Wrapping up Rome

Ok I need to first make a revision: only my parents, aunt Lorie and Chelsea read my blog now :)

I am going to try and make this quick since it's nearly 2am here and I'm going to the Vatican museum at 10am tomorrow. But there's just so much to say I have to get it all down before I forget!

Hmmm ok to start with, last night Roxanna came home from church and told us about a concert she had walked past. Being bored I told her to show me, so (thinking it was across the street) we walked all the way across the river to the Jewish ghetto of Rome and found the concert/street fair she had told us about. Apparently it was to celebrate the 61st anniversary of the formation of the Israeli state. They played Hava Neglia and the whole deal, and we all danced and clapped (minus Mary) even though we clearly were not Jewish, making fools of ourselves but having a good time. Then we explored some of the booths a little, and saw this food that looked like funnel cake. But not really, it was like a fried flat pastry type thing that you then poured a raw egg into the middle and ate. Very interesting. But quite a night, not bad for a spontaneous evening out.

It is apparently the rainy season-ish in Rome. I guess Ruggero mentioned that every year the last week of April is a bitch for weather. And he's right, it was a literal monsoon the other day. I had finally gotten the oven to light so Roxanna and I could properly make our frozen french fries, and then the sprinkle outside turned into a torrent. I very seriously thought that the oven had malfunctioned and the kitchen was on fire, and I was hearing the crackling flames. I ran into the kitchen in a panic, heart palpitations and all, and when I see no flames I think that some other apartment must be on fire and run to the window. That's when I realize that it's the sound of the downpour. Us Seattleites thought we knew rain--we are so wrong. I guess this happens every year, something about warm air coming up from Africa and making it warm and sticky and cloudy, then the rain. Good thing we're getting outta here.

I cannot believe I am already packing to leave Rome. I don't want to go. I truly am excited for Rogliano and living with families, but I looked at the weather report for this week down there and it's even colder than Rome. We're talking low 60's (which in celsius is apparently about 15 degrees...) So much for the heat they all warned us about.

Alright, next story. The last few days I've been developing a sore throat, and waking up with a sore/stiff neck. I think the neck is because of our horrible beds, but I can tell I'm getting a bug. So today I run out of tylenol and advil and decide I need to run to a farmacia before we leave Rome to get a stash. I brought Roxanna with me to help me translate, and good thing too. She walks right up to the pharmacist and asks for ibuprofen. Thank goodness the Italian word for that is almost identical. We then realize that in Italian pharmacies, almost everything is behind-the-counter, even makeup. So we wait in a ridiculous line and when it's finally our turn the pharmacist asks if 200mg tablets are ok. I said sure, and paid 4.50 euro, which I thought was a good deal considering it would be about 5someting in the US. As we're leaving I realize I just paid 4.50 for 12 tablets!! I feel so ripped off. Now I'm rationing them until my Rogliano fam can help me get a good amount.

Alright to wrap this up I'm going to tell you all about dinner tonight. We planned to go as an apartment for Chinese food. Another few girls ended up coming with us, and we all ordered water and spring rolls/pot stickers and dishes. We literally waited almost 45 minutes for them to bring out our first appetizers. Then they would bring the entrees out one at a time at about 20 minute intervals. Trying to be polite we would wait and not eat until everyone had food. But after I sat there for about 20 minutes, the first one with food, and watched my mediocre chow mein get cold, we all just went for it whenever ours showed up. Then at the end of the dinner, when we got the bill, we decided we would talk to the waiter about not paying the service charge. In Italy one doesn't tip, there is instead always a service or gratuity charge added for you to the bill. Kelsey told them in Italian that the service "non era buona" and that we weren't going to pay the 7+ euros. Thinking we didn't understand they tried to explain how that's a flat fee, no negotiating. We finally all got so frustrated we decided to suck it up and pay so we could leave. Not an entirely pleasant experience, but eventful nonetheless.

Boh...

I realized I haven't written anything for almost a week now. Bad Natalie. Boh, I just haven't really felt like it. Plus I'm sure the only people still reading are my parents and my aunt Lorie. So just for you three, here's a brief synopsis of the week.

We went out to Scholars Lounge a few more times last week. I think I already told mom about this. I believe Friday night we went to see a Madonna cover band--I never say no to live music. They were alright considering I know all of like 3 Madonna songs. Then we just hung out and talked to people near us in the packed bar. I ended up talking to this guy named Herald and his friends Silvestro and Evis for like 3+ hours. And I'm happy to say it was all in Italian. They were from Albania and studied at one of the universities in Rome, so they spoke English about as well as I spoke high school Spanish, thus necessitating the Italian. I was so proud of my Italian, I now know that I can get by, but how well I speak depends on who I'm talking to.

We went back to look for a friend of ours the next night, and I ran into them again. There was a Yankees-Red Sox game on, so the place was packed full of American guys. My Italian wasn't very good that night.

Friday morning we went on our little Friday field trip as a class, this time to the Roman Forum, Palatine hill and Colosseum. The Forum is incredible, you walk literally the same streets ancient Romans walked everyday past temples and ruins that are thousands of years old. I walked in the ancient Roman Senate building and saw the spot where the Emperor would sit. The floor is still painted, it's incredible! Then I saw the place where Julius Caesar was supposedly burned on the pyre, and over that spot they had built this little hut-like strucutre as a shrine. Inside was a mound of dirt with all these flowers laid on top. Pretty cool.

The Palatine hill was beautiful, it's where the massive imperial palace once was. We then walked down to the Colosseum and went inside. It was pretty cool, but at that point I was hot and tired and was not entirely as awestruck as I should have been. And to top it off, my camera battery had died while in the Forum, so I had this whole 'whatever I'll just see it again when I come back to Rome' attitude. Plus I didn't see any cats, which I was very disappointed about. But otherwise I really did enjoy the morning out.

Saturday we went shopping on the Corso, a major shopping street in Rome. It was packed. Like Disneyland during the summer x 1,000. Never again on a Saturday. I did manage to squeeze my way through into Prada and Gucci because I had the full intention to buy myself a nice Italian designer bag while here (some girls like shoes, I like bags, what can I say?). But nothing caught my eye :( All that work for nothing.

Now Sunday I did something pretty cool. I literally slept the entire day, putting off homework as long as possible (you know me). Then at 5:45 in the evening my roommate Roxanna and I walked up our street 2 blocks to la Piazza di S. Maria in Trastevere, where Daniele from the other night had said there would be a mass Roman pillow fight. We showed up 15 minutes early, as instructed, and there was nearly no one there. We thought we were in the wrong spot. Then right before six, the square started to flood with people with pillows and dressed up as ninjas or with matching t-shirts like they were teams. Roxanna and I weren't planning to take part, more so just wanted to watch from the fountain in the middle of the square, and thus only brought one (my) pillow.

But we coudn't help ourselves! We took turns going into the melee with our one pillow, and the other stayed back and took pictures--so many pictures! More than 200! It really was fun, everyone was so into it. Then I saw Daniele across the crowd and went over and whacked him from behind. From that point on every now and again we'd run into eachother and pause for a few minutes. At one point I told him about how I had spoken entirely in Italian for hours, and they said my Italian was good. To this he responds "who told you your Italian was good?!" Jerkface. But even if the thinks I'm retarded, he really is a sweet guy and I'm glad I met him. If I hadn't I would never have know about the guerra di cuscioni.

Wow I wrote more than I thought I would. Overall I have had a pretty wonderful last week in Rome. We leave for Calabria on Friday morning, where we'll be living with host families and teaching school kids English in addition to our classes. I really hope I live with a good cook, I'm dying for some good food! And I would love a family with pets, but as of right now I think I'm in one without any animals. Ma boh, vedremo!

"Ciao chicka ciao ciao"

It's our last two weeks in Rome and I have been living them up. Monday we found out we didn't have to go to our internships Tues. morning because of Rome's birthday. So of course we all tried to make plans to go out! First the guys in the program showed my roommates and I a hill in Trastevere, and from the top you can see all of Rome. I love it up there. Afterward, I went out with some other Trastevere girls to a pub for drinks and french fries. There was a Red Sox game on that we were hoping they'd show, but it didn't happen. And rather than paying 5 euro for a half-pint of Heineken I just ate the fries. The girls then wanted to try another pub, and that's when I peaced-out to go home and make some dinner with Kelsey.

Later than night I got on facebook and my friend Faith invited me out to a discotecca she knew of. I met them near the Campo at almost midnight, and thus the bus to take to this club wasn't running anymore. We briefly popped into a bar in the Campo and met this incredibly good looking bartender. He was way into this girl Stephanie that came with us, and agreed to meet up the next night to see the Colosseum fireworks with us. We then proceeded to walk for at least 30+ minutes in the general direction of this club, just following the river. At this point, it was 1am and no one was out. Absolutely deserted. Finally we found this place, and there was literally no one there. Not a soul but the bartender and bouncer. For a Monday night it makes sense, but still, no one! We decided we'd walked all the way down here, so we weren't leaving without dancing. On an empty dance floor... the bouncer kept watching us, it was very uncomfortable. Then some creepy guys showed up so we left.

At that point, our bartender friend had called Stephanie wanting to meet up, so we went around the block and met him at this sports bar. This place was packed with people watching an NBA playoff game. Our new friend, Andrea, bought us all drinks, and then we just hung out. We talked to random Italian guys and got a few numbers... they were all creepers. Leah made some sort of record and got like 5 numbers/emails. We could barely get her out of that bar. Then at 5am Faith and I took some initiative and got our group to leave. Andrea gave us all rides to our respective apts. This guy is a pro--he knows that if he wants to win Stephanie over (which he did) he had to be nice to all her friends. Anyways, that's the latest night I've ever had.

Last night was not supposed to be any big deal. We were going to meet up and go to the Colosseum for fireworks around 9. Stephanie had heard they were canceled and didn't want to go anymore, but a few girls and I still went to check it out. She was right, we got there and everyone was walking away. So instead we went to Faith/Leah/Sarah's apt nearby and hung out. Then we walked back near the Campo to the Scholars bar, this Irish pub that's really popular with the English-speaking crowd. Little did we know, it was karaoke night!! So much fun, Christina and others went up and sang Sweet Home Alabama, and I was going to go with Faith to sing Don't Stop Believing until someone did it first! Then Stephanie showed up with Andrea, and Andrea's two friends. One of them, Daniele, told me about a giant organized pillow fight in Trastevere on Sunday. It's only like 2 blocks from me, and now I'm definitely going!!

We were having such a good time just hanging out listening to karaoke that we didn't leave until nearly 4am... again. Andrea and Daniele offered to give us girls a ride back, and we took it. They then took some detours and showed us this incredible view of Rome through this keyhole thing, and then to a 24 hours pasticceria for croissants. It was wild, I had such a good time. But tonight, I sleep.

Corciano, Assisi and Perugia

Sorry for the delayed update, I've kept busy since we got back. Umbria is incredible, I found out from Kelsey that it is the green region of Italy as well as the only landlocked region. Now you know. We had a pretty whirlwind weekend exploring a few major towns, so prepare yourself for a rather long post.

Oddly enough, here I am most content when riding a bus/train with my ipod and the Italian countryside. The trip through Umbria was only about 2ish hours, but I kind of didn't want it to end; I just set my ipod to shuffle and zoned out staring at all the green hills. Anytime a Jason Mraz popped up I gave an earbud to Kelsey and we semi sang along.

We arrived in the early afternoon at the villa we would stay at for the weekend. There is a fourteenth century house on the estate, and next to it the family built some student housing and conference spaces. It reminded me a lot of a bed and breakfast, the rooms were adorable. The villa was set on the top of a hill (all of Umbria is hills), and across the street from the entrance was this giant castle. It was being restored so we couldn't go in, but we still managed sneak around to explore it a good deal.

The people in charge had assigned us to rooms, but Giuseppe thought he'd be nice and ask if we could pick our roommates. I was all for it at the time because I was assigned with someone I don't get along with, but then they called my name first and asked who I wanted to room with. Of course I had to be first... I sat there and said "who wants to live with me?" and didn't look behind me. I just watched from the front row as Giuseppe scanned the room and his face didn't change or pause at anyone, so then I just yelled out my roommates names. I found out later that 4 girls behind me had all enthusiastically raised their hands. Oops!

We had a few hours to chill at the villa before heading to Coricano, which is the next town over. My roommates and I ran into Giuseppe and he took us along with him to pick wild asparagus behind the house. I think this was my favorite part of the weekend, we were trekking through these garden-type woods behind the house and letting Giuseppe find all the asparagus. I think the whole time I found one stalk--those things are so hard to spot, in the wild they're tiny! But this area was beautiful, filled with lilac trees.
Before we headed to Corciano, we went to go take some pictures of the scenery. But one can only have so many pictures of hills, so we then decided to make it interesting. We began to take pictures of ourselves jumping in mid-air, and they turned out so funny. We joke about Megan being a ninja, and so she and Kelsey began to mid-air duel, and it looked awesome. Of course there was a large group from our program watching us look like jumping idiots the whole time--but still worth it.Then we drove to Corciano to be greeted by the mayor of the small hill town. The place was pretty, but kind of boring. The most interesting part happened before we got on the bus to leave, when a car full of guys drove past, saw 25 girls waiting for the bus, and pulled over. They waved to us when we drove away, and then proceeded to follow the bus to Corciano! Creepers! Later on they came back and parked outside the villa while we were getting dinner. Kelsey saw their car after eating, and then my friend Christina went out and started talking to them. She invited them to come listen to our prof Ruggero sing after dinner, and they stood in the back corner and watched. Afterward, I got Christina to introduce me so I could ask them why they followed us to Corciano (yep, I wanted to mess with them a little). They were Leonardo, Francesco and Filippo; 2 spoke some English, one didn't speak any. But Leah and I talked to these guys for at least an hour, just joking around in an interesting mix of English and Italian. They turned out to be pretty cool. And we realized early on that if we spoke English fast enough, we could talk about them right in front of them without them understanding. Hehe

Ok, now to describe dinner. We had been told previously that we would get great food prepared by the villa's cook Paola, so needless to say I was expecting a lot. I was very, very wrong. The prima piatto came out and it was luke warm tortellini, which wasn't too bad since we were absolutely starving. If I had known what was coming I would have asked for seconds. Next up was meatloaf and dry salad. COLD meatloaf. I took one bite, trying to be a trooper, and I just couldn't do it. Maybe if it had been warmer I could have choked more down. But it smelled like the canned food I feed my cats at home, and I absolutely could not bring myself eat it. I felt bad, you know, starving-kids-in-India bad, but I couldn't do it. I threw some balsamic on the salad and ate that, then finished the meal with what I will call chocolate brownie since it was too dry to be cake. We were so hungry and so disappointed I think we nearly cried.

After Ruggero sang on the terrace, I hung out with the 4 girls that had raised their hands to room with me: Leah, Sarah, Faith and Christina. I love these girls, they are hilarious. Faith and Christina had been drinking while we had been talking to i ragazzi italiani, so they were pretty entertaining. They had mixed licorice-flavored anise with pineapple juice, how sick does that sound!

That morning was brisk to the point of being downright cold. I brought a North Face with me having looked at the weather report, but I was still freezing. Once we got on the bus, my roommates and I all tangled our legs and arms up and huddled for warmth. The first visit of the day, to a church that belonged to the Knights Templar, didn't help the situation much as it was also incredibly cold. But this place was incredible, I walked in and literally said "woah this is old." After getting a presentation from the architect in charge of the restoration, we got to go under the church and walk through an excavation that had been done. Below the church they had found the remains of an ancient Roman fullery--a place where cloth was made and dyed. I want to know how one goes about excavating something like that underneath a church? Do you just prop the church up and dig until you hit something?

After the first church on the outskirts of Perugia, we drove to Assisi and met up with Friar Claudio at S. Damiano church. The church was down this massive, steep hill which was an absolute bitch to climb back up. It was worse than going up the 462 stairs up the Duomo, my quads are still a little sore. But Claudio was the nicest man, really calm and told us all about Saint Francis in English because he wanted to practice. He honestly looked a little like my friend Andy. We did a walk-through of the small church, and I was not entirely impressed. I was even a little shocked when we went through the second floor and found a gift shop! Something about that made me a little uncomfortable. However, they were selling art and prints done by the monks, and a lot of students bought things.Following our visit to S. Damiano, we drove across Assisi to see the massive church of S. Francis of Assisi. This place was incredible. Probably one of my favorite things thus far. Every single wall was covered in these magnificent frescos. I spent all of out allotted time gawking at the walls of the first floor, I only had a few minutes to go up and check out the even more remarkable second floor! I have to go back.

Also in the church of S. Francis is the tomb of S. Francis of Assisi. You go down some stairs into a small little room with a big stone structure in the middle (I assumed that was the tomb) surrounded by pews for people to pray. When I was trying to get to the stairs this horrible woman held out her arm and wouldn't let me into the file of people, I was so shocked! The audacity, we were in a freaking church! I made it in right behind her and when she turned around to look at me I made a face at her. Once you get downstairs the entire place is silent. I thought it was extremely funny that as I was in the line walking through, I heard someone hardcore blow their nose in the back pew. Didn't even try to stifle it, they just blew as hard as they could--so much for silence. I had to try so hard not to laugh!

We were running late and couldn't explore the town of Assisi, though I would have preferred that to driving to Perugia to visit the museum we saw. But before going to Perugia we had to make a small personal stop. It was Giuseppe's birthday, and as such his friend had invited him to his house for a few drinks. This friend was the Count of Perugia, and showed us all around his house that was actually a castle on top of a hill! Such a cool place, there are medieval paintings and furniture everywhere! I was ready to ask if he needed another granddaughter. Then we all shared some champagne and continued on our way to Perugia.The museum was being renovated and wasn't open to the public yet, so we got to see a small section of it. Honestly was pretty boring since I know nothing about the Etruscans or the bronze age. I did, however, find these bronze safety pins in one display case. Seriously, safety pins!! Never knew they were around back then, it blew my mind.It started to rain, but before we headed back to the bus we did about 30 minutes of shopping on the main road in Perugia. This consisted entirely of going to the Perugina store and buying chocolate. I didn't know it before this weekend, but Perugina is the Italian version of Hershey's. They make these wildly popular chocolate ball things called baci, which means kiss in Italian. Except they're better than Hershey's kisses, they're basically chocolate-hazelnut kisses. I hadn't realized that the chocolate Easter egg I bought myself was a Perugina egg filled with baci! I'm pretty excited to eat it, but I also kind of want to save it...

Quickly, I have to tell you about the metro in Perugia. The city is all on a hill, so I didn't know they could have a metro line. But we took this metro to get back to our bus, and I'll tell you it was just like a ride at Disneyland! They are these cute (tiny!) little metro cars, and the tracks go up and down and around curves like riding on a slow version of the Matterhorn. Loved it.

When we got back to the villa we were starved, and we were really hoping dinner would be better. It wasn't by much. Again, pasta first and this time we knew to get seconds. Then this luke-warm beef and cooked spinach came. It was better than the meatloaf so I ate it. That is, I ate it until Jennifer found the plastic part of a tag (like what you find on new clothes) in her meat! How does that even get there?? I immediately spit my food out. Then about 5 minutes later, I hear Christina say across the table "You've got to be kidding me!!..." and we look up to see her holding some other unidentified piece of plastic. It was a little gross, but we were still hysterical!So to make up for dinner, we began to drink as many free wine bottles as possible. It turned into somewhat of a game, we had to make sure our bottle was empty when one of the servers walked around. At the end of dinner my table of 5 girls had finish 4 bottles of crappy house red. And believe me we were feeling it. That's probably why the plastic in our food was so funny.

Since it was Giuseppe's birthday dessert was better that night. There was tiramisu, some layered cake with chocolate sauce, and the white cake with cream we had bought Giuseppe as a birthday present in Perugia. The waiters brought around different cake to everyone, some lucky ones got a piece of the cream cake. Leah and I got the chocolate sauce one, which wasn't bad, but we wanted the cream. So we walked up to the table with a few pieces still left on it, and right as the server walked out the door we each grabbed a piece and booked it back to our table. It was the wine that made me do it! But goodness that cake was good!

Unfortunately, the boys from the previous night never came back to visit, though we were hoping they would. So instead my room filled with people to hang out after dinner, and we started to play cards. In this game aces were dares, and poor Christina kept pulling aces. At one point she had to get on her hands and knees and sing a verse from the Lion King, then roar. Then at 2am she had to crab crawl down the hallway and chant "I want to be an Airborne Ranger." Random, I know, but Morgan came up with it... I had a blast, it was such a fun night.

The next day we watched Paola give a demonstration on how to make pasta, and it seems pretty easy. Maybe when I get home I'll get a pasta press and give it a shot. We then had a lunch of homemade fettuccine and bruschetta. The first hot meal of the weekend! And on that note we hopped on the bus for Rome. Alright, so there are all the details, now you're all caught up!

This and that

Alright it's pretty late and I have this grand plan to get up super early tomorrow. I'm going to get up at 7 so I can wash my sheets while I take a shower, then hang them to dry while we travel for the weekend. So I'm going to try and make this quick.

Which shouldn't be hard since we haven't done much the last few days. To begin with, on Wednesday and Thursday the little kids finally showed up to my internship. Both days they were a bunch of 4 year olds, and my goodness they were cute. I bambini erano troppi piccoli!! We were basically helpers for our volunteers, who did puppet shows and coloring and sang songs to teach the kids about the Trajan Market museum. And even though I seemed to freeze up and produce horrible Italian when speaking to these kids, it really was enjoyable. Today, on our seccond day, during snack time our volunteers started to tell the kids that we were American and asked if they knew what America was. No one knew; it blew my mind, they are the first people I have ever met that didn't know what it is! I know they're young, but it was interesting. Then when I told a few little girls that non sono italiana and parlo inglese, they just stared at me with mouths open. I learned the first day that the quickest way to make friends (at least with the boys) was to stick my tongue out at them when I caught them looking at me, which quickly turned into a back and forth game. Finally, today there was this one kid named Riccardo that while coloring turned to me and randomly started to tell me that he doesn't want to live in Roma, he wants to live in Sicilia. Later we asked him why he likes Sicilia, and he said something about how he likes to dance. Or at least we're pretty sure he said something to that effect; it was too funny.

After our internships today we had a 3ish hour break before classes, so I ventured off with my roommates to go find a souvenir shop Mary had heard about. It was in Piazza Navona, but she thought it was the Pantheon, so we walked quite a bit today. I really wish I had brought a pedometer with me, I'm dying to know how far we go daily. The other Natalie in the program has one, and I spoke to her roommate tonight about what the average seems to be. She said it's generally between 6-9 miles per day. And believe me, my feet are definitely feeling it. At least this way we work off all the gelato we stuff ourselves with every single day.

I went back to the apartment for lunch today. I really wanted to make some frozen french fries that I bought earlier in the week, but I couldn't get the oven to light. It's gas, so you have to throw a match in it at some point to get it to light. I didn't feel like blowing myself up today so I gave up after countless attempts. I don't like messing with gas, I don't know what I'm doing. But I just couldn't let the fries go, the ketchup bottle I bought was sitting on the shelf staring at me, tempting me the entire time. So, being as resourceful as I am, I fried frozen french fries in a skillet. Yep, on the stove. It worked... sort of, but they weren't very good. Some were fried on one side, some were just hot and soft. I really need to figure out this oven.

I also had some pear juice for lunch--so good! Interestingly, I haven't seen orange juice here, but lots of pear (and other types of fruit) juice, which I think is the equivalent over here. I have also grown to like bananas, I think it's becoming an addiction. I bought some green ones at the supermercato, then was in the Campo and saw some big beautifully yellow ones and compulsively had to buy them. I'm eating 2 or 3 a day.

And to cap off the day, we have another funny story. While cooking a quick dinner before going to watch our Rome series at the UWRC, Kelsey starts to smell something burning. She's trying to figure out what the smell is coming from, and cracks a window. She decides then to point out that our apt doesn't seem to have a smoke detector. Then, from the other room, I hear her yell "OH! I found the burning, I found the burning! I set the thing on fire!!" Apparently the thing=pot holder in her hand. Crazy woman. Then our room smelled like burning polyester for at least 30 minutes.

Alright I think that's a sufficient update. The program is taking a weekend trip together to the Umbrian region, which is basically Tuscany (well, right next to it). We will be staying in a villa in a town called Corciano, and I can't wait to see what they mean by "staying in a villa." Then Saturday will be spent in Perugia, which is the city that Amanda Knox murdered her roommate in... and I'm sure there's other cool stuff, but I'll let you know once I get back what that is. And finally Sunday morning will be spent in Assisi before coming back. They did a lecture today partially on St. Francis of Assisi (patron saint of animals btw), who basically sounds like a super saint to me, he did so much! The church there is gorgeous, look for pictures soon. I can't wait to see all these little out-of-the-way towns. I'll update once I'm back on Sunday, e poi a domenica!

A whole lot of nothing

Today, for the first time since we got here, I did absolutely nothing. I woke up at 11 since there are no windows in my room and the daylight doesn't get me up. Then we made some brunch, put the tv on MTV and zoned out for a while. All the while I was putting off writing a fairy tale in Italian for homework. Ultimately I got it done, once Kelsey helped me come up with something clever. I wrote about three brothers who started pizzerias, and a critic named Rick Steves who wrote bad reviews about each and got them shut down. Then at the last pizzeria the pizza cheese was enchanted, and Rick was turned into a mouse, and the brothers dropped him off at the Colosseum for the cats to deal with! Then I took a nap, made some dinner, and did more of nothing. It was pretty glorious.

Oh! And one of the people in our building likes to open their windows and blast music in the early evenings. Today, it was an entire CD of Bloc Party, and then he transitioned into Pink Floyd. It would normally bother me, but this guy has great taste. I opened a few windows and was loving cooking dinner to Dark Side of the Moon.

But I won't lie, we were all incredibly bored. So I suggested after dinner we go up the street for gelato and hang out at the small playground we found up there. There was a group of teenagers already there, and one of them had a guitar, so I yelled to them in Italian to play us something. They spoke surprisingly good English. Turns out they didn't really know any full song, so we kind of ignored them. Then later one of them yelled that they were single, and his friend adds "yes, I too am free ladies!" It was pretty funny, I think they were all probably 15/16.

And there was the day. I really did want to go somewhere, anywhere, but I just didn't want to get dressed... just one of those days.

Pasqua al Vaticano

Alright, it's the one you all have been waiting for: all about Easter mass at the Vatican!! What an incredible experience, even though I'm not Catholic and I didn't know what was going on for some parts. Just to be there amongst all those people, it really is indescribable. But I'll try...

I'm going to start off with a short synopsis of Good Friday, which we celebrated by trying to attend the Way of the Cross (Via Crucis) presentation at the Colosseo. It was at around 9, so Megan, Mary and I left a little after 8 and walked all the way to the Colosseo, along with countless other people. Our tactic was to follow the nuns to ensure a decent spot. And we ended up crammed up against a gate at some point along the Colosseo with no idea of what was going on ahead of us. When we realized there was nothing but more people up there, we turned around and made it to a less crowed spot. Bad idea, we couldn't see anything--which we later found out was only the Pope sitting there while different people read the various stations of the Cross in all sorts of languages. We left half way through, but at least I got to see the Colosseo at night! Beautiful!Saturday we went "shopping" which entailed walking all around our side of Rome looking at things but not buying anything. There was a soccer match happening so every Italian was glued to a tv or radio. It was Roma vs. Lazio, major major rivals, think like UW vs. WSU but way more intense. Lazio had a major upset and won 4 to 2. I really wanted to go, but we couldn't find tickets for under 120 euro.

Sunday morning started off very interesting. I had a horrible dream that when everyone in the program was leaving Rome to go south, I forgot about going south and went home instead. I didn't realize until 2 days later that I was supposed to still be in Italy, and began to panic. I woke up feeling all frenzied, only to realize my alarm hadn't gone off. We were supposed to leave at 7:30, and I woke up at 7:19. I have never gotten ready so quickly. We were out the door by 7:45 but I promise I was all set at 7:35! Luckily everyone else was late too, and ultimately we had no need to get to the Vatican so early.

The "security" gates were supposed to open at 8:30 am according to our tickets, and the mass started at 10:15. After going to the Way of the Cross and seeing the crowds, we planed on the Vatican lines being insane. Not so. There were maybe a few hundred people haphazardly in a few lines, and we got there just as they started to let people in. The "security" that I had read about online was only a few guys looking inside purses as you entered, they didn't even check for tickets. We were joking about how someone dressed as a nun could easily sneak some device in... yeah this is the kind of stuff we come up with. We decided to have a little dignity once inside the square and not run like everyone else, and our seats ended up fantastic anyways. Our friend Christina had saved about 5 or 6 around her because she got there way earlier to meet her cousin. We sat with her because she had made the effort to save us these seats, but about 4 girls decided to try and get seats closer up, which they did. However, we were much closer to the Pope as he made his entrance.After a few marching bands paraded past, the Swiss Guards marched followed by the Pope. As the guards were walking, my friend Sara started singing Ow Ee Ow song from the Wizard of Oz, from the scene with the witch's scary army. Thought that was too funny. Finally il Papa came by, and was waving and blessing and doing his Pope business. Then some woman across from us basically threw her baby at him, and Pope Benny stroked the kids face. Then the mother grabbed his hand off her kid and puts it on her own face. Got it all on video :)

The mass lasted about 2.5 hours, and we followed along with this little booklet they gave us when we got our seats. The 'program' was 60 pages long! It had everything that would be said written out, most of it in Latin, and then to the right of all text was the translation in Italian. It was like a double challenge to try and keep up, but also sometimes glance at the Italian and see if I could understand it. We also tried to sing all the parts we were supposed to sing, and I'm pretty sure that was kind of painful to listen to. What was very interesting about the mass was how they incorporated all types of languages; for different readings of scripture, they had people read each one in a different language. They even included Arabic and Hebrew, which caught my attention.

Half way through they offered communion, which I didn't take because I know the Catholics do it pretty ritually and I didn't want to mess it up. Then more singing, more reading, etc and it was just about over. I was not bored for the entire 2+ hours, in fact I really enjoyed it. After the actual mass was finished, the pope made his way up to his balcony to read a little speech and wish everyone a happy Easter. While we waited for him to climb up to the balcony, the woman in front of us asked me to take pictures of her and her friends. She then asked if I was Italian, and we told her no, we're American. She then proceeds to yell "OOH! I looooooove America!" in her Barcelonian accent. She tells me about how she loves New York (we don't know why anyone would love America after going to NY...) and how she has a big American flag at home. Then she told me, like it was a secret, that she had an American flag in her desk at work too--she then adds, "and I work at the Spanish Parliament! ;)"

Anyways, Pope Benny's speech was all in Italian, and I was pretty proud that I could pick up on some of what he was saying. The major points were (I believe) calls to end the suffering and hunger in Africa, a Palestinian-Israeli peace, hope in these times, and that's all I remember. Then he wished us Buona Pasqua, and continued to wish Happy Easter in at least 30 different languages! Except he's a German pope so everything he said had a little tinge of German in it. We couldn't understand him when he said it in English, we thought he had skipped it!So that was it. You had to be there to understand how amazing it was, in words it loses its magic. Once we finally made it out of the crowds and back to our apt, I proceeded to stuff my face with a fairly large lunch, and then took a 3 hour nap. I didn't mean to, I really meant to use the day better, but we were all exhausted. Quite a morning. Once we all woke up, we made a communal Easter dinner of chicken, peas, and potatoes, and I brought some spumante (Italian sparkling, sweet wine) for everyone. Then we topped it off with a cake we bought a few days earlier for the occasion. However, what we thought was a chocolate cake was actually cake filled with some sort of fruit jelly and soaked in some sort of coffee/brandy? Not what we were expecting...

Tomorrow is another holy day here, everything possible will be closed. That means no school for us too! I think I'm going to venture up to the small playground and square we discovered was up our street Friday night. We had so much fun playing on the most bizarre jungle gym I have ever seen! Maybe I'll do some homework up there, or just lounge around. We'll see. Buona pasqua a tutti!

Portone di Bronzo

Today isn't over yet, but I have to tell you all about this right now! I just had one of the most incredible experiences of my life when I went to go pick up our Easter tickets at the Vatican. The day started with our field trip to at least 5 (or maybe 6? I lost count) churches around Rome, which was fine but I was dying to get the tickets squared away. My roommates had said they wanted to come with me to pick them up, and thus I waited for them and followed them around to all the optional churches this morning. I'm really sorry I did because at the end they didn't even want to go with me. They were "too tired." I'm so frustrated with them because when we went to Florence, which was kind of Mary's little project, everyone was so excited. Now that I worked so hard to get us tickets for Easter, they all seem like they would much rather be somewhere else, like they don't even want to go anymore and they're doing me a favor.

So you know what, forget them. I think this is the coolest opportunity ever and if they don't then screw them, I'm going to enjoy it.

So now that I've gotten that out, this girl Faith came with me to the Vatican when my roommates bailed on me. She's the sweetest thing, and when I offered her and her two roommates our 3 extra tickets they were ecstatic! So she and I walked all the way to the Vatican, following the Tiber River down from my apt for about 2 or so miles. It was marvelous, it was breezy and about 70 degrees and sunny.

Once we finally made it to the Vatican, I broke out the fax that told us where to get the tickets, and it was very cryptic. It told us go to the Bronze Door at the beginning of the right hand Bernini colonnade. We walked around the columns for a while, then I ventured up to a bunch of police and asked in Italian where the Bronze Door was (except we didn't know the word for bronze until we later saw a sign that said Portone di Bronzo. duh) They pointed to the end of the colonnade, sort of by the line to enter the basilica. So we freaked out thinking we would have to stand in a 3+ hour line to get tickets! Walking around the square a little more I asked a few more officials and police until one finally told me in very clear Italian to go to the side gate and flag a guard down and tell him I had tickets waiting.

There was a small group of people waiting at this small gate manned by a few men in suits. They spoke English, and I asked what I needed to do to get to the Portone di Bronzo, and they said that one person could go down to the door at a time and get our tickets. The pointed out that Faith should go because I was wearing a sleeveless top and that wasn't Vatican dress code. Bless Faith's heart, she gave me her button down short sleeved shirt to wear so I could go in! We had discussed a week earlier how she had bought this shirt off a street vendor, and we made fun of her for it because it looked like a candy striper's shirt in the bag.But my turn came and I marched down the colonnade, eventually going up some stairs into this massive hallway leading to something called the Apostolic Palace. When I entered there were two swiss guards, one standing at attention with a spear, and the other snapped to attention, saluted me and told me "buona sera." Coolest thing EVER! And minus the silly clown-like uniforms, there were pretty cute too... I asked him "dove sono i biglietti" and he pointed in a side room. In there were two guys in suits, and in front of them were four large boxes filled with envelopes. I handed them my letter and they looked up my name and handed me an envelope. I think I said "gracias" to them instead of "grazie." Oops. Then I went back the way I came, beaming.
I was terrified the entire time, I was walking into the unknown surrounded by all these Vatican guards. But definitely one of the most memorable things I have done thus far. Wow

Damme cinque!

I have so many good quotes from the last two days, so prepare yourself! I've gotten to the point where I have to write down some of the funny stuff that's been said to us, how lame is that! But at least that way you'll get the full impact.

We'll begin with Tuesday. I didn't write about it last night because I was starting to feel sick; you know that achey-all-over feeling right before the flu hits? Yep, it was that. But I slept all evening+night and now feel glorious. Anywho, Tuesday morning all of the internship groups were supposed to meet at Piazza del Popolo, which is on the opposite side of Rome, because we have nothing else to do. Of course my apt group was more than an hour late. We took a random bus and then just kind of got off when we felt like it, which I guess was near the Spanish Steps. This time they were nearly empty! We wanted to stop and take pictures, but felt badly about being so late and thus only took one or two. The group of women we asked to take a picture of us were American and asked where we were from; when we said Seattle, turned out they were too! Except a few of them were Cougs... But still, what are the odds?

Once we finally made it to the Piazza our group was just leaving a church (perfect timing for us, you can only see so many churches). While we waited for them to cross the massive square, we took a few pictures sitting on these lions/fountains, and street vendor kept trying to offer us roses. They're tricky here, they get you to try something on or take a flower like it's free then ask for money. This time the guys kept telling us we were beautiful and needed beautiful flowers. Then when he asked for money (which he called a "donation") we all handed the flowers back, and he said in is Indian accent "Physically you're all beautiful, but mentally you're so ugly!" I guess we should have been insulted, but this cracked us up. Maybe you had to be there, but trust me it was funny!

We later climbed some stairs into a park surrounding the Villa Borghese, and had an incredible view of Rome. And dear God this park was beautiful! Massive too, right in the middle of the city. We chilled there as a huge group for a while, playing soccer and eating pizzette (small pizzas, like bagel bites) just hanging out and trying to speak Italian. I managed to ask a few of our female volunteers if they were married because they were wearing rings, and found out that in Italy if you have a boyfriend you wear a ring, then once you're formally engaged you wear a ring with a diamond, then later a wedding band. Thought that was an interesting little piece of culture. One of them, named Ilaria, has been seeing her ragazzo since she was 11!

Class was again dull, we had a quiz and I was the first one to finish. Then in the seccond class Giuseppe actually remembered I was in class and asked me a few questions! After class I went up to him with Caitlin and we introduced ourselves and told him our names. I hope we didn't insult him, but it had to be done.

Afterward, my roommates and I decided tonight would be a good night to watch one of the Italian movies we had gotten, we chose Johnny Stacchino, and get pizza and a cake. At the bakery around the corner we picked out that we thought was part chocolate cake, part custardy stuff. Nope, it's like a solid mouse/custard cake; I'm not really in love with it. But while there the woman at the bakery asked us if we were American, and we said yes. Then she made my day by telling us we spoke Italian well, and we all laughed, then she corrected herself and said we all understood well. I told her we understand a little, that we're studying here and we have been learning Italian for about a year. She seemed very impressed, and that little comment made me very happy.

Continuing, once we made it back we all chipped in for the cake, $5 a piece. That's when I heard Megan say to Kelsey "Damme cinque!" which means 'give me five' as in high five. Then a few seconds later she continued "...no, actually give me 5 dollars." I about cried laughing. Here we say "damme cinque" or "batte cinque" pretty frequently because, lets face it, it's pretty fun to say. Megan simply used it at the perfect time; it's her ninja skills.

Speaking of batte cinque, you all have to watch this video a guy in our program made for Italian last year. It's a spoof on predator (it's dubbed in English) and it is positively hillarious. Along with batte cinque, that's where we get the quote "hella bene" that we use just as frequently amongst ourselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2smk6A9e0JE

We didn't have internships this morning so we got to sleep in! I hung out around the house all day until class at 3:30. We just did homework and lounged around eating nutella. Megan has gone as far as to make nutella a new personal food group eaten with every meal; I'm sure we'll all get to that point given time. Here we like to keep the tv on as background noise, and we all like different stuff. Megan likes cheesey 80's throwbacks like Walker, Texas Ranger (Chuck Norris dubbed in Italian is the most bizarre thing you will ever experience); Roxanna likes infomertials because she's the only one patient enough to try and understand them; Kelsey, Mary and I don't really care, though we often opt for MTV. Today was an MTV sorta day, and we realized Italian pop is horrible, they just don't do it right. But otherwise, they showed some old music video, I think it was for the song Wake me up before you go go, and it was excruciatingly 80's but hilarious all the same. Megan chooses then to point out "This is bad, but still more fashionable than some of the Italians I've seen." And she's so right. They're fashionable here, but a very strange sort of fashion, almost 80's in spirit.

Ok I'll wrap this up soon I promise! In Giuseppe's class today we mixed it up a little bit; instead of reading fairy tales for an hour we discussed our expectations and stereotypes about Italy. We then got to discussing Italian men, and how aggressive they can be, when the conversation turned to different things to say to get them to back off. We proceeded to learn various insults and curse words. Then one girl said someone had asked her how much she costs (I immediately thought what could she have been wearing to make an Italian guy yell that out in the Campo!), and asked what she could have said in response. That's when we learned how to say "I cost as much as your mother/sister/etc." Now this is the most useful Italian I've learned yet!!

Finally, we had dinner at a restaurant in the Campo before going back to the Rome Center to watch a few episodes of HBO's Rome series for fun. This was the best dinner I've had yet, even though the food wasn't very good. The host that seated us kept coming by and flirting with me and Mary, and even gave us each little flowers. Also there was this guy there, I guess he would be considered a bus boy, that gave us our food and wine, and my god he was so good looking! Plus we ordered patate fritte (french fries!) just for the hell of it, and I could not get enough!! They looked at us very funny when we asked for more ketchup but didn't want any mayonnaise. Soon I'll be making another McDonald's run--don't judge me you would too. I tried gnocchi tonight for the first time and I didn't like it much, I feel a little sick when I think about it. But now I know. Then before we left our flirty guys at the restaurant tried to offer us free beers to get us to stay longer, but we had to leave to watch Rome. But I'm definitely going back, that was such a fun cena!

Tomorrow we're going to a bunch of churches I've never heard of, I think they're all supposed to be related to the start of the Jesuit order. Apparently they have magnificent frescos so hopefully it'll be interesting. Then afterward I'm going to pick up my Easter tickets!! yayyyy

"Come si dice 'crap'?" "I don't know, but it's probably some gesture."

I just just felt an earthquake for the first time in 2 days!! I was eating dinner at the table and Kelsey says to me "do you feel that?" I stand up and FINALLY feel one! A small aftershock, not really a big deal but at least I know my equilibrium is working. Crazy. Apparently there have been almost 300 small aftershocks throughout today, and one was at almost 5.0 around 11am, but I somehow didn't feel it.

Other than this, the rest of the day was dull. We went to our do-nothing internship again and one of the guys (Ricardo I think) tried to teach us how to juggle. I am pathetic and will not try that ever again. The only funny part was when I leaned over to Christina and asked her how to say "crap" in Italian, and she shoots back "I don't know, but it's probably some hand gesture." I cracked up, that's kind of a running joke amongst us; we're never really sure if we're unintentionally insulting someone with our hand gestures here since Italians have so many signals. Definitely the quote of the day. Then I had a chill kabob lunch with Roxanna in the Campo, topped off with some nutella gelato. I got whipped cream on top (panna) since they offered, and learned that Italian whipped cream is not sweetened. So that makes it just plain fattening without any good taste to make it worth it.

Class went as usual for the most part. We have a quiz tomorrow that I should be studying for right now, but I can't bring myself to do it so I'm writing this instead. The only notable part of class was in our second class with Giuseppe, who I think has no idea who I am let alone what my name is. Today he went around the entire room asking people what they do in their free time ("Quale il tuo passatempo preferito?"). He asked literally every single person but me, and when I was the only one left he forgot about me and asked who would like to continue reading. I was pretty incredulous, so I just sat there and tried to figure out how to discretely tell him my name after class because I would actually like to talk. Then this kid Matteo interrupts him and says something like "what about her passatempo" and Giuseppe doesn't hear him. I was so embarrassed. Still not sure if he knows I'm in class or not.

Okkkkk I guess I should get cracking. Ciao tutti

Wait, what earthquake?!

The craziest things happened for us today! Firstly, last week I sent a fax to the papal offices requesting tickets for Easter Sunday mass at the Vatican, and we definitely didn't expect to get any. BUT a fax came in for me today and they gave us 10 Easter tickets!! I couldn't believe it! We're still not sure what the ticket is needed for, my understanding is that it gets us seats at the mass and those without tickets can stand in the back in general admis. But it could very well be that you need a ticket to get into the square period. We shall find out! I'm so incredibly excited to experience it all.

Also, as I'm sure many of you heard there was an earthquake last night a few miles away from Rome. It was centered in a town called L'Aguila, which seems pretty small based on the news coverage I've seen. What is funny about the whole thing is that it hit around 3 or 4 am here, and I slept right through it. I found out about it after reading an "are you ok" email from my mother this morning. There was no damage here in Rome, and I'm just fine. This morning we realized there are two huge framed posters hangning right over my bed, and it could have gotten very ugly, but it didn't. And now we know, apparently it takes more than a 6.something to wake a west-coaster!

Other than these two events, today was fairly routine. Our internship group did switch to a new museum where we are supposed to help the volunteers teach and work with little school children. I was really, truly looking forward to that. However during Holy Week there's no school, so thus no kids. We still don't know what we'll be doing every morning, there was talk about playing twister or something? I may skip... Today was the start of the nothing, we got caffe and then sat around while a volunteer named Daniele played guitar and asked us what songs we knew.

Speaking of songs, I found two videos I enjoyed immensely during the last few days, and now I'm going to share:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_HXUhShhmY&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXSovfzyx28

Hmmm I think that's about it. Maybe I'll get to bed early tonight :) or maybe not, a few minutes ago I found a tiny little spider crawling around on my bed and I flipped out. Kelsey got it for me, but we'll see if that keeps me up. Thanks again to all who checked in to make sure I was alright! I promise to wake up and feel it next time

Mi facciono male i piedi!

Which means "my feet hurt" and I think it pretty much sums up the weekend in Firenze. It's so good to be back in Rome. We did so much this weekend that I'm going to have to split it into two posts so you lazy ones don't get deterred. I even had to take notes each night to remember all of our goings-on and what I thought of it all. So here goes.

Friday morning we met at the Vatican to do our first class excursion. We spent two or three hours exploring the giant church and then the tomb of the Popes down below. I took countless pictures, you can see them on Facebook or Picasa, but it really is impossible to get an idea of this place from pictures. You have to see everything in Rome in context. After we rushed back to our apt to pick up our stuff and book it to the train station.

We bought our train tickets there, which wasn't too big a deal. Then sat around for about an hour and a half waiting for our train. I don't understand it, but thus far I have visited 3 stations and seen no benches or places to sit and wait! So we grabbed some floor and made camp, then went to get gelato. That's when I learned not to judge gelato based on how it looks. I got something yummy looking, yellow covered in cookies and drizzled with strawberry sauce, I was expecting like strawberry shortcake flavor or something. Nope, of course not. It was "supa inglese", which my teachers have said is like bread pudding. It tasted like Dayquil!! I'm traumatized, I don't want to try any new flavors anymore.

Ok, now for the train ride. We took the cheap train, which means it was slow and the trip to Firenze (Florence) was almost 4 hours as opposed to 1.5 on the fast train. But ultimately I'm very glad we did that. Three girls, Megan, Mary and Morgan, all grabbed seats next to each other and left Kelsey, Caitlyn and I to fend for ourselves further back. Caitlyn and I sat next to a guy and his sister, and Kelsey across the isle from us. So glad that happened because this guy we were with was awesome! He was a CalState student studying for the year in Firenze, and his sister was visiting him. He was funny and we had great conversation for the full 4 hours. Then he gave us recommendations for dinner and going out, etc. I think his name was Geo, I'm so glad we met him. The only problem with the train was it kept going through tunnels. The Tuscan countryside was incredible, I loved it, but for some reason there were countless tunnels, and each time we went in one the car instantly pressurized. It felt like our ears were going to explode each time; imagine the most intense airplane descent and how your ears feel when that pressure is changing. We did not enjoy that. Though I know from the ride home it's better with your iPod in.

Of course the first thing I do when we get to Firenze is trip. Not eat-pavement kind of trip, just look like a stumbling idiot kind of trip. I thought the cobblestones would be better there, and often they were, but I still managed to find the uneven ones--always. And I always find the door thresholds here in the most ungraceful way. When I made it alive to our hostel, it was incredible!! I think our exact words were "woah this is better than our apartment!" It really was, especially the beds and the shower. The showerhead was huge and it felt like it was raining, and our beds were memory foam and I have never slept better. I miss it... We're spoiled, now I'll never be able to stay at a dumpy hostel.

Ok here's where the weekend started to get interesting. First, the back story: we brought two non-roommates with us, Morgan and Caitlyn. I felt like everyone was trying to exclude Caitlyn and didn't want her to come, so I did my best to be friendly and welcoming to her. So when we got to the hostel, the rooms were supposed to be arranged 4 and 2 beds (though it ended up being 4 and 3 beds). Caitlyn and I put our stuff down in the 4 person room, and started to get settled when Morgan walks in and says to me, "Um, Natalie, us four [Morgan, Megan, Kelsey, Mary] were planning to be together in the 4 person room, so if it's ok could you to switch to the smaller room?" I still can't believe she had the nerve to ask me that. For a minute I thought about just agreeing and not making an issue, but I'm just not that kind of person. I told her straight up "No, actually it's not ok. I feel like you guys have been trying to exclude Caitlyn and me since we got on the train, and I will not move to the other room and let you isolate us. I'm staying right here." She seemed so shocked I had said no, like she was expecting me to just roll over. I'm so proud that I stood up for the two of us, regardless of what happened the next day (I"ll get there). I'm so proud of myself for not taking her crap.

But at the time I felt awful, like I wasn't wanted. I seriously considered using my train ticket to take a return train the next day, or meeting up with other girls I know and really like so far and sleeping on the floor in their hotel. But no, I stayed, sort of to piss them off but also to try and enjoy myself for the rest of the weekend. Anyways, we decided we all needed dinner before we got really bitchy and so we followed Morgan to some place she'd heard of. Of course she couldn't find it, so instead I lead the way to a place nearby the guy next to us had recommended. It was a kabob place, which apparently is like gyros, and even though the girls were very skeptical about it, it was excellent and everyone said they really liked it. Then Caitlyn, Megan and I went home for an early night--the earliest one yet for me, in bed and asleep at 10! We were exhausted, and poor Megan was sick so it was entirely necessary.

Ok, as promised, here's the break in my recount.

Seriously bad juju

Saturday started off badly but I managed to salvage it with Caitlyn, Ashley and Katy's help. As I mentioned, Morgan had been very unhappy about my general presence after I refused to be isolated. So all morning she gave me some serious attitude, which they other girls will verify they noticed it too. I tried to stay low and follow her around (she decided to lead, though she had no idea where she was going), but ultimately it was me that found the right bus to take, and me who bought our bus tickets, etc. We got breakfast at a caffe, and I managed to get chocolate croissant all over my mouth, I guess I need more practice. Then we went to our first museum of the day, the world famous Uffizi. We had reserved tickets so as to avoid standing in line, but when Morgan and Mary found out there was a $4 reservation charge they started talking about turning around and waiting in line for tickets instead. Again, I don't put up with crap. So I told her flat out that she could go to that if she wanted, but I refused to and I was getting the tickets that were in front of me. To this she yells out "Why are you being so bitchy!" and all I had in response was "Why are you being so bitchy!" (I know, but I wasn't expecting it then and it was all I had) Following this we paid for our tickets, then she and I stepped back and I told her that she had embarrassed the whole group with that outburst and that I was only as unpleasant as she was being. I called her out on her attitude for the whole of the morning, and Kelsey the peace maker broke it up and started walking us into the museum.

Luckily then we broke off into groups of 2 to explore on our own. Mary paired off with Morgan, which I kind of expected. I now associate Mary with Morgan, they are one united camp, and I will never be able to look at Mary the same way again. We'll see how it is living in the apartment now. (Wow, you all should feel lucky, I'm giving you all the juicy details even though I didn't want to.)

So besides all of the drama, the day went very well. The Uffizi gallery was impressive though I know nothing about art. I recognized a few things, and got to see works by da Vinci and Michelangelo, although my favorites were all by Botticelli. I loved the Birth of Venus, something about the scene as a whole and the colors. Also it was huge! Definitely my favorite painting in the Uffizi.

After the Uffizi we walked briefly to the Ponte Vecchio, which was cool but ridiculously crowded. Also all the shops on the famous bridge were gold and jewelry stores, so we didn't buy anything there. Then we made our way over to the other world famous museum in Firenze, l'Accademia. This is where they keep the statue of David. While waiting until we could pick up our other reserved tickets, we grabbed some made-to-order sandwiches at a supermercato across the street, while Mary and Morgan found a pizza joint around the corner. We ate in a park and tried pieces of the girls' strange pizzas--one was hot dog pizza, the other was french fry pizza which tasted like bread with soggy potatoes on top. Finally we made it in to the museum and looked at their various collections before heading over to David. There was an instrument exhibit that I liked, I got to see a Stradivarius violin, and tried to sneak a picture of it but a docent yelled at me...

David was incredible. First off he was huge, I would say more than 16, 17 feet? And perfectly white. The artistry was amazing, you could see every muscle and he was perfectly proportional. What caught my attention the most was how you could see veins carved into his hands and neck. Come on, veins in marble!! You gotta hand it to Michelangelo, he knew his stuff. This was another highlight of the weekend.

After l'Accademia, Caitlyn and I left to go to the Duomo, which is some huge church in Firenze. Not sure why it's so amazing, but it's very elaborate on the outside and huge on the inside. There is a large dome in it which you can pay to climb--of course we couldn't pass this up. We spent the 8 euros and, as if we weren't tired already, had an intense workout all the way to the top. I'm talking some incredibly steep steps all the way up; I counted 422 steps but apparently it's 462. Either way quite a bit, but worth it; when you're at the top the view is indescribable! You can see for miles, all of Florence and then the hills beyond.

Also while climbing we could stop half way and see the fresco on the ceiling of the dome. It was just as elaborate as the stones outside, with these huge scenes of hell coupled with scenes of grace, etc. I noticed and thought it was very funny that parts of the hell depiction showed little demons shoving flaming poles up peoples' butts. That's an image that'll be with me forever :P

Alright, to sum up the rest of the day, we later met up with Katy and Ashley and walked around some shopping areas for a while before stopping for a bottle of wine at a wine bar. We then walked all the way across Firenze (again) back to our hostel for jackets, then out to meet some other girls in the program for a nice steak dinner. We wanted to try bistecca alla florentina, one of the most famous specialties here. We didn't know what was so special about it, so we all got a bistecca. Turns out it's just a giant t-bone steak, nothing special about it. I don't even like beef, I just got it to give it a shot while in Florence. When that huge hunk of meat came I looked at it and literally asked "how do I do this?" It wasn't even very good...

Following dinner we got gelato at this amazing, busy place. I got a cup with berry and dark chocolate gelato, then went back with a few other girls to get a second cup of the dark chocolate! You can't imagine how good it was. We again called it an early night and went home without going out on the town.

Alright, only one more day to cover! Almost there!

"Costa 10, but ok ok I give you for 5!"

Sunday was our last day, and I felt like I was done with Florence so I arranged for Caitlyn and I to go with Ashley and Katy an hour west to Pisa for a few hours. I didn't like Florence, I much prefer Rome. I'm not sure I can explain it, it's just like Florence is a lame half-version of Rome. Plus it smells so bad there, everywhere you go you get a whiff of something. The scent reminded me of the swamp in our greenbelt, kind of like decaying plants. So I was ready to leave. We checked out of the hostel around 10:30, ate another cappuccino and this time apricot croissant for breakfast, and me the girls at the train station.

We bought cheap $5 tickets to Pisa and made it there in an hour. No sweat. The sweat came when we had to treck with our bags all the way to the opposite side of the town. It was a pretty small city, very quaint, but it was a decently long walk. Once we made it we took countless pictures messing around with the leaning tower, then got bored and were ready to leave.

Before heading back to the station, we looked at some street vendors for sunglasses for Ashley. We each bought shot glasses while at it, they're cut so they lean like the tower. Then I found some sunglasses and had her try on a pair which looked fantastic on her. The owner said they were 10 euro, and Ashley didn't feel like she was that desperate. Plus we still had to buy tickets back to Firenze. So we were leaving, and through my bardering skills, I got the guy down to 5 euros! We couldn't pass that up, so she had to get the glasses :) I guess I should try doing that more often.

We got a super quick lunch across from the station at this cute caffe. I got some generic pasta and pear juice because it sounded interesting. So far I've eaten multiple pears and bananas on this trip, things I never ate at home. My mother would be so proud. We rushed to catch the train, which ended up being delayed so the rest of the day was all waiting and riding then more waiting and riding. On the way to Rome, the 4 hour trip, I sat in a compartment with Mary and Morgan, Caitlyn and myself. I felt very awkward and still upset about the last few days with them, so Caitlyn and I plugged in our iPods and chilled the entire way home. I watched most of the Tuscan countryside pass me while my iPod shuffled me through lots of Death Cab, Dashboard Confessional, Dave Matthews (lots of D's huh?) and Nada Surf. I didn't realize how much I missed my music. I can't get Pandora on the internet over here because of the IP address or something, and I miss it desperately. Thank God we still have youtube!

Congrats, you made it all the way through! I told you it was a busy weekend. I think I'm sticking around Rome for Easter and I plan on getting some rest, so it won't be like this one for a while. Look forward to pictures soon.

Nothing too special...yet

Currently listening to some Journey and surfing Facebook, putting off the last portion of some homework. I forgot how great Don't Stop Believing is, though I have to admit I only listen it for the last chorus and guitar solo--but who doesn't? (I just had the strongest urge to call it a "face-melting solo" but I thought that would be too lame)

Or at least I was doing that until I took a break. I swear it takes me a few hours to write these things. As of now it's almost 2am, and I just am not ready to go to bed. I think it's stress, we're going to Florence for the weekend tomorrow and our planning and execution has been less than perfect. Thus far one of us 6 girls has a ticket, the rest are getting them at the station tomorrow which I hope will work out fine. And we opted for a train that will take almost 4 hours instead of the slightly more expensive 1.5 hour train. I have no book and am not bringing my laptop so I don't know what I'll do with myself for those 4 hours.

That brings me to another point--no laptop=likely no posts. :( I really like doing these so I'm going to miss it at night. Maybe I'll find an internet cafe nearby Saturday night, we'll see. We will also see where we are staying, which as of yet is still undetermined! Right now we have no arrangements for a hostel and I don't think we'll get beds this late, so it may have to be a hotel. I would prefer that because I don't know anything about hostels. I was trying to figure out how to take a shower at one, if I should bring a towel, flipflops, if I should just go without or what. I don't like not knowing what to expect, it makes me very anxious.

I'm sure it will be fine. It's all part of the experience right? Right.

Today was alright, it was the last day of our first internship groups. I'm really going to miss our volunteers, they really started to open up to us the last day or two. We all exchanged emails and we told them to look us up on Facebook. Two or three already did some Facebook adding, they added both of my roommates--but not me! Not sure why, maybe there are multiple Natalie Downs'? Whatever it was, I bit and added them.

Before we left the museum a few of the girls took us to see the planetarium show in the museum, which was decent but of course all in Italian. Didn't catch a word of it. Wait, that's a lie, I understood "la sistema solare." But while I zoned out I started thinking about where I would take the Italian volunteers if they ever came to visit Seattle. I decided I would enlighten them by getting them a proper burger at Red Robin. Then I would show them a mall and a huge supermarket, which I'm pretty sure they don't have here. Then of course the Space Needle, but while there I would make sure to take them to a laser show in the Seattle Center. (The planetarium reminded me of the laser shows and that's what started me on all this.) I would probably walk them around the UW, and if they wanted we could take a ferry somewhere, that's always fun. That's about as far as I got.

I had a 3ish hour break before late class today, so I spent that time writing the journal we're supposed to be keeping in Italian to submit for the week. I just finished a few hours ago and sent it off. Thank God for this blog otherwise I would never have remembered what I did each day. Then in class we translated an Italian fairy tale that was a little bit like Alice in Wonderland but short and sweet. Afterward we all attended a lecture on our excursion tomorrow to the Vatican, and heard all about the history between the Italian and Vatican states. I'm really looking forward to seeing inside St Peter's.

Finally, around 6 there was a Rome Center mixer of sorts, with pizza and cookies and wine. We spent most of the time discussing the logistics and details of Florence. I finally gave up and decided whatever happens happens, I'll let someone else do the planning. What do I care about Florence anyway? Yay, there's David, but that's about all I'm familiar with. The mixer then turned into a viewing of Gladiator, which I had never seen and I actually enjoyed. When the story went to the Colosseum and the rest of Rome, I leaned over to friends and reminded them "we've been there! Oh and there too!" I still can't believe I'm here.

Alright I should probably sleep. Wish us luck in Florence, I hope all goes well! Leave me lovely comments to come back to :) Buon fine settimana

Mortacci tua

Ciao tutti. This is going to be a long one, I have to catch up on a lot! It's been a long few days, I'm not sure where to start. I guess firstly I need to know if anyone is still reading this (besides my mother)? It feels like no one. Please leave me comments, it keeps me connected with home and I love hearing from you! Otherwise I'll start posting way less and I won't waste my time.

Next, let me tell all you Seattleites that the weather in Rome is way crazier than at home. For the last 3 or 4 days the forecast has been rain, and every day it turned out to be beautiful and sunny and we carried jackets around all day. Just when we let our guards down, today the rain comes! And it's a strange rain, it doesn't rain all day like Seattle, it goes for a few minutes at a time off and on for a few hours. Then beautiful again. It's really beginning to bug me, I can't plan for anything in the morning! So I just bring an umbrella and sunglasses and hope for the best.

I'm feeling a little stressed, can you tell? I just got back from grocery shopping and now am decompressing with a pastry and some Death Cab. Seriously, trying to shop when you can't read what most stuff is is difficult! We also have limited cooking capabilities, including no microwave, making it all even harder. Then the cashier at the supermercato was grumpy and you have to bag your own stuff! Overall a very unpleasant experience.

But the rest of the day was excellent. I guess I should start with yesterday thought, because I feel like that was good too but I don't remember why or what we did... OH alright got it. First we went to our internship bright and early, and they showed us around a different part of the museum that was organized chronologically. They literally told us the history of Rome from the settling to Christianity. Thank God I read all of that in this Harry Potter-sized book about Rome earlier this year! They did it all in Italian, and I would have not had a clue what/who they were talking about if I didn't already have a vague idea of what they were talking about. So that was ok, a little boring, but ok.

After we went back to the Campo for class and grabbed some lunch at this panini shop. I got some premade sandwhich with turkey and mushrooms (tacchino e funghi, strange I know) which wasn't very good. But this guy that worked there was so incredibly good looking! And he took a break while we were eating and sat a little bit away from us, so I ended up staring at him for most of lunch... I know, pathetic. But you would have too.

Ummm after that? Class for 2.5 hours, nothing too great. Then later we went out to dinner for our friend Morgan's birthday. She lives in the large apt with 9 girls, but hangs out with us for the most part; we love her she's very down-to-earth and chill. But for dinner her entire apt came, as well as us and so a gaggle of 14 chatty, hungry, grumpy girls trekked around Trastevere looking for an open restaurant for at least a half hour. It got kind of ugly actually, we were all pretty bitchy. But we finally found this one place someone had recommended, and since they didn't open for about 45 minutes we left a reservation and wandered around the surrounding blocks during that time. We came across a rather large piazza, and I realized we had found the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, one of the oldest churches in Rome. I was so excited we found it, and it's only about 2 blocks away from our apt. We went inside and it is indescribable. The ceiling alone is too beautiful for words, and the entire back wall behind the alter is an incredible, detailed fresca-type mosaic. There wasn't a service going on so it was mosty dark inside, but even in the minimal light the mosaic sparkled. I think it is my favorite place in Rome thus far. If we for some reason can't go to the Vatican for Easter, I'll definitely spend it in S. Maria in Trastevere.
(So you know what I mean I threw in a pic off the internet. I didn't take any myself because I didn't want the flash to disrupt anyone. Next time, I promise)

Dinner was alright, the food was pretty good. I got some dish that the cammeriere recommended, it was beef rolled around carrots and celery (I think) in a tomato sauce and peas. I kept thinking, if my parents could see me now I think they'd pass out. My mom makes a dish that's almost identical, but I never eat it because I don't like beef. I still don't really, but I just could not have another pasta! Then for dessert, I tried panna cotta which is creme brulee without the brulee. So good! But it was really heavy, I think I prefer the gelato flavor. Also, during dinner a thunderstorm started, lightening and all. Of course we were seated outside. No rain luckily, so we stayed out and I really enjoyed the thunder.

Of course we all went out afterward! We were a little hesitant to keep hanging out with such a big, indecisive group, but Mary and I decided we should give it a shot and try to have fun. We went back to our apt and changed, then met at the large apt in the Campo. The profs told us the Campo is a very hip hang out at night, and I believe it. All the bars were packed as we hopped from one to the other celebrating with Morgan. Mary and I took it easy, but still didn't get back home until 2am. It was pretty fun, but stressful with such a big group because we kept losing people. But I made a bunch of new friends from the other class in our program!

Alright, finally to today! Much more fun, I had a great day. We switched it up and went as a group to the Vatican instead of the museum with our internship volunteers. I don't know what they wanted to do there besides see St Peter's Basilica, but whatever it was it didn't happen. Apparently Sundays and Wednesdays (like today) the Pope does blessings and the church closes for tours. So instead we just walked with our Italian volunteers to a cafe for some cappuccino, then they took us to the Pantheon. Since they're archeology/art majors they were telling us all these cool little facts about fountains and churches. I've befriended a guy named Simone who is studying to become an art history teacher for high school. What I thought was extremely comical was how they have all started speaking to us in English. They've given up on us already :) I understand them so it's fine with me (for now).

At the Pantheon it stared raining--finally. What is cool about the Pantheon is it's a huge domed ancient building with a hole in the middle of the ceiling to allow all the gods to come in. So when it started to rain we all flocked inside to watch it rain through the hole, which was a very cool visual.

We then walked back to the Campo where a few of our volunteers had lunch at a pizzaria with us. I had a blast, there was a mix of Italian and English; some girls brought their Italian homework to do at the table, and in the process of our Italian friends giving them help they ended up doing it for them. Then over two bottles of wine they started to teach us Roman dialect and regional and slang words. I'm not sure why they began to focus these efforts on me, but at some point they were all talking to me specifically and telling me to repeat after them, with everyone watching. They told me that in Rome they don't say the double r's, as in they don't roll the rr's in words, which I am very disappointed about because rolling those rr's is the best part of Italian! Then I learned when someone's telling you something, you say "Davero davero?!" which is kind of like "really?!" and that they say that everywhere but only in Rome do you say it twice. The most memorable one of the evening was "mortacci tua." That's a difficult one, because it's a pretty bad insult in all parts of Italy besides Rome. It means roughly "you're dead" but in a very, very negative way. However, in Rome they use it in a friendly, familiar way among friends (as far as I understood). Maybe we could liken it to saying "you suck" in a sarcastic, endearing way among friends? Regardless, they told me it wasn't bad in Rome! But when we were leaving I asked "what is that saying again, morta tua something?" And they all freaked out like I had just dropped the F-bomb, saying no no don't say it! I guess the waitress had just told us have a good day or something to that extent, and right after I semi-said mortacci tua. Oops! Maybe you had to be there, but we all thought this was hilarious! Now I'm afraid to ever say it again, so when our prof asked us what new words we'd heard or noticed I didn't mention it...

I tried to give them a few slang English terms, but all we could think of was "hella" and "legit." Before we left for class I told them to think up more expressions to teach us tomorrow, so maybe I'll have some good stories from tomorrow. But only if people are reading this, so comment if you want to hear it. A domani!