Mid Week Update

Buona Sera Tutti,

Tonight's going to be a late night. O's going for the sweet against Boston starting at 1am my time. NFL draft starting at 2am my time. Papers to edit, blogs to write, news to catch up on. But I love every bit of it. Savoring every moment of just sitting in this couch in Rome, the clocks starting to tick and I still haven't figured out how to stop time. I don't want to leave this place.

St Theresa in Agony

This week was a good one. #Duh. I don't think I blogged about Monday yet so I'll start with that. Jess was here so I hung out with her for most of the day. She was with 13 of her students from Maryvale back home for a spring break trip. Coolest spring break ever, right? I wish Calvert Hall had done cool stuff like that. But let's not get me started on what I wish Calvert Hall had done different. SO I met them at Villa Borghese, which all you regulars should recognize by now as one of my favorite spots. That was my 5th time hanging out there for an extended period of time and I love it more and more each time. Beautiful park in the middle of Rome, that overlooks the whole city from the top of the hill. Give me a sandwich, beer and some friends and I could stay there all day. The girls rented 4-seater carts and me and Jess just hung out and walked around the park. Afterward, their tour guide took us to Santa Maria della Vittoria, a church I've been wanting to go to ever since I got here so I thrilled to finally do that. (Church from Angels & Demons) That marked the end of my A&D quest across Rome so I've finally been to every point from that book, I just didn't do it in the cool James Bond way that Robert Langdon did it. Running around screaming about antimatter would have made it more fun though. After that, did a couple more interesting churches, saw the Quirinal Palace, and then I said goodbye once we wound our way back to Piazza Venezia. Had a great time and saw lots of new stuff to check off my list! The great day-part ended on my way home when I got caught in perhaps the hardest falling rain I've seen yet. So instead of getting drenched at the tram stop I wandered into a pizzeria (in Rome your never more than 30 seconds from one) and treated myself to some food until the rain finally stopped. I guess that part wasn't too bad after all.

Tombs; only picture I could find online happened to have the Pope in it

Tuesday was my archeology on site class. We were supposed to visit a criminology laboratory but for the second week in a row, they had issues and we were forced to change plans. Luckily my teacher is incredible and was able to formulate a new plan for our 3 hour class on the go when we met at the Piramide train station at 9am. We went to Via Appia Antica. (See February blog about me getting lost.) However, this time, in daylight, with my teacher as tour guide, I actually saw the real Appia Antica and didn't get lost in a neighboring park. We saw some cool old Roman funeral monuments that were so massive they were converted into medieval forts and outposts for Rome. After that, we walked by the San Sebastian catacombs to go to a WWII memorial in tribute to the Romans that the Nazi's murdered in response to Roman resistance and attacks on Nazi convoys within the cities. The Nazi's said that they would kill 10 Romans for every 1 Nazi soldier killed by them. They took them to a quarry here on Appia Antica to do so. I thought the monument there to them was great. More than anything, it symbolized their Roman pride. Although heavily Jewish, the families of those who were killed decided to make it about them all being Roman, not religion. Furthermore, they wanted everyone buried in a mass grave together as one, not with individual tombs and grave markets. In the end, a compromise was made with the city and they were buried individually, but in the same room. I was very impressed by it and that it was an extremely good tribute to those who lost their lives during the war for Rome.

Entering in the Pope Mobile

Wednesday was the Papal Audience at St. Peters. Yes, I know I was just there Sunday for Easter but this is just a holy week for me I guess. Arrived a bit before 10am, got a good spot close to the Pope-mobile route. Considering that Wednesday was bookended by the previous Sunday's Easter and this coming Sunday's beatification, I expected it to be a lot more crowded but it surprisingly was less than Easter. A-Okay with me. After the Pope processed in in his sweet Mercedes Benz Pope Mobile (to the organ tune of what sounded exactly like Nintendo 64 music), he said an initial greeting followed by priests saying a longer one in Italian, then French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, and two other languages that I couldn't decipher. Then, they moved into the blessing part. Again, priests of the different languages came up to the podium, there they called out the names of special groups that traveled together from various churches/dioceses across the world. After reading a passage from the Bible for each, the priest would then hand it over to the Pope who read a blessing and blessed them in their language. It was repeated for each language. English was third and we left after we were blessed by Pope Benedict. Very cool experience. This blog doesn't do it any justice, but I got blessed by the Pope. In 2000 when I got blessed by John Paul II I was too young to understand but this time, I knew it was a big deal. Was in a good mood for the rest of that day.

Next blog to come is about dinner at my Italian teachers house with my classmates for our oral exam grade, how cool right? And also my incredibly awesome day in Tivoli on Saturday! Look forward to it!

Pasqua a Roma! (& how it's different here)

Buona Pasqua a Tutti! Oggi, il tempo fa bellissimo qui! The sun is shining, cool breeze, not many clouds, couldn't have asked for a better day to celebrate Easter.

The day started out meeting at Largo Argentina (better known as the end of the tram line) at 9:45 with my friends Jen and Dave to go to Chiesa Gesu for mass at 10am. We were nervous that we wouldn't be able to get a seat but the church wasn't much over half full. I guess when you have a city of hundreds of churches it's hard for them all to fill up... Chiesa Gesu is located on the main road Vittorio Emanuele right near Piazza Venezia, which is basically as downtown as you can get. It's a massive church, built in the 1500's for St. Ignatius, who is now buried in there just to left of where we sat today. If you read my other blog post about church in Perugia, I found out that that place wasn't the norm in Italy, kind of. So here they did exchange the sign of peace (which caught me off guard and unprepared for what to say), but it was easy enough to adopt to in Italian, turns out all they say is "Pace", simple and to the point, mi piace. This was another quick mass, without altar boys, without lots of music and without community announcements to prolong it. The most humorous part came at communion when normally ushers come around, stand next to your pew and let you know when to get up to go receive the Eucharist. However, this is Italy, they hate order and lines here. I kid you not, as soon as the priest stepped down ready to start giving it out, everyone from all corners of the church got up and moved into line in no order whatsoever. They're not going to run out, you don't need to rush... I thought it was so funny, anyways so we realized that this was every man for himself and joined into the unorganized flow of people towards the front. I thought it'd last longer considering it was Easter but we were out of there by 10:45, including me going around afterward and taking some pictures once the priest left and I felt it wasn't rude anymore.

From there, we went across the street, charged up with espresso and panini's (one of the best I've had yet) then got on the jam-packed bus heading towards St. Peter's. After squeezing on inches from the door in the back, I managed to fit on. After 6 short stops we were at the end of Via Della Conciliazione with St Peter's and a hundred thousand people looming up ahead in the distance. 

View far awar from end of street

View up closer where we stayed inside the square

People everywhere. I obviously have never seen so many in that area yet. I went on Ash Wednesday and thought it was pretty crowded, but that was nothing compared to this. Online it said that 100,000+ were there today in celebration. We wandered our way through the initial crowd, then through the gate into the square and finally settled on a spot as close as we could get towards the right hand colonnade. We settled in around 11:15, just a bit after their mass had started. The Pope shortly started his homily in which his main points preached (learned via internet) for diplomacy in Libya, respect for citizens by middle eastern leaders and a more welcoming attitude towards refugees (something Italy's having a big problem with right now). By the way, both the Gesu mass and this were in Italian. Luckily they had big screens to show up close up photo's of him because all I could see from my point of view was a figure in white standing in front of the altar. To me, the crowd was relatively respectfully quiet, or as quiet as a crowd that large can actually be. According to an article I read online, double the amount of people are expected to show up here next Sunday for the beatification ceremony of former Pope John Paul II. I'm definitely going to try and get to that but I have a feeling it's going to be a very hard seat. As of now, I have plans to rent Motorino/Vespa's next Saturday with a couple friends and they'll be due back by 9am on Sunday if we rent them overnight (it's safer to drive the streets of Rome at 1am on a Saturday night because of how crazy it is when the roads are full during the day) so I'm thinking as soon as I return it, I head over to The Vatican. Of course needing a few espressos to help me through it.. Sounds like a good plan, right?

Il Papa

 Okay so after we left, through the craziest of circumstances I ran into my cousin Jess who is here with the school she teaches at. We had plans to meet up tomorrow, but then today as we were leaving St Peter's walking back down the road towards the bus stop, I was telling my friends about her and wouldn't you know she walked right by us at that very second and recognized hearing her school and name. So here's us in front of a tourist shop literally right next to St Peter's Square. What are the odds, I still can't believe that in a city with millions and millions of people we ran into each other amidst a massive crowd completely unplanned. What a great Easter surprise!

Now, it's just about 4 and all that's left of the day is to head over to my friends apartment where we're doing our own Easter meal. It won't be a normal Easter meal from back home but it should be good. We're all pitching in and bringing/making something so it ought to be a good feast. I'm really looking forward to it.

By the way, if you want to realize what makes America and Italy different, all you have to do is observe how they celebrate Easter. Here, Easter is still just a religious holiday. There's no decorations with bunnies anywhere, no ads with an Easter Bunny, no marshmallow peeps, no egg ornaments, no spring colored displays etc. You get the point. Now whether you think America made it better or ruined it with the whole commercialized/Americanized version we do, that's up to you to decide. I just thought it was an interesting observation. I'm looking forward to asking my Italian friends if they woke up to Easter baskets filled with filler grass, hollow eggs with money and chocolate bunnies as children; or if they woke up and went to mass to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

That's it for now, Happy Easter to everyone!

It's Pronounced KA-PREE

Still on my quest to catch up this blog with real life. So now that my weekend in Perugia and Assisi is covered, let's fast forward a weekend to 2 weekends ago when I went on a school led trip to the Amalfi Coast. Talk about beautiful, anyone who's making a trip in the near future, this place is a must visit. You've got amazingly preserved Roman ruins in Pompeii and Herculaneum, the closet you can get to visiting Pandora in the island of Capri, and the beautiful coast near Sorrento in the middle. Not to mention the towering volcano of Mount Vesuvius visible from all areas. So we met early Friday morning at like 7am at school and then got back Sunday evening. Obviously this trip was really fun because it was school sponsored so I was with tons of friends from school the whole time.

Terps at the Top of Mt Vesuvius

Friday - April 8th - Bus ride first stop was Mount Vesuvius. After watching What Happens in Vegas and some other I forget while dozing in and out, we finally got there a bit after Noon. (Not as good as when they played Mean Girls on the way to Naples, but still entertaining). So the bus drove basically up the whole volcano, treading pretty close to the edge on the windy road up packed with coach buses way too big for it, but eventually we got as far as we could and were dumped off to hike up the rest. The hike up from there only took about 20-30 minutes. We were given pretty cool walking sticks which then we found out weren't free like we thought but o well. After we got to the top, we still had an hour or two until we had to leave so we just hung out and walked around the crater. 

After leaving Vesuvius, we drove towards Sorrento, which is where our hotel was. We got there around mid-afternoon and had free time to walk around and explore the city which we did for a bit while of course running into other tour groups of Americans we knew. Sorrento was a small but cool place. Not a large town by any means but had some cool streets with lots of shops selling limoncello, what they're known for in that region, and also a beach area down by the sea. Dinner was at the hotel and afterward we went out to a few too many bars. Definitely gad a fun night though.

After a rough time waking up early Saturday morning, we were off to the island of Capri for the day. First thing we did there was take a chair lift up to the top of the town Anacapri where we had an incredible view of the whole area. Now, my camera battery was low this whole trip because I forgot to charge it since my Mom had been using it earlier that week so I wasn't able to take a lot of pictures, but here's one I took from the chair lift going up to the top. It doesn't do it justice at all. Imagine sitting in a chair, and literally going through a cloud, while seeing scenery all around you that looks straight out of Avatar. All of us unanimously agreed that this was the perfect land of Pandora, there's no better way I can describe it. So after coming back down towards the sea, we had time to walk around and get lunch and then we did what we were told was a must do in Capri - hire a boat for a few hours to take you around the island. After haggling with several different salesmen for a good price and boat, we found what ended up being the perfect choice. This was of course after one of the people we didn't chose literally stalked me into an ATM vestibule where he argued with me for not picking him to hire. Worst sales tactic ever, btw, to all you salesman majors. He complained that I had agreed to buy from him (a lie - his boat wasn't big enough for the 11 of us) and then tried to guilt trip me into buying from him, are you serious buddy? Anyways, after escaping the bank, I joined back up with my friends who were waiting to get on our actual boat.

To start it off, our driver was incredible. I don't remember his name or anything about him for that matter, but he was so cool. His boat was the only one big enough for my group of 11 of us but he also had plenty of pillows to lay on which is a plus. Then, he at first tried to give us some history lessons, in broken English/Italian, which obviously wasn't working since we were spread out and talking so he gave up on that but did bring out free snacks and wine that he grew himself. He gave us like 3 bottles + in total and tons of snacks. First he took us to the Blue Grotto which is a big deal UNESCO site. They had a special going that day so it was cheaper to get in, so we did that, not sure if it was worth the 7 Euro though. It wasn't anything I couldn't have google-image searched but it was neat. You had to climb into a tiny tiny boat and then duck as you went through the entrance because it was so small. In the picture here you can see that tiny circle of light, which is the entrance, then the blueness of the water inside which was, admittedly, pretty amazing looking. Apart from that, I don't know if I'd recommend paying for it, personally.

After that, which was the first leg of our trip, we went 360 degrees around the whole island, which lasted almost 3 hours. We made several stops along the way, going into bigger grottos, stopping at a cliff jumping spot where my friend jumped off, then stopping along other neat areas along the way. Here's a picture of our boat when we stopped at some ruins-esque place near the cliff jumping area. By the way, turns out the water was freezing cold. Good thing I didn't pack a bathing suit so I had an automatic excuse for not getting in. Well played, Micheal.


Oh, I also was wearing my new pants that I had bought the weekend before in Perugia with my parents, so I debuted that outfit that day. Think/Say what you want, you know you think those all white pants look awesome. The hat (and photography) was my roommates though, so I can't take credit for that. The beard however, was all me of course, but that's since been shaved for over a week now. It reached a point where it was so itchy against my pillow at night that I didn't want to deal with it anymore. I got mostly positive reactions on it though, so there's potential for it to return some day, we'll see, I never got used to looking in the mirror at it. Rest of the day consisted of laying on the rocks by the sea eating gelato with my friends until the ferry took us back to Sorrento on the mainland.

Sunday was Pompeii. My camera battery was nearing dead at this point so I had to be very frugal with my picture choices. Pompeii was awesome though, I don't really need to go into much detail, you all know the deal. In August of 79 AD Vesuvius erupted, perfectly preserving the town in ash resulting in a great tourist attraction two thousand years later. I remember this next part from last time I was in Pompeii, about a decade ago, but they have these street crossing rocks which have tons of great purposes. First, you can cross the street without having to step down into the actual street. Second, they're spaced so that a chariot can fit through, which you can still see the grooves in the road from. Third, the street is where you dumped out your bathroom waste, meaning you could step on these to not have to deal with all the waste sitting around in the streets. Don't worry, the streets are all clean now. Also, Pompeii was known for its scandalous red light district, which was also perfectly preserved (see facebook album).

So after our guided tour of Pompeii, we had time to walk around the modern city. Got some good lunch then wandered around back towards the bus which left around 2 to take us back to Roma. On the way back, I caught up on the Sports Illustrated magazines my parents kindly brought over for me and then after that I started on Animal Farm (why not?) since I realized I've gone 20 years without reading that classic. Since then, I haven't read anymore of it, but it's really short so I plan on finishing that this weekend since I'm not doing any traveling and so far I'm a huge fan of it. If you haven't yet read it, go do it.

Okay well we're about caught up, considering I haven't done much since that weekend. Last weekend, Nonny came and visited me with her friend Sophie from Paris which was obviously a great time for anyone who knows how awesome Nonny is. We got to enjoy the free sites since it was culture week here in Rome, meaning everything city-run was free. So after playing tour guide, I think she saw pretty much all the big sites here. I'm pretty sure I'm now qualified to give professional tours at this point so if you're coming here hit me up, I've perfected the 3 day trip to Rome to make sure you see everything worth seeing, including stuff the normal tours don't bring you to.

Speaking of incredible places, not that tourists don't go here, but I finally made my way there last weekend with Nonny, and it was to the Capuchin Crypt. This place was full of skulls and bones of Capuchin monks whose custom was to bury them in this manner. So creepy to walk around in here knowing that all these used to belong to people who lived and talked just like I am now. Anyways, check out these pictures of it, pretty awesome if you ask me. 

Alright Ciao Ciao for now. Go O's!

Visit from Mom and Dad

 

I really haven't been doing a good job at keeping up with this blog lately. I guess I've been really busy lately between traveling and keeping up with school work. Not that I want to make excuses or anything. No excuses, blog comes first. Here's a quick update on my past month-ish though to catch all those up who aren't extremely dedicated followers. So exactly 4 weeks ago, my sister visited me for a week and I had an incredible time and am so glad she came out here to see me. Less than 24 hours after she left, I went on spring break for a week in the Canary Islands. Then, literally, as soon as I flew back into Rome from there, my parents got here for 10 days. They were already waiting for me downtown when my flight landed. While they were here, we did a weekend trip to Perugia and Assisi. More on that to come. Three days after they left, which was two Tuesdays ago, I left for a weekend trip to the Amalfi Coast that Friday. After getting back from that last Sunday night, I've been busy catching up with all the school work I wasn't doing since I had all those visitors or was traveling which means I spent most of all my free time working on homework, projects, presentations, papers etc etc. Pretty hectic right? Turns out it's really hard to find time to do actual school work while you're living in an incredible foreign country. Oh well, I'm learning good time management skills and how to balance out the fun and the work.

Mom taking a chocolate shot at a local bar

Okay, so you know how Maria's visit and spring break went. So onto my parents visit. It was awesome, to start off with. Perfect timing too, I was getting to that 9 or 10 week point of being away (wow, is that really all its been?) so it was nice to get to see them to fend off any of the homesick feelings that were due to come up sometime soon. Just like when Maria was here, I had to try and show them around Rome while making sure to go to class so some of the days that I didn't have class I was able to show them around Rome and play tour guide but other days I just had to send them off with a list of fun things to do. I'm pretty sure they saw all the main spots and more though, I even came across some things I had never seen before while I was with them which was pretty neat.

View of Assisi from the train

I have to say the highlight of their trip, apart from getting to eat at nice restaurants every night (turns out there's more to Roman cuisine than cheap pizza and pasta at my joint down the street), was our weekend trip to Umbria. We stayed in the town of Perugia, which is renowned for its chocolate festival it hosts every fall. We also took a day trip over another hill town, Assisi, where St Francis was from. I also enjoyed endlessly marching them across the city of Rome and making sure they saw almost every site there was. We all got a good workout that week.

Concert in the main square

I loved Perugia. It was a town with lots of history which I was a fan of. It wasn't very big, so once you were in the city square area, you were close to everything and anything. And also because it was a town with lots of life. They had a festival going on while we were there with a concert at night which started around 10. The band was pretty good, they played Italian music, but it was more fun just watching all the people enjoy it. Perugia was filled with young kids like me. This was such a refreshing site because I feel like my roommates and I are the only people under 50 in our area of Rome. It's rare for me to see many people my age on my 25 minute walk to school. Perugia has a big university there so that's why all the youth are there so it's basically a college town in an old hill town where everything's still cobblestone with narrow streets and hundreds of years old buildings. In the main square where the concert stage was, there was a huge fountain in front of an old palace with steps leading up to it. So starting around 5 o'clock on that Friday, the fountain and steps area filled up with college kids just sitting there enjoying beers or wine they brought with them. What could be better than having your own cheap happy hour outside with all your buddies on a great sunny Friday afternoon? Then along that main square area they had outdoor cafes and bars with TV screens set up to show the AC Milan soccer game that was going on later that night. How much better would College Park be if we had a place like that, where it was walking only, no cars allowed, in a wide old square with TV's set up so we could watch our sports teams while enjoying some drinks with our friends? Too bad there's a drinking age law in America that just has an opposite and reverse effect of its intent and drinking in public also isn't allowed. So that will never happen. Oh and some drunk idiot would ruin it for everyone one night anyways. Good news is there's an English speaking university there, submitting an application soon? Perhaps.

Speaking of a drunken idiot ruining it for everyone, listen to this mess. So quick background info: in Roma, as in Italy, you're allowed to drink in public. Anywhere, anytime, any drink. One of the methods we used to tolerate that crappy city of Naples for a day when we went was by going to bars and getting drinks to-go to walk around with. It's normal here. Then at night, the big thing here is sitting on steps or a fountain and drinking with your friends, just like I was talking about earlier. Then the other big thing is just getting a drink at a bar then standing outside in the street with your friends to drink it. There's even some bars here that are the size of a closet because all you're meant to do is squeeze in, get your drink, then go back outside to drink it. Anyways so that's a large part of culture here. So two weeks ago there was an 'incident' in Campo dei Fiori. It was the result of people drinking outside, albeit drinking way too much outside. Oh and by the way, Campo dei Fiori is the go to spot for Americans (& tourists) in Rome, as in if you go there, all you hear is English being spoken, so you can rest assured that the people involved were Americans. Anyways, they did some really dumb stuff and as a result, effective of two weekends ago, drinking outside in public after 11pm is now illegal and banned until June 30th. So frustrating. Just when the weather was getting perfect for it too. Thanks a lot to whoever you are that ruined it for the rest of us, jerk.

Castle at top of hill in Assisi

Alright you get the point, I just really liked that town. Assisi was really cool too. It was more hilly than Perugia so you were either hiking uphill or downhill on steep cobblestone streets the whole time. It had lots of churches, including a double-decker church dedicated to St Francis. I'm not joking, it was a church built on top of a church. You enter on the bottom level into a massive church. Then you go outside up a spiral staircase and are in yet another massive church. Never had seen something like that before. At the very top of the hill, there was an old fort castle from the medieval ages that of course I thought was really neat so we explored around through there for a bit. Gotta love old castles. I definitely recommend Assisi and Perugia to anyone traveling to Italy anytime soon. They're a good break from the commotion of the big touristy cities, and they're also conveniently located along the rail line that connects Florence to Rome, so you can just get off the train, walk around there for the day, and hop back on a later train to continue your travels to whichever city.

I went to my first mass in Italian with my parents there too. It was a lot different from masses that I'm used to. Let's see if I can remember all the differences...

• There were no altar boys (the priest did everything on his own alone up there the whole time), there was no music
• There was no kneeling
• There was no exchange and sign of peace (which I was dreading the whole time because I realized I don't know the phrase "Peace be with you" in Italian)
• There was no interaction with anyone around you
• It was almost half the time of a normal mass.

Obviously it was still a fundamental Catholic mass, I just thought some of those differences were interesting. For anyone reading this who has gone to Church of Nativity back home, you can see why I felt like I was in a completely different faith. Mass is more fun when I get to sing along to Chris Pierorazio & Co.

Well, that about sums up my trip to Perugia and Assisi from over 2 weeks ago. I've got some catching up to do with this blog. Next up: Sorrento, Capri, Vesuvius and Pompeii! It was pretty awesome. Oh and by the way, I'm going to the Coppia Italian Semi Finals game tomorrow night, AS Roma v Inter. Should be a blast, look for me on TV. Game starts at 7:45pm GMT (+1 for me, -5 for most of you). I'll post this now, but if you check back tomorrow, I'll add some pictures.

I Miei Obiettivi - My Goals

Another assignment I had at the beginning of the semester was to write down my goals for my time here. I know I'm not quite finished yet, but it's just about finals week so it was fun to revisit these and check up on my progress. This was also another assignment for my connecting across cultures class, and our final assignment for it is to compile all the assignments together into one place so I'm going to use this blog as that one place! So now you guys get to play teacher and can grade me on how you think my papers and reflections are. So here's what I thought my goals were here back in early February.

Months before I arrived in Rome, I kept spontaneously saying, “Oh, I want to make sure to see this and do that.” I was not aware of it at the time, but I was actually setting goals for myself. Many of the places I talked about wanting to see leading up to my departure I have already accomplished. However, after critically thinking about serious and attainable goals, I have realized four achievable goals that will enable me to leave this country with a better understanding of myself and where I’m going with my life.

A personal goal that I have for myself is to expand my worldview while I am here. This is a goal that is less concrete and visible than my other goals but it is nevertheless just as important. One of the reasons I chose to study abroad was to experience the world from another point of view. I have lived in America long enough to know how they view everyone else. This was my opportunity to see how the rest of the world views Americans which would enable me to learn more about my culture from a less bias standpoint. To achieve this more global worldview, I will read international newspapers and try to talk with Italian locals and find out what they think about America. For this goal, I will have to rely on myself because what I get out of this experience in Italy is ultimately dependent on what I make of it. The way I will know if I have reached my goal will most likely be by others making comments to me about the noticeable change in my worldview and by deeply reflecting on what I have learned upon my return home.

A professional goal of mine is to leave Rome with a better understanding of what I want to do with my career. I am currently a history major, with a Public Leadership Citation and in the process of applying to get into the Terrorism Studies Minor Program. I am enrolled in a class here on business law. It is by far my favorite class here and law has always been a profession that I have wanted to do as a career. If at the end of the semester I still enjoy that class as much as I do now, I can go back to America finally with a sense of direction for my career path. For this goal to be accomplished I need to utilize the business law course so that I learn and retain as much as I can from this. My professor will help hold me accountable and him, along with my desire to excel in law as a career will be my motivation to do well in it. After completing the course, my goal will be reached because I will know whether law is a career path suited for me.

I have known what my academic goal would be for this semester since I entered college. Every semester my goal is to attain straight A’s. For the first time in college, I achieved that last semester after missing out by only one B spring semester last year. Therefore, my goal in Rome is to repeat and have my hard work pay off again. Just as in the previous semester, my resources will be my teachers, textbooks and classmates and my support and motivation will come from my intrinsic desire to be the best that I can be. I hold myself to a high standard and the thought of failing to meet those standards is enough to keep me working hard. My steps will be to continue my practice of appropriately balancing my school work with my social life in order to maximize both my grades and my fun. I will know if my goal has been reached when I receive my final grades at the end of the semester.

The cultural goal that I would like to meet by the time I leave Italy is to learn enough Italian to carry on a conversation with a local and have them not immediately know that I am American. To meet this goal, I have a few resources already in place. First, I am enrolled in Italian 201 at AUR where the class is conducted solely in Italian and all my peers have studied Italian longer than I have so I will constantly have to work hard to keep up with them. Secondly, every Thursday night as part of my cultural activity I will engage in the Extreme Language Exchange at a local pub where I will be paired with an Italian who will help me further comprehend the language while I help him/her learn English. Another resource in learning Italian will be the fact that I am living in Rome and am surrounded my native speakers. It is these people that I interact with on a daily basis on the bus or at the market who will hold me accountable because learning Italian will make it easier for me to survive here on a day-to-day basis. The feeling of having to make an Italian here speak English to me despite it being their country is very frustrating for me and I am very determined to speak it at a conversational level. When I lived in Belgium as a child, some of my most memorable and proud moments came from when I was able to speak French to a local without them immediately realizing that I was American. When I get that proud feeling here in Rome, I know I will have reached my goal.

These four goals that I set for myself are not the only four goals that I wish to accomplish here in Rome. On a daily basis, I cycle through many things that I wish to do, see and learn. It is there four goals that stick out among the others as being fundamentally important to me considering my study abroad experience a success and accomplishing what I wanted. Along the way, I expect myself to learn and experience things that I did not planning on being a goal but having an equally positive impact on my time here. Of all my goals here, the number one goal is to learn more about Italian culture and language because in doing so, that will facilitate the advance of almost every other goal I have in one way or another.

A Deal That You Cannot Refuse

So, I haven't blogged in awhile. I've been really busy. I still haven't finished talking about Canary Islands and spring break which was forever ago. Not to mention my weekend in Umbria with my parents at Perguia and Assisi but also my weekend last week in the Amalfi Coast - spectacular. Since I'm still kind of busy and have a lot going on, I'll upload a couple of my past assignments for my Connecting Across Cultures class. These were short paper assignments I did back in early February and it was kind of neat to go back and read them. Anyways, this first one is about Italian values and how watching an Italian movie made me learn about them. Enjoy!

To learn about Italian culture, I watched the 1975 movie The Godfather. This film portrayed many aspects of Italian culture like the importance of family. Prior to my arrival here in Rome, I was aware of this value, but I thought it was somewhat of an exaggeration but I have since learned the contrary after studying and interacting with local Italians.

            The family is a very important of Italian life. As a pure 100% Italian, I was taught these values as I was growing up. These values were evident all throughout the movie. Nothing supersedes the importance of doing and wanting the best for your family. If you are a part of the family, or even an outsider who is considered family, you will be loved and taken care of by anyone else who is in that family. Although I haven’t yet seen anyone here kill for their family, the core message of the movie is that Italians value family over anything else. Since arriving here, I have noticed this value on display in many different instances. The fact that almost everything here in Rome is closed on Sundays is because that is a day that is meant to be spent with the family. For the same reason, most shops will close around seven o’clock in the evening here to ensure that everyone has time to be with their family. I have not come across one single twenty-four hour establishment in this city yet. One can also see the family focus in life in the way that shops are run, typically by two or three generations of the same family.

            Within the focus of family, one can also see other Italian values such as tradition and respect. These relate to family values because the family values are passed on through tradition and are maintained by respecting those values. Both of these values were evident in the movie and in Italian culture as I have observed thus far.

Post-Haircut Blog aka Canary Islands Trip

Wow, Blogosphere, I feel like I haven't talked to you guys in forever. Last time we chatted I had just gotten a haircut, that was over 2 weeks ago! We've got lots of catching up to do. For starters, I went on spring break 2011, woot woot. Then my parents got here. Then I came here to Perugia and Assisi for this weekend. Also, in the process, my hairstyle changed again (now sporting a nice beard). Speaking about hair, that haircut blog from the other week got over 80 total views which is ridiculous. I'm all but left to believe it got so many views because it had TWO pictures of my face in it, right? Eh, probably not. But perhaps I should keep putting the word "haircut" in my blog titles to keep attracting views. Oh and while we're on the topic of stats, not that I care about them because, "Stats are for losers" - right Bill Belichick? Anyways, stat wise we hit a milestone recently this past week by going over 1,000 views since I began this little story in late January. Pretty neat, oh and in case anyone's wondering, view # 1,000 came from somewhere in the United States by someone using a Safari browser on a PC (hm, someone can't decide which team to be on). Congratulazione a te!

Back to the important stuff. So spring break in the Canary Islands. I'll do this outline format by day since neither I feel like writing every single detail, and you all don't feel like reading it all either. This is called a win-win. Meaning, we both win :) Then if I think of some incredibly blogworthy story along the way, I'll tack it in on the end. I did have a really fun story to tell but I'll tack it on to another blog later. Enough time spent on this one. Enjoy!

1. Sunday - March 20th

• Woke up at 3:30 am, 6 am flight to Baden-Baden (Ger), 2 hour layover then 4 hour flight to Las Palmas,  Gran Canaria (name of the main island (there's 7 total) and first place I stayed)
• Wandered a bit around the city and boardwalk
• Had a cheeseburger for dinner (forgot how much I love those things) Don't worry spaghetti, you're still my #1
• Wandered around the capital city some more and then got settled into the hotel, conveniently (thanks spell check) located one block from the ocean

For all those unfamiliar with Canary Islands (as was I). I stayed in the center two larger islands (Las Palmas & Puerto de la Cruz)

2. Monday - March 21st

• Went to the south side of the Gran Canaria island to Maspalamos
• Only a bit over an hour by bus, but the climate and weather was less windy and more sunny #winning
• Walked around the desert sand dunes right along the ocean
• Rode on a camel !
• Back in Las Palmas, went into the old downtown area at night
• Some churches there were older than some of the most famous ones in Rome, crazy right?
• Ate dinner at an awesome hip Retro/Vintage style Pizzeria that had classic movie and album posters everywhere on the wall while playing a Beyonce concert on a flat screen. Got a great burger and a Budweiser, #SoAmerica

3. Tuesday - March 22nd

1. Travel Day
2. Spent the early morning laying on the windy beach back on the north side of the island in Las Palmas (weather in the south part was way better)
3. Propeller plane from Gran Canaria island to Tenerife island
4. Arrive in new town of Puerto de la Cruz and walk around along beach and town

4. Wednesday - March 23rd

• Loro Parque!

• Among world's best animal parks
• Sea Lion Show (hilarious)
• Dolphin and Whale show (incredible)
• Parrot Show..
• Sharks, Penguins, Tigers, TERRAPINS, Leopards (aw, Belgie!)
• Really really cool place!

• Lago Martianez
• Resort style lake on the beach with 13 different pool
• Made substantial progress in reading Angels & Demons
• Also progress in my attempt to see how many different spots I could nap and relax in that country, I'll try and keep track throughout the blog post
• Overall, awesome day

Astronomy Observatory with Mount Teide in background

5. Thursday - March 24th

• Tour bus up Mount Teide
• 3rd largest volcano in the world
• Traveled through 5 different micro-climates on way up
• Rain forest, Tropical, Wood Forest, Desert, Lunar Landscape
• Area used to film many movies because of its diverse climates (Planet of the Apes, Clash of the Titans, Clint Eastwood movies)
• Would transition from one to another within minutes
• Home to the unique Canary pine tree which believe it not, is fire resistant! Whoa..
• Near the top is an astronomy observatory with the worlds largest telescope, pretty neat sight
• Snow everywhere on the way up because they had just gotten 1 Meter of snow the past Monday, which is crazy considering it was like 24 degrees Centigrade out.
• Stopped many different times which gave me ample time to take dozens of pictures of the same volcano and also climb and play on the rocks (got a little exhausting after a bit because of the altitude) - so I ended up napping on the top of one (another spot to my list)
• Lance Armstrong's (former) training facility was up there because of the good conditioning that resulted from the high altitude
• By the way, he officially retired (for the 2nd time) from bicycling this past week, thanks for the memories lance, not the doping
• That finished up around 5ish and then went to a beach near the hotel to relax until the sunset
• Volcanic beach so it had fine black sand that wasn't as messy and sticky as regular beach sand, perfect. The other beaches on the island that had normal sand had it imported from Africa
• Read more Dan Brown, napped in another spot and enjoyed the beautiful, calm sunset
• Hit up a club at night and blew the last of the money in my wallet (at this point, my bank hadn't allowed me as to withdraw at an ATM in the Canaries)

6. Friday - March 25th

Sunset from the cruise

• Another travel day
• Woke up and went back to that volcanic beach (only this time I laid on nearby rocks and not the sand) and relaxed there until midday
• Went and got lunch and enjoyed the last day in Tenerife because the next stop was the port to take a cruise boat back to Las Palmas (the first place I was)
• This cruise was incredible, for only 14 Euros, it had an upper deck complete with a bar, pool and lounging chairs. The weather was beautiful, warm, cool breeze. I spent the whole 3 hour+ journey up there reading, napping, staring out into the sea, drinking at the bar etc etc.. I could've stayed there forever.
• Checked back into the first hotel from earlier in the week, walked along the boardwalk and got all you can eat Chinese buffet (oh Chinese food, how I had missed you!)
• It was still incredibly windy in that city, just like earlier in the week. For anyone planning on traveling to the Canaries, I recommend you stay in the south of the island, just 25 km away (ha - how mad are you guys getting at me for continually using the metric system) where the weather was curiously much better every day

7. Saturday - March 26th

• Last day in paradise
• Had an all inclusive Catamaran excursion in Puerto Rico (other side of the island in the south, near Maspolamas from Monday) complete with cave exploring, snorkeling, dolphin watching, free food and drinks, banana boat etc etc ... but the bus took longer than expected and missed it, o well
• Plan B - walk around boardwalk and wait for salesman to swarm you trying to get you do to their excursion. The winner was a real cool Serbian guy who had a dolphin and whale watching Catamaran that was leaving within the hour. Sold.

• This part just got better and better as it went on. First, I realized that on this boat were 10 young attractive Hispanic girls who were celebrating a bachelorette party. Secondly, they had brought tons of food and beer. Third, the other people on the boat was a couple from Belgium who were, no lie, from the city in Belgium that I used to live in!
• Saw plenty of dolphins and whales swimming right alongside the boat, it was so cool. We watched and followed a set of 8 dolphins for about 20 minutes. They were such happy creatures, they would just jump around in the water and make their noises and were probably just enjoying the beautiful day.. Wish my life was that simple.
• After that, walked along the beach for a bit and came to an area of just rocks where a bunch of young kids were hanging out so went down and checked it out and camped out there for an hour or so napping (check) on the rocks.
• Hour long bus back up north to Las Palmas, which I napped (check) on and then went back to the hotel and showered and got ready to head to the airport. See, I had this incredible idea that it would be smarter to go to the airport Saturday night for the flight on Sunday since it started boarding at 5:15am. My thinking was, why bother pay for a hotel that night when I'll have to leave it around 3am anyways and then also have to pay for a cab to the airport. So, I thought it'd be more cost efficient to take the 8pm bus to the airport (latest one of the night) and wait there all night & morning. Note to self, never listen to yourself again.
• This was the longest layover of my life. Thankfully, daylight savings time for Europe was that night at 2am so it went by one hour quicker. First, I read The British Times (all 97 pages of it) and then I read the whole weekend edition of The USA Today. This killed a few hours. Then I finished Angels and Demons. Oh and by the way, during the stay in Tenerife, I took a break from A&D and read The Street Lawyer (John Grisham) since it was in the hotel's library. Yeah, lots of reading for me, it was good.
• After the reading was all over with, I wandered around the empty airport to a 24 hour bar (that was deserted). Bought some postcards and a rum and coke and got to work. Three or four strong drinks later, and a lot of postcards later, it was around 3am. I wrote over 20 postcards on this trip so many of you will be getting one soon. (If you are angry that you haven't gotten one yet then it's probably because you've never give me your postal address.)
• So, in need of a change of scenery, I trekked back over to the main area in search of a row of seats that didn't have armrests (so you could lay down across them). Finally, I found the only row that hadn't already been taken by sleeping travelers also camped out at the airport for the night. I positioned my bag as a pillow and set my alarm to wake me up in 75 minutes when I figured I should start getting ready to check in and go through security. Not after 5 minutes of laying there, a group of 4 American college kids walked in and sat down next to me, blabbering away about their past week. This was really cool for two reasons though. One, although I haven't mentioned it yet, the Canary Islands were full of old retired people, it's kind of like Florida to Europeans. It's where all the northern, elderly folks go during the winter months to live. There wasn't much sign of youth life anywhere. That also could have been because European colleges don't really have spring break like we do, not sure. Second reason it was cool was because honestly, they were like the first Americans I came across that whole week. For as great of a job we do invading other places as tourists, apparently the Canary Islands are immune. One of my waitresses was so shocked that we were Americans and said she hadn't ever met any there before.



Warning: Prohibited Use of Eye-Lasers

• Anyways, after I realized they were on the same flight as me, I sat and up said hi to them, which surprised them and led them to tell me that I had a very good English accent, apparently I'm doing a better job of not looking America. Anyways, after that 30 minute friendship was over, and after I had not gotten a second of sleep, I got up and started getting ready to check in etc.
• Nothing else significant the rest of the day. Napped (check) on the flight back to Germany. 4 hour layover there, bought more newspapers and magazines to read. I was the world best expert on anything news that week. Then slept again on the plane from there home to Rome. #RyanAir
• Got back into Rome around 6 pm (full 12 hours of traveling - 1 hr for time zone change) and then met up with my parents (who are visiting this week) in Trastevere for a nice meal at La Scaletta, great to see them!

I definitely recommend the Canary Islands to anyone who wants to travel to a tropical area and relax on the beach but also see some neat stuff inland. It was also pretty cheap, the hotels averaged to cost me about 20 Euro a night and were really nice. Food was pretty cheap too. Also, lots of cool history on those islands since they had a great location trading wise once the Americas were discovered. It felt like the trip lasted forever, I really started to miss Rome. I've only got a month and a half left in Rome and it's really sad to think about it. Yeah, I obviously miss Baltimore but a lot of the trip there I was thinking about all the things I missed from Rome. I'm going to make sure not to take anything for granted these last 5 weeks and live it up every day. Italian Culture Week is coming up next week so every museum, monument, historical site etc will be FREE so even if it means missing a few classes, I'm going to make sure to do EVERYTHING, yes everything. Roman friends, who's with me? I still haven't even been to the Sistine Chapel yet, crazy right? Anyways, reality is starting to set in, semesters coming to an end, lets make these last weeks count!

Another blog to follow about what I've been up to since I got back last Sunday. Right now, I'm writing this from the train ride home from Perugia back to Rome. Ci vediamo a presto!