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!