Catch Up Blog - End of an Era

Wow! Have I really not blogged since last Friday. This week went by so fast. The one week I didn't want to go by fast was easily the fastest of any week so far on this amazing adventure. And now, sitting in my hotel room on via Carini, I still don't even have the time to blog well about this past week. But let's see how quickly I can do it.

Saturday, after my last blog, was an awesome day all around. After going shopping with Ethan and Eran, I was all prepared for my pre-game AS Roma v AC Milan cookout to pump up our troops to cheer hard for Roma. It was so so so so fun. We had plenty of burgers, hots dogs, pasta salads, chips, dip, rum glazed pineapple, beer, sangria, etc etc. Even my neighbor above us peeked over the balcony to check out the fun, he turned down our burger offer to him though, but he did wave his AS Roma watch at us and received a thunderous applause from the about 25 of us. I have to give credit to Eran for doing a great job on the grill despite everything working against him, like the cheap Italian burger meat, inefficient grill and my lighter fluid mishap. Oops. With my classic American music playlist spinning everything from Jack and Diane to Hey Girl, it was a fun time all around and got us very excited for the game that night. It's a shame that that grill wasn't used until the last Saturday it could have been.. but let's not get me started on regrets from this semester, I'll keep focusing on the great things I did.

Crazy Italian Fans

After those incredible 4 hours of burger smells and beautiful weather on my patio, we trekked over to Il Stadio Olimpico for the main event. It's easy to see that our group dominated that entire section. In between the obscene shouting, gestures, and flare throwing by the Italian fans on both sides, there was a pretty exciting game played. I know most people reading this blog don't care much for soccer, but after seeing my third AS Roma game, it's really starting to grow on me. Although they never scored, Roma seemed to be on the offensive all night. It ended in a tie, underwhelming, but the AC Milan fans still had more to cheer about at days end than us. The fact that tons of lit flares had been thrown at them throughout the course of the game did make me envy them less though. All those Italian fans there were nuts. Oh and for the bus ride back home; ridiculous. It wins the worst bus ride of Rome prize hands down. I could not move for the whole 40 minute ordeal, smack sandwiched between way too many people. Then dealing with the chants and shouting by the other fans on the bus, what an experience. Finally, we got off it, walked to the Belli stop through the swarms of Trastevere nightgoers and got on the tram to Panino Planet for a 1am snack before calling it quits and going to bed.

Biking in Villa Borghese!

Back up early for mass. Figured I should make the most of my last Sunday in Roma. I put on some good clothes and went over to San Andrea delle Valle for mass. I'm getting better at understanding priests homilies in Italian. After that, I went biking in Villa Borghese again with some friends, it was NATIONAL BIKE DAY! It was also the celebration of the little municipalities of Rome (under 5,000 pop.) so there was a festival for them that we stopped at. After biking for a few hours, and almost all of our chains popping off at some point, we went to Scholars Pub to watch Man U v Chelsea. I made another appearance at Scholars later that night for karaoke night, but let's not talk about that.

Inedible - worst dessert ever candidate

Sorry for being so brief, but I didn't sleep at all last night and want to go to bed. Monday was my Italian listening exam which went well. Tuesday was my Archaeology final, followed by Italian on Wednesday and EU Defense Policies and Business Law on Thursday. I went out every night this week with different groups of friends. Tonys with Brigid and Amanda, then Tonys again with Nick, Michelle, Jen, Casey and Adam (one of the funniest dinners of my life) then guys night out for dinner on the last night with Josh, Ethan, Eran, Adam and Geoff at restaurant #2400 on tripadvisor (not actually). The restaurant wasn't as bad as we made it out to be, but it was pretty bad. I now can say I've had a bad meal in Rome, but, it was memorable and I will never forget that dinner for many reasons. After dinner, we went sightseeing at night to Trevi and Pantheon then met up with everyone at Stairs bar in Trastevere where all the final goodbyes were said. This was all on Saturday, last night. Wow, last night. It seems like forever ago. Here I am sitting in Rome still but all my friends have gone and have just landed safe and sound back in America. I think I'm going to have to save my blog for my feelings about yesterday for another blog, if I blog about it at all. It's safe to say I was sad. I know I'll see most of them again at some point, that's not what I'm worried about. It's that we will all never be together again here in Rome. I'm going to miss that a lot. I don't know how they said good bye to Rome but I'm going to need a lesson for this Wednesday when I leave for Paris. My final for Italian had a final essay part about writing your feelings on leaving Rome. I felt like I was writing a break up letter, not an essay. I love this city, and everything about it. I'm not going to get started on it now though.

Last time ever waiting at the Belli stop to take the tram home

To all my friends from this past semester, I knew not a single one of you 4 months ago. Today, I consider many of you some of my best friends. It would not have been as fun without you all, we rocked this town. Thanks to everyone for making this such an amazing semester. But I think I'm also going to have to save my thank you blog for another time too. Whew, lots to blog about.

Oh and Adam's here! We had an incredible day today, saw lots of stuff and I was able to show him stuff he hadn't seen the last time he was here. Props to tour guide Mike. I'll blog about our day another time too - ha. This is what happens when I get backlogged on blogging.

I'll also upload pics to this blog another time, I'm too tired now. I didn't sleep a wink last night, I got home around 2:30 and just tossed and turned until I woke up at 6am to get Adam. So much for a pleasant last night in that bed. Too much on my mind.

Buona Notte Tutti, I'll fulfill all those blog promises soon

il 6 maggio a Roma - buonissimo!

So today was extremely productive in many ways. Productive academically, culturally and entertainmently. I woke up and immediately started finishing up my paper for my European Union Defense Policies course. I reached under my bed, grabbed my laptop and didn't get out of bed until it was finished. I just had to put some finishing touches and editing on it and it was my last assignment of the Spring 2011 semester. I submitted my final 4500 word Archaeology paper yesterday on Trepanation Motivations (pretty interesting topic..ish) and then this 3000 worder today for EU class on the effectiveness of anti-terrorism policies. Of course I wrote the main draft about a week and a half ago so considering last Sunday's events, I had to go through and redo my end section that stated there has been no significant events in relation terrorism in the last few years. Great timing Obama. Anyways, that one is all done now too. So I showered up, got my flannel on for flannel Friday and went downstairs to the bar for a panino and cappuccino at the bar I always go to. Prosciutto e fromaggio panino, as always, he doesn't even need to ask me about that anymore either. Can you tell that I like that part about these local places? I talked to him about the strike that was supposedly going on today for transit but he said the tram downtown would be running anyways so I took the tram to the Education Ministry to begin my day.

After getting off there and walking across the river I went to Aventine Hill. One of the original 7 hills of Rome along with Capitoline Hill, Palentine Hill et all. After wandering around the hill and park area (it's a really green are like the other hills) I finally found what I was looking for. Piazza Cavalieri di Malta or better known as being the keyhole to Rome. It's a hole in a door that when you look through, has an amazing view of a beautiful garden with St. Peter's situated dead center in the distance. I had heard it was better than you'd think from pictures but boy was that true. I'll post the pictures anyways, but this is something you just have to see in person (sorry for the 90% of people that read this who don't live within walking distance of it..) After that I went into a neat church up on the hill that was of course well over a thousand years old. The church, just like the keyhole, was empty of tourists. It was surprising but refreshing that the whole area up on Aventine was empty of tourists, I was the only person in the church so I had some good alone reflection time there. Then as I was leaving I walked through the park that had an incredible view and some kids celebrating someones birthday with a picnic. They were Italian but were tossing a football (odd) but anyways it rolled over to me at one point and I got to throw it which felt awesome, I miss football (you better get this lockout solved Goodell).

Bocca dell Verita

I strolled down the hill towards downtown and finally got to the bottom right where it meets the Circus Maximus which I actually hadn't ever been to yet. Not much to see, at all. After taking a picture and watching the workers packing up all the stuff all the way from the vigil held there last Saturday night for the Beatification ceremony (Roman workers are slow..) I was on my way up along there river to hit up the Bocca della Verita. Insane long line for that so I just took a picture and kept going. Myth is that if you stick your hand in it and have lied it'll bite it off. I didn't have anyone to take my picture with it and I didn't want to take my chances with my hand. I then went across the street to San Nicolo in Carcere which was a real cool church with dungeons underground that I went into. I was the only person in the church or the dungeons (it's a shame tourists never make it out of just seeing the Pantheon, Colosseum and Trevi), well not a shame, I loved being uncrowded, but a shame that they don't see anything else. I'll admit, the dungeons underneath the church were pretty dark and there were actual bones laying around from  thousand of years ago so it did get a little creepy at some points. It's okay, nothing like using your cell phone as a flashlight when it gets too dark.

Dungeons and Bones

Teatro Marcello

After I left there, I went and walked through the Teatro Marcello archaeological area which was real cool. Keep in mind, I had never done any of this stuff before today, it was all new to me. Marcello is better known for fooling stupid tourists into almost thinking that it is the Colosseum. It fooled me the first time the bus drove by it in February.. So I walked around there and then ended up in the Jewish Ghetto which was all part of the plan because I wanted to go to this bar in Piazza Mattei that was supposedly really really great. They were closed. I went into another bar and asked for something "Jewish and good tasting", got some type of cookie, not bad. Moving on towards Largo Argentina, the tram end of the line stop with the cat sanctuary, I went up Via Vittorio Emanuele to check out San Andrea della Valle, a church I walk by millions of times on way to Piazza Navona but have never gone in. It was closed.. No problem, I went over to Piazza Navona, which I'm going to go out and make official now and say it is my favorite place in Rome. I know, it's touristy blah blah blah, but I love just sitting down there with a gelato or drink and watching all the people go by. Not to mention that Bernini's fountains are incredible and there's millions of cool street vendors. I bought some souvenir pictures there and just walked among all the vendors for a real long time. I asked the guy I bought from where I could buy a belt that was blue with the Italian flag going around it. I've wanted one this whole trip, they look so cool, but I can't find them anywhere! He said to go to Campo dei Fiori which I did but failed. I must have gone in about 20 shops between there and Via del Corso, where I then went into easily almost 50 places looking for this belt. Most I knew immediately didn't sell what I was looking for and others when I asked I'd just get a flat out no. A few times I was told that "We only sell fashionable belts here", #stuckup. I seriously spent over 2 hours walking up and down Corso looking for this belt. Such a crushing blow that I couldn't find it. It wasn't time wasted though because I had fun, of course walked by famous sites on the way (Trevi, Colanno, Vit-Eman etc) #nbd, but I was bummed I never found it.

Piazza Navona

After buying another souvenir on the way home, so cool looking!, I came home, cooked up some pasta (surprise) and watched about 10 episodes of the office. My friend Eran here just pointed out to me that there's a website (other than Hulu which doesn't work here) that lets you watch TV episodes online for free, so I resisted using it last week because I needed to do my papers but since I'm home free now (except exams, that's next weeks problem) I figured I'd reward myself. So now I'm officially caught up on all office episodes and have some very strong opinions on some of the stuff that went down. That about covers my Friday. Tomorrow is the AS Roma v AC Milan game that I'm going to with a bunch of friends, should be a great time!

Souvenir Picture From Via del Corso

Ciao Ciao for now. Let's Go O's!

Monte Verde & Barber Shop Experience

"Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name" Cheers, anyone? I just feel like I belong here in this city.

So times starting to come to an end here, and I'm going to have to say good-bye to my lovely Monte Verde neighborhood soon. I feel so at home here, I don't want to leave. This has honestly been a really great place to live. There's a bar (in Italy a bar is where you eat breakfast and lunch) on the bottom floor of my apartment building where I can get my breakfast pastry and espresso along with my lunchtime panini. There's Pizza e Pasta, my go-to place for dinner with their cheap prices and great food. Multiple supermarkets and convenience stores close by. The tram line downtown comes right here, There's a bus stop here that takes me to school. There's a post office and barber shop right up the street. I live next door to one of the biggest hospitals in Rome which I guess makes me feel safe if I ever hurt myself. It's also a really safe and friendly area. Not much to complain about living here.

Anyways, I brought up the fact that I'm leaving soon for the first time last night at Pizza e Pasta. By the way, as soon as I walked in, they knew exactly what I wanted, I didn't even have to order anything. The mom said she'd go start my pasta and then brought me over a Peroni. La bella vita. It's a small pizzeria here that is run by a family of a dad, mom and 2 daughters. They've got good hours, good prices and good food. I probably go there more than any other place since I got here. It was also the very first place I ate here in Rome, the day I got here Juan and I went there for our first meal after getting here from the airport.

Anyways, I went there for dinner last night on my way home from school. I was the only one in the place for most the time so I was talking to them while they were making my penne amatriciana which is my favorite type of pasta they serve. The mom and dad were telling me how my Italian has gotten a lot better since they first met me in January. Then we talked about what I'll miss most about Rome and how I really don't want to leave here yet. They were kind of surprised that I didn't want to return to America, they've never been there but they were real shocked that I said I really liked living here. Anyways, that definitely won't be my last trip there, I hopefully have half a dozen more, but it made me sad to bring it up to them that I was leaving soon.

Then, a final goodbye came today at the barber shop. I'm sure you all remember my blog form mid-March about my haircut, that was the most read blog I've posted yet I'm pretty sure. Anyways, I went back there this afternoon for another haircut and of course the same two people were working there. When I walked in they were both eating their lunches from Disney Pizza which is a good pizza joint up the road. I'll remember that place best from January when my roommates and I had our first meal together there, and one of them in particular was not a fan of the place, ha. The barber told me to sit down and talk with them while they finished. So we sat there and chatted, and then he smoked a cigarette by the door while still talking to me. Finally, after that we started my haircut. See I know most people in America would have gotten offended if they had to wait for their barber to eat lunch and smoke a cigarette but I thought it was actually really cool to just hang out and talk. Of course he knew I was in no rush so we just sat around and had a conversation. I guess it's my fault for walking in around lunch time. By the way neither he nor the other lady speak any English so this was all being done in Italian.

They also told me my Italian had improved a lot since last time. I was surprised he remembered me to be honest but the minute I walked in the door he remembered who I was just after that one haircut from March. I guess I'm a pretty memorable person. Or it's just a testament to how friendly and caring they are about their customers here in Italy. He asked if I wanted the same "Italian style" haircut as last time and I told him of course! So first we talked about sports and soccer, asked his opinion of an American taking over ownership of the AS Roma soccer team. Then we talked about music, which we both remembered talking about last time because the radio station in there was playing English songs. Just Can't Get Enough (Black Eyed Peas) and ET (Katy Perry & Kanye) came on so I asked him about those singers. He's a huge Black Eyed Peas fan so we talked about how amazing Fergie is at everything and anything :) and I told him to watch the Superbowl video of them at half time performing, after I reminded him what the Superbowl was.

Then of course came the inevitable question. "Allora, sei americano, e bin Laden è stato ucciso, che cosa pensi?" I knew this was coming, I've already been asked it by my Italian teacher, another Italian teacher and another Italian friend. Getting into political conversations with strangers is always risky, you never know what 'side' of the argument the other person will be on, so you can imagine what doing it in another language would be like. I have the same problem every Thursday night at the language exchange bar when Italians ask me what I think of Obama. I guess this was preparation for that tomorrow night though. Anyways, I gave a pretty general answer, I said justice had been served, I was happy to hear the news, I was scared of a retaliation attack, etc. I then asked him his opinion, and by his opinion, I mean the whole barber shop who at this point was listening to our conversation and chiming in from time to time to help me remember a word if I blanked out. Turns out, everyone in the barber shop, including him, doesn't believe it. They all said they don't believe Obama for a second, and that most Italians in general don't believe it's true. They said they don't trust Obama and want to see evidence that bin Laden is dead because they think he's just playing a political game. When I asked them if it was because they just flat out didn't like Obama, that wasn't the reason. The room was split on liking or Obama or not, but unanimous that they didn't believe him. I found that pretty interesting. I know I've read lots of stuff saying that it's a lie but I never for a second believed any of it or thought Obama would actually lie about that. I still don't, let's make that clear. I just found it interesting.

For all those trying to remember if Italy is actually close to Libya

Then the conversation moved to to Bush, and surprisingly enough, the room was again split on if they liked Bush or not, with all the Obama supporters against Bush and vice versa. Politics will be politics where ever you are I guess. A lot of them don't like Obama because they felt put Italy in danger by bombing Libya because Italy is the closet and most likely target if Gadhafi decides to attack anywhere. I told them I felt the same way.

Anyways, that's just a little taste of what I got today at the barber shop. We talked about a lot more too, I was there for awhile, after all, remember I watched them eat lunch. Don't confuse this sample for the feelings of every Italian in the world though and claim they're all conspirators. This was just a few people's opinion at a barber shop. I just always think it's fun to get other cultures opinions on stuff. I'd be interested in seeing a poll here about their feelings on bid Laden being dead or not though, but I have a feeling they might have just been a coincidental group of doubters..who knows though. Feel free to post your thoughts on any of this as a comment.

Tivoli & Beatification of John Paul II

Last weekend was full of good stuff. I have to try and fit as much in as possible now with only a couple weeks remaining. Friday morning I got up and went to Tivoli for the day with Nick, Michelle and Jen. Took the tram  Piramide to take the Metro to Marmorata to take the bus to Tivoli. Eventually we got there though. Tivoli is known for its beautiful gardens and fountains and was the source of Romes aqueducts in ancient times. Now, of course, it's a wonderful tourists attraction.

We first had a nice lunch because all that traveling builds up an appetite. I got pasta, of course, but it was really good, of course. Interesting thing we noticed at lunch was that every table was speaking French and this was a theme for the whole day actually, I guess it's no surprise that the French like their gardens and fountains. There actually isn't too much to blog about. There was a ton of stuff there and the Villa D'este palace  was enormous but it was all fountains and gardens. Also, inside was a museum/exhibition on a famous composer (I forget his name) who lived there at the villa. We mostly spent the whole time taking funny pictures and goofing around acting like the college kids we are. There was a cool water organ fountain that played a song. There was also a crazy wall of fountains with literally hundreds and then tons and tons of statues. Anyways, here's some of my favorite pictures from the day.

Doing my Pegasus impression

After Villa d'Este, we walked around the town for a bit before getting on the bus back to Rome which we all slept on. Once we got back to Rome we went exploring around Testaccio since we've never really done that during the day yet. Pretty neat area, reminded me a lot of Monte Verde, the residential area I live in. We got dinner at a good restaurant, I had an amazing Saltimbocca alla Romana. After that we took the bus downtown and went and got gelato at the Gilioti place near the Pantheon then just walked around Rome at night before coming home. We all noticed that that was the most crowded we had ever seen the tourist areas at night. Glad I'm getting out away from all the tourists soon.

On the tram home after they had gotten off I had a nice conversation with two random Italian ladies sitting next to me. They were trying to figure out which stop San Giovanni di Dio was on the tram. Not that I was trying to ease-drop or anything but I enjoy trying to listen to other people's conversations just for the purpose of seeing if I can understand them. Anyways, I figured I'd help out so I piped in and told them when to get off and they were very happy. They thought from my Italian accent that I was British (score: finally I wasn't immediately deemed an American) which is at least part of Europe so I was happy about that. They were excited to hear what I thought about the Royal Wedding that had happened earlier that day but to their dismay I didn't watch it. They told me I spoke better Italian than any other American they had ever met on the tram so another point for me! Later that night I went out with some friends to Trastevere to a couple different bars and had a great time. Got back around 2:30am so I turned on the O's game and the NFL Draft which had just started and then crashed around 5am. (SO excited about Torrey Smith) All in all, between Tivoli, going out, and everything in between, that was one of my best full days in awhile, but I guess it's hard not to have a great day when you were awake for 21 hours of it, ha.

Saturday was a different story. I woke up after Noon, didn't even get showered until 6pm and was laying back in bed again by 11pm ha. I worked on my Bodies and Burials archaeology paper most of the day, only taking a break to go to Pizza e Pasta for the next days breakfast. I did this because I was planning on getting up at a ridiculous early hour to go down and join the masses for the Beatification of John Paul II.

Sunday didn't start quite as early as I had wished. I pushed the snooze button a couple times, which is something I never do but before I knew it, it was already 6am. I ate my refrigerated pizza and got ready for whatever the day would bring. All night long, the Roman transit website had been publishing updates on traffic flow and judging by the fact that it said things weren't horrendous I didn't think there would be many people. Some news outlets were estimating an approximate 200,000 people would should up to the Beatification ceremony, which was as many as were at the Rally for Sanity in DC. Other outlets were predicting numbers near 3 and 4 million like they had for John Paul II's funeral in 2005. So I really had no clue what to expect.

I took a relatively empty tram down to the river stop and then realized the day would be crazy. All along the river were herds of people swarming up north towards the Vatican. There was an army of ATAC buses parked along the side of the street pulling up empty, being filled in a matter of seconds and then taking off up the lungoteverer road. I was amazed though at how efficiently things were running, considering this is Rome we're talking about. I waited about 30 seconds before a bus was zipping me up the road and dumped me off near the bridge south of Ponte Umberto and Ponte Angelo (which are the two main bridges for getting into the Vatican - they were closed off, even to foot traffic. See picture on left. Hopefully all those people waiting there at the rails realized that all they had to do was walk south a bridge and then cross there..I don't even want to imagine how long the pile up of people went back there. Anyways, I walked around the area for a bit which had the feeling of a huge festival. Trash, food, drinks, newspapers, tents, smell of urine, was all over the place. Undoubtedly the biggest crowd of people I've ever been in, estimates are that there was around 1,500,000 people there Sunday. Madness.

Prime real estate spot after my cunning plan worked

After trying to get a standing spot on Via Della Conciliazione (the main road leading up to St. Peter's), I realized that would be impossible from where I was so I bailed out and looped down, across the river, up the river, past the Vatican, then crossed the river at the bridge north of it. In the process I ran into Michelle and Jen completely unexpected, what are the odds of that. Yet, what were the odds of me running into Jess at the Vatican unplanned for Easter? Something magical about that place I guess. Anyways, you might be wondering why I did all that walking and looping around. Well, let me tell you. Almost everyone was coming from the bus drop off area which was south of the Vatican, rarely do people come from north of it. I noticed that the northern side of the road to St Peter's was not as deeply filled with people as my side. I knew I only had 2 hours until the ceremony started so I figured I'd give it a try. 45+ minutes later of walking, I finally made it to the other side of the street that I had just been standing on, no more than 40 feet away from where I had been. However, my plan worked, and now I was situated right at the end of the road, facing St Peter's while watching all the people back where I was still around the corner unable to get onto Via della Conciliazione! Bravo Michael! If I zoomed in all the way with my camera I could see the altar and the pope! But they also had those jumbo-trons set up, like the one on the left in this picture, which made it much easier to see and hear what was going on.

The mass started an hour after I had started standing there, and it went on for 3 more hours. That's a lot of standing in a packed crowd. Five different people near me fainted and had to be taken out by stretcher by the medics who were overworked and underrepresented. Every 5 minutes you would see a pocket of people in the crowd start waving there hands and screaming for a medic, but then of course it would take them another 5 minutes to actually move through the crowd to where the people were. It was a hot day. They were handing out free waters and food though by just sending out 6 packs of water and having the crowd crowd-surf them back. That was nice, I alone went through 4 bottles of water while standing there and still felt drowsy in need of sleep, food and water. Personal space didn't exist, there were bodies slammed up against me on every side for the whole time. The worst was one an ambulance had to get through which basically meant that you were guaranteed to get squashed, I tried to use my height to poke my head above the short Italians for some fresh air but even that was tough. Tensions were rising around me and people were starting to shove and shout a little too forcefully. Thankfully, once the ceremony started at 10am everyone seemed to simmer down.

Lots of Polish flags waving, lots of them. Someone said that almost a third of the people there were from Poland. (John Paul II was Polish) The ceremony was very long, like I said, about 3 hours. The procession in of the Pope, Cardinals etc took about 20-30 minutes alone. There were dignitaries, presidents, kings and ministers there from all over the world, including Mugabe who I thought was banned from the EU, but that little piece of land the Vatican owns isn't considered the EU. It was mainly in Italian, which I was able to semi-follow, but there were a few instances when they said things in multiple languages. It started out giving a long narrative of the life of John Paul II, followed by readings from the Bible, a homily, Eucharist then finally the beatification ceremony. That picture there was taken after Pope Benedict proclaimed him officially beatified. They had a vile of his blood out on top of his wooden coffin and then they unveiled a massive banner of him hanging in the square. Each part of the mass of course took longer than normal. It went by quicker than I thought that a 3 hour mass standing in the hot sun would go though.

After it ended, I hung around for a bit to watch the procession into St Peter's where his coffin was placed on the high altar for veneration. After all the VIP's went, they were going to let regular people in, but that wouldn't be for another few hours and the line would be hours long so I decided I had had enough for the day. I wandered up and down the slowly emptying Via della Conciliazione and almost made it to the square but it was still physically impossible to get in there because of so many people. Instead of trying to deal with heading back towards the river where the million people were all attempting to get on buses at the same time, I decided to walk the back roads for about 30 minutes to the tram stop by the river that would take me back to my place. Again, I got on an empty tram and road it back home. I guess that shows how little amount of local people went to this thing and that it was pretty much all tourists.

I don't think I'll ever experience something like that again. 1.5 million peacefully people praying together in unison all in the same place all for the same reason. Pretty incredible if you ask me.

1st/2nd of May 2011

I'm going to do something I've never done before and blog out of order. My apologies for confusing anyone. I left you all off at last Thursday and have yet to blog about my day in Tivoli Friday and at the Beatification ceremony Sunday morning but as soon as I opened my laptop at 10am this morning in bed, I knew it was a special day.

A lot of things seemed odd. Twitter was blowing up and updating constantly and a ton of friends were on FB chat. This is odd because around 10am my time when I wake up, the internet is normally dead except for the occasional tweet by Chad Ochocino who seems to miraculously tweet at any hour of the day all the time. After a quick glance at the trending topics on Twitter (the only way I know what I should be concerned about - which now at 11:30pm means I should be concerned about Jack Bauer, Fred Weasley and Geronimo - all trending topics) and reading Matt's post on my wall I figured it out. After jealously watching the videos and pictures of celebrations back home I started working on my paper while listening to my favorite patriotic songs.

We've been wanting to have a cookout here for awhile now, considering our built in brick grill and massive patio that has been unused so I messaged my roommate (and fellow Terp) Juan and we met up to go grocery shopping, of course after I picked out my fitting outfit of blue jeans, lynyrd skynyrd shirt and O's ballcap. I haven't dressed so out of place since my Canary Islands vacation. Since all the supermarkets by us don't sell cookout stuff we had to make a trip up to the end of the tram line to a store called Conad that actually sells charcoal. They also had an extremely limited selection of buns, burgers and hot dogs that we choose from. Unfortunately, they, along with the rest of Rome, don't carry large size solo cups, only small ones so again we had to make do with them. I can't wait to drink from a plastic cup that holds more than a drop of liquid. Grocery shopping complete. I stopped at Panino Planet for my late lunch then came back here to do a little more work before walking over to school for my 5:15pm class.

Got to school around 4 and hung out in the garden with Michelle and her fauxhawk hair experiment, sorry don't have a picture haha but it was incredible. Finished up my Italian homework and went to Italian class where my incredible teacher who you all read about in the last blog brought in copies of her book for us! I got my autographed copy and plan on starting it tonight. It's called Tenere and I hope that I'm smart enough to comprehend it (it's for 7 year old children). We'll see how that goes.

Prepping the flames

Now the fun starts. Cookout time. Our grill has an interesting set up but I managed to build a pyramid of charcoals and get them lit just like my father taught me. It took a longggg time for them to get heated up, but they finally did and cooked the first batch of burgers just right. Dave made french fries and we sat out on our patio enjoying our meals and Budweisers next to our gigantic flag. Second round of burgers took a bit longer because the charcoals were burning out but I made do with it. Started the grilling off with Lee Greenwood and his Proud to be an American hit and then had my classic rock playlist rocking the whole time with Born in the USA, Jack and Diane, Red White & Blue and all. Hung our big flag outside too. Great night overall just enjoying the night, food and talking about the USA with my roommates. Also, now my clothes reek of charcoal grill smell which is perhaps my favorite post-cookout treat.

Yummm.

Successful Night

Anyways, because I don't feel like proofreading my papers yet, I used this as an excuse. Blogging seems to always be a good excuse to not do something.Tomorrow I'm going to the Museum of Criminology over near Piazza Navona (my favorite spot) at 9am for Bodies and Burials on-site class so I'll make sure to hit up my ice cream joint sometime before I venture back to campus for the rest of my day which doesn't end until 7pm. Bleh. Should be a fun experience though at the museum. It's crazy that this is my last Tuesday of classes. For being as long of a day in class as it is, I really don't mind it that much, school at AUR is pretty good.

Anyways, time to start getting ready for bed. Proud to be an American today. It made the front page of all the newspapers here and consensus seems to be that Italians are also very happy, albeit not celebrating in the streets like in DC, but they're happy about the events that occurred last night in Pakistan. Of course the State Department issued a warning to all overseas Americans but I don't forsee that affecting my Eurotrip coming up in a couple of weeks. Who would ever want to attack innocent little Brussels anyways? Gadhafi's off his rocker lately though, and Rome is a little to close too Libya geographically for my liking. I have my faith in Berlusconi though. I definitely can't say my stay in Europe has been uneventful. Week 1 was the start of the Egypt riots, and now this and everything that happened in between. Thank God for CNN.com (& Twitter) still keeping me updated in English on the other side of the Atlantic.

Enjoy your week, tutti! Remember not to forget all those who have died for your freedom.

Dinner at Della's - Bellissimo!

Well, I'm behind blogging schedule already again. Life moves so quick here. Too quick. This week was also just extremely eventful. So Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday's adventures were covered in the previous blog. Now onto Thursday which was incredible. Then Friday was Tivoli, Saturday was homework catchup day and Sunday was the beatification ceremony.

So first of all, Thursday started out great because my friend Nick told me about Gnocchi Tuesday's at Simone's (tavola calda (take out buffet) by school) for lunch. See my classes on Thursday are at 2:05 and 5:15 so normally I grab a slice of to-go pizza on my walk to school and am never near Simone's on Thursdays. Turns out they do gnocchi every Thursday so I participated in that this week because of him and got gnocchi pesto and it was incredibleeee. That's when I knew that day would rock. Spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out in the garden watching Michelle go through my 90's iTunes playlist while going to class in between. Typically, I would go straight from Business Law which ends at 6:30 to M8 Bar for the Extreme Language Exchange which I love doing but for the first time since January, I didn't go to that. I had my Italian oral exam instead.

My Italian teacher has a book conference thing to attend this week (she writes children books - so awesome - I'm working on getting an autographed copy, the reading age is 6-7ish so I'm hoping I can handle it ha) [Update: Have my autographed copy of Tenere, but, turns out, I'm not as smart as a 6 year old] so she canceled our May 4th oral exam. To make up for it, she offered to have us over to her house for dinner Thursday night and grade us on how well we conversed at the dinner table. Could it get any better than that? I'll take an informal oral exam and a home cooked Italian meal any day. She's also one of the nicest and caring teachers I've ever had and my class is only about eight of us, and we all get along great so I knew it was going to be great. Also, I was finally going to experience what an actual Italian family style dinner is like so I got a good dose of Italian cultural at the same time. This is why my school here is so great, never at UMD would you get to do something like this where your class is small enough, school is flexible enough and people live close enough for this to actually work.

Eggplant Parmesan, yum!

So me and Rose went over together since we live right next to each other, and after only getting slightly lost, we used our local instincts and direction asking skills and found our way and were there on time just 5 minutes before 8pm. We weren't sure then which door in the apartment complex was hers, and there were two different units with her last name, but judging by the decorations on her door, we knew we had the right one. Rang the buzzer and two kids answer the door. Thought for a second we were wrong but they quickly greeted and introduced themselves as her children. Her daughter was my age and her son was a year older. Once we stepped in through the door, I didn't speak a word of English until I left over two hours later, intense right? After meeting her husband and mother and waiting for the others to arrive, we started with the food. First up was an incredibly delicious melanzane alla parmigiana della nonna (eggplant parmasean made by her mother) that everyone agreed afterward was hands down the winner of the night. [New: Today in class she gave us the recipe for it, hit me up if you want to have the most delicious meal ever] Then came fresh diced tomatoes, a huge slice of fresh buffalo mozzarella and fresh bread. Next up was a delicious zucchini quiche, a hot spinach-like dish (it wasn't spinach) that's unique to Rome, it was incredible but I forget the name despite her husband explaining it in detail to me twice since I kept forgetting. Then penne fagioli (beans) and a type of meat with a nice sauce over it. But wait there's more! We finished the night off with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Are you kidding me!? What an incredible meal, all homemade and all beyond incredible. She doesn't know I have a blog so don't think I'm saying all this great stuff for extra-credit, it honestly was one of my best meals I've had since I got to Rome, and that's saying something considering how extremely often I eat out.

Pasta Fagioli!

Now that I've gotten myself, along with all of you hungry, I'll stop teasing. In between all the feasting I was busy in conversation with her, her family or my classmates in Italian. We were all sitting in chairs in a circle in her family room just talking about whatever came to mind. One part that was great was how well prepared I am for starter conversations because of that language exchange I do. Since there I do the thing where you switch people every 15 minutes, I'm used to meeting new people and all those icebreaker conversations. Therefore, I was 100% ready for meeting her family. I felt like I was back at M8 when I was going on with her two children my age about where I'm from, what I study, what I like about Rome, when I leave etc etc. As a group, we had conversations about comparing the Italian and American education system to each other, comparing our movies and music and what we all want to do when we grow up, along with lots of other stuff I can't remember right now at 1am Sunday night after being up early to go to that beatification downtown. Bleh, I need to get some sleep. All real interesting conversations though.

Okay wrapping up, if all Italian families are as warm, welcoming and kind as hers, then I'm officially coming back here to live or study (again). It was an awesome night, I learned about new Italian foods (and tried new ones - anyone who knows me knows that I've never had half that stuff I listed up there before) and I learned about Italian culture both through the eyes of her and her husband and through her kids that are my age. Awesome night and spero che io abbia ricevuto un A! (congiuntivo joke to my classmates - ha)

Ciao Ciao, I've got 2 huge 10 page papers due this week but I'll try and fill you all in on my amazingly fun day in Tivolio - see my facebook album to see why - and then of course let you all know what it was like being at the beatification ceremony of Blessed John Paul II as 1 of 1,500,000 earlier today at St. Peter's.

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!