When in Rome... do as the Egyptians do :)

So today was a long long day. I had a full day of classes (food and wines, culture and context and Italian). Sohaib and I noticed last week that our teacher always says "no." Every other word seemed to be "no" so we started counting today. In a 90 minute class period, we counted 377 "no," and I'm not even exaggerating. Scary, no?! :P

Italian is still going well. I now know how to say "my name is Alex" (Mi chiamo Alex) and "I'm American and from Chicago" (Sono Americana, di Chicago).
Then at 7 we had our viewing part of the Italian film class, which was awesome. The movie was hilarious (Oh what rascals men are by Camerini) and our teacher is definitely our favorite teacher here.

Then Julia, Grace, Megan and I went to the Egyptian dance class where we learned how to dance like an Egyptian. Apparently, when in Rome, dance as the Egyptians do. :) It's a lot of fun and, for those who are confident enough, these lessons culminate into a final show at the end of March. But for those who don't want to be in the show (most of us) we don't have to, and we can still go to the lessons (Mondays and Tuesdays). 

Other than that... I signed up for calcio (soccer) so starting next week we're gonna be playing soccer every week. I also heard we have tournaments and everything, so it should be fun! And... We're going to Barcelona this weekend, I can't wait!!! :D :D

Wine and Cheese

Dinner was amazing!!delicious lasagna!amazing pizza!! My name was at the top of a restaurant, of course I had to take a picture of it :)

Today was fun. Jenny and I got to sleep in, right in time to get ready and go to lunch (at noon). Then we went to Upim (an Italian version of Target) and after Sohaib and I went to an electronics store to get a sim card for my cell phone. So now I have a phone, finally! Calling people costs 19 cents but incoming calls are free!!
Then I had Italian class (which I love cause I really want to learn Italian and my teacher is pretty cool), and after we heard a speech from the dean of the university, then dinner and a wine and cheese party. Dinner was, for once, really good and dessert was an amazing chocolate cake!! It was a really fun time, with Jenny asking the dean (Todd Waller, who sat with us at dinner) about the Italian mob and other random things about Rome. The wine and cheese party was fun-it was an Italian speaking party so we met a lot of Italians which was great. Hopefully we'll keep hanging out with them outside of JFRC cause that would be awesome and it's a great way to learn more Italian! I was so impressed with how much English they knew, I wish I could speak Italian as well as they speak English. At least I'm fluent in English and Polish and I'm pretty good at Spanish so at least I know a few languages. Can't wait till I learn more Italian though!

Porta Portese

Last night Simone wanted to leave for Porta Portese (the biggest flee market in Rome) at 8:15 but we all complained about that being too early, so she finally agreed that 10am is fine. Of course, when Jenny and I got up (at 9:50 which of course was going to make us late-we kept pressing the snooze button) we went to check to make sure that Simone was up. She wasn't, which made us laugh cause she was the one who wanted to wake up early and leave early. Instead of leaving at 10 we ended up leaving around 11ish. Still not too bad though, cause we had a few hours to shop. So finally we left our rooms and went downstairs to get coffee to wake us up. Anna got coffee from the cafe downstairs (Rinaldo's) but they put sugar in it and since she hates sugar and her coffee, she gave it to me. I usually hate black coffee and I'll only drink coffee with cream and sugar, but this coffee was really good so I happily drank the coffee. I guess it really affected me cause I couldn't stand still later. Jenny I think was a bit hyper too cause she started singing an explorer song that her grandma taught her when she was young, so that entertained us while we waited for the bus. :) So we finally caught a bus to the flee market (the 990 was driving away just as we were getting there, so we had to wait another 20 minutes. At least it was warm out!) and walked in, expecting a big flee market, but nothing nearly as big as it was in reality. There’s sooo much shopping there. You walk and you think it’s the end, but it just keeps going and there’s really no end in sight. I didn’t even get to the end cause it’s so long. I came along just cause I heard it’s something you definitely need to experience while in Rome, and ended up getting boots that I really wanted for only 10 euro! Jenny and I wanted to go back again sometime in the near future cause there's so much to buy. Then we walked back and found a cute little restaurant where we got linner (it was around 4, so it was lunch/dinner). Most people got pizza which was absolutely delicious, but I saw that they had lasagna so I of course had to get that. Lasagna is one of my favorite dishes so when in Rome... :) The lasagna was incredible-the best lasagna that I had gotten at a restaurant in a long time. Then we walked past the Vatican and to the best gelato place ever (Old Bridge) where I got nutella and strawberry flavored gelato. It was absolutely delicious and made this already great day even better! While walking to the gelato place, Jenny started singing "Yankee Doodle" and we all joined in. Poor Joe, I think he was a bit scared of us :P He told Jenny to stop singing so loudly and she stopped singing, but she also stopped talking to him. She eventually forgave him though-I think she was too happy from the gelato to stay mad. Then, since we were pretty close to JFRC and it was still really nice out, we decided to walk back. Unfortunately I think we made a wrong turn somewhere and got a bit lost, but we found a bus and got back no problem. I can honestly say that there has not been a single day so far where it's been "ok." Every day has been pretty incredible and I can't wait for the next 3 months! I also can't wait to go to Spain next weekend. I finally get to speak Spanish in a country where everyone actually speaks Spanish and people will understand me. I keep catching myself trying to say something in Spanish since I don't know Italian, and although it occasionally works, more often than not people don't understand me. Simone and I will have a great time speaking Spanish all weekend! P.S. Kind of a random thing, but I'm reading the intro chapter for my Food and Wines class, and one sentence struck me as interesting: "Variety is also the element that immediately strikes the visitor's eye and palate." This is false. I mean, I'm sure that at restaurants and peoples' homes here in Italy there is a wide variety of flavors, but here at the JFRC the food is constantly the same. Pasta, some kind of meat and veggies, and a dessert consisting of yogurt or fruit. You can also get a salad. So the only time we actually get a variety of choices to choose from is when we go to a restaurant. I know that when I get back from Italy I won't be able to look at pasta anymore. Except for lasagna-that's special. But no spaghetti when I get back please!!!

Hadrian's Villa

So I realized that I never really mentioned my room... In all the craziness of moving in and registering and always going out, I don't spend much time in my room. It's pretty small, with bunk beds, 2 closets, 2 desks, a fridge and a sink. The walls are incredibly thin so you have to be pretty quiet cause otherwise everyone can hear everything.

Today we went to Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli. Hadrian was the emperor of a village in Italy. It was built between 118 AD and 134 AD. This imperial palace covered an are of about 300 acres and were filled with 30 of the emperor’s favorite buildings from Greece and Egypt.

Random duck :)

We came, we saw, we conquered...

These past few days have been hectic. Yesterday was the first day of classes, though it still seems surreal that we're technically here for school, and not a vacation. Then last night Ari, Simone and I started planning our trips. It was way too overwhelming to plan a few trips at a time, so we focused on Venice for Carnivale and we finally found a hostel to stay at and this morning we booked a train to Venice for February 11 (returning monday morning).

After we got all that figured out, we went off on our adventure to the Vatican. We walked there since it's only a 40 minute walk and it was quite nice out. We weren't exactly sure how to get there-we just knew that we had to walk down the hill and turn left when we hit a wall. We walked down but never hit any wall, so we just walked down the main street until we saw a wall on the right. We found the entrance and were amazed-although I've been to the Vatican before, I feel like no matter how many times you go, you'll be in awe. We took a lot of pictures and went inside as well. Although we wanted to go the museum and Sistine Chapel, we decided that we're gonna be in Rome for the next 3 months, and we really wanted to go to the Colosseum, so we did that instead. We were starving by the time we got there, so we stopped at a restaurant by there and got pizza, bruschetta and tiramisu. It was delicious and a fun experience, cause we had to order in Italian since the waitress didn't know English. I'm pretty sure that at one point we combined English-Spanish-Italian into one sentence to order food... Now we're trying to plan Barcelona for next weekend, so it'll be nice knowing the language and being able to easily order what we want.
This was a restaurant right by the Colosseum, so we went there right after. It was pretty chilly so we didn't spend too much time there, but we got good pictures and had fun, so it worked out. We also saw a cat sleeping the Colosseum. It looked pretty warm-it was sleeping on a spotlight.
Then we went and tried to find a bus. We knew we had to catch bus 81 but we couldn't find the bus stop. So we just kept walking-our motto this semester seems to be "eh, whatever. There's more to see." At one point we realized that we had walked in a circle but we ended up finding the bus stop pretty quickly and the bus came soon after. Although we took the long way to the bus stop we saw more so it was definitely worth it. So we took bus 81 and got off at the end of the line and transferred over to bus 990. While waiting for the bus we saw a gelateria and decided to get some gelato. It was incredible-it's probably one of the best gelato places I've been to so far. Then we took bus 990 and got off a block away from JFRC. Now we're planning Barcelona (I love that we can just say "let's go to Barcelona next weekend" and it's an actual possibility!).

So what happened in Assisi?

On our way to Assisi, we stopped at the Santa Maria degli Angeli church and saw sooo many people with dogs. Everywhere you looked there were dogs. We thought that maybe it was some kind of festival, and since St. Francis is important in Assisi, we thought maybe it had something to do with blessing animals. And we were right-it was the Saint Francis animal blessing ceremony. It was really cool, and they had a parade going through just a few minutes after we got there-talk about great timing!

So after spending a bit of time there, we got on the bus and headed towards Assisi. The bus was silent for most of the ride (about 3 hours plus stops) because most people were sleeping cause we had to wake up early. So when we finally got there we found out that there are millions of steps and everything's up hill. After walking up and down from our room for a day, we knew that that's a better way of working out than anything we've ever done before. And who knows, by the time we get back to Chicago we might be able to easily climb the stairs of the Hancock :)

So when we got there, we were assigned rooms and roommate. Since they ran out of the regular hotel rooms, they put a few of us (myself included) in a random small "hotel." The house was high up so we had to climb too many stairs and our legs were killing us every time we went between our room and the cafeteria. The place itself was... well, interesting. When we first got there the heat was off and the water was absolutely freezing. But we told someone about that and by the time we got back from dinner the heat was on the water was hot so we could shower without freezing. We also decided the house was haunted cause the lights kept turning off and there was a creepy staircase that led downstairs with caution tape at the top. No one really wanted to go down there, so it's still a mystery.
So other things that happened in Assisi-we went on a tour. Apparently there are 30 churches and 1000 people in Assisi. I posted pictures in an earlier post, so you can look at those. When you first drive into Assisi you can see a castle, but other than the hotel there didn't seem to be too much to see. But like I said, we went on a tour and that's when we discovered the rest of Assisi, which is beautiful.

On Monday we went to Gubbio and we had about 2 hours to walk around. Gubbio is in the northeastern part of Umbria. According to an article we got, it is the most beautiful medieval city in Europe. We saw a statue of St. Francis with a dog.

The last day we went on a 6 mile hike. Ari, Simone and I ended up walking further cause we got separated from the group, so the supposedly 6 mile hike ended up being more like 7 miles. It was really steep at some parts, and ok at others, but by the time we decided to turn around we were in so much pain. We started running down the hill because we realized that we only had 45 minutes to get to lunch, and the hike down was over an hour. Although we were in pain, our hunger won and we periodically started running towards our final destination, the hotel. We were only 15 minutes late for lunch and it was probably one of the more enjoyable lunches we'd had so far. All in all though, the hike was definitely worth it, despite the pain and absolute exhaustion after. The pictures we took were amazing and the views were incredible. Only thing I wish I had for this trip is an actual SLR digital camera so that I could take better pictures.

Random, fun quote of the weekend: "I wish that we could all be functional when we're born."