Danielle in Rome

La Befana

2010-01-06T20:39:00.000-08:00

Today, the Epiphany, marks a very special day in Italy. Not only is it the end of the Christmas season, but it also means that last night was marked by a visit from La Befana.

La Befana doll at the annual Christmas Market in Piazza Navona

In Italian folklore, La Befana is a (good) witch who delivers gifts to children in Italy on Epiphany Eve (January 5.) Naughty children better watch out though -- La Befana only gives presents to good children! The name La Befana is derived from Epifania, the Italian name for the religious festival of the Epiphany.

Legend has it that the three wise men were in search of baby Jesus, but on their journey to him they lost their way. They decided to stop at a nearby house to ask for directions, and upon knocking, an old woman holding a broom opened the door to see who was there. She was unaware of who the men were and was unable to point them in the right direction. Before they left, the three wise men asked her if she would like to join them on their journey. She declined, because she had too much housework to do.

After they left the woman felt as though she had made a mistake and decided to go and try to catch up with the kind men. After many hours of searching however, she was unable to find them. Thinking of the opportunity she had missed, the old woman stopped at every child she saw and gave them a small gift in hopes that one was the Christ child. Now, each year on Epiphany eve she sets out to look for baby Jesus, and she stops at each child's house to leave treats in the stockings of the good children and a lump of coal in the stockings of bad children.

Of course, there are many versions of this story...but it's pretty interesting, right? I had already left Italy by the time the Epiphany rolled around this year, but from what I hear, the celebration of La Befana is often more exciting to Italian children than Santa Claus (Babbo Natale in Italian.)

Traditional Christmas sweets

2010-01-05T19:52:00.000-08:00

I wrote this post while I was still in Rome, but never got around to publishing it after I got home. Even though the Christmas season is almost over, I didn't want it to go to waste :)

During our last week in Rome, my program directors provided us with some traditional Italian Christmas treats - panettone, pandoro and torrone.

Image source
Panettone is a sweet bread that is said to have originated in Milan over 500 years ago, and it is probably the most well-known dessert of the Italian Christmas season. The most traditional contain dried fruits and candied citrus. A more modern twist is a chocolate chip panettone.

Prior to my visit to Rome, I had tried traditional panettone in the United States a few times. In Rome, however, I was able to taste the chocolate chip version. I wasn't too crazy about this one for some reason -- I thought the chocolate tasted funny with the texture of the bread. I'm not the biggest fan of panettone, but I do enjoy eating a small piece of it.

Image source

Pandoro ("golden bread") is another type of sweet bread that is also traditionally eaten around Christmas and New Year's. It is usually shaped like an 8-pointed star and is dusted with powdered sugar to resemble the snowy mountain peaks of Winter.

If I had to choose between panettone and pandoro, I'd say that pandoro wins hands down. It is so delicious and it's hard to stop after eating just one piece! It is much sweeter and more spongey and soft than panettone, and the fact that it's appearance is modeled after snowy mountains doesn't hurt either!

Torrone is a sweet rectangular bar typically made of egg whites, sugar, honey and some type of nut (usually toasted almonds, pistachios or hazelnuts) that is a specialty of Sardegna. There are two types of torrone -- morbido (soft), and duro (hard). Torrone usually have a citrus flavor -- the bar pictured above is one that I bought in Rome and it tastes like orange.

I happen to love Torrone -- I prefer the citrus flavored bars to the chocolate version. They are completely addicting and just melt in your mouth...but you do have to be careful not to break a tooth on them! Even torrone morbido are a bit difficult to eat.

Buon Natale!

2009-12-25T00:46:00.000-08:00

Photo taken by me -- Christmas tree in Piazza Venezia, Rome. (Monument pictured is Il Vittoriano, in honor of Victor Emanuele, the first king of the united Italy.)

Home safely

2009-12-22T00:07:00.000-08:00

Luckily, I made it home safely on Saturday evening just before the worst of the snow hit. I really lucked out because it was starting to snow hard when the plane landed. A bunch of students in my program had their flights cancelled due to the weather, which really sucks for them...there are a couple who are actually still stuck in Rome now! Hopefully they'll all be able to get out tomorrow.

After getting a total of eight hours of sleep the two nights before I left Rome, then the two hour flight to Germany, the nine hour flight to Newark, combined with the time change...I have terrible jetlag. (To add insult to injury, my luggage was stuck in Germany for a night because it didn't make it onto my connecting flight. Luckily Lufthansa delivered it to my house on Sunday night...even though they delivered it at 11:30pm!)

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 4am and was ready to go for the day. Luckily I was able to get back to bed around 6am and sleep until 8am. At 5:30 in the evening though, I fell asleep for about an hour and a half. Hence the reason that I up now at 3am :)

I still have some things to post that I never got around to posting this semester...I will get around to that soon!

And yes, I am missing Rome. When can I go back (Mom)?!?!

Danielle at home?

2009-12-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

So today I leave Rome and head home. The ISA shuttle bus will leave at 6:45am, which is in about six hours. My flight leaves Rome at 10:10am and gets into Frankfurt two hours later. I have an hour layover, and then I will leave Frankfurt at 1:15pm and arrive in Newark at 4:20pm. If only the flight from Frankfurt to Newark was three hours as the times suggest...try nine! Not looking forward to that.

Instead of writing a post about how sad I am to be leaving Rome, I will wait until I'm home and settled because I still have a bunch of things to blog about that I never got the chance to. I'm praying that the snow storm will hold off until after I get home. It would be nice to have some snow starting to fall when I leave the airport :)

A presto!

Too fresh for my liking

2009-12-16T13:17:00.000-08:00

One of the benefits of living in Italy is the fact that the food here is extremely fresh. That's one of the things I've loved most this semester -- having access to fresh, quality food that's very inexpensive (some of the cheeses I buy here cost me the equivalent of about $2.50, and I know that if I bought the same package at home it'd definitely cost at least $6, and probably more than that.)

Today, however, freshness was taken to a whole new level when I was making an omelette for lunch. I took my carton of eggs out of the refrigerator and took an egg out, and right smack underneath it in the carton, there lay...

...a feather.

I'm all for the utmost freshness when it comes to food, but really Italy...feathers are something that I'd rather NOT see right before I'm about to chow down on a couple of eggs.

The Vatican

2009-12-15T01:53:00.000-08:00

Two weeks ago, I finally made the trip to the Vatican. I know, I've been living in Rome for almost four months and it's a little ridiculous that it took me so long to get there...but it's true what they say; when I arrived, I felt like I had an eternity here to see everything I wanted to see, but time really just flew by! Between all of my trips and activities, I feel like I didn't have nearly enough time to see everything.

Anyway, even though it took me so long to make it there, the Vatican was definitely worth the wait! I had some friends who studied in Prague this semester who visited me in Rome, so we went a few Sundays ago hoping to see the Vatican museums. What we didn't expect to see, however, was this...

That's right...we ended up making it to the Vatican too late to be able to go through the museums before they closed, but we did stumble upon the Pope giving an address from his window. No big deal or anything ;) We were able to hear his address in four languages and it was just awesome.

And just in case you're wondering...yes, he did wave at me, and only me!

After seeing his address to the crowds, my friends and I got lunch and headed back home. A couple days later, I came back on my own and was able to go through the museums and St. Peter's.

Approaching the Vatican

St. Peter's Basilica

Inside

Looking up at the dome

Bernini's baldacchino - St. Peter's tomb is right below this. (Read about the baldacchino here.)

Altar underneath the baldacchino

Bernini's Cathedra Petri (read about it here.)

Michelangelo's Pieta, one of my favorite works of art ever

When I studied this in my Art History class last year, we focused a lot on how Michelangelo was able to portray such realistic emotion in Mary's facial expression. Amazing...

Once I left the Basilica, I headed for the Vatican museums. There were a bunch of rooms of artwork that I needed to walk through before arriving at the Sistine Chapel. I took a ton of pictures in each room, but I'll only include my favorites here.

Gallery of tapestries

Ceiling of the gallery of maps

One of the many maps

Then I finally arrived at the Sistine Chapel. I was actually surprised at how small it is...I pictured it to be a huge room, but it was rather small. It was also packed with people...so maybe that had something to do with it. :) No pictures are allowed, and there are guards standing all over the place enforcing this rule...but of course, I managed to take some. I always find a way to beat the system...even if it means keeping my camera in my purse and sticking my hand in there blindly to snap the picture :)

Michelangelo's amazing work. In the middle row - the second box down from the top is "The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden." Two boxes down from that one is the famous "Creation of Adam."

Again

The Sistine Chapel is the last stop of the Vatican museums, so after I was finished taking illegal pictures, I left.

Even the staircases in the Vatican are nice...

When I got back to St. Peter's square, I felt the need to take this picture, just to prove that I was actually there and all :)

This was definitely an amazing experience -- and I was glad to have as much time as I wanted to see everything and take my time. I was also really excited that I got to see a bunch of works of art that I studied in my Art History class last year -- the baldacchino, the Cathedra Petri, the Pieta, some of the works in the Sistine Chapel, etc. It's was nice learning about these things, but it's always really exciting to get the chance to see them in person.

(If you're interested in seeing pictures of the other parts of the museums or other pictures of St. Peter's Basilica, here's a link to the album: Click here.)

Gelato making: 101

2009-12-12T02:16:00.000-08:00

Back in September, a group here on campus called the ResGrads ran a trip to a local gelateria where we were able to see how gelato is made. The ResGrads are a group of resident students who live in Rome and go to the American University, and each semester they run a bunch of trips and activities for AUR students.

They took us to Fior de Luna, the only organic gelateria in Rome. It's located in Trastevere, right off of Viale Trastevere and a short walk from Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Getting ready for the demonstration. On the left is the sugar that they mix with their cocoa powder

Tons of cocoa

Mixing the mixture together

Even though this mix wasn't actually gelato yet, we got to taste it before it went into the machine

It was delicious -- it basically tasted like very fresh chocolate syrup

Then that mixture went in to the machine to be made into gelato

While we waited for it to be finished, the owner gave us more background about gelato. Although they may seem the same, gelato and ice cream are very different. Gelato contains significantly less butterfat than ice cream, and it also has less overrun (volume.) This means that there is less air in gelato and this causes it to have a creamier, denser texture than ice cream. Gelato is also stored at a higher temperature, so it's texture is more creamy and soft, yet still firm.

Before we knew it, the chocolate gelato was ready

Yum

Another tasting was in order

The result? Heaven in a cup. The chocolate flavor was so strong and the texture was perfect...and knowing that it was organic made me feel less guilty about demolishing it (sort of.)

Some other facts about Fior de Luna...every ingredient used in making their gelato is organic, and every type of gelato is made fresh daily. They do not save gelato from the day before and serve it the next day -- they make their gelato in smaller batches so they won't have waste at the end of the day. Fior de Luna also doesn't serve their gelato in cones -- the owner said it's because ice cream cones aren't organic, and also because the cone would take away from the flavor and experience of the gelato (I've been to a few other gelaterias here who have a similar practice.)

Since the demonstration, I've been back to Fior de Luna twice, and each time was just as amazing as the first. My favorite flavor that I've tried is their arancia cioccolato (orange chocolate)...so amazing! That is perhaps my new favorite gelato flavor in general. :)

The dark side of Rome

2009-12-10T05:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a couple of my friends and I visited a place that we've heard a lot about this semester -- the crypt of Santa Maria della Concezione, a church located right near Piazza Barberini.

Many people have told me about this crypt, and they each said that it's a must-visit before I leave Rome. Yesterday my friends and I all had a free afternoon, so we headed over there to check it out. After a 1 Euro donation fee, we were allowed inside, but with strict instructions to not take pictures or videos (out of respect for the dead.)

The crypt is located underneath Santa Maria della Concezione church, which was commissioned in 1626 by Pope Urban VIII. The pope's brother, Cardinal Antonio Barberini, who was a Capuchin monk, ordered the remains of 4,000 Capuchin friars to be exhumed and transferred to the crypt. The bones were then arranged along the walls in intricate patterns, and each night the Capuchins would visit the remains to pray and reflect. Each of the friars whose remains are in the crypt were buried between 1500-1870.

The crypt itself is divided into five different rooms, each with dim lighting (the lighting fixtures are made out of bones, no less) and each room has quiet music playing. The bones are everywhere, and they are arranged very intricately -- you can tell that the displays were done very carefully and with great care. Some of the skeletons remain whole and are draped with Franciscan habits, but for the most part the individual bones are used to create designs on the walls. In each room, the main display of remains is set back and there is dirt separating it from the entranceway. In the dirt, old roses and flower petals are visible, which adds to the eeriness of whole crypt.

In the last room, a plaque is displayed in the center which reads:

"Quello che voi siete noi eravamo. Quello che noi siamo voi sarete."
("What you are now, we once were; what we are now, you will be.")

Creepy, huh? It was unreal think that all of the bones that were surrounding me were actually from real people...and so many of them! It was really interesting and impressive to see the patterns that the remains were displayed in (it was almost like artwork) but it was unnerving in a way. Even though I wasn't allowed to take pictures, here are some I found online:

Note the full child's skeleton in the middle of the ceiling:

One of the light fixtures, made out of bones:

Here you can see the dirt on the ground. It was in the dirt that old, dried up flowers were scattered:

While it was definitely a creepy place to visit, I'm glad I went -- it's one of those places that's not talked about a lot and that I feel like many people don't know about, but it's definitely worth a trip!

Images from here

How did you spend your 'Immacolata?'

2009-12-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

I spent mine with the most adorable Italian family ever! (Sorry this post is senza (without) pictures...I spent the day enjoying myself instead of worrying about taking pictures, and it felt great :)

Today is the Immaculate Conception, and since Italy is a Catholic country, today was a public holiday. Since the university was closed today, my roommate's family here in Rome invited her to go to church with them. Kristin's been saying all semester that I need to meet them, so she asked if I could come today and they said of course.

Her great-aunt and great-uncle (Lia and Roberto) came to pick us up at 10am, and we were off to church. We stopped for a cappuccino and cornetto (croissant) and then got to the church a few minutes early. Let me just say that Kristin's aunt and uncle are beyond adorable -- they have been married for 40 years and are your typical older yet still fiery Italian couple. They get frustrated with each other every once and a while and have little arguments, but you can tell they adore each other still which is molto carino(very cute.) They speak no English, which was great for Kristin and I since it gave us a chance to practice our Italian. They were very good about speaking more slowly and making hand gestures to make sure that we understand what they were talking about.

When we arrived at church, Roberto parked the car while Kristin and I walked next to Lia, who held onto each of our arms and held her umbrella up for all of us to huddle under. Lia is probably about a foot shorter than both Kristin and I, so this would have made the cutest picture :) After Lia chatted with some friends outside of the church, we went inside and mass began. The mass was in Italian, which was beautiful to hear. Afterwards, we headed back to Lia and Roberto's house in Mostacciano (still part of Rome, but about 25 minutes away from the main city center) for lunch. They live in an apartment, but it was very spacious and furnished nicely. Lia told Kristin and I to sit and watch TV while she cooked (no argument from us! :)) so we did just that.

She finished cooking in what seemed like 10 minutes, and we headed to the kitchen for what was an amazing meal. First, we had rigatoni with a simple ragu sauce and a ton of parmigiano reggiano on top...amazing. Lia's sauce was delicious. Next we had some type of meat (I'm not sure what it was, but I'm thinking it may have been pork, since it reminded me a lot of braciola.) This was followed by the best cauliflower I have ever eaten -- normally, I don't eat cauliflower, but since Lia cooked it, I took it anyway and was planning on eating it even if I didn't like it because I didn't want to be rude (one thing I learned quickly after arriving in Italy is that not eating what's given to you is a big no-no.) Anyway, I ended up not having to worry because it was delicious! She cooked it until it was very soft, then served it cold with white vinegar. Vinegar was the only ingredient I could taste on it, but oh man, was it good! I definitely want to try to make this at home. After the cauliflower we had bruschetta -- toasted bread topped with olive oil and peperoni (in Italian, peperoni means peppers while salame piccante is the typical 'pepperoni' that Americans think of.) This was followed by orange and apple slices to top off the meal.

After we finished eating we had a long conversation with Lia and Roberto about their visit to the United States a few years ago and the current healthcare system in the US compared to the one in Italy. This came up because Roberto had to go to the hospital when he was in the US, and he was surprised at how much more difficult things are there regarding healthcare. Him and Lia also asked me about my family, and when I told them I am Italian, they asked from what part of Italy. When I told them that my Dad's family is from Basilicata, they said that it is very beautiful there and were wondering why my Dad and the rest of my family have never come to Italy yet (hint, hint Mom and Dad! You're bringing me back here soon!)

Afterwards, Roberto pulled out the family photo album and showed us pictures from his and Lia's wedding :) So cute! He pointed himself out to us and said something along the lines of, "Sono la stessa adesso, ma qui ho avuto più capelli!" ("I am the same now, but here (he pointed to his wedding picture) I had more hair!")

Later we each had un caffè and a little mini peach tart while we chatted with Lia and Roberto's friend Francesca who came over to visit for a bit with her daughter Victoria. Francesca spent a summer in the United States when she was 14, and she was telling us about her experience. She stayed with a family in Iowa (of all places! haha) and she loved it even though she said there wasn't much to do or see there. She spoke very good English, which was impressive since she said she doesn't really have the opportunity to practice it much since she lives in Italy, and she is 34 now so it's been 20 years since she was in the US.

We all headed over to Roberto and Lia's daughter Alessandra's house around 4:30pm just to visit for a bit...they also have a gorgeous home. It's a townhouse, and it was very modern on the inside. Alessandra and her husband Fabio also have two adorable kids -- Ludovica, 6 and Manuele, 8. We spent some time there chatting with everyone when we could and watching television. We had a long conversation with Alessandra about the differences in the way of life in America vs. Italy because she has been curious about them ever since she visited the US a few years ago. Around 5:30pm, we said our goodbyes and Lia and Roberto dropped us back off at our apartment.

Basically I lived the dream today ;) -- I had an adorable older Italian woman cook a fabulous meal for me, I got to speak in Italian for practically the entire day and I met the sweetest, most welcoming family ever! Everything they say about Italians is so true -- when you're with them, they really do make you feel like a member of their family!

A Roman specialty from Trattoria da Bucatino

2009-12-02T11:52:00.000-08:00

Picture I stole from someone in my program who's also been to the restaurant and remembered to take a picture, unlike me :)

Many many weeks ago (this semester has flown by, that's for sure!) my roommate and I tried out a restaurant in the Testaccio area of Rome. Testaccio is a very short bus ride away from my apartment, and it is full of great restaurants, bars and clubs. A lot of young people hang out there for the nightlife.

I had heard about a restaurant called Trattoria da Bucatino, which was supposed to be a very local, non-touristy place with seriously awesome food. More importantly, it was supposed to serve an amazing bucatini all'amatriciana dish. Well, even though eating a great meal in the culinary capital of the world is SUCH a difficult, taxing job, I took on the challenge ;)

Trattoria da Bucatino was truly down-home dining...no frills, just awesome food in a family-like atmosphere. We walked in and the main room was jam packed full of people, so they brought us downstairs, which was equally crowded but luckily had more tables. Everyone was talking and laughing, and the food on everyone's tables looked so good, so we knew we had made the right decision! There was not a word of English to be heard, and menus were not given to us until we asked for them -- everyone there must be regulars because they seemed to know what they wanted without needing to reference the menu.

The restaurant is named after a type of pasta common to Lazio (the region that Rome is in) called bucatini. Bucatini is thick and looks like spaghetti, but with a hole down the center ("buco" means 'hole' in Italian.)

Photo source

As for the "all'amatriciana" portion of this pasta dish, we can thank a town in Lazio called Amatrice. It was from this town that farmers traveled to Rome with their produce and shared their way of cooking bucatini -- covered in a delicious amatriciana sauce, which is made with olive oil, guanciale (pork cheek), onions, tomatoes, chili pepper and pecorino romano cheese.

This is a classic Roman recipe that is a favorite of many here, and it can be found on almost every menu in town. At this point in time, I had not tried this dish, so I didn't know what to expect.

All I can say is that it was beyond awesome, and bucatini all'amatriciana quickly jumped towards the top of my list of favorite dishes/sauces. The restaurant's portion of pasta was hearty, and the bucatini was cooked perfectly al dente. The sauce was deliciously smoky with the bacon flavor and a bit of a kick from the pepper, and the mound of cheese put it over the top!

Sorry for the not as good as normal pictures...I left my roommate in charge of photography that night ;)

I was a happy camper ;)

I have since had bucatini all'amatriciana twice at other restaurants, and while it was good both times, neither compared to Trattoria da Bucatino's version! My roommates and I already have plans to go back once more before we leave.

We also tried Roman style chicken, which is roasted chicken covered with roasted bell peppers. It was delicious as well -- very juicy and full of flavor.

I am already looking forward to my next visit to Trattoria da Bucatino, and I am also excited to recreate bucatini all'amatriciana when I get home...this is a dish that I hadn't heard of until I came to Rome, and now it's one of my favorites!

An Italian Thanksgiving

2009-12-02T00:14:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving, ISA hosted a dinner for us here in Rome. We were all very excited about this, since we were all craving our traditional Thanksgiving foods from home!

ISA asked for volunteers to bake pumpkin pies - pumpkin is something that in Italy, is not normally eaten in sweet dishes...usually only savory. So our program leaders had to go to specialty stores to find all of the ingredients for the pies, then the students who wanted to would bake them. My roommates and I volunteered to do this, and a couple days before dinner I stopped by the office to pick up the ingredients. They labeled everything in Italian and provided the English translation as well :)

My two roommates and I got to work -- Jen made the crust and Landon and I made the filling. Landon was proud of it!

When the pie was cooled, I put some finishing touches on it ;)

The dinner was held in a big common room in an apartment not far from mine. When we got there, we were ready to eat!

The caterers set up a mountain of plates on the buffet table

Food!

Caterers carving the turkey

My plate -- stuffed vegetables (red pepper, zucchini and eggplant), mashed potatoes, bread and sausage polenta. I don't like turkey...I know, how un-American of me!

Dinner in full swing

Pie makers!

With our adorable caterers! They ate the pumpkin pie we made and loved it :)

My friends and I with the ISA staff (Mattea, Vera, Laura, Andrea and Jessica)! They are seriously awesome and I love them! (Back row: me, Mattea, Vera, Laura, Andrea, Kristin and Jessica. Bottom: Courtney, Sarah, Ana and Landon.)

My friends and I had a great time at dinner! It was nice to have some Thanksgiving food, and I was impressed with ISA's ability to find turkey here -- it's not that common in Italy. Still though, nothing compares to Thanksgiving food from home, but this was the next best thing :)

Jagged vs. Lagged or, English is Strange

2009-11-30T08:59:00.000-08:00

Reading this gives me a whole new perspective to learning languages. I thought Italian was difficult to learn, but now I'm thinking that English may be even harder! It's so funny to see this because it includes so many things that we as English speakers don't think twice about.

*I didn't write this ;) I wish I could say I did!

-----------------------------------------------------------

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

P.S. - Why doesn’t “Buick” rhyme with “quick?"

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this...

There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is “UP.”

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.

When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.

When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dry UP.

One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so……….. it is time to shut UP…..!

Arezzo

2009-11-29T06:03:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, 11/21, after our two awesome days in Florence, we woke up early, had a quick breakfast in the hotel, then boarded the bus for our trip to Arezzo.

The ride from Florence to Arezzo was very short and before we knew it we had arrived. We all walked to the center of town and met up with our tour guides...who were also very awesome! Either I have had the best luck with tour guides this semester, or ISA just picks really awesome ones ;)

Arezzo is a very small, quaint Tuscan town. It is well known by many because it is the place where Roberto Benigni's famous film "La Vita è Bella" (life is beautiful) was filmed in 1997. (Have you seen this movie? I hope so...if not, you had better go see it! It's amazing and is a true classic.)

Anyway, back to the tour! We began at San Pietro Maggiore

This church was very pretty

Gorgeous stained glass

The steps of the church (these were used in a scene in "La Vita è Bella")

Our walk took us down some narrow streets

The Medici family coat of arms

Piazza Grande

Just a cute little Italian woman making fresh pasta on the side of the piazza...no big deal or anything...

Another "La Vita è Bella" landmark...the library that was seen in the film

This is posted on its door now

We did more walking and saw a lot of great things, but some of them weren't allowed to be photographed. I spent a lot of the time mesmerized by our tour guide...I don't think I will ever stop raving about how great all of them were!

After our tours were finished we were all free to go have lunch before we left. My friends and I picked a little trattoria not far from where our tour began, and it proved to be a great choice. The food was awesome, the workers were very friendly, and most importantly...it was pretty inexpensive ;)

I had ravioli with truffle cream sauce. Tuscany is known for its truffle mushrooms, and just like last time I was there, I knew I had to have a dish that had them!

We had time after lunch to relax and walk around, so we continued to explore on our own. I thought this shop was cute

We decided to go to a park that our tour guide told us about but that wasn't a stop on our tour...

Central Park?...Nah...just Tuscany!

These two ladies were talking and laughing for a long time and seemed to be the best of friends...so cute!

We walked further up the hill to the top overlook area of the park...great view!

Crazy manes of curly hair staring off into the distance

Right before we left to head back to the bus, I spotted this older couple walking through the park (and creepily took a picture of them)...Adorable :)

And that was the end of my Tuscan weekend! I loved this trip so much...Florence was amazing and I was so glad that I got to see all of the amazing works of art there. And Arezzo was gorgeous...I am a huge fan of the small, quiet towns so I was glad that we got to spend a few hours there :)

Buon giorno del ringraziamento!

2009-11-26T08:51:00.000-08:00

Or, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone has a great day today and eats lots of delicious food for me. Even though ISA gives us a Thanksgiving dinner (complete with pumpkin pies that we all baked!) it still won't be the same as the family's cooking.

This year I am thankful for my family (as always!), my friends (old and new...especially the ones I've met this semester), my health, and of course, the amazing experience that I've been given to live and study in Italy for a semester. Sometimes I still can't believe that I'm lucky enough to experience this...it's definitely something that I will never forget. :)

Florence

2009-11-24T14:23:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, ISA took us to Florence and Arezzo. We left on Friday morning and spent a few hours on the bus, stopped for lunch, then spent another 45 minutes traveling before we made it to Florence.

Albergo Firenze, our hotel, was in a great location -- right in the center of the city. We all brought our stuff to the hotel, then met downstairs a half hour later for our first tour of the trip.

My group had a fabulous tour guide...I wish I remembered her name -- she was so knowledgeable. Our first main stop was Piazza Della Repubblica, which is complete with a merry-go-round. :) The merry-go-round was originally only put there for an event that was going on, but it stuck and now it remains there permanently

Next we saw the Duomo area...look at all of these amazing, historical buildings all in the same picture!

Giotto’s Campanile

The Baptistery

Peek at the Duomo

La Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore

Inside

Brunelleschi's work on the dome ceiling

Il Palazzo Medici

My roomie and I waiting in line to get into the Galleria Dell'Academia to see Michelangelo's David statue

Highly illegal picture of the David statue

After our time seeing the statue, we went to check out the leather market. Florence is known for its leather, and there is a huge market that sells everything from leather purses to jackets to boots. I didn't end up buying anything from the market, but later in the weekend I did buy a small leather purse from a street vendor.

Me, Sarah, Kristin, Courtney and Ana. Funny story -- everyone in this picture except for Kristin goes to the same school as me and we are all in the same grade...but none of us knew each other until this semester! And now we're best friends :) At least we will all have each other at home to reminisce about this semester with...that way we don't bore our other friends from home who aren't here!

We ate dinner the first night at a restaurant called Yellow Bar. My friend Courtney's friend studied in Florence last year and recommended it to us...it sounded touristy to me, but it wasn't. It was really good -- a very lively atmosphere with inexpensive, great Florentine food! It's known as being a popular hangout for young people (because Florence has so many college students). I had green and orange pasta with cream, ham and mushrooms....mmm

My table and I also shared Bistecca alla Fiorentina, one of the signature dishes of Florence. Basically, it's a HUGE piece of steak (it's always shared -- my table of 7 shared one order and we had some left over) that's cooked very rare and seasoned simply with salt, pepper and olive oil. I am not a steak eater, but I knew I had to try some...and it was actually very delicious! Nevermind the fact that it was practically still "moo-ing" at me from the plate (I've never seen meat that was so rare) but I did enjoy it. We all better have -- since it's such a huge piece of steak, it cost 39 euros ($58)...but we split it so it ended up being cheap per person

For dessert, we were told that we must try the restaurant's signature dish -- cream puffs topped with melted chocolate. They were amazing!

The next morning, we met our tour guide in Piazza della Signora

This is where MIchelangelo's David statue used to stand. Since it is now in the Galleria dell'Academia, they've placed a fake David statue in its place (it is practically identical)

Our guide took us to this statue of a wild boar. They say that if you rub the nose, it ensures your return to Florence someday. So of course, I did it!

Next she took us to the Ponte Vecchio ("Old Bridge"), which boasts the best view of the city and the Arno River

View from inside the Uffizi Museum

You are not allowed to take pictures inside this museum, but here are pictures that I found online of some of the things that I saw. The Uffizi houses a ton of classic works of art, from Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus"...

Photo source

to Botticelli's "Primavera"...

Photo source

...Giotto's "Madonna in Maestà"...

Photo source

...and many, many more! I particularly enjoyed the visit to the Uffizi because I took Art History back at TCNJ and I LOVED the class so much, and many of the things we studied are in this museum and in other parts of Florence.

After the museum visit, we were all starving, so we headed out to find a little trattoria that Courtney's guide book said has a great, inexpensive lunch. Trattoria Bordino was tucked down a little side street right off the Ponte Vecchio, and it was very homey on the inside

Again, no food pictures! I'm slacking, I know. We got a two-course lunch for only 7 euros...I had Riso al Burro, which is rice with butter and cheese, and then a dish that I can't remember the name of (it was similar to beef stew -- pieces of beef with potatoes and peas in a thick sauce.) I don't know what got into me because I'm usually not the best with trying new foods, but with the exception of the peas, I really enjoyed this dish.

After lunch we went to Biboli Gardens (view from the garden entrance)

View from the top of the stairs

Then we climbed to the top of a little lookout area for the best look at the countryside from the gardens

It became a joke on this trip that out of all of us, Sarah is the only one who doesn't have curly hair, which rarely ever happens since curly hair is more uncommon than straight. So Sarah snapped this picture of the rest of us :)

On our walk down from the top, we saw a tree with a ton of leaves below it, so naturally, we had to stop and take pictures

Then we walked back over the Ponte Vecchio at sunset...it was so pretty

After walking around for a bit more, we got gelato from what Courtney's friend swears is the best gelateria in Florence. There are two other gelaterias that the guidebooks recommend to be the best, but this one is what "insiders" (as they say) know is truly the best in Florence. Gelateria dei Neri did not disappoint...I got half pistachio (my go-to flavor) and half chocolate/orange, which is probably the best gelato flavor I've tried to date

After our gelato we went back to the hotel and relaxed for a couple hours, then went out to dinner at Trattoria la Casalinga, a little local place off the beaten path that one of our ISA program directors told us about. He said it has amazing food and great prices, and is one of his favorite restaurants in Florence...so of course we had to check it out! He gave us perfect directions to get there, and we ate soooo well...I'm still dreaming about that meal! I got Ribollita soup, which is another Tuscan specialty. The word ribollita means "twice boiled"...this soup starts out as minestrone, then the next day it is reheated with chunks of bread and served with a big drizzle of olive oil on top. It was delicious...full of cannellini beans and vegetables

For my main course I was once again feeling surprisingly daring, so I decided to try another Tuscan specialty -- cinghiale, or wild boar. I had pappardelle al cinghiale, which is pappardelle pasta (my favorite!) with a wild boar ragu sauce. Delicious! I was proud of myself for trying something like this...I'd definitely order it again

And that was our day and a half in Florence! I really enjoyed this city a lot...it is tiny enough that you can get a good feel for it almost immediately, yet there is still so much there to see. I was so glad that ISA included all of our museum visits and tour guides in the trip for us -- it would have been a hassle to get those all figured out on our own, and I know that our guides wouldn't have been nearly as good as the ones that ISA uses. Also, we never would have found Trattoria la Casalinga if it weren't for Andrea (our ISA director)...so that in itself made the trip worth it. ;)

The next morning we woke up early and headed to our next destination...Arezzo!

Lessons in pasta

2009-11-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

Photo source
Since I've been in Italy, I've learned a lot about pasta. As you probably already know, Italians take their pasta very seriously, which is something that I'm completely okay with because I do too! I love pasta, and I don't think I could ever get sick of it...since I've been here I don't think more than three or four days has gone by where I didn't eat pasta in some form, and much to the dismay of many people back home I'm sure, not one single piece of whole wheat pasta has crossed my lips since I've been here. Yes folks, they're all about the real deal here, which means none of that whole wheat ridiculousness. Italians have clearly missed the memo about whole wheat being healthier for you, yet they're still more fit than Americans...makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Here are the most important things I've learned so far...

1. It is absolutely, 100% va bene (okay) to eat pasta daily -- in fact, this is actually encouraged. Most of the Italians I know eat pasta each day, usually for lunch.

2. When eating in a restaurant, if you get your pasta before everyone else at your table, dig in right away. (Technically this applies to not just pasta, but all foods served in restaurants, but for the sake of my list I'm including it.) When dining with some of my Italian friends a few weeks ago, they noticed me waiting for them to get their food, and they thought it was strange and encouraged me to mangia. Because Italians see food and eating as an art form, they want to ensure that food will be enjoyed properly, and eating pasta that's gotten cold while waiting for everyone else to get served is not acceptable.

3. Al dente is the only way to cook pasta here -- there's no getting around this one and there is no room for argument. The first time I ate out here and ordered a pasta dish, I was surprised for a minute at just how al dente it was cooked, but it definitely made it more enjoyable -- luckily, I've always preferred my pasta to be cooked al dente, even at home. The Italians' idea of al dente and Americans' idea of al dente is different, however...American al dente is pretty mushy compared to Italian al dente.

4. How do you know when pasta is done cooking?...Taste it! Luckily I've never known anyone who actually used the throw-the-pasta-against-the-wall method, but some people really do think that this is the proper way to tell when pasta is finished. If you told this to an Italian, they'd probably laugh in your face.

5. Spaghetti shalt not be broken in half as it enters the pot of boiling water. I don't really know why some people feel the need to do this, but it makes no sense and is completely unnecessary.

6. When dining in a restaurant, don't expect a doggy bag for your pasta (or any of your food.) This one is hard for me to get used to, since my stomach still has yet to learn how to keep up with the Italians' amazing ability to seemingly eat for hours and not get full. No matter how much I pace myself, I still get full quickly compared to Italians, yet I don't want to waste my food. I always wish I could just ask to have it wrapped up, but that wouldn't fly because Italians are all about freshness.

7. When salting your pasta water, only sale grosso will do. In Italy, this is a type of salt that is more like American sea salt, rather than table salt. I learned this the hard way last week when my Italian friends were cooking pasta for my roommates and me in our apartment and they looked at us in horror (literally) when they saw that we only had sale fino (fine, table salt...here it's only used to season food, not to cook with.) Lesson learned. (A separate post about this hilarious night will be written soon.)

8. The last, and perhaps most important thing I've learned about pasta during my time in Italy, is that I will definitely, without a doubt, be a pasta snob when I get home, and will probably scoff at American pasta for the rest of my life. To everyone who knows me...please don't take this personally when you witness it for the first time...but after living in Italy for four months, it would be kind of hard not to become picky at home. At least, that's what I'm telling myself. ;)

Also, just in case you were wondering what my favorite type of pasta is, it's Pappardelle...and if anyone decides that they would like to cook this for me when I get home (hint hint), I promise I won't scoff at it. ;)

Tuscany

2009-11-17T11:08:00.000-08:00

On November 7, a few of my friends and I headed for Tuscany -- we had signed up for a wine tasting trip that was run by our school. We met right by the school at 7am and boarded the bus, then began the three-hour drive to Tuscany.

The drive was quick -- pretty much the entire bus (myself included) slept the whole time. As the bus got closer to the vineyard, things got a bit scary because we were pretty much scaling a mountain on a road that was definitely NOT made for tour Coach buses. Luckily we made it there alive :)

We all piled off the bus and headed toward the vineyard worker, who would be our tour guide for the day. Let me just say that Le Fattorie di Donatella Cinelli Colombini is probably the most gorgeous place I have ever visited (so far! ;)) When you think of Tuscany, what images pop into your head? Probably wine, rolling hills, grapes, flowers, fruit, etc. Well, this place was definitely the 'stereotypical' view of Tuscany then! It was all I'd ever expected Tuscany to be, and much more.

Entryway

Part of the main building

Our tour guide took us up to the overlook area to show us the view of the countryside and tell us about the history of winemaking in the Toscana region

Fall was in full swing there, with the leaves changing and bright colors everywhere

A Persimmon Tree, something I had never seen before

Our guide took us out to the area where they actually make the wine. The ground was covered in grape juice and it smelled amazing in there! She showed us these big metal canisters that hold the wine as it ages. One of the canisters below holds enough wine to make 75,000 (yes, 75,000!) bottles of wine...nuts!

There were two workers there working with some wine

After giving us more information about the wine making process, our guide took us to the wine cellar

Wine in hand in the cellar ;)

Area just outside the cellar where we had our wine tasting

This vineyard only produces red wines, and these were two of the types that we learned the history of. We tried the one on the left, Cenerentola, which means Cinderella.

The interesting thing I learned about this vineyard is that it is run completely by women. When its founder Donatella decided to start creating wines, she went to a few schools in Tuscany looking for some recently graduated students to work for her. Each school told her that she could have a female student immediately, but if she wanted a male, she's have to wait 6 months to a year, because most vineyards only wanted males to work for them. Donatella didn't understand this, so she decided to take a female student to pretty much show the world that women can do what are typically men's jobs, too, and perhaps even do them better. ;) Since then, she has only taken on women workers, and the complete operation is run only by women.

After trying the two types of wine, we had a pasta making lesson from Antonio, one of the chefs who works at the restaurant on premises.

Antonio showed us how to make fresh pasta -- just mix flour, olive oil, an egg, and water together gradually, then knead the dough

Let it rest for ten minutes, then start rolling and shaping your pasta

After the demonstration, we to the restaurant right next door for dinner

My friends and me

This meal was long and leisurely, and amazingly delicious :) It definitely lasted over two hours long because of the way they spanned the dishes. During the meal, we had the chance to sample two other types of wine as well.

Antipasti

Primo piatto

Secondo

Dolce...a peach tart

After stuffing ourselves, we went outside behind the restaurant to see the view and take some pictures near the vineyard

Next we went back toward the lookout area our guide had taken us to earlier so we could take more pictures and relax until we had to get back on the bus and head back to Rome.

Lime tree

It just doesn't get much better than this

Olive tree

Olives

Grapes

My friend took this photo right before we left. It cracks me up every time because it looks like the dog is being called home! Or as my friend said, All Dogs Go to Heaven...haha ;)

And that concluded my day in Tuscany -- it was unreal! The best part was that we were able to order wine/olive oil if we wanted to, and they would ship it home for us. I may or may not have ordered two bottles of wine and a bottle of olive oil...I can't wait to dig into them when I get home in December and relive my Tuscan experience ;)

Naples

2009-11-16T11:08:00.000-08:00

On Halloween my friends and I caught an 8:30am train to Naples. A couple of us had to go to the National Archeological Museum there to take some pictures for a project for one of our classes, so we decided to make a day out of it.

To be completely honest, Naples was definitely my least favorite city that I've seen so far (yes, even though I wasn't the biggest fan of Milan, Naples was definitely worse, in my opinion.) First off, Naples is very dirty...way dirtier than New York, and not very pretty. It did have a nice view of Mount Vesuvius, but as for the city itself, I was less than impressed. It was so noisy, full of crazy traffic, there was garbage everywhere, dumpsters overflowing, etc...so gross.

However, I did like the old-town feel of the city...the streets were super narrow and the piazzas were some of the tiniest I've seen, just filled with a few shops and statues.

We started our morning with a sfogliatella and cappuccino from Pasticceria Scaturchio, a famous pastry shop in Naples. It came highly recommended from my guide book, and it did not disappoint!

Sfogliatella means "many layers/leaves" and it's a pastry with an orange/citrus flavored ricotta filling. Naples is famous for these pastries, and I can understand why...the one I tried was delicious :)

After we finished eating, we saw the Duomo

Walked down some tiny, narrow streets

Witnessed some crazy traffic

And finally found our way to the National Museum

I'll spare you most of the pictures I took inside the museum since they were for my class, but here's a few...

Pan & Daphne

Puppies

Sucks to be this person

Crazy big statue

Cute

Ana & I representing TCNJ (our mascot is the Lion)

Inside one of the gorgeous rooms in the museum

After the museum, we walked around the city more for a couple more hours, then had dinner before we left. Since we were in Naples, we had to have pizza...Naples was the home of the very first pizza, and it is still said to have the best pizza in all of Italy.

Because of that, I am not ashamed to say that we each finished one whole pizza on our own...yes, they were that good!

After dinner we headed back to the train station and hung around while waiting for our train home. Overall, it was a good day...I'm glad that I got to see and experience Naples (and taste its amazing pizza!) but it is definitely a place that I am not dying to go back to. My guide book referred to the city as a place that "you'll either love or hate" and while I think that 'hate' is a strong word, I'd say that description was pretty accurate for how we all felt about it.

Fall break: wrap-up

2009-11-13T09:10:00.000-08:00

My last post ended right before we saw the changing of the guard at the Prague castle. We hadn't planned on going there to specifically see this, but it just so happened to be right on the hour when we arrived at the gates.

Inside the gates

St. Vitus Cathedral

Gorgeous inside

After leaving the castle area, we headed back towards the Charles Bridge. On our way, we passed some modern artwork...

And caught a nice view underneath the bridge before crossing

The day before we had seen signs for the Medieval Torture Museum, and we thought that may be something interesting and fun to see. So we made our way over there and bought our tickets. The museum is full of, well, medieval torture instruments! Next to each instrument is a description of how it was used, and there's also a painting or drawing of the instrument in use. I had such a good time at this museum, even though some of the instruments definitely made me squirm. Some of my favorites...

Ouch!

Double ouch

Body stretcher

After the museum we met up with my friend Deb from TCNJ who is studying in Prague this semester. She took us to a few places near her dorm that are less touristy, which was fun. She also took us to her and her friends' favorite coffee shop, The Globe. It was very American-ized, but that was a welcome change...even though I'm studying in the country that probably has the best coffee in the world, I still miss my American coffee sometimes! Italians think that it's watery, but I think it's just right :)

The Globe got an A++ in my book not only for it's cool vibe and American coffee, but also for its desserts. I got carrot cake! And it was amazing. I didn't realize how much I missed carrot cake (one of my favorite desserts) until I saw it on the menu there. I haven't seen it on any menus in Italy or anywhere else I've been, so it was pretty much a given that I was going to order it. :) After the Globe we walked around a bit more and snapped some pictures with the pretty view of the Charles bridge and Prague Castle in the background...

Me & Deb

We hung around until it got dark and then took some more pictures :)

I love the castle

Me and Deb by night :)

After taking pictures, we headed back to Old Town Square and had dinner before going to a pub with Deb to try a glass of Pilsner Beer...one of the beers that Prague is apparently known for. I don't really like beer, but the Pilsner was actually very good, and tasted a lot "fresher" than American beers, if that makes any sense.

Perhaps the best part of Prague is the fact that everything is so CHEAP! Even though the Crown (Prague's currency) is soooo confusing to have to deal with because it's in way larger increments than dollars and Euros (1 Euro = 25 Crowns, which doesn't seem so bad, but the more things cost, the more confusing it becomes. If you have a dinner in Prague that costs the equivalent of 20 Euros (around 25 dollars), it would cost 510 Crowns!) Even though the Crown is confusing, it's worth it because the cost of meals and drinks in Prague is sooo low...one large glass of Pilsner cost the equivalent of $1.25...and our large dinner on our first night in Prague cost the equivalent of about $8.

After our beers, we walked around Old Town Square for a while then called it a night because it was pretty late. The next morning, we caught our train to Vienna, then from Vienna we took an overnight train back to Rome.

Fall break was definitely awesome -- I'm glad we got to see everything we did and we had such a great time. That being said, it was so good to be back home in Rome! Traveling is awesome, but it's nice to be able to relax and not have to worry about catching trains or planning out our itinerary out. I am still *very* impressed that being the ridiculous over-packer I am, I was able to limit myself to only bringing one backpack with me for the week. And it wasn't even a traveling backpack, just a regular school backpack...I just packed it really well. :)

We had Thursday and Friday home, then on Saturday we took a day trip to Naples...which I will blog about next!

Fall break: Prague, part 1

2009-11-11T04:51:00.000-08:00

After our train ride, we finally arrived in Prague. It was night by this point, and pouring rain. We were able to find a map at the train station, and the walk to our hotel ended up only being about 10 minutes. Our hotel was actually an apartment -- the couple that runs the place rents out small apartments to tourists. It was nice to have not only a huge bedroom, but a bathroom, corridor area, and kitchen (which went unused, but it was a nice thought :))

We went to bed not long after arriving because it was late. The next morning, we woke up early and had breakfast at the hotel, then set out to explore. Luckily we had a map that had pictures of the monuments on it, because signs like this were of no use to me ;) Czech is very confusing

The first thing we saw on our walk to Old Town Square was the Powder Tower

And after walking through some cute streets like this...

We arrived in Old Town Square, the main square in Prague

We went into the Church of St. Nicholas

I loved the chandelier inside

The Astronomical Clock is probably the most well-known sight in Old Town Square

The top has the signs of the zodiac, which indicate the location of the sun

And the bottom has an hourly procession of the 12 Apostles

Everywhere in Prague sells those wooden, painted Russian stacking dolls, and painted eggs

This shop is apparently really famous. There were pictures on the wall from a few years ago -- Bill Clinton came to the shop and was pictured with the owners...once I saw those, I left. Hah! ;)

We were headed toward the Charles Bridge, which would bring us to the other side of the city. The bridge had some great views

Prague is SO pretty!

After crossing the bridge, my roommate had to make a stop for Starbucks coffee (blasphemous after the coffee we've been drinking in Italy, but I'll give it to her...it's been sooo long since we've had Starbucks! There are none in Italy of course, but there are 6[!!] just in Prague alone.)

From there we headed to the Lennon Wall, something I was dying to see. This is basically a wall on a quiet street that is covered in John Lennon-inspired graffiti. In the 80's, a group of people would draw this graffiti on the wall, and no matter how many times authorities would cover it up, it would reappear. Because they couldn't keep up with it, they decided to allow the graffiti -- the wall is the only place in Prague where it's not illegal to draw graffiti.

Since I love the Beatles, to say that I was obsessed with this wall is an understatement...

It is so awesome, full of great lyrics and is very colorful. It makes you wish that everything written on the wall would be true!

All you need is love

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

Imagine peace and freedom

Peace within yourself will set you free

In the "a" of 'imagine'...

You can now find my mark on the wall

After I stared at the wall for a half hour and took about a zillion pictures of it (literally), we went to a street vendor and tried a popular Czech street snack...Trdelnik. Trdelnik is grilled dough topped with cinnamon sugar and walnuts...it was soooo good

Afterwards we found a little ghost museum that we walked through for a while -- it was full of posters with ghost stories from Prague's history, then downstairs there was a big room where you had to find all of the ghosts mentioned in the stories. The downstairs part was kind of cheesy, but the reading the stories upstairs was really cool, especially because I'm really into ghost stories, and it was so close to Halloween :) Before this trip, I had no idea that Prague is one of the most haunted cities.

From the museum we walked towards the upper part of town, where the Prague Castle is. The path we followed took us on a steep hill that had one of the best views of the city

Next, I'll continue with our visit to the Castle, and our last day in Prague.

Fall break: Austria wrap-up

2009-11-10T05:09:00.000-08:00

After our Sound of Music Tour, Jen and I spent the remainder of the day and evening exploring Salzburg, since we were leaving for Prague the next morning.

We were still following the trusty map that our hotel concierge gave us -- basically hitting up every marked monument. Salzburg is so tiny that it wasn't difficult to see everything.

We started the climb up the Imberg Mountain to get to Johanniskirchlein (St. John's Church), where Mozart and his sister used to frequent

Once I turned the corner and saw all of these stairs, I was wondering what could be at the top!

I'm glad I climbed them all (there were way more than are pictured above) because the view I saw was gorgeous!

After looking down on Salzburg for a while, I continued around the corner and found the Kapuzinkloster (Capuchin Abbey)...I even saw some monks walking inside

and I also found this cute little house...

I probably spent about a good 20 minutes up there just walking around, then decided to head back down. At the base of the stairs, there was a plaque dedicated to Joseph Mohr, the writer of “Silent Night." He was born in the house that the plaque is on

Next we stumbled upon St. Sebastian's Church...

...and its cemetary, which contains the Mozart family tomb.

Those were the main sights we wanted to see, so we decided to head back to Getreidegasse, the main shopping street in Old Town, and walk around before dinner. Each store on this street is required to have a hanging guild sign

We got hot chocolate because it was getting really cold outside and...just wow. All I can say is that all of the hot chocolate I've had in Europe is SO MUCH better than in the US -- it's thicker and richer...makes me scoff at the watery stuff I realize I've been drinking at home all these years ;)

We walked down and looked into some shops...this one sold handpainted eggshells. These are real eggs that have been drained and decorated...nuts!

And then I found my favorite shop of all -- Christmas in Salzburg! Anywhere that celebrates Christmas before Halloween is my kind of place

We were hungry at this point, so we decided to eat at a little place called Cafe Mozart

I got what were supposed to be baked cheese dumplings and pumpkin cabbage...well, they were definitely fried. But I can't say that it bothered me!

After dinner we decided to check out the Stein Hotel in the center of town. Our tour guide from our Sound of Music tour told us that we need to check out the lounge on top of the hotel at night -- he claimed that it has one of the best views of the city. So we decided to head over there and check it out...we took the elevator to the roof, and he was right -- the view was great!

The Salzburg fortress by night

After taking some pictures, we decided to get a ridiculously overpriced drink inside the lounge area so we could hang out and enjoy the view. The lounge was packed, but it was nice because there was music playing and it was very relaxed

We headed back to the hotel a few hours later...and the next morning we had to wake up early to catch our train to Prague. At the train station, I saw the mountains which were really pretty. Contrary to what many people think, the mountains are not in Salzburg -- they're actually pretty far away. So it was nice to at least see them!

After we boarded the train, we got to see more of the Austrian countryside on our journey to Prague. It was amazing

That train ride actually took us into Vienna, where we had to catch another train to Prague. We had a couple hours in Vienna, so we had lunch and walked around a little bit. Vienna is WAY bigger and more intimidating than Salzburg -- we got a map and were overwhelmed. I'm glad we decided to spend our time in Salzburg...it was more manageable for the timeframe we had.

We still saw a few things while there though...I wish I remembered the names of them! I'll find them. This church...

A modern art exhibit along the side of the street...

Haha

A pretty piazza outside of a museum, complete with a lake

And this really nice building, which I'm almost positive was a museum

After seeing these things we hopped on the train that would take us to Prague!

My trip to Salzburg was amazing -- it's not too hard to fall in love with that city! Everything there is so quaint and classic looking and the people were very friendly...it was definitely one of my favorite cities that I've seen so far!

Fall break: The Sound of Music tour

2009-11-09T04:58:00.000-08:00

(Click here to catch up on day 1 if you missed it!)

*There are so many pictures from The Sound of Music tour that I'm going to drag this out even further and make this a separate post :)

On our second day in Austria, we woke up bright and early for our Sound of Music Tour. After an amazing breakfast at our hotel (this was probably the best hotel breakfast I've ever had...there were so many options) we waited outside the hotel for the van to pick us up. This whole tour process couldn't have been more convenient -- when we arrived at the hotel the previous day, the concierge asked us if there were any tour we'd like to do. We told him we wanted the Sound of Music tour, and he called them up right away, reserved our spots, handed us our tickets, and told us that they'd pick us up in front of the hotel the next day at 9:20am...so easy.

Pretty soon, this pulled up...

...and it was time to go! Let me just say that our tour guide, Peter, was AWESOME. He was raised in Florida but lives in Austria now (his mother is Austrian and his father is American) so he knew a lot about the US. First of all, he was hilarious, and second of all, I was glad that he not only made this tour about The Sound of Music, but also about Salzburg in general...I definitely feel like it was a great way to see the city.

Fun fact that we learned (I actually already knew it but I'm assuming most people don't)...did you know that The Sound of Music wasn't even aired in Austria until like 8 years ago? Austrians had no idea what it was for all these years and had no idea why Americans flocked to Austria to sight-see so much. And once they did see the movie, they didn't like it because the Germans already had a documented history of the Von Trapp family and they scoffed at the movie because they thought Hollywood was just trying to cash in on the story...

The first place we went to was Leopold's Crown Palace (this is the lake that Maria and the children fell into in the film)

He also told us that when filming, one of the times they had to re-do this scene, one of the children almost drowned in the lake. Interesting tidbit!

Frohnburg Castle (front terrace used in the film as well as the back side...in the "I Have Confidence" scene)

Next was the "16 Going on 17" gazebo...they permanently locked it a few years ago after an 80-year-old woman fell and broke her hip trying to re-enact the jumping from bench to bench scene like in the movie (no kidding!)

*Movie screenshot...

On our way to see the church where Maria and the Baron got married, we made a stop along the countryside to take in the views

Mondsee Church, where the wedding was filmed

It was even more gorgeous inside

*Movie screenshot...looks the same, no?

Afterwards we went Braun Cafe, which is where our tour guide says the best apple strudel is

We started with homemade chicken soup, then finished with the strudel

He said what makes this strudel the best is the vanilla sauce...and yes, it was really good.

After this we headed back to the center of town. We saw a few other things from the movie, but I wasn't able to get pictures of them because a lot of the buildings that were used are not open to the public, and tour buses aren't allowed to stop near them. This tour was definitely worth the money in my opinion -- we got a history lesson of the movie, Salzburg, and a trip the countryside (we were about 40 minutes outside the town center) that we never would have been able to make on our own. The bus dropped us off in front of Mirabell Gardens, where a large portion of the movie was filmed.

Mirabell Palace

In the back...Mirabell Gardens

The Pegasus Fountain that Maria and the kids marched around

On the Do-Re-Mi steps

*Julie and company on the same steps

Next, I had to dance through the hedge-covered archway, just as I remembered Julie and the kids doing...

Rose garden

Patting the head of the dwarf that they all patted in the movie. This drawf was one of many in the "dwarf garden" on the upper level of Mirabell Gardens

Athletic figures at the garden entrance

*Movie shot...

And that concluded our Sound of Music tour! It was a lot of fun, and I'm so glad we did it.

In my next post, I'll wrap up my time in Austria...

Fall break: Austria, day 1

2009-11-06T07:18:00.000-08:00

On Thursday night (October 22), mere minutes after taking our last midterm of the week, my roommate Jen and I scrambled to the Roma Termini (train) station to catch our night train to Austria. Our train left Rome at 7:30pm, and I'm so glad we decided to leave on Thursday instead of Friday -- the day before, we found out that there was going to be a transportation strike in Rome on Friday, so no buses, trains or trams would be running all day. So many of our friends' travel plans got messed up because of this, so even though it was stressful to have to leave Rome straight from our midterm on Thursday, I'm so glad we decided to do that!

So we arrived at Termini and found our train...we were pleasantly surprised with the way the night trains are set up. We had a cabin for four people (two sets of bunk beds) to ourselves because no one else had booked the cabin. This was really nice because the cabins are tiny and sharing it with strangers would have been sort of awkward...so we lucked out. The way the cabins are is pretty nice -- just two sets of bunk beds, a little table area, and a sliding door that you lock, so we felt very safe.

Relaxing in the cabin

Shot of the upper bunk bed...we slept on the lower ones, but this gives you an idea of the beds. Not too bad! We had a blanket and pillow.

After a decent night's sleep, we woke up to breakfast from the train staff...two rolls and a cup of the worst coffee I've ever had. Definitely a no-frills breakfast, but it was a nice surprise since we didn't expect anything

After our train got into Vienna, we had to catch another train that would take us to Salzburg. The second train was three hours long I believe, which wasn't bad at all. I'm so glad we decided to do the night train -- it would have been miserable if we had to take a 14-hour train that wasn't overnight! We wouldn't have been able to sleep through most of the ride.

Anyway, after we got into Salzburg around 1pm, we found our hotel, which was only about a 10 minute walk from the station. Hotel Lasserhof was amazing! It was really inexpensive compared to what a hotel like it would be in the US. There were a bunch of families staying there and it was in a great location...and our bathroom had a towel warmer, which sealed the deal.

After we showered and unpacked, we made our way to Old Town to explore. Here's a view of Old Town from the bridge:

We had a map that our hotel concierge had given us, and the map had points of interest on it, so we planned on hitting as many of them as we could. Next on the list after the bridge was Augustiner-Bräu München, Austria's largest beer tavern

Beer hall

Grab a mug

...and fill it from the beer spout.

Next we saw the Mülln church, which was unfortunately closed (I still can't get over the whole siesta thing in Europe...it's so inconvenient for tourists like myself when attractions are closed for three hours in the middle of the day ;))

Then we headed into Old Town...these are the arches between Residence Square and Cathedral Square

Giant chess board

In the square...note the Salzburg fortress above me on the mountain

I had to get a giant pretzel...they sell these things everywhere in Eastern Europe

We decided to take the lift to the top of the mountain to see the fortress and the view...here's the fortress

And the view (it looks like I'm superimposed in the picture, doesn't it?)

We came back down the mountain and made the walk through Old Town back towards our hotel

We took some pictures while we were crossing back over the bridge because it was getting dark out and the lights in town looked really nice

Once we were at the hotel, we napped for about an hour because we were still tired from the lack of sleep on the train the night before, then headed to dinner around 9pm. We wanted to try out this place that our concierge recommended to us earlier:

...well, it definitely didn't disappoint! Jen had goulash, which she loved, and I had a potato pancake with spinach, cheese, bacon and tomatoes. Yum! This was the best thing I ate on our whole trip...

After dinner we went back to the hotel because it was getting late, and at this point it was pouring and freezing outside so there was no use in us going back into Old Town.

It worked out well, because the next morning we had to get up early anyway -- our Sound of Music tour was scheduled for 9:30am!

Assisi

2009-11-04T04:12:00.000-08:00

So, back on October 16th, my study abroad program took us on a day trip to Assisi, which is in the Umbria region of Italy. It was also the home of St. Francis of Assisi - go figure! :) Umbria is a rustic hill town, and it is definitely one of the most beautiful cities I've visited so far.

View of Assisi from the bus

The views were gorgeous...like right out of a movie or a painting

The Basilica of St. Francis (we got to go down and see his tomb, which is in the basement of the basilica)

We weren't allowed to take pictures on our tour inside the Basilica, but some people snuck some. Here's one that I stole from someone in my program. The frescoes on the walls were gorgeous...props to Ciambue and Giotto

Walking through town after our tour

Town center

Another gorgeous church - the Basilica of St. Clare

View near the Basilica

We finished off the day with an amazing lunch at a little trattoria we found...I had fresh pasta with truffle sauce and "ewe's milk" cheese, as the menu said. Hah! It was awesome...the Umbria region (as well as most of northern Italy) is known for their truffle mushrooms, so this dish was really fresh.

After lunch we all walked around a little more and each got a pastry from a little pasticceria (pastry shop.) I finally had my first cannoli in Italy...it was great. Shortly afterwards we got back on the bus to begin our three hour journey home...it was a great day!

Grazie, St. Anthony

2009-11-03T12:32:00.001-08:00

I just found my camera memory card reader...yay!

Trip recaps to start soon :)

Camera crisis

2009-10-31T14:59:00.001-07:00

"Dear St. Anthony, please come around. Something's been lost and can't be found."

I've been back from my fall break trip for a few days (it was AWESOME, but more on that later) and I have so many pictures to post from the past few weeks, but I misplaced my camera memory card reader. I have no idea where it went, but it definitely has to be somewhere in the apartment. Until I find it, I can't load any pictures onto my laptop, which means I don't have any pictures to post! Sad.

Hopefully I will find it soon, because I have SO many posts to catch up on. I've been having daily conversations with Saint Anthony in desperation...hopefully he will help me find it, since he is the Patron saint of "lost things."

Also, I'm hoping I have an extra "in" if you will, since I trekked all the way to Padova last month and was able to touch St. Anthony's tomb...if that's not dedication, then I don't know what is. ;)

Midterms

2009-10-20T10:08:00.001-07:00

I have four midterms between now and Thursday, so my recaps of Assisi and Perugia will have to wait. Hopefully I will be able to get them posted before I leave for Austria and the Czech Republic on Friday!

Ciao for now :)

Wow

2009-10-19T08:19:00.000-07:00

One of the art Professors here at AUR died this weekend -- he committed suicide. I didn't have him for a class or anything, but I've seen him around and a lot of my friends had him for their art classes.

All of the people I know that had him said that this is unbelievable that this happened because he seemed like such a happy, fulfilled person. I guess it just goes to show you that you never know what people are really going through...so sad.

Milan

2009-10-14T00:22:00.000-07:00

The last day of our weekend trip found us in Milan. Since it was Sunday, the city was pretty dead because most stores were closed, but there was still a decent amount of people walking around downtown which made it more fun.

I have to say that of all the places I've been to so far in Italy, Milan was my least favorite. I don't know if it was because it was a Sunday like I said, so I didn't get the full 'feel' of the real atmosphere, but Milan is not a very pretty city, and it is rather industrial and extremely urban. Not to mention, it's hard to navigate! Even with our map, Courtney and I got lost a few times because of the way the streets split and the names change.

Even still though, I would say that Milan is worth a visit, definitely. The things that are considered 'fashion' and sell for many many Euros amaze me:

The famed Via Della Spiga, aka one of the streets of the fashion mecca

Mecca street number two - Via Monte Napoleone

and number three - Via Manzoni

I passed by all of the places below in about ten minutes...I was feeling fashionably inferior at this point :)

Valentino

Dolce & Gabbana

Cavalli

Tiffany!

Fendi

Juicy

Michael Kors

Chanel

Versace

Gucci

Burberry

Dior

Louis Vuitton

Valentino

Milan loves to plant their trees in these cute little cars...very interesting.

After we walked around all of the shops and went into a few (and walked out empty handed, obviously :)) our feet were killing us but we still had about two hours until our train home to Rome left. We decided to check out the Pinacoteca di Brera museum, which wasn't far from the shopping area. We decided on this museum because it supposedly housed Carvaggio's "Dead Christ" painting which Courtney and I both studied in our Art History class back at TCNJ, and we really wanted to see it in person. However, when we got inside it wasn't there...turns out it was moved somewhere else, or into a private collection, or something like that. It was kind of a bummer, but we got over it and enjoyed looking at everything else...everything there was really nice.

After we wandered around the museum, we walked back to the train station, grabbed something to eat for dinner on the way home, and boarded our train back to Rome.

It was a great weekend, to say the least! I especially loved Bologna - it was such a lively, fun city with awesome food.:)

This week starts crunch time - midterms are next week! I had the oral portion of my Italian midterm today and it went really well, my professor was pleased with how much I've progressed. I just had to sit down with her and she would give me situations that I'd have to role play, and then she asked me some questions about my life and about my past so I could practice speaking in the past tense.

This Friday I have a day trip to Assisi with my program which I am really excited about. We're leaving early in the morning and we'll have a tour when we get there followed by free time. Saturday I have free and I will most definitely have to study for midterms because on Sunday I'm going on a trip that AUR is running to Perugia for its annual, famous chocolate festival. Needless to say, that should be an awesome trip too!

Parma and Saragna

2009-10-13T01:14:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we woke up early and took a 9am train to Parma. When we arrived we headed to the tourist office like our program director told us to, so we could get more information about transportation to il Museo del Parmigiano Reggiano, or, the Museum of Parmigiano Cheese. Yes, Italy has food museums, and they are so fun! They also have ones for prosciutto and tomatoes, but we didn't get a chance to go to those.

Anyway, the lady at the tourist office told us which bus to take, and when we got to the stop we realized that the next bus didn't come for another 45 minutes. So we waited there and it finally arrived, but after being on it for about 20 minutes, we were starting to get worried because the museum closes at 1:00pm for siesta and our bus wasn't scheduled to get there until 12:45p. Also, after a few stops, we realized that we were in the middle of freaking nowhere...

We also realized that the bus stops weren't like they are in Rome...there were extra little stops that people could get off of if need be. So our count of how many stops we needed to wait was thrown off. We were getting a little nervous, but luckily the second of the many nice people we would meet this weekend stepped into the picture. The Asian woman sitting in front of me must have heard us speaking English, and she turned around and asked us where we were going. We told her we were going to the Museum of Parmigiano Reggiano in Saragna, and it turns out that she lives there. She gave us perfect directions to the museum from the bus stop we were supposed to get off at because she "didn't want us to get lost." She also told us exactly which stop to get off, and she really tried to make sure that we understood what she was saying. She was so nice! It turns out she was originally from the Philippines, then the United States, and now she has lived in Italy for the past twenty years and her husband is Italian. So thanks to her, we found the museum perfectly, and we were able to get in before it closed. Thank God for her, because if we hadn't met her we would still be on the bus looking for the museum. :)

On our five minute walk from the bus stop

We found it!

Even though it was located in the middle of a random field...

Some tools that were used long ago when making Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

Who knew there was a patron Saint of cheesemakers?

Huge vat

Pictures of the old cheese-making process

The best part...our tasting!

It was amazing

The older lady who worked at the museum was very friendly and also spoke no English (noticing a trend for this weekend? :)) [but that was okay because it's more fun that way and gives me a chance to practice] asked me to sign the guestbook because they like to know who visited the museum. She told me to write where we study, where we're from, etc. When I said New Jersey, she seemed confused, so when I told her that it is close to New York, she liked that better, haha!

Afterwards we headed back to the town center of Saragna (which is approximately 20 feet long...okay, I kid, but not by much) and had a quick lunch before we waited for the bus back. This was when another nice person stepped in. We were taking the last bus of the day back and we were waiting by the stop for about 20 minutes. An Italian woman walked up and waited for a bit too, but she approached us and, speaking only Italian, asked us if we were waiting for the bus. I told her yes, and she motioned for us to go with her. We didn't know what she was talking about, but we decided that it had to be for a good reason so we did. Turns out there was a sign near the bus stop that we hadn't seen saying that the bus doesn't stop at the stop we were waiting at on Saturdays for some reason, but instead it picks people up at the next little stop further down the road. She brought us there and we got on the correct bus...so if it weren't for her, we'd probably still be stuck in Saragna. We have no idea what we would have done if we hadn't met her, because even though it was only 4:15pm, that was the last bus of the day back to Parma. We were lucky!

When we returned to Parma we relaxed in the main square with a pastry

Walked into another cute church

And admired Parma's most famous products which were sold in practically every store...prosciutto:

and of course, Parmigiano Reggiano

We hopped on an evening train back to Bologna, and had an awesome dinner at a little restaurant we found. This was one of the best things I've eaten so far since I've been here, even though it looks pretty disgusting. :)

Pumpkin ravioli with bacon in an aged balsamic sauce

...followed by delicious Tiramisu, which I have no picture of because I gobbled it up in about five seconds.

And that concluded our time in Bologna and Parma! We headed back to our hotel and went to bed early because once again, we had an early train to catch...this time to Milan!

Bologna

2009-10-11T15:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend my friend Courtney and I took a trip to three cities - Bologna, Parma and Milan. It was a great weekend!

On Friday we caught an 8:30am train to Bologna from Termini. The trip was three hours long, which wasn't too bad. When we arrived we got a map and set out to find our hotel. Unfortunately it started to rain just as we began our walk, but luckily for us Bologna has covered sidewalks for most of the length of the city so we only had to be out in the rain when we were crossing a street. It would have been miserable to have to walk for twenty minutes like we did in the pouring rain.

We found our hotel pretty easily and it was really nice, but it was definitely strange. It was called Casa Santangelo, and it was basically an old castle/mansion type building that had some rooms for people to stay in - felt like we were in the mansion from Clue :)

We had to enter a gate and then we found the front door...we rang the bell and a woman in regular clothes who spoke zero English started talking to us and told us to get on the elevator and go to the second floor if we were looking for the hotel. We did just that and thanked her, thinking she was another guest. But when we got upstairs and off the elevator (which was even weirder than the one in my apartment in Rome...it held a maximum of two people and had manual doors) the lady came up in the elevator herself a few minutes later. It turns out she works at the hotel, but she definitely didn't look like she did. It was such a strange 20 minutes...I know I'm in a foreign country, and I do speak some Italian, but if you're going to have someone work at a hotel in a well-known town, at least make sure they can communicate with guests. She was very nice, but she had no idea what we were saying.

Anyway though, after we got settled we headed out to explore Bologna. We found a museum near Piazza Maggiore (the main area) that had free entrance and a special modern art exhibit, so we decided to do that. The exhibit had cool photographs that were taken around Italy...

and other parts of it had other types of art, including many representations of Christ on the cross (this one was the most graphic one I've seen.)

The museum was huge, and also had tons of paintings. I really loved this one:

The architecture and decoration of the inside of the museum was gorgeous.

The best part of our time in the museum was meeting one of the workers there. He was probably in his mid-50s and didn't speak a word of English, but he told us that even though the museum was free, we needed to get a ticket so he could rip it. When we came back from getting the tickets, we had a 10 minute conversation with him about ourselves, Italy, America, etc. It sounds cheesy, but it made me feel awesome that I could actually communicate with him, considering that he spoke no English. I know I'm studying Italian and I already knew some before coming to Italy, but when you're put in a situation where you're forced to use it, it makes you realize that you know more than you give yourself credit for. It was awesome to be able to have a conversation with him in only Italian.

Anyway, after the museum, we headed back to explore Piazza Maggiore. Here I am with la Fontana di Nettuno

Basilica of San Petronio...this church was GORGEOUS, but unfortunately they were really strict with enforcing the no pictures inside rule, so I couldn't take any

After my friend Courtney and I explored a little more, we were getting hungry so we decided to get some gelato to hold us over until dinner. Her guide book talked about this little gelateria called Gelateria delle Molline, which they said is a popular student hangout. It also said it's known for its gelato served on focaccia bread. We thought that sounded interesting, so we decided to give it a shot.

Well, if they could make something more fattening, I'd like to know about it. But it was delicious. :) It's obviously not the focaccia bread you think of (with olive oil and herbs and stuff) but instead it's a sweet bread with powdered sugar on to and scoops of gelato in the middle. Oh boy, it was good.

We headed back towards our hotel then to look around the smaller piazza that was across the street from it.

Basilica di San Domenico

We were allowed take pictures inside this one...

From there we headed back to the hotel to shower and get ready for dinner that night. We went to a little place called Enoteca Divinis. We asked one of our program directors for restaurant recommendations before we left and this was one she gave us. It didn't disappoint! It was on a quiet side street and we got a nice table outside. We could definitely tell that our director had given us the place, because we were the only tourists there. The staff was really nice and the food was awesome and inexpensive.

Tagliatelle alla bolognese in Bologna...how fitting

After a long dinner, we walked around Piazza Maggiore a bit more, which is gorgeous at night, by the way:

And we saw a weird performance of some sort...I'm not really sure what it was. There were a bunch of people surrounding a group of performers in weird creepy masks that we beating drums and holding candles...? We were so confused...

Person in a weird outfit/mask

We were so confused as to what was going on, but it was interesting to watch! We headed back to our hotel after this because we were exhausted from traveling, and the next day we had to get up early to go to Parma!

Pompei

2009-10-11T14:27:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, we had to meet with the rest of our program bright and early so we could leave for Pompei. We checked out of the hotel, then boarded the bus...the trip from Sorrento took about an hour.

When we arrived we split ourselves into three tour groups (our program has around 70 people in it) and we each followed our tour guide.

A history lesson for you: Pompei was a city that was completely buried during an eruption of Mount Vesuvius that lasted for two days in AD 79. The eruption buried Pompei under 60 feet of ash, and the city was lost for nearly 1,700 years before it was rediscovered in the 1700s...ever since then, excavations have been going on to recover the city.

Here's Lino, our tour guide. He was really great!

Inside of the old theater

Painting

Brothel...looks very inviting, no?

Petrified person from the eruption

This one made me sad...poor puppy :( He was trying to get away

Some of the many things that have been recovered from the site

The still-active Mount Vesuvius

After our tours ended we had some free time for lunch, then headed back on the bus to go home to Rome. The ride was quick -- most of us slept. When we were about ten minutes from home, our bus stopped in the middle of the street and our program directors asked for a few boys to get off the bus. Everyone was confused and wondering what was going on, and we soon learned that they needed to help "move some cars." That's right...there were cars parked alongside the road that we were on and our bus couldn't fit through. So our program directors and some guys picked up some cars (they were SmartCars so they were lighter) and moved them aside so we could fit through. Apparently this is a normal occurrence?! Only in Italy! It was SO funny!

Last night in Sorrento

2009-10-07T04:24:00.001-07:00

(Wow, I am so far behind...I was away this weekend and I never got to finish recapping this trip before I left. I'm going to do one post a day now for the next few days so I can be caught up through this weekend. After this post, I will write about Pompei, which was last Sunday (10/4) then I'll start writing about this weekend.)

When we got back from Capri it was around 7pm, and we had the night free. We all went back to the hotel and showered and relaxed, then went out for dinner around 9:15.

We decided to go to a little place that some of our other friends had gone to the night before and raved about. It's called Trattoria da Emilia and it is a very authentic, local place...definitely off the beaten path so not very known by locals (our friends found out about it by asking the hotel concierge). It was right on the water and so gorgeous.

My view during dinner

This place was no frills...I loved it! Just great, homemade food. They offered house wine by the liter, so of course we took them up on that offer :)

One of my roommates and I shared the house antipasti, which was very good

The best ravioli I have EVER eaten. I'm still dreaming about it...

Homemade lemon cake...this was awesome because the Campania region of Italy is known for its lemons (to make Limoncello, etc.) so it was extra good

Despite what I ate, this place's specialty is definitely seafood. Since it's right on the water, they catch everything fresh and about 80% of the menu was seafood dishes. Since I don't like seafood I didn't order any, but some of my friends did and they said it was the best seafood they've ever had.

Me and two of my roommates

The whole group of us

View behind me...pretty lights up the mountain

After we finished dinner we walked back to the center of town and relaxed at a little outdoor bar for a bit. We each got a drink and hung out...the bar we chose was like a lounge too so there were tables outside as well as couches and stuff.

Next up...the final part of our trip...Pompei!

Capri

2009-10-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

On Saturday we got up bright and early, had a quick breakfast at the hotel, then headed to the ferry with our group to go to Capri. The ride to Capri from Sorrento was about a half hour and it went by very quickly.

Okay, so I'm not going to say a lot on this post because I think these pictures speak for themselves...but they still don't do Capri justice! It was definitely the most gorgeous place that I've been to so far!

View right off of the ferry

Boats waiting to give people tours around the island

Pretty much everyone in my program took a boat tour because our program directors recommended we do so. For 15 euros each we got a two hour ride that took us around the entire island. This boat ride was definitely one of those moments where I felt like I had to pinch myself...I kept thinking to myself "Is this really my life right now??" It was one of the best things I've done since I've been here.

Leaving the dock

On the boat

There are areas of the ocean where the water is brighter in some spots than others. That's because sunlight filters through the ocean floor (or something like that) so the water is way brighter. It was soooo pretty!

This is the famous blue grotto. It's a little cove that you can go into on a tiny row boat and inside the water is brighter (because of the filtering sunlight) but it's supposed to look extra cool because of the water contrast inside the dark cove. Unfortunately, the grotto was closed the day we were on Capri because the ocean was too rough for boats to go inside, but at least our boat driver took us right by it so we could look at it

Sofia Loren's summer house

Our boat driver stopped near the end of the ride to let us swim for a while...amazing

All of us on the boat

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the perfection that was our boat driver Antonio...amore :)

After having lunch we headed to the beach for a little while...it was a rocky beach so we sat on some huge rocks right near the water

Afterwards we decided to trek up the mountain to the center of town. After a half hour of huffing and puffing up a ton of stairs in flip flops, we made it. No wonder why Italians are so thin!

The climb was sooo worth it

We stayed up there for a little while and then had to head back to meet our group to head back to Sorrento. We took a few last pictures before we boarded the ferry...

And that was my day! For anyone who's planning a trip to Italy, you must go to Capri!

Next up...our last night in Sorrento and our day in Pompei.

Sorrento

2009-10-06T00:52:00.001-07:00

This past weekend, my program took us on a trip to Sorrento, Capri and Pompei. This was my favorite weekend so far...Sorrento and Capri were unbelievably gorgeous and Pompei's history was very cool.

On Friday morning our bus left for Sorrento. A few hours into the trip, we stopped at a rest-stop for lunch. My friend bought this afterwards to eat on the bus...what a great invention!

We got to our hotel which was very nice (Hotel Del Corso) and after we put our stuff in our rooms we set out to explore the town. The amazing smell of lemons led us into this lemoncello shop, where we saw all of these pretty bottles and the store worker gave us a sample of candy - an almond with a lemon flavored coating. I can't explain how GOOD it smelled in this store.

Afterwards we headed to a lookout area to catch a glimpse of the water. Unfortunately, it was rainy and cool on Friday, so we didn't have the best weather, but even still the views were gorgeous

We headed down a bunch of stairs that we found to get closer to the water (look at the color!)

When we were finished we went into some shops then headed back to our hotel. A little later we went to dinner at this cute place we had found earlier...it was soooo good

I had gnocchi alla sorrentina, the regional specialty dish

I also ordered roasted chicken that we shared

We had a special visitor during dinner...:)

All of us

The meal was so great and the service and staff were so friendly. We loved this restaurant so much!

After dinner we walked around a little bit to digest then went out for our first taste of limoncello. This is the regional signature drink of the area that we were in so we had to try some

The result? It was a lot stronger than we all expected, but I liked it

Then we did a wine tasting at the little bar that we were at. 10 euros got us 4 types of wine and a plate of cheese.

Two glasses of white...

Plus two glasses of red...

Made for an interesting view in front of me for people who were walking by

The wine tasting lasted a long time so we walked around a little bit when we were finished and then got gelato from the gelateria right next to our hotel. Our program directors gave us a little pamphlet before we left for the trip giving us tips of what to do and where to go, and they said this gelateria is excellent. They were definitley right! We walked in and found the walls covered in pictures of famous people who had been there (Sofia Loren was on there!)

I got the Snickers flavor and it was great, of course

Finally, to end the night, we walked back to the overlook area where we could see the water and the island of Capri not too far in the distance. I tried to take some pictures, but they didn't come out. This is the best of the bunch...Capri in the distance across the water

The next day, we went to Capri! (Coming soon)

Padova

2009-10-05T05:15:00.001-07:00

On our last day, we headed to Padova for a few hours so I could visit my friend Kristen who is studying there for the semester.

She met us at the train station, and gave us a tour of the city. We passed a huge market while we were walking...everything looked so good

Kristen being a fabulous tour guide

This is the University of Padova, where she studies. Galileo used to teach here...which gives you an idea of how old the school is

The University used to put up a plaque for each person who earned a degree, but that had to stop because there were already too many plaques...

Kristen took us to a cafe afterwards to wait for her friends so we could all go to lunch

After lunch we headed to Prato della Valle, the second largest piazza in all of Europe. It was HUGE

Finally we went to the Basilica of Saint Anthony. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but St. Anthony's body & tomb are inside of this church and I got to touch the tomb...it was pretty amazing

The trip wouldn't have been complete without some gelato...this wins the award of the second-best gelato I've had in Italy (second only to Giolitti, the most famous gelateria in Rome.) Thank you Padova...

I'm so glad we decided to make a stop in Padova, even if it was a short one. It is definitely a city that I wouldn't have made it to if it weren't for Kristen studying there, and it was great so I'm glad we went!

Venice

2009-09-30T04:45:00.000-07:00

The next part of our trip was the main city we traveled to see - Venice! We woke up early on Saturday and took the bus from our hotel to the center of the city.

The first thing we saw was a couple about to get married! I can't think of a better place.

We walked just a little bit into the center and got our first glimpse of the Grand Canal

And a goldola.

We had to walk through a maze of tiny streets

And follow some pretty ghetto signs (there were some nicer ones, but some were spray painted like this)

To find our way to Venice's two main attractions -- Ponte Rialto, it's most famous bridge...

...which offers the best view of the city

and Piazza San Marco, Venice's main square

Home of the beautiful Basilica San Marco

and a ridiculous number of too-friendly pigeons.

After relaxing for a bit and watching the goldolas go by...

(Which are way overpriced, by the way)..

We did some shopping on this street

Where they sold a ton of masks, in honor of Carnevale

Some of which were very interesting...

And others that were very cute!

We also saw wooden toy vendors

The biggest meringues I've ever laid eyes on...

And very detailed marzipan candies.

Next we headed to dinner, where I was reminded of how much I love language barriers (porky mushrooms, anyone?)...

how much I love gnocchi, especially when it's in a cheese sauce...

and how my eyes...

...are bigger than my stomach. I couldn't come close to finishing my hazelnut amaretto sundae, even though it was delicious.

We relaxed next to the canal for a little while after dinner, and soon it was time to head back to the hotel. We had an early morning ahead of us the next day.

So we caught a final glimpse of the beautiful city...

and caught the bus back to our hotel.

My review of Venice? Everyone needs to go there before they die. It is absolutely breathtaking, and contrary to popular belief, it doesn't smell (although I would think it might in July and August, when it's the hottest there.) It is so relaxing there because there aren't a ton of things to see...most of your time is spent walking and admiring the water and views.

In my opinion, the best part of visiting Venice is getting lost in the confusing, narrow streets. :)

The next post will be about our short stint in Padova before we left to come back to Rome!

Verona

2009-09-29T05:32:00.000-07:00

Long time no (real) post! My weekend trip this weekend was amazing...we hit up three cities in three days and got to see so much, including my friend Kristen, who is studying in Padova, the city we visited on Sunday.

I'm going to recap each day separately, since I took a lot of pictures (surprise, surprise :))

Bright and early on Friday morning (4:45am to be exact) my roommate Jen and I woke up and left for the Termini (train) station. Our train left at 6:50am, but we wanted to ensure that we'd catch the first bus, since buses start running at 5:30am. We got to the station, and I figured I should use the bathroom before we left...only to find out that you need to pay to use the bathroom in train stations/some public places in Italy?? I mean, it was only 0.80 euros, but I was legitimately offended haha. So of course I waited until we got on the train where I could use the on-board bathroom for free, thankyouverymuch.

Leaving Rome

After a four hour ride with a few stops in other cities, we arrived in Venice. We stayed in an outskirt of the main city, because hotels in Venice center (think on the water) are wayyy out of our meager student budgets. Out hotel was about a 15 minute walk from the train station and after we found it and checked in, we grabbed something to eat and headed back to the train station so we could head out for Verona. Verona is the city where Romeo and Juliet took place, and Jen and I really wanted to see Juliet's tomb and house, so we figured we may as well do it since it was only two hours away from Venice and we had the whole day free.

Pretty Verona

After walking for a bit from the train station, we came upon our first destination

As we walked in, we caught this hilarious sign...

There was a museum that you could walk through which led to the tomb, so we decided to do that so we could see some artwork too

The museum led us to a pretty outdoor garden

Which led us to the tomb entrance

The tomb area was pretty creepy...very cold and dark

In front of the tomb

Afterwards we headed to Juliet's house. This was a bit of a walk from the tomb, and we saw some interesting things along the way, including the best car decal ever

Almost every store/restuarant in town borrowing Shakespeare's characters

Vespas everywhere

And many piazzas

We finally got to Juliet's house, and were greeted by this statue of her

And here's the house...this the *the* balcony that Romeo courted Juliet from, according to some

Hey, Charles Dickens was here back in the day too...

Posing with the balcony in the background

All of these love notes from travelers were pinned up on the entryway to the house

That concluded our stay in Verona! We headed back to the train station to wait for our train, something we had grown accustomed to...

Next up...Venice!

First trip

2009-09-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow one of my roommates and I are off to our first weekend trip!

We're taking the train to Venice and checking into our hotel there, then taking a day trip to Verona (which was the setting of the story of Romeo and Juliet).

On Saturday we're spending the whole day in Venice, and on Sunday we're taking a short trip to Padova to have lunch with my friend from home who is studying there for the semester. Our train leaves Venice at 3pm on Sunday and we'll get back to Rome around 7pm.

It should be an awesome weekend...I will definitely have lots of pictures to share when I get home. :)

Frutta

2009-09-21T05:55:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I discovered a fresh fruit and vegetable stand near our apartment. It's a few blocks away, and basically you walk into a store that's all open on the inside except for rows and rows of tables covered with produce.

The selection was endless and I couldn't believe how cheap everything was. And if I weren't already impressed enough, I was definitely sold when I saw that they had pomegranates! They're my favorite but are usually hard to find at home, and when I do find them at home they're usually $2 each.

So I got two pomegranates, a big bunch of grapes, four plums and a bag of chopped mixed vegatables...

...for 6 euro (which is equivalent to $8.80). Amazing! And it is all sooo delicious and fresher than the fruit and veggies that they sell in the supermarkets here.

I am going to go there for all of my produce now, especially because it will save me money in the long run. And I made friends with one of the workers...he barely spoke any english but he told me that his name is Lido and asked me where I was from. When I said New Jersey, he had no idea what I was talking about, but as soon as I clarified with "America" he knew right away. Hah!

Festa Nazionale dell'Altraeconomia

2009-09-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday a new friend that I made in my drawing class invited me to go to an "organic festival" with her that was being held right here in Rome. She didn't know much about it, but she said that some of her roommates had gone a few days earlier and were still raving about it. It sounded good to me!

My roommate Kristin and I quickly left to meet Rose so we could all head over there together. Here are we are waiting for her

When she arrived we caught the number 3 bus and rode it a few stops. We got off and were unsure of exactly where to go, so we asked a local and she pointed us in the right direction. After a nice short walk, we arrived.

Our first impression of the festival was a good one, because they gave us a goodie bag as soon as we walked in!

Inside was some literature about the festival (all in Italian) and an amazing organic chocolate bar that was orange flavored. It sounds strange, but it was SO GOOD. And it is already gone...

So it turns out that this festival was not only a showcase of local organic foods, but also of organic crafts (there was a tent selling handmade decorative doormats) and energy-saving projects that are underway. Not going to lie though...the food was definitely our main objective!

Here's a view of some of the tents

This guy was cutting into a leg and selling the meat...yuck (unless you're into that kind of thing)

Cheeses!

Most of the tents were giving away free food samples...we tried cheese, organic honey on a big slice of toasted bread (this was amazing and the vendor gave us a little jar of honey for free so we will be recreating this at our apartment) and a piece of a lemon flavored cookie.

There were also vendors selling organic goodies, and since we hadn't eaten lunch that day, we took full advantage of the fact that everything was organic as well as inexpensive!

Freshly roasted corn on the cob sprinkled with salt...kind of expensive at 2,50 euro but it was sooooo worth it

Fresh bruschetta for 1,50 euro...heavenly

In addition, we also each drank a can of soda that's supposed to be better for you (not sure if I believe that, but I'll go with it) and were feeling quite full by this point. However, we soon saw this guy...

...and realized that we needed crepes!

They don't look very pretty because he folded the plates over to keep them warm, but they were amazing. The three of us split them...the one on the left has Nutella in the middle and the one on the right has strawberry jam

As an aside, crepe making is definitely an art. And I would most definitely suck at it if I attempted it.

We each bought a bag of these apples...we got all these for only 1,50 euro. That's only $2.20...and they're organic!

This festival was definitely one of the coolest things I've done since I've been here...my friends and I were literally the only non-Italians there, and it was so awesome to attend a local, non-turisty event. The location of it was kind of tucked away, and most tourists (myself included) would never find it if we weren't 'in the know' about it. My friend Rose's roommates that told her about it learned about it from one of their Italian professors.

Besides the things in Rome that you can't NOT see when you're here (the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, etc.) I'm trying my best to immerse myself in Roman culture as much as possible and attend events that few Americans go to. So the fact that this festival was full of Italians and the fact that it was about organic foods (which is something that is important to my friends and I) made it so much better!

Travel plans

2009-09-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's crunch time - time to finalize all of my travel plans for this semester! It's already getting late to plan things, so my roommates and I have been trying to get everything finished and booked.

Here's what my weekend schedule looks like so far...

9/4-9/6 - stayed in Rome

9/11-9/13 - stayed in Rome

9/18-9/20 - will probably stay in Rome

9/25-9/27 - possible trip to Padova and Venice

10/2-10/4 - Pompeii, Capri, Sorrento (included in my program)

10/9-10/11 -

10/16-10/18 - day trip to Assisi on Friday the 16th (included in my program), rest of weekend in Rome

10/23-10/25 - Fall break - 10 day trip to Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Germany, Hungary

10/30-11/1 - Fall break - 10 day trip to Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Germany, Hungary

11/6-11/8 - day trip to Tuscany for a wine tasting on Saturday the 7th, rest of weekend in Rome

11/13-11/15 - my friend Kristen is visiting me in Rome (she's studying abroad this semester in Padova, which is in northern Italy)

11/20-11/22 - Florence, Arezzo (included in my program)

11/27-11/29 -

12/4-12/6 -

12/11-12/13 -

And those are my weekends! I'm still dying to go to England and Ireland, but am still unsure if that will happen this semester. I already have a lot of traveling planned, so I'm not sure if I can squeeze anymore in, especially at the end of the semester when classes will be wrapping up and finals will be starting. If I don't, I can take comfort in the fact that I will definitely be back to Europe someday...(I threw my coin in the Trevi Fountain so I know that I will at least come back to Rome in the future :))

My classes

2009-09-16T05:48:00.000-07:00

Almost two weeks of classes are finished and I realized that I never talked about which classes I'm taking!

I started out taking a class called "Introduction to Public Relations" which would count as an elective class for my major back at home. After the first class meeting though, I quickly dropped it. In short, the professor was all over the place, and he basically told us that if we're in Rome to have fun and travel, then to drop the class because he only wanted people there who were focused. I would have been working on a huge public relations group project that spanned the whole semester in addition to an individual project, and I didn't want to do that. I know I'm here to study, but really...this is kind of my one semester to take things easy, so I had no guilt about dropping that class :)

So my schedule now is:

Elementary Italian II on Mondays and Wednesdays from 10:35am-12:00pm. This class is fun, but definitely challenging. Most of us didn't realize how rusty we are from taking Italian 101 back at home...but we have a really good professor who is pushing us without being intimidating, which I like.

My second class is European Mass Media and it's on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:40-5:05pm. This class counts as an elective for my (Communications) major, and so far I like it. My professor reminds me of a professor that I have taken a few times back at TCNJ who I absolutely love, so this class is good so far.

Next is Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome. This is the class that I switched into after dropping Public Relations. I've only had one class so far, but it seems like it's going to be really interesting. It's a History class and Classics class combined, and so far we've learned about the ancient dating system and how it works (using B.C. and A.D. in dates) and a bunch of other things about everyday life in ancient Rome.

My last class is possibly my favorite one...it's called Italian Sketchbook: Images of Rome. I never would have been able to take a class like this at home, so I am so glad that I get the chance to take it here. It's a drawing class, and each week we meet a different monument or famous area of Rome and draw something there. It's a four hour class, but I love that it's on-site so I am able to see a lot of things that I probably wouldn't get to see on my own time. My professor is adorable -- she's a tiny, older Irish woman with a heavy Irish accent (she's from Dublin but lives in Rome)...so she's also fluent in Italian. She is really laid back about drawing, and is big on individual progress in our drawings rather than giving us grades for everything. We did some sketches at our first class meeting, and tomorrow we are meeting at the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere which is gorgeous so it should be fun to just relax there and draw for a few hours. We are allowed to bring our iPods when we meet on-site, so that's an added bonus :)

So far, my classes have been great...I can't complain (especially since I dropped Public Relations.) This semester should be fun!

Italy vs. America

2009-09-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

I still have a lot to post about, but I can only post a short blog now because I have (gasp!) homework. Yes, contrary to popular belief I DO have classes to go to and I do get homework. :)

Anyway, before coming to Italy I thought I'd notice more cultural differences than I actually have so far. Assimilating into life here as been easier than I thought, but there are still a few things that I've noticed that remind me that I'm not in the USA anymore.

1. Shopping carts - they charge you to use them here. I'm not sure if this is true for all Italian supermarkets, but for mine it is. It costs 1 Euro ($1.45) to use a shopping cart, but baskets are free...so I'm sure you can guess what I use!

2. Restaurant tipping - the tip (and tax) is already included in the bill, so you only need to pay the amount on the receipt. I wish they would do this at home so we don't always have to figure out the tip.

3. Another thing about restaurants...you need to ask for the check, or else you'll be waiting around for hours. Literally. Italians treat themselves to long, relaxing meals so waiters know not to impose by asking if they should bring the check out. When you're ready to go you need to flag down the waiter and ask for the check...and in my experience even after doing that, it still takes him a good 10-15 minutes to bring it to you.

4. Drinking - Italians drink alcohol whenever they want (though drunkenness is very much frowned upon...guess my family wouldn't fit in here! Ha! ;)) I went into a bar (a bar in Italy is like a cafe in America) one afternoon around 3pm (during siesta time here) and there were a few men in suits (who clearly came from work) ordering drinks. Why can't America be like this?? Work until 2 or 3, take a three hour break, have a drink then work for a couple more hours. Clearly we're missing out at home. :)

5. Eating - Similar to alcohol, there is no such thing as an "inappropriate" time to eat certain foods. For example, on Friday my roommates and I went out exploring Rome. We were on our way to the Pantheon and it was around 10:30am...and you wouldn't believe how many Italians around us were eating gelato. Not that I have a problem with this at all of course :)...but you usually don't see people eating ice cream at home in the morning. Besides gelato...my roommate has family here in Rome, and she says that without exaggeration they eat pasta every single day. When they came to the States to visit her in New Hampshire, they brought pasta with them and cooked it each night to eat in addition to whatever they would be having for dinner.

6. Driving - oh boy, where to start with this one? This video pretty much sums it up (it's actually a really funny video so I'd watch the whole thing, but if not then just watch the first 2 minutes because those deal with driving and public transportation...definitely watch it - it explains it better than I ever could)

...Kind of reminds you of New York driving, no? ;) I can confidently say though that Italian driving is the worst/craziest I've ever seen...there have been so many times where I cringed or had to turn away because some of the encounters between cars were SO CLOSE to being accidents, but Italian drivers don't even care (or notice?!?) No horns were honked, and none of the passengers even flinched. Italian drivers also don't really care about pedestrians either... and I can definitely relate to the bus portion of the video. I feel like I am always waiting for the bus!

7. Quiet hours - by Italian law, excessive noise is not allowed between 12:30-1:00pm, 3:30-4pm and 9:30pm-8:00am the next morning. Our program leaders warned us about this numerous times when we first arrived, but what we didn't realize what how serious the residents here would actually be about it. This morning my roommates and I had a disgruntled neighbor knocking on our door complaining and we couldn't figure out what we did wrong (we are always really quiet.) Apparently when my roommate's Uncle came to pick her up yesterday to take her to his house, he accidentally rang our neighbor's doorbell instead of ours, thus interrupting her 'siesta' (this was around 3:30pm.) Whoops...

8. Electricity - In order to save energy, Italy has this awesome system in place...if you are using over the allowed limit of energy at any time in your apartment, all of your power will automatically be shut off. Great for the Earth, not so great for the people who live here! Luckily my roommates and I haven't had any problems with this so far.

9. Laundry - like I mentioned earlier, Italian washing machines take a loooong time to complete one cycle (think 2-3 hours.) They are also noisy as hell! I got scared when I did my laundry last week because I couldn't figure out what that noise I was hearing was...it sounded like a plane's engine getting ready to take off. Italians also don't use dryers, and aside from the fact that drying clothes on a line outside takes way longer, I actually like it! I noticed that my clothes smelled a lot fresher and more like laundry detergent than they do when I put them in the dryer at home.

10. Clothing/appearance - Italian women will always look better than American women, so if you're ever in Italy don't try to out-do them, because it doesn't work. :) Hah! Italians tend to dress more formally than we do at all times, so even on the hottest days where all of the American tourists were sweating like crazy and about to die of heat exhaustion even while wearing shorts and tank tops, the Italians looked calm, cool and collected in their long sleeved pants and shirts. Really. It must be a European thing...(which is my new catch-phrase for things that I don't understand here.)

Ciao!

Il parco

2009-09-10T05:50:00.000-07:00

There is a park that is a five minute walk from my apartment and a few days ago I had some time in between classes so I decided to check it out. It is HUGE, and so pretty. I had about a half hour to kill so I was only able to see about a quarter of the park...but what I did see was gorgeous. Sometime soon I'm going to head back and check out the rest. It was so quiet and peaceful -- hard to believe it's in the middle of Rome!

Fountain right when you walk in

Really cute little building near the entrance

Pond in the center

One of the many pretty plants

Long walkway

These trees are all over Rome

Stairs that lead to the second level

Flowers on the second level

This picture just screams "Italy" to me :) Reminds me of a vineyard

Single flower growing through the grass

View of AUR (my school) from the second level of the park

Self portrait right before I left

Last night's dinner

2009-09-08T01:39:00.000-07:00

Last night I cooked dinner for the roomies, and I'd say it went over rather well...

Everyone cleaned their plate

We went shopping at Sidi's, the grocery store right near our apartment that has great prices. We decided to have fresh pasta which cost only 1,10 Euro ($1.50) and we still have leftovers.

I also grilled some chicken, and my roommate Jen cut up some fresh tomatoes and mozzarella. A little pesto and parmigiano reggiano made the dish complete! We ate it with fresh bread dipped in olive oil and drank red wine that we bought at the supermarket for 4 Euro and change (about $6.50...I love how inexpensive it is here, and the fact that you can buy it at the grocery store. :))

The whole meal

Yum.

I am officially in love with fresh pasta, and never want to go back to dried again. Also, I'm going to be really sad when I go home and it's not as easy to find such great ingredients for so cheap...it's amazing the quality of food you get here for the very low price. The Italians really do eat so much better than we do!

When in Rome...

2009-09-06T13:51:00.001-07:00

...do as the Romans do. In my case, that means eat lots of gelato!

I've decided that I'm going to take a picture of each gelato cone I eat...that way when I leave Rome I can either be amazed by the sheer amount, or disgusted by it (somehow, I think the former is what I'll end up feeling :))

Anyway, on the walking tour of Rome that our program leaders took us on, I had my very first gelato. They took us to Giolotti, which they claim (along with many other people) is the best gelato to be had in Rome.

I'd say they were about right. My chocolate/hazelnut and vanilla cream combo is still my favorite gelato experience yet. :)

My roommates and I were craving more gelato a few nights later and we stumbled upon a little gelateria near our apartment...it had lots of locals standing outside eating so we knew it had to be good. The best part of it was that a cone only cost 1,50 Euro! I got caramel creme, and it was really good, although I still liked the gelato from Giolotti better.

Tonight after dinner we were once again craving some gelato (notice a trend here?) so we went back to the gelateria near our apartment. I got frutta di bosco, which is a mixed berry flavor. Well, this flavor may give Giolotti for it's money. :) It was SO good...it had the little berry seeds all mixed in and it was so fresh.

Sorry for the crappy picture

Me and two of my roommates posing with our gelati

It will be interesting to see how many times I eat gelato by the time I leave Rome!

I still have so much to post about...stay tuned for my visit to the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, my trip to the beach, and lots more! Classes start tomorrow, so my blogging time may be limited.

The best pizza I've ever tasted

2009-09-04T04:19:00.001-07:00

I've heard about Simone's Pizzeria from a student at TCNJ who studied here last semester. She told me it's the best pizza in town, and our program leaders said the same thing.

Yesterday, my roommates and I were starving after walking around the Colosseum and the Roman Forum all day, so we stopped at Simone's after we took the bus home. Conveniently (or not so conveniently for my waistline), Simone's is across the street from our apartment and is less than a five minute walk away. The place itself is teeny tiny...there's no tables inside and the aisle in front of the counter can only fit one row of people...and even that's crowded.

But my oh my, is it worth it...

They have all the pizza lined up on the counter and they cut a long rectangular slice for you. Then the heat it up, and when it's finished the fold the rectangle over to make a square and wrap it up so you can walk and eat (this type of pizza eaten on the go is called pizza rustica.) The workers were very friendly and most of the crowd inside seemed to be locals, so I could tell that everyone was not kidding when they said that this is the best pizza place in town.

I chose the pizza with the biggest, juiciest, freshest tomatoes I've ever tasted, and awesome fresh mozzarella

Yup, needless to say, this addiction is going to get me into trouble.

PS - If I can't find pizza like this in the United States when I come home, then I'm moving here. :)

First experience at the supermercato and a tour of my appartamento

2009-09-03T15:12:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have so many posts to write...I already feel like I'm behind! We've taken a lot of trips in the past few days that were included in the program so I will have to write about those soon.

First things first though - my first food shopping trip. My roommates and I talked to one of the program leaders and she told us of a good supermarket that's close to us that we should check out to buy our essentials at. It's called Sidi's, and it was about a ten minute walk away from our apartment. It had a really good selection of food and household products -- we all knew we'd be going back there soon, so we just bought a few things to tide us over until then...

I bought water bottles, a loaf of bread, two bottles of Gatorade, dish soap, Yogo bars (they're little peach flavored cake bars that are made with yogurt) and pasta (of course!)

We each bought one household item instead of buying them separately and splitting the cost because we figured that would have been too complicated. I got all of those items for about 9 Euro, which equals about 12 dollars. Not too bad at all...the pasta alone only cost 0.42 euros which equals only 0.60 cents.

Now, on to my apartment! The program guide who brought me to my apartment from the airport was telling me that a very famous Italian author used to live in the apartment building that I live in before he died. Of course I can't think of his name right now, but I will post about it later because there's a plaque on the outside of the building that says something about him. I thought that was pretty cool.

The apartment is way nicer than I thought it would be...it's very large with a lot of windows and shade. The only thing that would make it perfect would be air conditioning...but I guess I can't have everything :) In the airport the program leaders were telling me that my roommates and I definitely got the "lucky" apartment because not only is it the nicest one offered by the program, but it is also only a five minute walk from campus, and from our program's main office. Besides one other apartment which is a little further away from us, we are the only students who don't have to take the bus to campus each time we go, which is awesome. Also, our apartment is in a more quiet, residential section of Rome (in the Monteverde neighborhood)...there's lots of trees and we're surrounded by families rather than other students. Our building is also a regular Italian apartment building...we are the only students living in it.

First, my huge key...it makes me laugh every time I use it

Here's the stairway view looking down from our floor

View of our door from the inside

To the left of the door when you walk in

Hallway when you walk in the door:

Our living area

Right side of the living room...television

Our table

Left side of the living room...computer and bookcase (a lot of students who stayed here previously left their books so hopefully they will be what we need for some of our classes so we don't have to buy our own. There's also a lot of information books about Italy that were put there by the program.)

Windows in the living room

View from living room...we can totally see into people's houses and they can see into ours if they choose so that's kind of strange. But the windows have these outer metal blinds that we are supposed to close whenever we leave during the day in addition to locking the windows so we always do that.

Our balcony off of our living room (you can see the glass doors that lead to it on the right side of the living room behind the chair)

View from the corner of the balcony, looking around onto our street

Our laundry room with a washing machine (no dryer...Italians don't use dryers - they only air dry. Our program leaders also told us that the washing machines in Italy usually take about three hours to run one cycle(!!) That's going to be tons of fun when we need to do laundry...) and a second toilet

Spare room that has things like an ironing board, hampers, etc. for us to use if we need them

...other side of the spare room

My room! My bed is on the left, and my roommate Kristin's bed is on the right

Our mirror (that I am taller than) and nightstands

My bed

Our closets

Kristin's bed and our balcony

Balcony...it goes across to our other two roommates' room too (I love our clothesline!)

Balcony view

Landon and Jen's room

Our bathroom (complete with a bidet...that thing definitely won't be getting any use this semester)

Kitchen

Stove and fridge

Microwave and cooking utensils

Spices that were already in the apartment

And there you have our apartment! There's a couple of other things I didn't take pictures of...just some closets and cabinets. We have a TON of storage in this apartment...a whole wall is just cabinets to store stuff in and there are a lot of other cabinets as well. We don't really need them, but I guess if a family actually lived here they would because there are no closets.

And I thought eating was supposed to be fun

2009-09-02T03:54:00.001-07:00

Now, let me preface this post by saying that dinner last night was delicious, but we were all so jet-lagged that we were practically falling asleep at the table. We also didn't think we'd be getting so much food, so we all ate too much early and by the end of the meal, we could barely eat any of the good food they put in front of us. Any other day, this dinner would have been awesome...but the fact that we were so tired kind of made it a chore! Haha, the tough life I have here. :)

So part of our schedule from the people from ISA (the study abroad program that I'm here with) was a pizza welcome dinner. Last night they took us out to a a restaurant called Bruno's which was about a 10 minute walk from my apartment. We all thought we were getting just pizza, but we were wrong...it was a multi course meal!

I actually didn't take pictures of anything (crazy, I know...what's gotten into me??) but I was too tired to care. I'm going to try to find pictures online of what they served us though.

First they started us off with water and soda, and bread drizzled with olive oil. Afterwards came a little dish of eggplant parmigiana, which looked like this:

They they brought us a big plate with rice balls (soo good, they had marinara sauce in them), potato croquettes, and little pieces of fried dough with a mushroom in the middle. The plate looked like this:

Next was little mini panini - a spinach mixture between focaccia bread. They kind of looked like this, but they only had spinach:

One thing I noticed is that it's true what everyone says about eating in Italy...Italians definitely do take their time. Each course was left out for what seemed for a long time, and we'd be finished with it really quickly. We definitely need to learn to pace ourselves better so we can enjoy everything. Italians also eat dinner very late...the restaurant really started to fill up between 9:30 and 10:00pm.

Next they brought out a potato mixture...I wish I knew what it was called but we didn't get menus because everything was picked out for us. If I had to explain it it was like potato salad but without mayonnaise...it tasted like there was vinegar in it and the potatoes were almost shaved. They were mixed with fresh tomatoes. It sort of looked like this:

By this time we were wondering where the pizza was? After all, pizza was all we thought we'd be getting. Well now is when they brought out the pizza, and it was sooo good. It was paper thin like this:

After the pizza, we thought we were finished. We were stuffed and ready to go home. But nope...they gave us new clean plates and served us pasta. It was mixed with basil, tomatoes, olives and tuna. Needless to say, I didn't eat it (I hate seafood) but I did try a bite so I could say that I tried it haha. It was very salty...

Next was probably my favorite dish of the night, even though I ate only a couple bites of it. I can't find anything online that looks like it though -- it was a string bean lasagna. It looked like regular lasagna but without sauce -- just the noodles, whole string beans and cheese. It was soooo good.

The last thing they brought out was fresh fruit. It was a mixture of melon and other fruits...none of us ate it though because we were still so full.

So our dinner was really delicious, definitely a great way to start off the trip...but next time we'll have to go back when we're not tired...and now we know how much food they serve, so we're prepared haha. The meal was definitely a lesson in moderation...here it's not necessary to finish all the food on your plate. I am curious to see how much it cost per person though...since our program paid for it, we didn't get to see the cost.

After we were finished the program leaders gave us maps which showed us all how to get back to our apartments. This program is definitely into independence -- the leaders will tell you how to get places, but from the beginning it's been up to us to utilize the bus, taxis, and walking ourselves. My roommates and I have luckily been able to walk everywhere so far because we live only five minutes away from school, but that will change tomorrow because we all have to meet our program leaders at the Arc of Constantine at 10am so we can all take a guided tour of the Colosseum afterwards.

Twelve hours later...finally in Rome

2009-09-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

Ciao from Roma! Finally made it here after twelve long hours.

My flight was supposed to leave Newark at 5:50pm on Monday night, but the plane was late getting in so we didn't leave until around 6:30. The flight itself was really smooth and it actually went by quicker than I thought. I felt like they were constantly feeding us -- they gave us a drink, snack, dinner, drink, breakfast, and drink. And surprisingly, the food wasn't too bad. The girl sitting next to me was on her way to Israel to study there for a year. She already studied there last year, and was going back for another...she was nice, but about an hour into the flight she pulled out a bunch of Tupperwear from her bag and started eating a multi-course meal. The worst part of it was, it was tuna salad! Who does that?? Especially on a plane?? I am still wondering about that one. It made the whole cabin smell...so gross. Anyway though, the plane was a double decker plane which I have never seen before, so there were a lot of people aboard.

I didn't get a picture of my plane, but it was one of these:

Once we landed in Frankfurt, I had a three hour layover. Luckily my friend Kelly was flying with me so I had someone to talk to...we even met a few other students at the airport who are also studying abroad in Rome this semester (but are not in our program.)

The flight from Frankfurt to Italy was nice and short (only 1.5 hours.) While we flew, we were treated to views of the Swiss Alps like this:

So pretty!

The landing in was a little too rough for my liking -- as we were making our descent we went through a bunch of huge puffy clouds which caused a lot of turbulence and at one point we were kind of thrashed to the right side of the plane...not cool. Mom, you would have died of fright! Haha. It was actually kind of fun though, it felt like a rollercoaster. These two flights eased my fears of flying a lot...I think the only reason why I didn't like it before was because I didn't do it often. I still hate taking off though!

After the landing we made our way through the airport to get our luggage. I found that my main checked suitcase had a slash in the top that wasn't there before...a lot of my clothes were visible! Luckily I didn't lose anything, but my school program director who picked us up from the airport suggested that I file a complaint with Lufthansa, so I went and got the paperwork from the customer service desk and I have to call them and give them the information so they can hopefully replace the bag.

Once we had met our group, we were driven to our apartments -- my three roommates were already at mine so I met them as soon as I got there. They are really nice, and we are all getting a long really well so far.

Also, my apartment is so awesome -- it's way nicer and larger than I expected, and it's in the greener outskirts of the main part of Rome so it's very residential, which is a nice change from downtown.

I will post pictures of it tomorrow and also talk about the dinner we had tonight...I am too jet lagged to type it out now (I only got 15 minutes of sleep since Sunday night...I didn't do so well sleeping on the plane!)

Ciao, America!

2009-08-31T10:35:00.000-07:00

My flight takes off at 5:50 this evening. I'm leaving for the airport in about an hour.

I originally thought I'd be able to get away with only bringing one checked bag and one carry on bag, but...not so much. My toiletries were putting me over the weight limit, so I'm going to bring one large checked suitcase, one small checked duffle bag, and one carry on. Not too bad considering that I'll be there for 3.5 months!

Next time I write, I'll be in Rome!

Less than one week!

2009-08-26T19:36:00.000-07:00

It's getting so close! I'm leaving for Rome in five days...I can't believe how fast this summer has gone by.

I still need to finish packing, make copies of important paperwork and buy a bunch of little things before I leave.