School in Roma

This was dinner! Chicken Parmigana... Which is probably spelled incorrectly, but it was amazing.

The magical cheese knife! The cut out letters that spell cheese secretly double as a cheese grater! We don't know if that was actually the point of the letters, but we had no cheese grater and we are innovative.

Pasta fingers!!! This is Alex. He's half our boys.

Dinner prep! From left to right: Stacey, Lindsey, Christina, Alex & Terrance (the other half of the boys)

Today was the first day of classes. My Politics class is taught by an Italian/Irishman. I'm completely in love with his voice. And it sounds like the class is going to be really interesting. It would be more interesting if I didn't think I was going into a coma from how cold that classroom is. My body was just about shutting down after half the class this morning. I'm pretty sure he thought I was going to sleep. Not a fantastic way to start the semester. I have also decided to sign up for drawing. Yay! Guess who's going to regret that later.... (spoiler: it's going to be me).

Tomorrow is our first long class. We have Renaissance and Baroque art from 8:30 to like 1:30 and then Italian from 3:30 like 5:30 maybe. I should check that before tomorrow maybe. Anyway... Yay for classes! I think. It's weird to say that.

After class this morning we went to the pharmacy and I bought more stuff to hopefully prevent the sickness that I feel is imminent. Let's hope the nose spray, Defend and weird packets of stuff that you stir into water and chug will be enough. Cross your fingers for me! Then we went to the notebook store to get supplies for school. Crazy expensive here, kids. If you ever come to Rome, stock up on your Five-Star First Gear ahead of time, that's all I can say.

A few of us went to lunch with Paul after that. We went to a Trattoria and I got some absolutely amazing Spaghetti alla Carbonara. Flipping amazing, people.

After lunch we had to go to the Poste Italiane and submit our Permesso di Siggiornos which are our permission for residence papers. It's officially legal for me to be in Italy!!! Woot! Paul took most of the group on a tour of our neighborhood and pointed out some things that are good local places to know. I missed this trip because I didn't want to trek around town in the rain and came home and snorted more orange German medicine. Hopefully it's enough- finding the hospital and medication for Haley was quite enough yesterday.

This evening we made dinner, or watched other people make dinner as the case sadly was for me. I cut up some mozzarella! But that was about the extent of my contribution. We had like a giant family dinner in our apartment with the whole group except Danielle who has been asleep for hours. She's had the hardest time getting acclimated to the crazy new time zone. 8 hours ahead isn't easy for anyone. The rest of the evening we spent just hanging out at the apartment. There was a failed gelato expedition for half the group, but we won't talk about that. Long class tomorrow so I'm headed off to bed to get some rest. Six hours of museuming is like an endurance trial. Love and miss you all!!!

So...Tired...

Awesome door in the walls of the Vatican... That's right. The Vatican.

Today Haley got sick and we had to make a field trip to the emergency room. And the only emergency room that we knew how to find (Correction: that Terrance knew how to find) was at the Vatican. So we went to the Vatican! And it was amazing. We saw St. Peter's square and I filled up another roll of film. Still B&W CN. I'm going to run out of that first, I can just tell. It was flipping amazing, you guys. We didn't have much Vatican exploring time because we were on a mission, so I can't wait to go back and spend some more time there. Haley got a script and a recommendation to go see a specialist and we spent the rest of the night looking for open pharmacies. There weren't any. Just in case you were wondering, nothing except a few restaurants and some clothing shops are open on Sunday evenings. There's supposed to be a pharmacy in every area open 24 hours, but I'll be dammed if we could find one. We found about 4 different ones that were all closed and then when we returned to the residence to get directions, I bowed out of the expedition and came up to the apartment to drink Defend (Italian airborn) to try and stop myself from getting sick too. With the crazy change in climate and time and all the running around Rome, all of us are a bit under the weather. We did, however, in the quest of crazyness find a cute little snack bar and grabbed dinner of ham and cheese sandwiches and our first Italian gelato! It's easy to get over your aversion to eating flavors that don't match well if you don't speak the language and the gelato flavors are not marked. I ended up getting Crema, which was like a lemon cream flavored gelato (Danielle compared it to eating lemon poundcake batter and I totally agree) and a chocolate peanut butter one. They were both amazing. I can't wait to get my Vatican film developed, I'm excited about it already. Although it is all of 8:40, I feel like I have walked the length of Rome today and I'm completely exhausted, so I'm going to go shower and get ready for bed. Tomorrow is my first class, so I shall let you know how it goes!

1 down, 6 to go

Fresco outside the building that has been there forever!

Pope Bento Pio IX or something... I forgot his name, we were in a hurry

Amazing stolen pagan column! Blurry because I was trying to not use my flash.

Today we spent hours and hours filling out paper work for our permission to reside here, which doesn't even matter because we will be gone by the time the Italian post office gets around to caring about us being here. Boo.

Tonight we went to this amazing church, though. The Church of St. Lawrence, which is one of the 7 great basilicas of Rome. There were catacombs and this amazing fresco outside that had been up forever. There aren't many pictures today because today I started shooting film!!! I took a roll of black and white CN and very much enjoyed myself. However, about 5 pictures I don't think will come out because my settings got changed without my paying attention. This church was absolutely amazing. And it smelled awesome because there were flowers everywhere, all around the church. We went by the graveyard, but it was closed for the evening. Then we went to this little pizzeria which is apparently like a famous place. Don't know, but the proscuitto and mushroom pizza was really good. The appetizers were better though. We had supli, which is a little fried ball of rice with sauce and cheese (out of this world) a fried crab claw, fried swordfish and a pumpkin flower (which was vile because it had an anchovy it in.) I tried. I hated. I moved on. Then we took the bus back to the apartment. And there were Italian Deaf people on the bus! I eavesdropped something fierce. Even understood a little of it. I still have no idea how to get back to my apartment from the Metro/bus stop though. I may give up soon. K. That is all for tonight. Tired, but love you all.

Ready to be jealous? This is the view from the top of my school- the Spanish steps is right below the obelisk there. This was, however, probably the only time I will get to see this view as the top of the Wine Academy is a ritzy restaurant.

This was a building outside of the International Wine Academy. I'm in love with the rooftop gardens in Italy! I need to befriend someone who has one!

This statue was in the crazy museum/bar that we went to this afternoon. This statue was literally about 10 feet tall and towering over one of the tables at the restaurant.

Another statue from the museum/bar. This one was a bit less intimidating though.

This was just a shot of building that I thought was amazing. You'd think so too, I promise.

Another amazing old building- they're EVERYWHERE!
We walked into this amazing church really briefly today and even though they had redone most of the church, they left a few things untouched so that you could see what they looked like hundreds of years ago. HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO!!!! Anyway, hundred year old column, right here.

This was the center of the alter when you went inside the church.

The Pantheon! You have no idea how big this beast is until you're actually standing in front of it. Totally gigantic.

Back of the Pantheon, complete with amazed tourists and unimpressed Italians.

Ruins outside the back of the Pantheon. I really wanted to jump down and try to steal a piece, but somehow I felt that the Italians would frown upon it. Especially their heavily armed Police men.

More ruins!

This was one of the older walls from the Pantheon, again, it's all at the back now.

This is a mini obelisk on top of an Elephant!!! It was outside of a building that the director of the program casually drops into conversation "has an original Michelangelo inside".


Moon rising over building. This is totally a me & Justin picture.

I caught my first view of the Colosso tonight as we were walking to the Metro. I can't wait to go back in the day and find my pickpocketing gladiator!

This is the crazy ghetto train we rode to the main Metro Termini on. Rest assured, the normal metro route we ride on is way prettier than this.

Okay, now that you've seen the pictures and you're probably confused about the course of the day, let me back up and start at last night. Last night we went to the most amazing Italian dinner ever, although it did take one metro and two buses to get there. We had a four course Italian meal. The first was bruschetta (bru-sket-ta [they yell at you if you say it like it's written]) with quatro formaggio, artichokes, olives, or tomatoes. That was followed by a pasta plate with three different kinds of pasta on it: tomato and pesto sauce which was the house speciality, carbonara, and a sausage cream sauce. This was followed by the main course which was veal and proscuitto cooked with sage in a wine sauce with a side of French fries and a salad and all of this was followed by the greatest Tiramisu I've ever eaten. Amazing. And the walk to the restaurant was really pretty and took us to the Piazza Navona which has this amazing fountain designed by Bernini. I also found people on the bus back to the apartment who also want to go on the Angels & Demons tour with me! We had a going away party for Skylar, and even though she was only here one night, we shall miss her greatly!

The next morning, Paul (the director of the program who we met the previous evening for dinner) came by the apartment to pick us up and we went to the post office to get our applications for our Permesso di Siggiorno (I have no idea if that's spelled correctly) . It's our permanent residence permission. Then, we walked through the open air market briefly and went to a bar. Bar does not mean the same theing as in America. Here, a bar is like a coffee shop where most people go to get their morning Cappuccino and pastry. We were no exceptions. Put American espresso to shame, I'll tell you that much. I also got a lemon filled croissant-like pastry which was absolutely amazing! We went to go see the new school after that by jumping onto the metro. The classes take place at the International Wine Academy, which is gorgeous! We climbed to the very top of that building (my legs were this close to giving out on me, people!) and got to see the amazing view from the ritzy restaurant that we will never be able to afford. Then, we had an orientation meeting and learned a couple of nifty Italian phrases. I can now ask for a calling card to call the United States!

For lunch we went to a nearby sandwich shop and I got a proscuitto and spinach sandwich (meh) and then we went back to the school to meet one of the professors who will be teaching drawing. I've been debating all night whether or not I want to join up with the drawing class. I've never considered taking a drawing class in my life, and quite honestly, I'm afraid that if I do I'll want to triple major and change the art history minor into a major since drawing is the only thing that's holding me back. And that would be no good for anyone. No one needs to see what I would be like with additional stress. We went to the most amazing bar after that. It was partially a museum, partially a restaurant and partially a bar. The artist Canova used to have his studio in this building and so we got to see plaster moldings of a lot of his work and we discussed the hidden propaganda meanings. Very intellectual afternoon. We also drank hot chocolate that tasted like a melted Hershey's bar.

After the bar, we went to get art supplies for the art students. I totally lucked out and got some of the extra supplies that got purchased in case I decided to join the drawing class after all. I'm now the proud owner of a charcoal pencil and a set of watercolors. The director then stranded us with the intent to make us find our own way back to the Metro and home. We took the extended version and went to a Pub before we walked down to the Colosseum to catch the metro. It was only when we were waiting for the train that we realized we had come to the wrong metro line which was what led us to the main terminal to switch. Rush hour is crazy here, our entire group couldn't fit on to one metro car with all the people that were already on it, so we split up but both parties made it home safely. Tonight was totally an early night. It's 11:00 here and I've been up about an hour longer than anyone else. We're all still jet lagged and cranky. Hopefully that will change soon! Tomorrow I'm taking out the real cameras which means that there's a very good chance that this blog may actually be reduced down to the one picture a day that was promised! Miss you all, more as soon as I've got something else to say!

That tickles...

My and Stacey's bedroom (yes, my bed is totally the one that's already messed up)

Monks we saw at the airport! Blurry because I didn't want them to know

One of the views from the balcony of the apartment

Awesome Italian Fanta! No artificial flavors or colors and at least 12% juice! (At least I think that's what the label says)

The Roomies! From left to right Danielle, Stacey, Christina, Hayley and Lindsey

Another view from the balcony!

The elevator we discovered after we had already hauled one load of luggage up to the third (which is secretly the fourth) floor

A view of the dining/ living room. It's gigantic.

The kitchen. This is yesterday before we went shopping and it was actually clean

A view down the street

Today is internet day! We have a visitor in the form of one of the girls who did this program last spring and she set up all of our computers so that we can get WiFi in the apartment now!!! Woot! This morning we went open marketing and got bread and wine and cheese as well as oranges that were supposed to be red, but we discovered that they were not. Liars. We also discovered from people not excited about our lack of Italian speaking skills that the word "ignorant" in Italian sounds shockingly like the American one. Weird. Most importantly, though, a creepy Italian fish monger asked us if we "liked his fish". No, we did not.

The last couple members of our group arrived today as well so we're all here and we're going out to dinner with the director of the program tonight. It is raining again today so we are rather enjoying staying inside and having a computer day; we have all greatly missed technology, which is strange, seeing as how we've only been away from it for a short while. The creepy guy who kept looking at my computer yesterday while I was writing my blog then was also looking at porn while at the Internet Pointe, though, so I think that was an experience that we all wanted to avoid.

We are also enjoying learning fun phrases in everyone's Italian phrase books, the general consensus is that the favorite phrase is "that tickles". Why that was important enough to be in a phrase book is completely beyond me.

It is still crazy cold here, and I don't think it's stopped raining for more than a few minutes since we got here- that made grocery shopping so much more fun, let me tell you.

There's a rumor that tomorrow is shopping day, so I shall keep you posted!

Greetings From Roma!

After a mere 8 hour plane trip across the ocean (surrounded by small children), following the 3 1/2 hour plane trip across the country(surrounded by small children and a dog), I have arrived in Rome. At the airport, I along with the two girls from the program I travelled with bartered with a cab driver and got a price comparable to what it would have been to fight the metro with all of our bags, so we took it and got to look out the windows as we got to the apartment. We have already asked the front desk about 50 questions, involving everything from wireless access to ATM location to the number of the room of the boys. We were thinking about asking them if they wanted to go out and hunt for dinner, but we got distracted by internet. It is really nice to be able to be connected to the world again, but even that has its difficulties. It took me about 8 minutes to find the @ symbol- try logging onto your email without that. @@@@@

Our apartment is really fun, it has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and marble floors. My room opens up onto its own balcony and there is a balcony outside that wraps around the rest of the apartment. Pictures soon, I promise! I brought all the necessary things to put them up now, but alas... I cannot find the USB port on this computer. I believe that all thats (I also cant find the apostrophe key- deal with it) on the agenda for tonight. That and maybe stocking the apartment with a bit of food. The two girls who are in the apartment with me so far, Danielle and Christina already went out and got a giant bottle of wine, so I feel like the essentials are covered.

Its strange that it is more difficult to get used to the constant sound of horns honking from potentially the worst drivers in the world, than it is to get used to anything else, including the man sitting next to me who is glaring at my American writing every so often. The drivers here are potentially the worst in the world. There is no such thing as following distance, turn signals or lanes. There can be three cars next to each other or seven, it just depends on the width of the road and the drivers desire to get through traffic before anyone else (It depends more on the second than the first).

That is about all I got for today although it did just start pouring rain outside so Ill have to think of something else I can do to occupy my time. Miss you all already! I shall hopefully have more exciting things to tell you tomorrow after we have orientation with the director and I have something to talk about other than the Roman keyboard. Pictures as soon as I can figure out how to put them on the computer!

I'm leaving on a jet plane....

Alright everybody, so the trip and the pictures start tomorrow! Well, maybe not the pictures, but the trip starts tomorrow! Stay tuned, I promise it will get much more interesting when I actually get to Rome.