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 :(