, gelato bar, and caffe counter. I think we took more pictures in there then at the steps...

At this point we were utterly exhausted and decided to get back on the bus to go home. Unfortunately the bus had to make the rest of the loop before getting back to our stop, which would take about 20ish minutes with no traffic. Just our luck, the traffic was horrendous. And while we were sitting on the top of the full bus, it began to rain. Being Seattleites, we toughed it out for a bit, then when it started to pour we bailed an went downstairs--along with the rest of the top level. We were packed in that bus tighter than you know, Christina and I were shoved against the back doors, and when we stopped the first time the opening doors almost took us out.

But somehow we made that part of the ride enjoyable. There were a few people that stayed on the top in the pouring rain, and one of them was apparently a singer. He was belting O Sole Mio for a few minutes, and was actually really good. We were busy watching all the people along the sidewalk staring at the singers on top of the bus and watching their confused faces. Then at one point the bus hit a huge puddle that completely nailed a guy on a vespa next to us. And I mean he got soaked, like full wall of water in the face. I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe, that poor guy looked so shocked! I'm still laughing.

But otherwise I'm surprised we actually made it home, we were absolutely exhausted. Megan and Morgan looked like they were about to fall asleep at any minute, and the bus driver kept turning around and looking at them with this concerned look on his face. I guess he's not used to seeing tourists so spent. But we did make it, and even stopped at the McDonalds a few blocks from our apt for dinner. That's right, we didn't even last a week without American food. That's what pizza everyday will do to you! At home none of us would never eat at Micky D's, but here, today, it just sounded so good... Apparently they don't have ranch in Europe, and the ketchup is brown and tastes wrong. But otherwise it was marvelous.

Tomorrow is our first day of internships and class. Still don't know what to expect, and I'm definitely not ready to go back. I want to stay on break and keep playing tourist! But I guess the real work has to start sometime. Wish me luck!--btw, in Italy to wish someone luck you say "In boca al lupo" which means 'in the mouth of the wolf,' and one must respond "Crepi!" which if I remember right means 'kill it!' Now you know.

"No boyfriends? Oh, so you lesbians!"

Crazy, fantastic day today. We saw so many great things and have numerous funny stories. I'll try and give you a quick low-down, but it was a long day.

We got up moderately early for a Saturday and bought tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour through Rome, where they then informed us that the buses would stop running at 3 because traffic would be shut down due to some strike or demonstration or whatever. So we decided to do a full loop and then decide where to hop off later. This was unbelievably fun, it was a warmish day and we got to drive past every cool part of Rome we never would have seen if we had to walk. Here are some highlights from the last 2 days:

In the Campidoglio from Saturday we saw this statue of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, made by Michelangelo. It is one of the only statues to have survived being melted down for their bronze during Rome's conversion to Christianity, and this was only because at the time it was mistaken as a statue of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. It is said that as long as there is gold remaining on this statue, Rome will continue to exist. Thus the original has been removed and placed in the museum in the Campidoglio, and the one in the square is a replica. I thought that was pretty interesting.

All over Rome (and I mean everywhere, from buildings to manholes) are the letters SPQR. This is the motto for the city of Rome, left over from Republican Rome. It stands for "Senatus Populusque Romanus" which means "The Senate and the People of Rome." It was the official signature of the government, and is a major part of the city.


Another piece of ancient Rome that we see pretty often are statues of Romulus and Remus and the wolf. The story goes that Romulus and Remus were two twin brothers, born to a vestal virgin and the god Mars. The king at the time ordered the baby boys taken out and killed because their mother was the deposed queen and they were thus the rightful heirs to the thrown. But the servant didn't have the heart, and instead left the babys in a cave where they were found and nursed by a wolf mother now called Lupa. Once grown these brothers formed a small city that is present day Rome, and fought over who had the support of the gods to rule the city. Each brother took a hill, and a supposedly a circle of birds then flew over Romulus signifying he should be king. Romulus later slew Remus and became king, and it is said that Rome is derived from his name. But note that being mythology there are many different versions of events, and that's simply the one that I'm familiar with.

We drove through an impressive but seemingly unimportant piazza called la Piazza della Republica (which I only noticed because there was a McDonalds in it, very out of place), and the recorded guide we were listening to in our headphones was talking about something called the Fountain of the Naiads. It mentioned how it was a modern fountain that replaced an older one with lions in it, but this new fountain had statues of the 4 water nymphs in it. It was beautiful, but scandelous because the nymphs were all nude. We made a loop around the piazza and then went through it once more, and this time I realized that was the fountain we heard about, and blurted out "OH! so those are the naked nymphs!" That was the first quote of the day :)

The rest of our 'moments' happened when we stopped at the Vatican. First off, I thought Saint Peter's square would be a lot bigger and more isolated. Before entering the square we stopped at one of the pizzarias for lunch. That was pretty fun, this place had all types of rectangular pizzas, which they cut in half and folded to make a panini. I finally found some pepperoni, and it was very spicy. We sat down on a bench along the road to the Vatican to eat, and street vendors kept coming up to us to sell us jewelry. Then this one Indian guy comes up with some bracelets, and starts trying to chat with us, asking where we're from etc. Finding out we're American, he informs us Obama is supposed to come to the Vatican tomorrow. I have yet to verify that, but we later saw a huge motorcade of police and black Audi's going through Rome. I choose to believe that was Obama. So the vendor then turns to Kelsey, the only asian one of us and tells her "And you from China!" She replies no, she's American too, and he insists she's from China. She finally tells him actually she's Japanese. He responds with "But Japan good country. Why no live in Japan? Japan good country!" At the time we thought this was histerical.

Then our new friend starts asking us each one by one "Boyfriend?" We all replied that no, no boyfriend. He was shocked and he didn't believe us. At that point we're all kind of muttering 'thanks for reminding us,' when he gets this look of understanding. He suddenly replies "No boyfriends? OH! so you lesbians!" We thought this was hilarious, and walked away laughing at that point before he could insult us any more.

So us lesbians then proceeded into Saint Peter's square, just kind of checking it all out. It's pretty, but one really needs to go into the Vatican museums and Sistine Chapel to get the full effect. We're just meandering, when one girl Christina sees a sign outlining the dress code at the Vatican and has to get a picture with it. She then mentions "someone should like stand next to it and show their midriff or something." Of course I volunteer! So on the count of three I flashed my stomach and they took a picture, and I'm pretty sure everyone around us was looking at us funny. Then Christina points out (entirely seriously) "OK let's go the nuns are coming." Yet another quote of the day.

Overall a very fun day. We were supposed to finish it off by meeting up with some other girls and going to a discotecca they had found Friday. We were all ready to go (I should mention that tonight I realized the best antitheft place for money is in a bra. Uncomfortable, but effective) but come 9pm we were all too exhausted and called it a night instead. We're planning to do a massive pub crawl sometime in the coming weeks, and I will eventually get out to a discotecca. But tonight, sleep. Tomorrow we'll be taking it easy, going to a nearby flea market, getting breakfast (I am now a cappuccino drinker, ma con molto zucchero) and hopefully doing the bus tour again, but this time actually getting off and exploring. Hopefully that means more fun stories.

Walking and waiting and more walking

I'm so exhausted, I don't know how I'll keep this up for the next month in Rome. I'm hoping it's just jet-lag, or my not sleeping well yet. My new bed is pretty hard (but bouncy) and the pillows are basically flat, but what was worse was how cold our apartment was/is. We talked to the people in charge of arranging our apts, and told them our heat doesn't work and they informed us that in Rome the city/buildings turn off their heat altogether for certain months during the year. So not sure if we can do anything about it besides bundle up. I'm beginning to miss my blistering hot dorm room. We also realized tonight that the oven and stove don't work, which I think may be connected to the heat being cut off (if the heat is run on gas). But we did finally figure out the toilet--there are two ways to flush it, a button in the wall that is a "small flush" and a handle below that for a "big flush". Too complicated...

Alright, enough bitching. The morning started out with a 30 min walk to the Campidoglio near the center of the city. We were supposed to meet with some of the mayor's cultural dept and talk about our internships. We were quite a sight walking along the narrow sidewalks, 40 kids in a pack. There was even a point where we had to cross a very busy street to get to the steps of the Campidoglio, and while there was a crosswalk there was no light. So following our prof we just stepped into the street and hoped the cars and buses would stop. They all did, but not until the last minute which was a little unnerving. We had some time to explore the capital before the meeting, so my roommates and I went around taking pictures. The hill overlooks ancient Rome, so the view was incredible. There was some small ceremony going on involving the Red Cross and some athletic team, so there were a few guys dressed up as gladiators and flag-twirlers. We wanted to get a picture with the fake gladiators, but kept missing our chance. So instead we ran around taking pictures of each other around the capital.When we finally made it into the meeting room, we sat waiting for the officials to show up and speak to us for about an hour. Apparently Italian time is kind of like Hawaiian time, you'll get there when you get there, chill. We were so bored (ci siamo molto annoiati)! And once they all finally did show up, they did this short presentation about who they were and why we should be excited (I think...) all in Italian! We were all looking at each other with that "are you getting this?" face we know so well, and I believe for the most part we picked up about 10% of what they said. I still have no idea what we'll be doing Monday morining.

Our prof Giuseppe had told us to try and "look nice" for our meeting, so I made a small effort and wore some dark jeans and new boots. I know now that I will not be hiking all over Rome in those boots again. I don't know how these Italian women do it, my feet were killing me! Especially with the cobblestone everywhere! Definitely not wearing stilettos anytime soon...

For lunch we stopped at a cheap bar (in Italy a bar is a small restaurant, like a cafe) across the crazy-crosswalk street from the capital. It was cheap for a reason. I'm pretty certain the pasta was all microwaved. We know now to avoid anything touristy, mainstream looking if we want decent food. We did, however, go back to the Campo dei Fiori on the way home and pick up our first gelato here! It was good, but I've had better panna cotta before. That place also looked touristy.

I do have to mention that although a place may be good for tourists, it does not mean they speak English. Before coming here we were told that we could easily get away with English while in Rome, and that's why we're living part of the time with families in the south. I don't buy it. So far everyone has spoken Italian to me, expected me to order in Italian, etc. I suppose it's a good thing since I'm here to learn the language, but if I was visiting here and didn't know a single phrase it would be extremely difficult.

Anyway, we came back and took short naps, then went back to the Campo to try the restaurants for happy hour. Even though we weren't hungry after the gelato, we went anyways and ordered some bruschetta, cocktails and wine from yet another touristy place. There they did speak English for once. Thus far we have finished 2 bottles of wine with dinner, and though I'm not a big fan, while in Rome... ok that was lame... After the bruschetta we decided we were actually hungry, but nothing on the menu looked good so we drank our drinks and planned to eat our left over pizza--except the oven doesn't work! So I guess just bread and cocktails for dinner! We then walked back to our apt about 15 minutes away and got to see a piece of Rome at night. It is indescribable, the energy is amazing. So many people come out to eat late and the city is alive, but calm.

The idea for tomorrow is to spend the full day exploring the whole city. We are going to get tickets for a hop-on hop-off bus tour that will take us to all different sites, and we can then get off and explore them ourselves. Before that we're going out for a real Italian breakfast--basically espresso and pastries. I want to figure out what a briosche and cornetto are. Tomorrow will be much more interesting, I promise. Good night all.

Wait, what time is it?...

This has been the longest day/two days imaginable. It's almost 9:30pm in Rome right now, we just got back from dinner, but it's only about 1:30pm back home and thus to my body. As of now I have gone 28 hours without sleep and we are all exhausted and loopy. It started with a 9 hour flight from Seatac to Amsterdam, and let me just say that I have learned my lesson. From now on I will always connect in New York, I will never again do a flight that long. Even though I kept busy watching 3 movies (The Changelings, Doubt, and Quantum of Solace, none of which impressed me much), by the 7th our I wanted off that plane more than you can understand. And coincidentally, at hour 7 the plane sickness started up and I was nautious for the entire day. Worse than I have ever been, I almost lost it on the connecting flight to Rome, the poor kid next to me looked genuinely worried I would get sick next to him...

But something about stepping off into the beautiful, sunny 65 degree Roman air miraculously healed me :) We made it through baggage and customs without any trouble, then split 2 cabs between 4 girls (plus mountains of luggage. the cabby was stunned). What they say about driving in Rome is absolutely true, I was terrified. Our cab got within inches of the cars in front, and would even get next to someone in the same lane sometimes to force them over! But he was a nice older guy, and once he realized I spoke enough Italian he began pointing out different places and buildings in Rome to us. He drove us past the Roman Forum, and laughed when I told him I thought the Circus Maximus would be bigger than that. He dropped us at the Rome Center in Piazza del Biscione/Camp dei Fiori and we got all checked in etc.

We then waited for about an hour until the whole group met for an orientation, which the exhausted and hungry ones in my flying group (including myself) barely made it through conscious. Then we all took more cabs back to our apartment across the river in an area of Rome called Trastavere, which was yet another taxi ordeal. But the apartment is very cute, it has 2 decently sized bedrooms, a foyer, kitchen, living room, and a tiny little bathroom. For the five of us it fits well. Now we just need to get the toilet to flush properly and the heat to turn on... When we try to turn the radiators on, they literally shoot a stream of water at us. It is surprisingly comical.

So seeing that our internal clocks are all messed up, we starved ourselves until about 5 when we finally got settled enough to go search for a tratorria or pizzaria on our block. After walking past about 5 closed restaurants, we remembered that Italian's take big lunches and then do very late dinners. So we had to wait until almost 8 to go out again and find an open place. We stoped at the first pizzaria, and were mostly too tired to be hungry anymore. So we each ordered what we thought was a slice of margherita pizza, and one of the girls ordered (for herself) a glass of house red wine and sparkling water. Nope, didn't happen. We instead got a bottle of water and a bottle of wine for the whole table--which we proudly finished so that we could take the bottle home, only to leave it there accidentaly--and each got an entire pizza! It was ridiculous, and we ate what we could but now we have enough left overs to make an entire pizza sitting in the fridge. So that was our trial run, our warm up. Tomorrow will be our redo first night out, and now we know what we're doing.

Alright, I am now the last one awake, though barely. Tomorrow we go to the mayor's office and hear about our internships at the Campodoglio (Capital). Wish me luck, I'll tell you all about it tomorrow!

And so it begins..

Benvenuto a tutti! The time has finally come for me to jet off to Europe for a few months to study Italian. Living the dream. I'm not exactly sure how to start off this blog, I feel like I'm writing the introduction to a book and if it's not good no one will read it. A friend of mine told me not to do a blog because only 40-something Star Wars nerds have blogs--so I'm doing this to spite him. But also for myself, so that I have a reccord that will help me remember every part of my trip. And finally, since I couldn't fit you all in my suitcases, this is for my friends and family back home who I wish could come with me.

To avoid packing, I've spent the last few days scrambling around getting ready, which translates to shopping more than I have in the last year. The challenges for today were a mountain of laundry and getting all of my "necessities" into 2 suitcases. Thus far, I've done 4 of 6 loads, have one bag filled and another that looks as if it will only be half full. Being the serial overpacker that I am, that's better than I could have hoped for...

So for those that don't already know the itinerary, here are the basics:
Italian Studies is taking a group of about 40 students to study Italian for spring quarter. We'll be living in apartments while in Rome, and taking 15 credits of Italian classes at the UW Rome Center. While we're doing this, our prof Giuseppe has hooked us all up with internships at the Mayor of Rome's office--still not sure what that'll entail. Then at the end of April we're all moving to southern Italy, to a town called Rogliano in the province of Calabria. In Rogliano we stay with host families (who speak no English) and continue classes. The program ends June 5th, but I'm staying to travel until June 21st. You can look forward to hearing about all of this!

I'll do my best to keep in touch, you all can reach me on here through comments, facebook, email, skype, whatever. I'll post pictures primarily on facebook, but maybe flickr too.
Arrivederci!