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!