heart of italy

10/10-14-10
Heart of Italy!
This weekend was our longest weekend here, and only because they cancelled classes on Monday and Tuesday, for the sole reason of our optional trip! Either way, it was exciting, and we started off early Friday morning with a trip to Cortona. Cortona is where the majority of the movie Under the Tuscan Sun takes place. Our culture teacher said we would probably be able to see the house, Bramasole, as we drove by, but we didn’t. We just watched the movie in culture class too, so it was pretty exciting to get to go here. It was walled, like Viterbo, nestled among the rolling hills of Tuscany, right out of a postcard. We recognized lots of places in the movie, and after seeing the church together, had a few hours to walk around on our own. We looked through the shops which sold leather bags and goods.
After a half day in Cortona, it was back to the bus to drive to Florence. We got there surprisingly fast (speed limits = optional here) though didn’t get to rest much on the bus because the bus driver was super loud and talked the entire ride to Frankie. Somehow our huge charter bus manages to fit down the tiny street that our hotel is on and stop long enough for us to get our bags out. Right away we notice markets in a pedestrian street directly next door to our hotel and we all stopped and stared! The markets were full of scarves, leather goods, jewelry, and shoes. And while they line the streets all the way to the Duomo, there was a lack of variety among what the stands sold. It was seriously like scarves, shoes, purses, scarves, shoes purse, etc, etc. but I guess that was good because we walked around looking for the cheapest ones and then bought all the things we wanted there. So this day we just walked around and saw the markets and made our way to the Duomo, which was amazing. All the colored marble and its just smack dab there in the middle of Florence, with cars driving by it and everything. We walked along some streets with shops and then had dinner outside in a piazza. The next day we got to go inside the Uffizi. Beforehand we walked around a little, saw the Ponte Vecchio and looked in some book shops for Under the Tuscan Sun, which we all needed for our Culture class. Then it was back to the Uffizi where we saw tons of famous artwork, mostly involving the Madonna and child. As Chase pointed out, maybe they should rename the museum to “JC’s House of Love”. Our tour guide for the Uffizi was crazy though. He spent like 20 minutes talking about one painting in every room and then would make us leave and we couldn’t see the rest. Then after about 5 paintings the tour was over! Well at least we had some time to look around on our own. Then we went out on the rooftop terrace with some good views of Florence. At that point it was getting late in the day and I think we just walked around (of course) went back to the hotel and then got some Chinese food (to go!) for dinner. Also, we got all ready to go out since we didn’t the night before (and apparently missed out), but no one called us/picked up there phones so we ended up just watching the only English language television channels (cnn, bbc world).
The next day we took a little side half-day trip to a town called Fiesole, up on the Tuscan hills overlooking Florence. It was an amazing little town, mainly visited for its great views. It was really old (as is everything in Italy) and even had remnants of a roman amphitheater. We went into the town cathedral and then started our hike up to the monastery, where the best views are located. It was a really steep hill; I don’t know how the nuns/monks do it! Italians are used to these hills, as well as stairs, and no escalators/elevators though. The uphill hike was well worth hit, however, when you look out onto the rolling hills and can even see the Duomo in Florence. Then we walked around the monastery grounds, got to go inside the church and see some older bedrooms. After all that, we just walked a little around the town of Fiesole then took the bus back to Florence for the rest of the day. In Florence we walked around the markets some more on our way to the Duomo so we could go inside. The inside was nice, but the dome was very impressive and I wish we would have had time to go up into it. Or even go up in the campanile. Later that day a bunch of us went to the Accademia to see the David statue together. We didn’t make the optional (more expensive, but recommended) reservations beforehand, but lucked out with getting a short line. There really isn’t much other art in the Accademia, there are a couple rooms with paintings and then a big room with sculptures, but David is the real sight. Some people don’t think it’s worth paying the 14 euro (or something like that) entrance fee (and you can’t even take pictures) but I thought it definitely was; the statue was so much cooler, more impressive and more powerful in real life. We just sat on the benches for awhile and stared, then took a couple of walks around, then walked around the museum and came back to it one more time. It was pretty cool. After dinner, we walked around the Ponte Vecchio and that area making our way to some castle to see the parks (which we closed seeing as it was 11pm on a Sunday). But we had some fun just doing nothing, even though it was a bit chilly. Also we saw an American singer street performer right outside the Uffizi, he was there every night and actually plays every night all year, so that was cool.
The next day we got up early for our trip to Pisa. Pisa is so touristy, which made me not like it too much. There are gypsy people that try and sell your stuff everywhere in Italy (and Europe) but it was like 10 times worse in Pisa than in anywhere else I had ever been. Anyways, we saw the baptistery and the cathedral and got to go inside both, but had to pay if we wanted to go up the leaning tower (which we didn’t). Mostly we all took a massive amount of incredibly stupid pictures of us holding up the tower and jumping in front of it. But everyone else there was doing it so it was really fun. The architecture there was pretty as well, not so Etruscan as we are used too (yay)! After about a half day in Pisa we got on the bus again to go to a town called Lucca. Lucca has a wall like Viterbo does, but this one has grass on top and you can walk around it, however it is quite high, so you can’t really walk on top of the wall but rather on the path beside it now because someone had just jumped off it the week before. We had a nice walking tour of the town. Lucca is where the composer Puccini is from. Our tour guide talked about the importance of the piazza in Italy and how the main church (beautiful by the way) and piazza surrounding it are the main meeting points for people in Lucca. Lucca was getting ready or a comic book convention that was going to take place so there were tents everywhere. Also in Lucca is a cool square type place where there are apartments and shops actually in a circle, because they were built on top of an old stadium. The aerial view is actually quite cool because there is a random empty circle in the middle of town and apparently this is the most expensive place to live in Lucca. Then we walked around during our free time, mostly around the wall, which was really pretty, before heading back to Florence. That night in Florence we decided to go to Piazzale Michelangelo because a bunch of people had went the night before and said it was amazing and had great views. It was amazing and did have great views.. however it was a pretty long, and then uphill, walk. Still I think it was worth it. The city at night was beautiful! We went to go meet some people near the Duomo that night so really we got to see a bunch of Florence at night, and then walked and walked and walked so more, I think in search of Peter, another usacer in Florence (not on the trip) for the weekend, ending up at a different famous church in Florence but eventually becoming so sick of walking that we gave up and went home.
The next morning we drove to Piazzale Michelangelo before heading out to Siena and then back home to Viterbo that night. It was funny to be there again, less than 12 hours after the first time we went, but it was nice to see it in the daytime. Then we got back on the bus and headed to Siena. In Siena we also did a walking tour and got to walk down the cute streets lined with flags, see the Piazza del Campo where the Palio is held, and go into the amazing Byzantine cathedral in Siena. The inside (as well as outside) of this cathedral was amazing. Such different architecture than we were used too, so much color! And lots of gold. Even the ceilings were painted and the floors were impressive mosaics! It was just too cool to even describe and the pictures don’t do it justice. After that we went to the campo and walked around and then had free time, and we ended up eating in a (Rick Steves recommended) restaurant right on the edge of the Piazza del Campo. It’s apparently really crazy when the horse races actually take place, and places to sit have been booked years in advance. It sounds cool, but I don’t know that I would actually want to be there for that! After we walked around Siena, looked in some shops, and then it was time to go back to Viterbo and back to school.

la fine

Today was my last final! It was composition and I thought it was going to be the most difficult, but it wasn’t too bad. My finals have been going on for about the past week and a half, while classes have still been happening, so its not been a fun couple of weeks. First was cinema (better than I expected), then conversation, then culture (also not as bad as I thought it would be) and then composition. Try saying all those class names all the time, the c’s really mess with my head! I’m happy to be done with the exams, readings, and mounds of composition homework.. but I’m not happy that this really means it’s the end. How did we even get to this point; where did the semester go? The first day seems like it was so long ago, yet I can remember specific details and things people said and what it was like meeting everyone for the first time. It feels like we’ve known each other forever, yet that our time together just flew by and that out last days are fast approaching. There are some people here who really want to go home, and I’m kinda glad that I’m not one of them (don’t get me wrong, I am excited, just not longing or hating on Italy). I’m kinda proud of myself that I can deal with being away from home, things and people I miss, things I’m used to and just everything and despite wanting those things or missing or feeling homesick from time to time, still be able to appreciate the fact that I am in ITALY and that there is so much that is amazing here even if its not what I’m used to/what I expect/what I want at the moment. I asked some friends if they would recommend study abroad to others and it got me thinking about my response. Yes, is, of course, my answer, but I probably could have guessed that would be the response even before I came. Study abroad is the best experience. If I could do it every semester for the rest of my college career, or my life!, I totally would. I don’t even think I could list all the things I learned.. its an ongoing never-never ending list, that is for sure. And I got to share this amazing experience with bunch of really cool people who I will always remember, and now we’ll always have that one little thing in common that no one else will really be able to understand (since they weren’t there). I can’t even wrap my head around the rest of my thoughts, probably because its 1 am, I am tired and I am overwhelmed right now. In summary, best semester ever! And I feel lucky to have had such an amazing experience.

ottobre continuato..

ok so i'm a horrible blogger.. but i really have no time, like its not even a joke. as i write this i am supposed to be studying for my italian composition exam in less than 12 hours and i only just returned from munich, germany 12 hours ago. busy doesn't even begin to describe my life at this moment. but i love it! its filled with good things, so it's not bad. so i' still trying to catch up on october entries.. but since i finished some later ones, we're now going to go out of order... and then i'll fix it later. so here comes some later october events!

16/10-19/10
Brussels, Belgium!
We hadn’t taken a trip outside the country yet so about 2 weeks before the weekend of the 16th, we looked up the places we could go on the cheapest airfare. I think Stockholm came in first, but the airport was so far outside the city center that it wasn’t worth it. London and Lyon were in that mix too, but somehow we ended up deciding on Brussels, probably because none of us had ever been there. So we had all the flights we wanted and a hostel but had to wait to book them until we walked home since school was closing. Once we logged on in the computer lab in the dorm, the return flight was sold out. So after doing some rearranging, we booked our original departure flight and a return flight from a different airport in Brussels to a different airport in Brussels on Ryanair, which I’d heard a lot of bad things about. Then the hostel website consistently told us that the rooms were all sold out, but another website allowed us to book one. Hoping that it wasn’t lying we frantically booked that hostel. Definitely the most trouble we’d had in booking or organizing any trip yet. so the Thursday we leave arrives, only 2 days (or less maybe) after we get back from the Heart of Italy tour, so we are tired and still had class those two days as well. Plus Carla and I had a cinema midterm paper due on Thursday. I stayed up until 5:40 and got up at 7 for class, she stayed up all night working on it. So we were pretty tired that day. And we had cinema class until 3 pm, when we ran home and packed our stuff for our 4:55 train to Rome to the airport (our flight was at 9:15). Caitlin left her backpack at the dorm with us because she was going to pick up the same train at a different stop since she had a test at school until 4:45. I get everything packed and we make it to the train station and get our tickets and everything. We’re sitting on the train, and Carla says “I feel like I’m forgetting something” and I say me too, but then she says “well at least I have my passport”. And I’m like oh no!! I don’t have that. And she starts yelling shut up, and everyone is looking at us because I’m like don’t tell me to shut up and that I have to get off the train now! Luckily the train hadn’t moved yet so I got off and so did Carla. I decided to leave all the stuff with her and run back to the dorm since I knew exactly where my passport was. When I got to the dorm and to my room I tried to open my drawer where my passport was, but I had locked it (which I usually do since I have money in there too). So I dumped out my purse on my bed, but then realized that the key was in my backpack, which I had left with Carla at the train station. This is not good since the next train is in 15 minutes and now I can get my passport. I knock on every usac person’s door in the hall and no one is home so I randomly ask some Spanish Erasmus students whose door is open if I could borrow their key, hoping that maybe it’s the same. They don’t really speak English or Italian but I’m trying to explain this is my broken Italian with a few English words thrown in and I know I was all red since I had just run to the dorm.. you should have seen the look on this girls face. I know she though I was crazy. Finally she let me borrow the key, which didn’t work. I went to the front desk to see if they had a master one or anything that could help. They said no they didn’t but a repair man who could open it would be coming in the morning so I should wait till then. I kept trying to explain that no.. I have a flight tonight, I can not wait. And they just kept telling me that tomorrow would be best. Off course Italians fail to see the importance of time in this matter. After I continually told them that I would miss my flight one cleaning woman nicely tried to help me but had no solution either. At this point Carla had come back to the dorm since we had missed the next train anyways and had my key and backpack. I opened the drawer got the passport and went back to the train station, where the next train wasn’t for another hour. At this point we knew we wouldn’t make the 45 min cut off for check in at the airport in Rome, but we would only be 15 minutes late and thought that hopefully that would be ok. The new train went along a different route though and our old tickets that we had already validated were not valid, so we did have to buy some new ones. We get on the first train, but it leaves late. We switch in Orte, and our connection is late, we get of at Roma Tiburtina, and our train to Fiumicino Aeroporto is over 30 minutes late. It’s looking like we are not going to make this flight. We get on the train and it even ends up stopping at one stop for like 15 minutes. When we finally get to the airport, it is 9:15, the departure time of our flight. We start running to the Alitalia desk, where the first person says no it’s the next desk, and the next person says, no it’s the next desk. When we make it to the third desk, he says no the plane is gone. Why did we have to run to 3 different desks for something you all knew?! They told us we would loose all the money except the taxes, and that the next flight to Brussels wasn’t until tomorrow morning. They also told us maybe we should look into other airlines, which of course were located in other terminals. So we knew we had the Alitalia option at 9:30 the next morning for 160 euro. We went and walked around other terminals looking for Brussels airlines or anyone else, but since it was like 10 at night there was no one. We tried to use the internet, but it was so expensive so we just ended up playing a lot of phone tag trying to get people in the states to look things up and book things for us while we sat around in the airport. Eventually we found an 8:30 flight on an airline called Airone, owned by Lufthansa, that was only 100 euro. So we booked that, then went to stand in line at Alitalia to get our taxes back from the flight we missed. That took forever and it was probably around one am by the time we had everything figured out. We knew we’d be staying in the airport as soon as we missed the flight because the last train to Viterbo had already left for the night. And we had already been up for over a day, so we expected to arrive in Brussels really, really tired. My parents, though, nicely agreed to pay for a hotel, which I didn’t think was necessary, but was really nice none the less. It was an amazing Hilton connected to the airport! One of the nicest newest hotels I’ve been in in awhile. We were soo sooo tired when we got there but soo soo happy to have a bed and shower that we just changed and went to sleep for all of 5 hours before we had to leave for our new flight. During all this time, I should mention, that Caitlin did make the train, and we told her to get on the flight so that she wouldn’t have to pay more to switch it the next day. I had her bag though. So she made it to Brussels that night and got to the hostel without any of her stuff. So we got to the airport and on our flight the next morning, still really tired, but the flight was good and we got to Brussels, got on a train and in 15 mins were in the city, where we took a bus to the hostel. The hostel was really nice and didn’t make us pay for the night that Carla and I weren’t there, even though we didn’t call to cancel or anything. And the hostel itself was really nice. There was a bar and free maps and our room was in a building across the street, which was really small, but nice nonetheless. Free breakfast too, and there was butter for the bread, which I miss! We put our stuff in a locker and went straight to begin our first day in Brussels! Fist we walked to the main square through a little outdoor market and by the galleries St Hubert. There is where we got our first taste of Belgian food, French fries! Double fried and super good. Other things we did in Brussels included: ate great food! So many more cuisine choices than in Viterbo/italy, no pasta or pizza all weekend! Ate kebabs and Greek food, walked around and saw the Grote market, Grand place, lots of gothic architecture, which was a refreshing change from the Etruscan stuff we are use to seeing, we went to the chocolate museum and saw them make Belgian chocolate, went to the Delirium bar with most beers in the world (its in the Guinness Book of World Records!) where we all got different types of beer – including apple and cherry beer, which were surprisingly good, we stayed in an awesome hostel with a bar and cool common area and small but nice rooms, we saw the grand place lit up at night, spent some time in a grocery store with a million options (I wish this is what we had in Viterbo!!), bought some amazingggg waffles for 50 cents and amazing chocolate for same price, went to the mussee des beaux arts and saw some famous paintings, went to the small beer museum had some Belgian beer, authentic Belgian twice fried French fries, French written everywhere along with Flemish so now I kind of want to learn Dutch, we had sweeter waffles with ice cream, while watching some random drunk boys in tuxes singing in the grand place, Doritos! At the little convenience store in the supermarket, saw a beautiful cathedral reminiscent of Notre Dame, went up to the 10th floor of parking garage with amazing views thanks to our great free map with suggestions, did some shopping, walked inside the comic book museum, went back to the hostel where Carla tried to open her mini-wine bottle unsuccessfully and flew out of a far away airport (Charleroi) at the crack of dawn on Ryanair on Sunday but it was still the easiest flight back!

24/10
Assisi and Perugia
Today the eurochocolate festival in perugia was going on so USAC planned a trip for anyone who was interested to go and see it. We left at 8 am and had a two hour bus ride to our first stop, Assisi. Assisi is famous for its patron saint, st francis, who decided to live his life like jesus did (or something like that.. I really have no reference for these things other than what I hear). So we had a tour guide and visited the church of saint francis and also of santa chiara while also walking through the town, which was, of course, beautiful. Afterwards we had a little free time, then it as back on the bus for a wuick ride to perugia. The tour guide said perugia was a small town and that the chocolate festival wasn’t a big deal but I didn’t really find either of those things to be true. The main street in perugia, which was definitely around the same size or bigger than viterbo, was lined with chocolate vendors from all over the world. How are you even supposed to choose from that many different types?! Perugia is famous for its own type of chocolates, one of which is the baci, so I knew I would want to try that. It was pretty crowded in the streets of perugia and was hard to hear and pay attention to the guide who was trying to explain the historical significance of the town while we walked by amaing chocolate display after amazing chocolate display. We were like kids in a candy store, literally! Finally we had some free time to check out the town. I got white hot chocolate (really like a melted white chocolate bar, so good!), sampled a chocolate covered bana, some chocolate cookies, so 99 percent coco chocolate (so gross!) so little lindt chocolates and who knows what else. I ended up buying some perugia chocolate to try as well. They even had chocolate pasta, choclate sandwiches, cotton candy with chocolate.. anything you could think of! Milka made a life sized cow out of chocolate. I love chocolate, but I think I had too much that day! Once we got back to viterbo Caitlin and hailey stopped for kebabs. We’ve been there before and the guy must know that we are Americans, because he looks at me and goes obama, obama! And then I said si.. and he gave me a free slice of pizza!

ottobre...

2/10/08
Soccer game against Italians
Some Americans in usac have formed a sort of soccer team to play against other Italian students on Thursday nights sometimes. Soccer is like the sport for Italians.. except that the girls rarely play, which I found weird. Today we went and watched a game while eating some pastries we bought on the way (doing clearly the opposite of all the players in this game.. sitting around eating sugary things). While soccer may be in the Italians blood, I think our usac team still won a match, so that’s exciting!

3/10/08
Tonight we tried to cook dinner in our “kitchen”. Our kitchen has 4 hot plates, 2 of which work and even those 2 don’t work well. Caitlin put in a load of laundry and the water hadn’t started boiling until her second load was almost done (45 minutes)! So even our simplest dishes of pasta with tomato sauce and some type of pre-cooked chicken patties took fooorrrrreeeevvvveeerrr. After it was all cooked it was nice to eat.. but it took so long that we never really want to do it again, so its back to eating out ever night for us. Too bad we don’t have a microwave/oven!

4/10/08
Today we went to Roma! Specifically for the purpose of going to the Euroma 2 mall, probably because we heard they have an h&m and we were looking for some store where we knew the clothes would fit and be reasonably priced, since Italians are tiny the clothes here tend to be tiny and the cheapest stores are these stores run by Chinese people with random imported stuff from china, where I have found a bunch of good stuff, but that run really small because Asian women are particularly tiny! So we took the train to the metro to the bus stop to the mall. The mall was huge! It had three floors and lots of stores, mostly ones I hadn’t heard of, except they did have a huge Coop on the bottom floor that was so much better than ours and cheaper! If Viterbo was closer to the airport then maybe all the import fees added to our favorite American foods wouldn’t be so high! Anyways we started at the top floor, with the food court, to get some lunch before shopping. They had Chinese food, sushi and subway! I was so happy to have a turkey sandwich for the first time in forever. Later, a couple floors down, we had gelato, mint stracciatella! Then we walked around the huge circle mall for like 5 hours.. buying a couple things each. I got a sweater and a shirt. It was really crowded, maybe because it was raining. After we took the metro back into Rome, walked around a bit to the Trevi fountain, and found a restaurant to eat in before heading back to the train station and going back to Viterbo.

slow down

where is the time going?!!?! seriously, this post was supposed to be entitled "i can't believe it's already october", but apparently we're like reaching mid-november now. i have been so busy its not even funny, partly with massive amounts of schoolwork (seriously, italy.. i thought this school part was gonna be easy), partly with travel, which leaves no time for this blog.. but i'm trying! because i really don't want to forget anything of this amazing experience. so here is a list of italian and american differences that i've been putting together since day one.. just so i can feel productive by posting something and so i can catch up on this past month in the mean time!

Differences between Italy and the US: (not necessarily bad or good.. just different)

• Everything is smaller – I noticed this even just getting out of the airport when I first arrived. Airports at home are these huge sprawling things (I should know, I spent practically everyday there this past summer at work). Even the airport for Rome is small by American standards. Or maybe just short. Things here just seem smaller like shorter, height wise. Buildings also aren’t as tall. Cars are tiny! Roads have less lanes, shoulders are almost non-existent. City streets are narrow, shops are smaller, ceilings are lower.
• Times things are open – this is a big one. In the middle of the day things close for a “pausa di pranza” or a lunch break. Usually this is from 1-4 and includes everything except the cafes and restaurants. So a typical work day for Italians is almost like 2 separate days, because they might work like 9-1 and then go home, eat lunch with the family and take a nap, then return to work for 4-8. Those hours are approximate, however, because a lot of things aren’t even open that late, so maybe Italians just work less than us! In addition to that, everything is closed Sunday all day and Monday morning, and most things are closed on Saturday and Thursday afternoons. With us having to be in class or doing orientation activities it has definitely made it difficult to find time to go to a store when it is open.
• Italy/Italians are more laid back/relaxed – this probably seems pretty obvious since they go home and take naps in the middle of the day. Plus their meals are longer, they take their time in doing things. No one shows up on time either. This is really different than America’s get things done as fast as possible mentality. Also, no one in a restaurant brings you the check until you ask, so you can sit there for as long as you want.
• The passegiata – everyone goes out before dinner and after dinner.. actually they are always out! Just to walk around town. Stefano explained that it’s like a “to see and be seen” kind of thing. And it’s uncommon for Italians to have people over to their apartments. Instead they go out. They even have a law about quiet hours for housing everywhere in Italy. However public areas don’t count, I guess. The first few weeks, there were a ton of people out at night, even late, like midnight or 1 am, just walking around or getting gelato. I don’t know if that was more because of all the things going on for the Santa Rosa festival (fair, street vendors etc.) or because the weather was so nice. Even now that its colder, passegiata is really popular and I still see people out late (less kids though, they have school now).
• People dress nice! – In general, people dress way nicer here. Guys and girls. Guys wear fitted clothing and usually colored shirts (polos or button downs). Girls wear skinny jeans, cute tennis shoes, flats or boots, and usually wear only dark colors or black. And of course no outfit is complete without a scarf (for guys and girls)! And a bag.. man purses are the thing here. They told us no one wears jeans, but that’s not true. They also said flip flops are only for the house, but some Italians do wear them. Though, with all the walking it might not be the best idea. And even though everyone looks nice, people wear jeans for everything here! Like to work, for example I saw someone who worked at the post office wearing nice jeans or my professors.. that would never happen in the US.
• People walk a lot! – We walk everywhere, and while some people have cars, I don’t think it’s as common (you think gas is expensive in the US? You should see it here). From our dorm I think the school is like a mile and a half, and I’m going to have to be there everyday. One girl actually measured how much we walked with her pedometer and it seemed like on average we would walk like 7-10 miles a day! I can’t wait until my feet are adjusted because right now they hurt. And so do my legs. Because there are a lot of hills here and everything is uneven cobblestones.
• The sense of community – maybe it’s because it’s a smaller city, but people here seem to really come together and enjoy seeing each other on their passegiata. Plus everyone came out for all the Santa Rosa festivities. Also people know each other at the shops and stores. It’s just really cute. In Italy they are really opposed to automated things that take you away from the interaction with people. So even news stands or little things like that require you to talk to a person.
• Food – of course the food here is great! I knew it would be. Ingredients are so fresh. Their idea of fast food is like pizza, which is still better and more fresh, and I’m sure healthy, than any other fast food in the US. The bad thing is that we aren’t really supposed to drink the tap water, and it is definitely not served at restaurants, so “acqua naturale” can get expensive at restaurants. Water is usually fizzy (fizzante or gassata) here, which I hate! Naturale has no bubbles, or a really small amount. And coffee is really different! They don’t have huge coffees or to-go cups. Usually they drink the straight espresso shots and you stand at a bar to drink it because it cost more if you sit down. There are larger drinks, like a cappuccino, but even then you use the little coffee break as an excuse to get out and meet with people, not just to grab it and go. Also they eat for longer amounts of time, in more courses, later in the day (10 at night is not an unusual dinner time!) Typical breakfast seems to be a pastry (usually filled with chocolate or cream, and I like sweet things, but at that time of day even that is too sweet for me!) and a caffe/espresso. Lunch can have multiple courses (un primo piatto e secondo piatto, un contorno) or you can just grab a panini or a pizza. Dinner also has courses, but by 10 pm we don’t usually eat all of them!
• A/C – there is none! Anywhere! Ok well not anywhere, but its rare. My dorm doesn’t have it, most restaurants don’t either. I think some of the classrooms at school do, and hotels do (but you are paying for that obviously). And don’t think its not hot here! It was like 90 and sunny and humid during the day when I arrived. Luckily we have the massive amounts of gelato to cool us off.
• Laundry – there are no dryers! Homes and our dorms don’t have them. Some Laundromats do I think. Everyone just hangs their clothes outside on clothes lines to dry, which I still kind of can’t get over. Line drying just takes forever and makes the clothes all stiff! But for some reason or another (energy?) no one uses it. I think it can fit like half the load size we are used to. And everyone who has tried it hasn’t gotten it right yet, the cycle takes like 2 hours and you have to reset it to rinse or something like that so there is a possibility of the clothes coming out soapy!
• Money – using cash is a lot more common. I was expecting this coming in, but I’m so used to using my card to buy anything and everything no matter how small the price in the US that I guess it still surprises me that it just isn’t so common here. Plus I don’t really like carrying around cash. And not to mention while everyone uses cash, no store accepts/has the change for big bills!
• People aren’t as loud – they are louder than French people, but quieter than Americans... well most of the time. if they are yelling to eachother, they are definitely louder. Though, I think our group is pretty easily spotted as the group of loud obnoxious Americans. Especially when it’s all 43 of us.
• Cars are a lot smaller than in the US, but gas costs so much! And the roads are small. So people either have small cars or vespas.
• You pay for plastic grocery bags here. Better for the environment?
• Cars don’t stop for pedestrians! Corssing the street here is like like performing a death-defying feat. And if you don’t just go, no one will ever let you cross. So find an opening, don’t look them in the eye, and make a run for it!
• Salad dressing is non-existent. All the salads I have had only have olive oil on them. Haven’t they ever heard of Italian dressing?
• Self service restaurants (tavola calda) are not actually restaurants where you serve yourself. You pick something and then they give you it on a plate, you sit down and then they clean the table after you. So why is it called self-service?
• Tip is included in restaurant bill, but sometimes there is a fee charged per person just for sitting down at a restaurant. Same goes for cafes where there is an option to sit or to stand, standing is free!
• Everything is old! Because when they want to make something new here, they don’t bulldoze the perfectly fine building, they just put something new inside. The example they told us about was a store named Schenardi in Viterbo that has been so many different things over the past couple hundred years including a hotel, bar and a McDonalds. Every Italian town I have been to just looks so much older than places in the US. They have modern buildings too, but they do a good job of preserving their history (which is luckily usually sturdily built buildings) but also making it accessible to everyone (like its not in a museum where you cant touch it or understand the context.
• Vending machines have alcohol and cigarettes! (There is no actual drinking age).
• Guys and girls both wear small bathing suits!
• Most Italian towns are filled with fountains and squares, where people meet and also have, potabile, drinkable, water for everyone.
• Bidets are everywhere! Toilet seats (this one really grosses me out, apparently it’s because people steal them), soap and/or towels are not. Bidets, by the way, are expensive. And I’ve never even used mine. Couldn’t you have used that money to buy an air conditioner or something?!
• I have more mosquito bites now than ever before, thanks to there being no screens in windows and no A/C so I have to keep it wide open.
• Everyone stares, nobody smiles, and yes Italian guys can be (slash usually are) creepy.
• School supplies are so different! And at this point when we just arrived and classes started and we didn’t have anything, it was really frustrating trying to find things that were similar to stuff in the US. All the paper is graph paper, loose leaf is non existent, as are spiral notebooks. I lucked out and found some sort of lined paper but there are no margins in it and it’s hard to rip out. And I couldn’t find any folders to put things in.
• There is no ice in drinks or and there aren’t condiments included with food (for free anyways).
• They love outdoor markets! Which, by the way, sell anything and everything.
• The grading system is based mainly on the final exam and maybe another test thrown in there. That makes it way harder! Even though we are required to go to class, that participation part is only like 10 percent of our grade. Also little mistakes are worth a lot of points and trying harder grammatical constructions or writing more doesn’t get you more points here.. but making mistakes while attempting either does lose you more. Basically the opposite of everything I’ve been taught!
• They don’t refrigerate the milk here.. and I haven’t decided if I think that is ok, like as in safe. I definitely think it’s gross. Warm milk = not good.

spending some time in lazio

23.9.08
This week in Italian culture we had a discussion with some Italian students again. This time we asked them about their daily habits and home life. One of the questions was if they knew anyone who had emigrated from another country. In my group there were two Italian guys (Gianmarco and Orfeo, cool names right?!) and they only knew one person from another country, combined! I don’t know if we live in a really multicultural area or what but I just found that really surprising since I can name several people I know from other countries and even more who had their parents immigrate to the US. The next question was if they had ever had ethnic cuisine, really just asking if they had ever had any food other than Italian food. One guy said he’d had a hot dog before and a hamburger from McDonalds a few times (which doesn’t count!) while the other guy said no. We were like, really?! not Chinese or Japanese, Thai, Indian, or Mexican food or anything?! Ever?! And they were like no. And we talked about how Italian men are mammone (momma’s boys) because it’s not uncommon for them to live at home until they are 30… which they do not deny.

26.09.08
Free day! Everyone is in Italian cities class and went on a field trip.. but I slept in until 1 after going to bed at 3 after getting back from Try (club) and 2. And it was wonderful. Then I spent a bunch of time at the internet café and then we went for Chinese food!! Hurray for a cuisine other than Italian. We went to the one Chinese place (slash only non-italian food place) in Viterbo and it was so good!

27.09.08
On Saturday USAC organized a trip between us and some Italian students to go to Lago di Bracciano, a huge lake about 40 minutes from Viterbo, halfway between Viterbo and Rome. Not many Italians ended up coming (maybe like 3 did) since they are apparently taking exams now, but almost all the USAC people went. Lake Bracciano was so beautiful and it was formed from a volcanic eruption! The water was blue and clear (its one of Italy’s cleanest lakes) water and had a huge castle (Castel di Odescalchi) on the top of a hill overlooking the lake. It turns out it was where Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes got married! We took a tour of the castle and then got lunch to eat near the water. After that we got back on the train and went to another town called Anguillara, which was also on the lake. There we walked around a bit then hung out by the water where a car/motorcycle show was going on. It was nice weather and a fun relaxing day. Plus I had gelato AND profiteroles that day. Good stuff.

28.09.08
We took the 6:54 train to Rome from Viterbo to get to the Roma San Pietro station by 8:40 to visit the Vatican. The last Sunday of every month the Vatican and the Vatican museums are free. They open at 8:30 so we thought getting there at 8:40 and it being almost October would make it easy to get in. That didn’t turn out to be so true. First we went to Saint Peter’s Basilica, which we probably waited in line for 15 or 20 minutes for, so that wasn’t too bad. The inside was amazing and well worth the wait. There was even a mass going on at the time. I also saw the Michelangelo’s Pieta, which I remember doing an art history project about. That was cool! Then we had to walk over to the Musei Vaticani, which are right near St. Peter’s, except you have to enter through the opposite side way far away. We ended up not having to walk too far, though, because the line wrapped around a lot, almost to the Basilica. At that point we didn’t really know where the entrance was so we didn’t know how long the line was. But we ended up waiting in line for about an hour and a half before getting inside. Everything in the museum was amazing and definitely worth the wait. Not to mention that it’s huge. We walked through room after room decorated with amazing frescoes, intricate moldings, high decorated ceilings and marble statues. Among some of the more noteworthy things that we saw were the School of Athens by Raphael and the Sistine Chapel ceiling painted by Michelangelo. A lot of things that I had studied in my art history class in high school were there right in front of me, and they looked so much better in person, I can’t even begin to describe it. The Capella Sistina was also just amazing. I just can’t imagine the kind of effort and time put into those massive works of art. Not to mention that there was no electricity or modern day tools or anything to facilitate this process for the artist or builder. Things were built so sturdily then too, always out of stone and marble. And they still exist in such good condition today. It makes me wonder what kinds of things will be around from us for other generations to look at, considering nothing is built like that anymore; and while all their devotion is displayed in works of religious art, our most intricate buildings house shopping malls or government buildings. Is that really a good reflection of the values of our society? The only bad part about the Vatican was that after awhile you get tired and there is so much walking and stairs. After you get to the Sistine Chapel you still have to turn around and go back though the museum on a different floor. After we made it through the Vatican, we went to some sights in Rome that we didn’t get a chance to see the first time. We went to the Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. The Pantheon is really old, like 2000 years old. Scholars and architects are amazed by the structure of the building; the dome is a perfect half circle and is also the biggest of its kind, with no supports or anything to hold it up. After that we walked along the Corso and stopped at the Vittorio Emanuele monument. Then we went back and walked along the Corso going into any and every shop on our never ending quest for shoes and bags or cute souvenirs. Everything in Rome is so expensive though! Even the non-expensive stores are expensive. And the other streets are lined with high-end fashion stores like Chanel and Dior. So another long, packed day in Roma, the eternal city!

settimana numero 3

This week in my Italian culture class on Tuesday we had Italian students come in to do a discussion on the differences between American and Italian cultures. That was fun and we’re going to do it again. It was interesting to hear the things they had to say about us, but at the same time we went over stereotypes we had about Italy and ones we had found that were true. Most of the Italians in our mini group had never been to America, and knew only things about it that they read in newspapers, magazines, or saw in TV and movies (we were like.. oh no!). so some of the things they came up with right away about America were George Bush, people getting shot all the time, rappers like 50 Cent (or 50 Cents as the Italians called him) being rich, or rappers and musicians in general being extremely wealthy and the fact that like anyone can be a singer, crazy girls (girls gone wild), etc. We were like, great this is what people think of us! I mean maybe ours towards them weren’t good either.. but it was just interesting to hear.

On Wednesday we decided to go to Napoli (Naples) for the weekend. This was after much debate about the location we should travel to and where or how long we should stay etc. But Napoli had a pretty short, cheap train ride and we found a really cheap, nicely rated hostel for 2 nights (Friday and Saturday). So we left on the 6:10 am train from Viterbo to Rome on Friday morning to catch the 8:25 train from Rome to Naples. We made sure to get to the train station early this time to get the correct tickets and had no problem. Then we arrived at the train station in Rome and again had no problem getting our connection tickets and getting on the next train. It actually sat there for like 30 minutes until we even moved. The trouble started when we got to Naples. We walked around the train station looking for a tourist information booth which was at the other side. Then we went looking for another booth that wasn’t really helpful. Finally we went and bought a ticket for the metro since the hostel was one or 2 stops away. Well the metro isn’t really the metro there, it’s like some sort of regional train and we could not figure it out. Our stop, which was shown on the map, was not on the maps at the stations or on the station lists. So we got on, went one stop, and got off and tried to follow signs to Museo, right near where we were staying. We thought it meant we would get on another train, but we actually ended up walking underground to that stop (I think the line is still under construction?). From there we found the hostel pretty easily and everything it turned out to be a nice place. The only bad part was that it was up 5 or 6 (huge!) flights of stairs and the elevator cost 10 cents so we always took the stairs. So we stayed in an 8 person room (4 sets of bunks). The only things that weren’t true about what it said on the website was that we paid for an all girls room and it was mixed and there were no locks on the cabinets in the room. There were lots of English speakers at the hostel from all over and we met some nice people from Sweden on their gap year (so jealous) just traveling around for the year. So we dropped our stuff off and decided to go to the Museo Archeologico Nazionale right near our hostel. This was a big museum that had a bunch of statues and artifacts excavated from Pompeii. We spent the majority of the afternoon there and when we went to leave it was pouring rain. So we ran back to the hostel to figure out where we wanted to eat dinner – we knew we had to try the famous Neapolitan pizza. We ended up going to a restaurant suggested by one of our guidebooks that, according to the sign, recently was in a Sofia Loren movie or something like that.. the sign said Sofia Loren, but I don’t think she makes movies anymore. The pizza was good, and slightly different than what we were used to (slightly thicker crust, buffalo mozzarella, basil leaves) but we were just so pizza’d-out, that it was difficult to really appreciate it. It was still pouring down rain (and cold) when we left and I’d conveniently left my umbrella at the hostel, so we couldn’t really walk around. Either way, we were tired so we just went back to the hostel and crashed. We got up the next morning to go do some of the Amalfi coast towns. We had to go to the train station and get on a different type of train (not the Trenitalia train, or the Metropolitana), the Circumvesuviana. That took us to Sorrento, where we spent a few hours walking around. It was a beautiful little town right on the cliffs next to the sea. It was such a nice day weather-wise, that day. It was beautiful! Then we took a bus from Sorrento to Positano, because most of us had seen the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun” and that made it reason enough to want to go there. The bus ride was crazy though! It was the tiniest windiest roads I have ever been on, right on the cliffs over the coasts too. It’s really not that far from Sorrento but it took about an hour just because of how slow the bus had to go (not slow enough in my opinion because of the windy roads). Luckily the town of Positano was well worth it, and even prettier than any postcard, movie or picture could show. It was really touristy like Sorrento was, but it was still really nice. We walked all around the town and down to the ocean, which was clear and pretty warm. If I had to choose a beach to go back to in Italy, Positano would definitely be it! We all liked Positano so much that we decided to stay until dinner and then went and had dinner on the beach, where we saw 3 weddings going on! We got to see the sunset and then once we were finished dinner we took pictures of Positano at night, which is also beautiful. And you could see the stars! We took the last bus back to Sorrento, where we met a lot of other Americans studying abroad in Florence at the bus stop. Once we got back to Sorrento we took a train from there to Naples, and got back to Naples pretty late.
The next day we woke up really early to walk around Naples before heading off to Pompeii. We took a bus down to the water and saw a castle and the theater and the Galleria Umberto among other things. Of course, nothing was open since it was Sunday, but it was also nice because no one was out and we could take unobstructed pictures. We stopped at a café and got fancy coffee drinks, which they had a lot more of there than they do up where we are. While we were down in the Napoli region we tried many regional specialties – the pizza margherita, a sfogliatella (a flaky pastry with ricotta and pieces of orange inside), a granite (like a slushy, only with real fruit or espresso), gnocchi alla sorrentina (gnocchi with crushed tomatoes and mozzarella), and they also had more frozen coffee there, called caffe del nonno, which I love, and is hard to find up here in Viterbo, and good pastries and thicker bread and drinks to go! Like someone got a cappuccino to go, which is like an unheard of phenomenon here. We had such a good trip thus far and we were about to head back up to the hostel, check out and go to the train station to get on the Cirumvesuviana to Pompeii. So we got back on the bus to the hostel, but before we could even go one stop, the people who work for the bus came to check our tickets (which never happens). We had bought something called a weekend ticket on Saturday, and had multiple other tickets bought from the same company, so we thought we would be fine. But it turns out the weekend ticket is only good for one day (why is it called weekend then?!) so the person made us get off at the next stop (which was like 20 feet away) and fined us close to 40 euros! He knew we weren’t from there and we tried to explain in Italian/English that we thought our tickets would be fine and that we didn’t understand but they were like the meanest people ever. That’s when it started to be a bad day. So we paid the stupid fine with the last of our cash (and no where accepts credit cards in Italy, by the way) and then bought another bus ticket to get back to the hostel. We go our stuff, got on the train to Pompeii (later than planed of course) but made it none the less. Pompeii was bigger than I expected. I knew it was a whole city but I just couldn’t believe what it must have taken to build that entire thing (houses, stadium, schools, public areas/forum, etc) and everything out of stone. It was a really pretty location with Mt. Vesuvius in the background. It was also impressive to see that so much of the city was still intact, after the volcanic eruption and thousands of years later; with so much wear and tear it seemed impossible that anything could still be so sturdy. We tried to see the top sights listed in the guidebooks since we had to be back in Naples for the 4:38 train to Rome so we could catch the last train that night to Viterbo. Our train schedules (given to us by the information counter at the train station) were a little off, so we ended up only having 15 minutes between trains in Napoli Stazione Centrale. We got on the very crowded train right before it left. The train trip seemed long, but I guess it wasn’t. It was probably just because I didn’t really have anything to do, and couldn’t fit my school books into my bag. We got into Rome termini and got our tickets for the last train to Viterbo, which leaves from Roma Ostiense or Trastevere. We still could not figure out how we get to that other station in Rome (is the metro ticket included in the price, what is the C. Urbano train that it tells us to take? We still don’t know). So we ended up buying a ticket from Roma Termini to Roma Ostiense for 90 cents, which we almost missed because the binaro (platform) was really, really far away. Luckily we made it, got on the train to Viterbo at the next stop, got back to Viterbo around 10:45, back to the dorm around 11, and then I did all 16 exercises for my 9 am class until 2 am, got up at 6 to write my lettera ufficiale (also for the same composizione class) and then went to class. Overall a good, jam-packed weekend!

the second week...

07.09.08
Today we decided to walk around Viterbo to try and see some places we hadn’t as well as to take some pictures of the macchina outside of the Santa Rosa church. I love going down the little streets of the beaten path in Viterbo. This city never ceases to amaze me. It’s the little undiscovered streets that are sometimes even better than the big ones. Sunday here is like a ghost town, though. Sunday night is busy and even Monday night everyone is out, but Sunday during the day nothing is open and no one is out or in the streets. So we found the one place that was open on a Sunday (and until late, too!) -McDonald’s. It was just like home! And the girl who worked there even spoke some English.

08.09.08
Today was the real first day of classes (besides the placement test day last week). I had Italian composition and the professor spoke only in Italian and we were supposed to do the same. We jumped right into reading some texts. Today was pretty confusing but I think we (all 6 of us, myself included) are in the same boat, and it will probably get better as time goes on. I hope we do some speaking or something though, because I would hate to waste 6 credits on only learning how to write a letter to my bank in Italian when I could be learning things I could use for everyday conversations in Italy. After class we decided to go to an internet café we had seen in passing to get some actual high speed internet so we could skype/upload pictures, and guess who happened to be at the café? Like half of the usac people! I thought it was funny that we all had the same idea (and it makes sense since apartment people have no internet at all). It was cool because we were actually the only people in the whole café, which was a really cute place. In the end we ended up going back to school to use the usac wireless, where we found another dozen or so usac-ers. I don’t get to see everyone all the time, so it was nice!

09.09.08
Today was the first day of my Italian culture class. It sounds really interesting and is stuff I would probably look into on my own even if I wasn’t taking the class. Though the 3 hour class in the warm classroom was tough! Over the past few days more students have been arriving to the city. Its pretty funny how we can instantly tell who is American (or Anglophone) and how our ears have become fine tuned to the sounds of the English language. No one really speaks English here, so to here it makes us all excited! And we found a laundromat with a dryer today! That’s exciting because we are all already so over having crunchy towels.

11.09.09
Today we had a little impromptu conversation circle since the cinema class was cancelled. I love hearing Italian being spoken! It’s so pretty. I also really like living in the dorm with all the international students, it reminds me of l’auberge espagole!
Today was 9/11, but having limited internet, no tv, and almost never speaking to anyone from home on the phone made me feel kind of removed from the situation, which is how I feel most of the time actually, it was just weird since today is always a big deal in the US.

12.9.09
On Friday we have no classes so we used that opportunity to go to a little town only a few kilometers from Viterbo called Bagnaia. In Bagnaia there are these beautiful renaissance gardens called Villa Lante. Even though it was a little drizzly, it was still beautiful there. We all took way too many pictures, most of which have some random German tourists in them. We ate the same café like 3 times that day, and I got this amazing coffee drink that had chocolate gelato in it. We also got to learn how to use Viterbo public transportation that day, which is surprisingly on time, considering most things in Italy are not. When we got back to Viterbo we decided to go to the Coop. Though going to the Coop is not anything special, this particular trip was definitely memorable. We took the elevator up from the parking garage and there were some other Italian people in it. But when we get out, Caitlin goes to one store and we (me and Carla) start heading towards another when we realize that one of the guys from the elevator is like right behind us and we think he is following us. So we decide instead to make a bee line for the purse store across the mall, assuming that he won’t follow us in there. Wrong! He goes in and starts looking for purses too! We try calling Caitlin, but she didn’t have her phone. So we decide to go back to the other store and look for her so she wouldn’t have to walk alone with the possibility of this guy following her as well/instead. The guy of course follows us to the other store and into that one too. We try and go around the store and out a different way, but we got stuck back in a dead end corner! Now this guy is right behind us constantly trying to talk to us saying things like “scusi, ciao” over and over. We try to talk loudly in English and laugh to drown him out thinking that maybe he would get the picture that we are not from here or that maybe we don’t speak Italian. However that doesn’t work either (Italian guys are really persistent)! So we’re standing in this corner of a store looking at the only item on the one shelf and there’s no way out. So I turn around and say “ciao “and try to scoot past but he’s like introducing himself (si chiama Fabio) and asking if we are here on vacation and I was just like “si, si” and then he asked if I wanted to go get a drink with him. Luckily at this point I was pretty close to the door and I just said “no, grazie” and ran out! So that was pretty crazy, and really made me wonder who told Italian guys that girls like to be followed.. or yelled out on the street or stared at or one of the many other things that Italian men seem to all do (these have all happened to me and other girls so far). Needless to say, we were on the lookout for this guy the rest of the time we were at the mall and as we were about to leave the lights started flickering. Carla thought it was the creepy Italian coming for us (!), but really it was just a huge thunderstorm outside that knocked the power out. Of course we didn’t bring our umbrellas, but we decided to make a run for it as fast as we could home. But once we got outside we realizes it really wasn’t good weather, especially when a huge thunder clap sounded and then a bolt of lightning appeared right in front of us! Everyone screamed and some Italians laughed at us. It died down a little so we eventually left but still got soaked on the way home. The roads were flooded too so there was no way to avoid the water that day.

13.9.09
Saturday we went to Rome! The city was great, but the getting there part was not so great. We woke up early to catch the 8:25 train from Viterbo to Rome. We planned ahead, brought food, and tried to get to the train station a little early to buy tickets. The person who sells tickets is not there on the weekends, however there is a little machine which I thought would be easy enough to use since most of those types of machines are. Wrong! The machine (which was from like when computers were invented – it was so old!) had a bunch of buttons with no labels, wouldn’t take our cash, and had no directions anywhere! After pressing all the buttons randomly, I finally got a ticket to some train station in Rome, even though it wasn’t the one I wanted. It took so long for us to figure out what to do though that we ended up missing our train. On top of that Caitlin forgot her money but then had time to go back and get it. Finally we all go some sort of tickets but then we realized they all had different ending points in Rome. We decided to all get off on the same stop since we knew they wouldn’t care. So we had to wait until 10:55 for the next train and then it started pouring, which made us doubt our decision to even go. Finally, we got on an actual train and headed off to Rome. The train feels like it goes so slow, though, because there are so many stops! On top of that there were some mechanical issues so we had to stop and one stop for 30 minutes. And on top of that, we were sitting next to some people who were blaring Indian music and clicking pens the whole time. That was annoying. So we finally made it to Rome around noon (keep in mind that it’s only 60 miles away, so that was a long trip) and got on the metro to the coliseum. As soon as you exit the metro, the coliseum is right there! That was breathtaking and amazing. The other first thing I noticed was all the people; there were so many tourists, which I guess was because it was a Saturday and still not too late into fall. Rome was really different than Viterbo in that way though because there just aren’t too many tourists in Viterbo. Also, I heard so much English being spoken, probably more that I heard Italian being spoken, which was sad. It was also annoying when we would go into the shops and try to speak Italian to the people (like we do in Viterbo) only to have them instantly realize that we were American and switch to English. We wanted to practice, though! I loved the big city atmosphere of Rome, but all of these things made me really glad that I’m studying in Viterbo, because there is so little English and it just seems so authentically Italian and not touristy. So after walking around the Coliseum for a bit we decided to look for the entrance to the Palatine Hill since our guidebooks told us the line for the tickets for would be shorter there. We found that and decided to start with the Palatine Hill and work our way down to the Roman Forum. Then we got some really expensive crappy food from a cart and headed into the Coliseum. This sounds easy enough, but all of these things cover a large amount of space and take a long time to go through. After the Coliseum we headed back to the metro to go to the Spanish Steps, when we saw a bunch of other usac students right outside the Coliseum (I’m pretty sure everyone went to Rome that weekend for at least one day). We never saw any signs for la Notte Bianca, the all night festival in Rome that we thought was going to take place that weekend, so we decided to go back that night. First, though, we headed to the Spanish Steps, which we cool, but we didn’t really see any steps since every square inch of space there was covered with people. From there we walked to the Trevi Fountain which was really beautiful. There was a wedding going on in a church nearby and they were taking pictures at the fountain, which I am sure turned out great. We actually saw like 20 (no joke) weddings that day and even said that we must have missed the memo to wear our wedding dresses to Rome. We looked at a few souvenir stands while walking through some shopping streets (Via del Corso) but compared to Viterbo everything in Rome was expensive! Plus the majority of the stores where we were major designer labels (Dior, Chanel, Gucci, Prada, etc). It was getting dark and we knew the last direct train for Viterbo left around 8:30 pm so we decided to head for the main train station, Termini, which was different from the one we arrived in, Ostiense. This train station was so much bigger than the other ones we had been in that day and it had several, modern machines to buy tickets from, that could even be switched into English. We got the tickets back no problem, and they said the train station that we got off in (Ostiense), which we thought just meant that we had to switch trains there. So we had like 45 minutes to do whatever so we wandered the train station and got some food. Closer to when the train left we tried locating our platform on the computer screens but we couldn’t find it. We ran all around the train station and finally decided that the reason the other station was written on our ticket was because we had to leave from there. The ticket machine never said that though. It said something about taking some sort of regional connection to the other station, but it never said anything like purchase a metro ticket and go there yourself. So we only had about 10 or so minutes until our train left, from the other train station! We hopped on the metro.. well actually we ran to the station just to wait for the train to come. Plus we had our metro passes, but Caitlin couldn’t find hers, so we kind of had to sneak her through the metro since we were in such a rush, and the alarms started going off and it was bad. The train came, we went like 4 stops and then we got off at the other station way and by that time it was way past when the train left. I wrote down when the last connecting train left (our only hope) so we got on that one to Cesano. When we arrived in Cesano we had an hour before our next train, which turns out wasn’t a train but a bus. So it’s like 11pm at night and we are in the middle of nowhere in Italy waiting for some bus. Finally 11:05 rolls around and the bus isn’t there. All that is there is this tiny little unmarked short bus that probably seats about 20 people. I was sure that couldn’t be it, but after asking, it sure enough was. There weren’t even enough seats for everyone and there wasn’t even a way to hold on for those who couldn’t sit. Then we started our hour and half or so ride though the smallest, narrowest and windiest roads in all of Italy. This driver also sped the whole way and almost hit 2 cars and a person! We met some cool tourists on the bus though, from Germany and the Netherlands, all of whom I’m pretty sure spoke English better than any of us. Once we had finally made it to Viterbo, the driver didn’t even know where the train station was so we had to tell him. We got off the stupid bus around 12:30 am, so that was about a 3 hour trip right there just from Rome. We all walked home and crashed, not to awake until late the next day. I loved Rome, and didn’t get to see everything (still want to go to the Pantheon and the Vatican, at least) and can’t wait to go back. Hopefully the next time we will know what we are doing though and will have better luck with the transportation!

continua..

06 septembre 2008
No class for the intermediate/composition students today = sleep in for the first time since getting here! Well, kind of, before being awoken by the maid (that sounds like we are so spoiled…). So we were free until our field trip at 2 to the Cività di Bagnoregio, this amazing little hilltop town not to far away. I found out later that it is even on Rick Steve’s list of top Italian hilltop towns! Bagnoregio is even called the “la città che muore” or, the city that dies, because it is so high up on this hill all the other towns around it (as well as a large part of this town) have eroded off the hill by weather and other factors. So there are only like 7 people who even live up there anymore and the only stores or shops are purely for tourists. It was so, so beautiful though. I’m sure the pictures can’t even begin to show how pretty it was. And it was so quiet and everything was hundreds of years old; it was like a town that time forgot. I feel like I say everything here is so beautiful - because it is - but this was really exceptional. Also today I had my first coffee experience since being here. I don’t really like espresso unless it’s laden with other things, and they just drink it like a shot here. But I got a cappuccino freddo (cold) and even though it was strong, it wasn’t bitter, like espresso is in the US. Plus I added some chocolate flavored sugar and that made it great! Later on I had some sort of coffee that was blended with ice but it was served in a shot glass with coco powder on top. It was really good whatever it was.

06 Septembre 08
Today we woke up early and went to the beach! We’re really not to far from the ocean, which is actually a sea, and is not it Mediterranean, but the Tirreno (Tyrrhenian). The water was bluer than in the states, but it wasn’t clear, unfortunately. Also, the sand was black and coarse. The whole trip there was pretty confusing but everything also worked out pretty perfectly. We decided to get to the bus station at 9:30 am, and even though we only had a vague idea of where it was, we found it no problem. We asked inside how to get to Tarquinia and they told us to get on the bus to Civitavecchia and get off at Blera, then get off and switch bus for the one to Tarquina. As soon as we got off the one bus in Blera, the other bus was already there. The ride was kinda crazy; small windy roads, huge bridges over valleys between the mountains, and little towns where the entire population sits outside on the sidewalks and talks to each other or just watches the day go by. Tarquinia was a cute little hilltop town (like most towns around here) but seemed somewhat touristy because they had a necropoli etrusca (an Etruscan cemetery). We even heard English being spoken (a rarity)! Then we asked how to get to the beach (Tarquinia Lido) since we were about 6 km from the shore. The tourist info office directed us to a bus sitting right in front of us; we got on, and were at the beach not too long after. We ate a little café, then went in the water, which was really salty and had small waves. After getting out, the black sand stuck to us everywhere. Then we tanned on the beach where the sand blew around (it was really windy) and got everywhere, in my face, in my eyes, in my hair, etc. After a few hours we decided to go up and see the town we came into and then head back to Viterbo. I stayed at the beach with half the people while the other half went to wait at the fermata d’autobus. About an hour later we went to meet them and they were all still waiting there because no bus had come. We started walking towards the train station, since we knew the bus stopped there, and thought maybe we could take the train if need be. After walking down this random desolate road for a while we saw a bus pass and all started screaming and running after it. Luckily the bus driver stopped. One member of our group however decided not to walk with us and consequently missed the bus. Hopefully he made it back ok! After we got back to the town we found out that the last direct bus to Viterbo was coming in one minute, but the tourist info shop was closed and we didn’t know where to buy tickets. The bus showed up shortly thereafter and the driver told us that we couldn’t buy tickets on board. All 5 of us plus one other random guy ran around the town to all the places the driver told us sold the tickets only to find that none of them did (good practice of my Italian skills, however)! When we went back he let us buy them on board (though we had to pay for the most expensive ticket instead of what it actually cost because he didn’t have a way to calculate the fare or something like that. The bus ride home was quick (~40 mins) and then it was off to the Coop, which is really called the Ipercoop (pronounced ee-per-cop), an awesome grocery store/mini Wal-Mart.

07.09.08
Today we decided to walk around Viterbo to try and see some places we hadn’t as well as to take some pictures of the macchina outside of the Santa Rosa church. I love going down the little streets of the beaten path in Viterbo. This city never ceases to amaze me. It’s the little undiscovered streets that are sometimes even better than the big ones. Sunday here is like a ghost town, though. Sunday night is busy and even Monday night everyone is out, but Sunday during the day nothing is open and no one is out and in the streets. So we found the one place that was open on a Sunday (and until late, too!) -McDonald’s. It was just like home! And the girl who worked there even spoke some English.

la mia prima settimana in italia

After the first day of walking around on our own, we ate in the hotel’s restaurant, le Grenier. We had some typical Italian foods in a few courses, which I’m not really a fan of (multiple courses, not the food – that was great!) since I can never eat that much.


The next day we woke up early and repacked everything so that we could move into the program housing. We had breakfast at the hotel. We found out where we were living and I got the residence hall! This was my first choice and lots of people requested it but didn’t get it, so I felt pretty lucky. We walked over there to check out the building and it looked nice from the outside and it wasn’t too far from the hotel, which wasn’t too far from the downtown area. Viterbo is a city with a medieval wall around it and the central “downtown” area is inside the walls. Most of the apartments are inside the walls but the dorms are outside. We took a walk around the center and our program director, Stefano, pointed out some of the sites of Viterbo. After that we got to go back to the hotel and actually move into the housing. Everyone in the apartment’s luggage was taken by a taxi for them, but because the dorms were “close” (closer, but not really close! Not with 2 suitcases, one at 50 pounds and one at 60, plus a backpack weighing about 30) we had to walk with everything. So that took awhile and we felt like we had just run a marathon afterwards, plus the dorms (or anything here) aren’t air conditioned so we just got there and continued to sweat and be really hot. The rooms are really nice though (even with no air-conditioning). We are on the seconda piana, which is really the third floor because they start at floor 0. All 8 of us living here have our own rooms with our own bathrooms and the furniture is newer and we have a desk, wardrobe, nightstand, phone (which has free incoming calls, if you want the number!) 2 chairs, etc. Plus a maid comes everyday and cleans it! The downsides are that it is outside the walls, and most other people live inside the walls, so they are close to restaurants, bars and just about anything.. though we are a bit closer to the Wal-Mart-like grocery store, and the Università Della Tuscia’s other campus (Agraria – Forestry), and we have a communal “kitchen”, which is really only a sink, 2 fridges and 4 hotplates. So cooking is going to be a little hard and I don’t really think I am planning on doing much of it. That night we went out for pizza which was so good. Pizza is EVERYWHERE, seriously everywhere. It’s like their version of fast food. Pizza, pasta and panini are so common. Oh and gelato! I have eaten a lot of pizza since I’ve gotten here and it’s all really, really good. And I have also eaten a lot of gelato, which is even better! Sometimes I have it twice a day. It’s so good though I doubt that I will ever get sick of it!


On the third day, we had school orientation. The campus is so pretty. The bad part was meeting there at like 9 and it being a half hour walk. The school is really old (like everything here) and so are the courtyards and we learned a little about how to get around, then broke for lunch for like 2 hours (a typical lunch break!) and then came back for our first day of class. Beginners had an actual class, but people signed up for intermediate and advanced ha a placement test! It wasn’t so bad though and it was multiple choice. After the test we went around and introduced ourselves. In the beginning I was kind of dreading class because I want to spend all my time traveling and exploring, but after getting our schedules and hearing a little about each class I was so excited! It sounds like they are really going to weave in the culture and the fact that we are in an Italian city into what they are teaching, so everything seems so practical. Plus we have fieldtrips! I can’t wait to start learning Italian again because it’s been awhile since my last class and once we start class up again I’m sure I will get into the flow of speaking Italian a bit more.


Day 4
We did permit of stay paperwork, which was complicated and none of us are really sure why we need it since we have a visa. After that there was a class, but I wasn’t in it, so I was free until later to go and apply for the permit at the post office. My card got stuck in the bancomat that day though, which totally freaked me out. Apparently I entered the wrong pin 3 times and so the ATM took it! I went into the bank to talk to someone and no one spoke English. The only good part about this day was that I was able to explain and have this conversation with the teller about how the ATM took my card. I felt pretty good about that but not about the fact that she said they would not give it back to me. Luckily after I explained that I would be studying here for 4 months and would need the card she said if I could come back with a director or professor that they would give it back. This night we also went to a place inside the San Pellegrino section of Viterbo, which is the oldest preserved medieval town in Europe! Apparently Viterbo is so well intact because of the fact that people don’t really know about it so much (and I think there was less bombing during the wars).


Day 5
We had some more orientation at the Università’s other campus, Agraria, and then had an American woman who lived here in Viterbo explain a little about this Santa Rosa festival that would be going on that night. Santa Rosa is the patron saint of Viterbo and ever since we have arrived that has been all anyone talks about! Thursday is the actual holiday when things are closed, but on Wednesday night is when the real festivities happen. Santa Rosa was apparently a young girl who wanted to be a nun but she was crippled and they said she was too stupid and didn't have enough money to be a nun. Later on she died and the pope had 3 dreams about her so they dug her body up a week after she died it hadn’t decomposed so they realized that she was a saint (or something like that, really I don’t get any of this). So when they realized that, they took her body and put it in the nunnery where she really wanted to be (her body is still in there for anyone to see anytime!) Now every year they parade her body through the streets during the day, and at night, a group of 100 men native of Viterbo in white called “facchini”, carry a huge statue that was built in her honor through the city. In between some Santa Rosa festivities we got to see the dress rehearsal of the only opera being shown in Viterbo this year, il Barbiere di Siviglia (Barber of Seville). I don’t even like opera, and I didn’t know what was going on, but it was amazing!! The singing and the orchestra - like seriously, we all just could not believe that we had just seen an Italian opera in a seriously old opera house in Italy! After that it was time to sit on the street to wait for the parade, which didn’t start until 9 pm, however, people begin lining up at 12 noon or even earlier! And it was so, so crowded! Everyone must have come from not only Viterbo, but the outside surrounding towns, and there were cameras and newspapers taking pictures, this was like bigger than a national holiday for us in the States. Afterwards there were fireworks too! During the parade, they turn off all the lights in the city and light the statue up with candles. It was quite a site.


Day 6
Thursday is the actual holiday for Santa Rosa. The entire area inside the walls (the downtown area) was filled with street venders selling anything you could ever imagine. They had housewares, clothing, bags, pets, vacuums, food, everything!

i'll post the rest later, ciao!

benvenuto in italia!

sono arrivata! after a long flight and no sleep, i made it and so did my bags (hurray)! then we waited for 2 hrs at the airport and then came a 2 hr bus ride to viterbo. so lots of sitting. but i got to see lots of pretty scenery from the bus. everything i saw, including what i saw when i landed, looked just like those postcards of italy you always see. with the cute red tiled roofs and the fields and the vineyards. its pretty cool. viterbo is a small city surrounded by a medieval wall and has all these old churches up on a hill built like 1,000 years ago out of volcanic rock! i can't believe how old everything is, it really makes me remember how young the US is. i've already heard so much italian being spoken, not all of which i could understand, which i hate. i need to learn more fast!