Paris

Bonjour! 

This weekend my mom came to Rome and then we flew to Paris really early on Friday morning. The very first thing we did was go to the Louvre to see the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and my favorite, Victory. Among other things we saw there. I got in for free because I am a student a European student (kind of). After that we went to the Museum of Rodin. This was a beautiful museum. It was free to get into the gardens which had the Thinker and a lot more of his bigger sculptures out there. The grounds were beautiful with a pond and trees and green grass. Then we went inside the museum (which was once again free for me because I am a student) and saw 3 floors of Rodin's sculptures. I took a million pictures of everything. As we were walking out of the museum, we saw the Eiffel Tower in the distance and decided to go see that too even though we hadn't eaten anything all day and it was 6pm. So we went straight to the Eiffel Tower and bought tickets to go up in the elevator. We took the first elevator up to the platform in the middle of the tower and then took a second elevator all the way to the top. We stayed at the top long enough to take some pictures and to gift shop but it was actually pretty chilly all the way up there so we took the elevator back down. After that we went to dinner at this little restaurant across the street from our hotel. I had steak and mashed potatoes but the mashed potatoes were basically cheese with a little bit of potato in them. They were really good. The steak was too. By the far the best meal I've had in Europe so far.

The next day we had a very French breakfast with croissants and baguettes with jam and nutella. Another great thing about France is the way they drink coffee. I can't get used to drinking little tiny cups of espresso and cappuccinos in Italy but in France they actually serve you a decent sized cup of coffee with milk in it. Also there are starbucks all over Paris! And the best thing is they have the American coffee drinks but French pastries. Best of both worlds. After breakfast we walked about 5 minutes to get to the French Pantheon. The main floor has a lot of sculptures and a gigantic pendulum that measures the degrees the earth turns every second or something like that. Below the main floor is the crypt where all the famous French people are buried. The ones that I recognized were Marie Curie and her husband Pierre, Voltaire, Henry Rousseau, Alexander Dumas, and Victor Hugo. Just as we were about to leave the Pantheon, we noticed there was a guided tour to the top of Pantheon that had just started so we jumped in with that group and go to up to the balconies around the main floor of the Pantheon and go up to the top of Pantheon and go outside. Here we saw some wonderful views of Paris. After we tour we left the Pantheon and headed towards the Catacombs. On the way we stopped at the Luxembourg gardens. The gardens were the grounds of what used to be some sort of a palace. There were trees and flowers and a pond and a lot of chairs and tables everywhere and people were just relaxing. It was nice. There was also and Orangerie where they had orange trees growing and more statues. It was very peaceful. After taking some pictures and hanging out here for a bit we started walking to the Catacombs. The Catacombs is an underground cemetery that is long passageways with piles of bones lining the sides of the underground tunnels. The bones are arranged artistically though and they are made into neat designs. Also at the beginning of the tunnels there is a section that used to be part of an underground prison and they have preserved the carvings of one of the prisoners that was held there. He carved huge castles and famous landmarks of Paris out of the rock in his prison cell. It was very interesting. After the catacombs we walked to the Arch of Triumph that Napoleon had built in his honor. It was in the middle of the busiest roundabout in Paris it seemed like and the only way to get to it was an underground tunnel that came up in the middle of the roundabout where the arch was located. Every night at 6:30 pm they rekindle the torches in the arch and we arrived right at 6:30 just as a marching band paraded around the piazza playing the French national anthem. After that we walked down Champs-Elysses, the street leading up to the arch, which is the major shopping district of the city with really fancy stores like armani and gucci. We looked inside H&M. There was also an Abercrombie & Fitch located inside a castle with gigantic metal gates leading to it that were guarded by 3 bouncers dressed head to toe in identical A&F swag. It was pretty ridiculous. Definitely got some pictures of them. Finally, we went and had dinner at a creperie. We had dinner crepes with spinach and ham and cheese in them which actually were not that great. I had a chocolate dessert crepe after and my mom got sorbet, both of which were delicious.

So here's the funny story about the pictures I took. My mom finally brought me a camera that actually works so now I've taken a ton of pictures but unfortunately I do not have the USB cord to connect my camera to my computer and upload them...so unless I can find someone with the same camera as me, I can't upload those pictures until I get back to the States. Sorry!

Au revoir!  

Pompeii/Capri/Sorrento/Amalfi Coast

Ciao!

On Friday morning at 7am, about 30 other students from my program and myself boarded a tour bus and took off for a weekend trip to Pompeii, the island of Capri, and the Amalfi Coast. We drove for about 3 or 4 hours and arrived in Pompeii around 11am. There, we went on a guided tour of the ancient city of Pompeii. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I thought that Pompeii was a lot bodies of people that were preserved in the volcanic ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Actually, it is a town. Or more precisely, the ruins of a town. Some of the buildings are still in tact, like the brothel. That was one of the highlights of tour. We also visited the baths of Pompeii which had a sauna and a dressing room and then actual baths. We visited the ruins of a bakery that still had the oven in it. We saw a "rich person's" house with a large atrium and dining room and quarters for their slaves. Along the main road there was essentially a moat that ran through the center of the town that functioned as the sewer system with stepping stones across the middle of it so you could cross to the other side. There were a lot of stray dogs roaming around the town and sleeping inside the ruins.

After our tour we went to a nearby hotel and had a three course meal there for lunch. I would just like to say that a lot of people know me as a picky eater, but here in Italy, I eat a lot of strange things and I usually have no idea what I am about to eat and then end up eating it anyway. This meal we had some kind of pasta with some kind of sauce and vegetables. The second course was some kind of meat (tasted like pork chops) with some kind of gravy and then for dessert we had some kind of cake. Then we loaded back onto the buses and drove another 2 hours or so to the town of Sorrento.

Sorrento is on the coast and it is a pretty small town. There were a lot of tourists staying in it because it is only a ferry ride away from the island of Capri which is a very popular destination in the Mediterranean. We stayed at a really fancy hotel. For dinner on Friday and Saturday we had 4 course meals which were delicious. I know you all want to know what I had to eat. The meals have been a big part of my stay here so far, in case you can't tell. Friday night I had pasta with ham and peas and an alfredo cheese sauce. It might have been the best pasta I've had so far in Italy. For my main course I had pork and it actually came with french fries, no ketchup though. The dessert was tiramisu and it was by the far the best tiramisu I've had in Italy thus far. For dinner on Saturday night I had ricotta cheese ravioli with marinara sauce. For my meat course I had the Italian version of meatloaf, but it was not very good. For dessert I had a fig cake and turns out, I don't really like figs. But after I picked out the figs, it was pretty good.  Then for breakfast on Saturday and Sunday morning there was a buffet with fruit and pastries and they had American breakfast foods like fried potatoes and omelettes and bacon and scrambled eggs.

On Saturday morning we woke up early again and took a ferry over to the island of Capri. It was very beautiful. I understand why so many people make the effort to visit it. It is actually very mountainous. We had to take a lift up over the top of one of the mountains to get to the other side of the island. The beach that we went to was rocks, not sand. My feet were a little too sensitive for it, but the water was a nice temperature and it was so unbelievably clear. I'm glad I can now say that I have swam in the Mediterranean Ocean. We also visited a perfume factory that makes its own fragrances for perfumes and soaps and lotions from flowers that are grown right there on the island. We took a little tour of the factory and had the opportunity to smell all of the different scents.

The next day we drove along all 52 kilometers of the Amalfi Coast on our way back to Rome from Sorrento. It had some of the most beautiful views of the coast I've ever seen. We would essentially be driving along the side of a huge mountain a look down below to see beaches. We stopped in the town of Amalfi and took a tour of a famous church, the Church of St. Andrew. I had lunch at a little restaurant there. I got a sandwich with tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. It was delicious. The towns along the Amalfi coast are famous for the lemons that grow in that region so limoncello and other lemon products are very popular in this area. In the afternoon we were supposed to make another stop and take a tour of the town of Ravello (?) but unfortunately, that very morning the town caught on fire and while we were driving along the coast we could look farther up the mountain and see the flames and smoke coming from the town that was burning. There were planes flying overhead back and forth from the ocean to the fire taking water up to try and put it out.

This weekend, if everything works out, I should be visiting Paris with my mom when she comes to visit. I will keep you updated. I posted pictures of this trip on facebook in the album entitled "Italia" if you want to check it out.

Tivoli

Ciao rigazzi!

Today was Saturday in Italy and a few of my friends and I took a day trip to a little town called Tivoli. I think it was northwest of Rome and it took about an hour to get there on the train. And the best part was it only 2.30 euro round trip! The ride up was really pretty once we got out of the city. Everything was really green and rolling hills and cute little towns built into the sides of the mountains. Once we got to Tivoli we immediately found the national park slash forest looking place called Villa Gregoriana. (unfortunately we had to pay 5 euro to get in but it was totally worth it) The best part was all of the waterfalls, and they were gigantic gorgeous waterfalls. It looked very similar to the greenbelt in Austin except that there were neat really old temples and caves and monuments all over too. My friends took a lot of pictures so check those out once they are up on facebook.

On Friday night we finally found a successful aperitivo! It was called "somethingwithanF and somethingwithanF". It was super packed because it was the best place ever. We bought drinks for 6 or 7 euro and there was a gigantic buffet with pasta dishes and rice dishes and cous cous and salad and bread that you could eat as much as you wanted! The food was delicious and it was a really good deal.

I decided against doing the internship because my advisor here said that it was difficult to take the Italian class I am in and do an internship at the same time since my Italian class is a lot more work than the other Italian classes because it is 8 hours a week instead of 4. So officially now my classes are...

Intensive Italian
Baroque Rome (art history)
Forma Urbis: The archaeology of Ancient Rome
Rome as a Living Museum

All of my other classes start this Monday the 12th and next weekend IES is taking us to Pompeii on Friday-Sunday! Except none of my friends with cameras are coming on that trip because they signed up for a different one so I will have to find a way to take some pictures of that... I'll work on it.

Ciao!

Polizia

I had to wait a few days to blog about my encounter with the Roman Polizia because I was really upset about it. But I think I'm basically over it now so I will share it with you. First, I need to break down how the Roman transportation system works. You can buy essentially a one-way pass to anywhere in the city for 1 euro. You can buy a 3 day pass for 11 euro or you can buy a monthly pass for 30 euro. Or the secret other option that no one tells you about is there is a student monthly pass for 18 euro. I live about a 45-50 minute walk from where my classes are so I take the tram/bus there every single day there and back. Which means that it would get expensive to continue purchasing one-way tickets, not to mention I usually use take the bus on the weekends and in the evenings to different places too. The better deal is clearly the monthly pass. My host mom advised me to buy the student pass because it is cheaper and about half of the students in my study abroad program (so about 50 or 60 students) also bought the student pass. There is usually no one checking tickets on the bus. You just get on or get off whenever and it doesn't matter. But my program warned us that if the police come on the bus and check your ticket and you don't have one, they fine you 50 euro. Needless to say I was not going to risk it.

On Thursday I caught the bus after class back to my house and as soon as I got on the bus I saw 3 policemen checking tickets. One came over and asked me for mine and I showed it to him and he looked at it and gave it back. No big deal. I got off at the next stop and there was another police officer waiting at the stop checking tickets again so once again I was asked to show my ticket. When I did, he saw that it was a student pass and asked if I was a student. I answered that I was and he asked which university and I told him it was a study abroad program and he asked to see a student ID. Of course, I am carrying zero forms of identification on me at the time. I explained I didn't have one and he once again asked for the name of my school. Since I knew telling him the name of my study abroad program was not going to help, I told him the name of an Italian university that we are allowed to take classes at if we want to, Roma Tre. He then goes on to tell me that only students that go to Roma Sapienza (a different Roman university) are allowed to purchase student bus passes. At this point, I know that he just hates me because I am American. He asks for my passport and I don't have it. And then, like I had already figured out was about to happen, he told me he was fining me 50 euro for carrying an invalid bus pass. Now at this point, I am very frustrated because he doesn't speak any english and I have clearly run out of things to say to him in Italian so I just keep repeating "sono studente" or "I am a student" and he just keeps shaking his head at me. Then he changes the law. He tells me that not only do I have to go to Roma Sapienza, but I also have to be a Roman citizen. I only had 20 euro and my visa card on me so I told him I don't have 50 euro and he says that he can take me to the police station which I was just about to agree to but then a friend of mine who is in my study abroad program saw me and came over to ask what was going on and gave me some cash to pay for the fine. I walked back over to the officer with the money in my hand, he grabbed it out of my hand and shoved it in his pocket and said I was free to go.

It's terrible that this is how corrupt their government is. There was clearly nothing legal about what he did me. I was basically robbed and taken advantage of by this police officer but there wasn't really anything that I could do. Roman citizens barely have any rights much less an American. This has sadly changed my view of Italy for the worst.

Lago/Colosseum

9/2: We woke up early and met at the IES center. From there we got on charter buses and drove to the Lago di Matignano. It was about 45 minutes away from our center and I'm pretty sure it is not in Rome. It was in a rural area. We drove through a lot of beautiful country side on our way there. When we got about half way up the mountain that the lake was on, we had to stop and take turns getting on the smallest bus and taking that up the rest of the way because the other buses were too big for the little roads. When we finally got there we walked down a little dirt road to get to the lake and it was beautiful. When everyone got there we split into small groups and talked with a mentor about our experiences so far in Rome. After that we had lunch and got to hang out by the lake. We went swimming and apparently the lake is on top of an inactive volcano so the "dirt" at the bottom of the lake was actually volcanic ash. It was really soft. In the afternoon, about 6 people at a time could go out on a sailboat. There was an Italian guy who took us out to the middle of the lake and we got to jump and and swim. Then after that we took a paddle boat out and just relaxed.

That night we went to dinner at a restaurant that has "student dinners" which was 10 euro for an appetizer, a pasta dish, a dessert, and wine. The appetizer was bruschetta, the pasta was penne with tomato and basil, and the dessert was tiramisu and I had white wine. Afterwards, we went for gelato.

9/3: We were originally planning on going to the beach but we never actually received any information about where we were supposed to meet or what time or anything at all (this program has actually proved to be rather disorganized thus far; Italian bureaucracy at its finest) so instead I met up with a few friends around 11 and we walked to the Trevi Fountain which was beautiful and then we took the subway to the Colosseum after having lunch. But unfortunately it is really hot here right now so the people in my group not from Texas were not capable of dealing with the heat so we didn't stay long and went to get gelato. Then we took the bus/tram back home.

That night (and when I say night I mean night, like 9pm is when we go to dinner which is still earlier than most Italians) we searched for an apperitivo which is basically where you go to a restaurant and buy a drink and then they give you appetizers for free. There are good ones and there are bad ones and unfortunately we went to a bad one. We paid for 5 euro each for drinks (I got a bellini which is a cocktail with peach juice and Prosecco) and got olives and peanuts as appetizers. Next time we are going to try a different place that actually gives you real food for appetizers. After that we went to a pizza place called Pizza Roma. The people there were really nice. When we got there, no tables were available so we had to wait but they brought us a free appetizer which was basically the crust part of a pizza with olive oil on it. I split an eggplant pizza with mozzarella cheese on top and it was delicious. I also had a coke which tastes better than American coke. The waiter came over and asked us where we were from and when I told him Texas he went on to talk to me about his favorite sports teams from Texas including the Dallas Mavericks and the Houston Texans. After that we got gelato (of course) in the Piazza di Santa Maria I think? I forget because there are about a million piazzas in Rome. In the middle of the piazza there was a fountain and a guy was juggling fire.

I start my Italian class on Monday the 5th and then the rest of my classes start on Monday the 12th.

Ciao!

Orientation/First Few Days In Rome

8/30: Officially my first day in Rome. I slept from 2pm until 10pm. Then I woke up and took a shower and watched a little bit of the movie "Despicable Me" in Italian with my host brother Adrianno. (Correction to my first blog; he is 12 years old.) Then I went back to sleep at midnight and slept until 7 in the morning. And then I wasn't jetlagged anymore. I successfully overcame it by just sleeping a ridiculous amount the first day.

Sidenote: Currently, I have a roommate (Amanda) because her host family is on vacation so she is staying with me and my host family until hers gets back later this week.

8/31: I had orientation at 9:30. We woke up and had tea from Sri Lanka and cappucino and lemon meringue pie for breakfast. Then my host mom showed us how to get to the center where we are taking our classes. We walk a few blocks and take tram and then get off the tram and catch the bus and then walk a little bit more to get there. It only takes about 20 minutes. Orientation was fairly boring. Basic "don't be stupid" information. Then we had to split up into the people who are staying in apartments and the people who are in homestays. And to my surprise there were only about 10 of us in homestays versus the rest of the 100 who are in apartments. So since we are such a small group we got to know each other and have been hanging out the past couple of days. That night we went to dinner at a pizza place that an Italian student recommended. Amanda and I split a magherita pizza and we had a bottle of red wine for the table. Very good pizza. 

9/1: Today we had this really cool guy named Alan Epstein who grew up in Philadelphia but has lived in Italy for the past 16 years come and talk to us. He has written lots of books, one of which is called "As the Romans Do" (a best selling travel book for Italy) and he has been on Oprah twice. He mostly told us stories about his life but he was interesting. Also I signed up for possibly being a teaching assistant for English classes in local Italian high schools. Then a group of us went to the Spanish Steps and after that we went to the Pantheon. We didn't stay too long at either because there were literally a bajillion people at both but we plan to go back later in the October when there aren't so many tourists around.

Tomorrow we are going to Lago di Martignano but I have no idea where that is. On Saturday we are going to Ostia Beach. I'm supposed to go sailboating so I get to wear my sperrys on a legit sailboat!

Also I gave up on taking pictures because everyone I'm with has a fancy Nikon (AKA real camera) so I'm just gonna let them take pictures and I'll steal them off facebook for y'all maybe.

Some Things I've Learned So Far:

-Italians love them some PDA
-Everything you've heard about drivers in Italy is true. They are insane.
-Hot water and AC are basically non-existent
-Whoever organized the streets and addresses for Rome was a lunatic. Getting lost is inevitable.

Lastly, this is a video they made us watch in orientation which I thought was pretty funny and I have found it to be very true so far. "Italy vs the Rest of Europe"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAJNFoHuLno

Ciao!