One last post from Rome...

For Ashlea's birthday, Stephen and Jordan got her most of the stuff street gypsies sell in Rome. The one I hate more than anything is the bubble gun, but amazingly enough, when it was in a room with us instead of on the street being shot at us, it made it much more appealing. Anna tried to figure out the different surfaces she could make bubbles on.

This picture is from the Rome play. Every semester, the students put on a play and this year they did "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum"

There's still one picture missing (because I have to get it from someone else since my camera doesn't work) of seven of us wearing "Flusche" shirts. Dr. Flusche is our art history professor and we think she might actually be a superhero, so we made shirts spelling her name. Each shirt is a medieval picture, so they all look like pictures alone, then when we stand together, we spell Flusche. We wore them to our last on-site class and she said we were her favorite class ever and that no one had made t-shirts. She even hugged us and took a picture with us! 

Well, the time is finally here... we fly back to America one week from Friday! This semester has been absolutely unreal and I'm incredibly grateful for all the memories, laughs, and experiences. I've gotten to see and do so much with so many of my close friends and that's just not the kind of situation that many people get to have (well, people who don't go to U.D.) This weekend we enjoyed our last real days in Rome (next weekend we have to study for finals) and it was very bittersweet. My friend, Stephen, and I co-designed the winning t-shirt for the semester this past week, which was pretty cool because that means we got a free shirt. I have one paper and one quiz left before finals and it is really hard to believe that the semester is really about to end. The professors, R.A.s, and our class have all been so awesome to spend this time with. It's so awesome to think of Rome in such a real way. It's definitely been 4 months that I will always remember with a smile. 

Pictures from Venice

This is one of the "streets" of Venice. It's kind of an awkward angle because I was taking the picture from a boat on the Grand Canal, but it gives you the idea. The water just leads straight to these peoples' houses, businesses, etc.!

In St. Mark's Square, the heart of Venice, the pigeons flock like crazy. People sell bird food, which largely causes the pigeons to stay there, so kids will go feed them to get them to sit on their shoulders and hands. They've been fed so much, though, that now you just have to stick your arm out or stand relatively still and pigeons will come land on you. This is my friend, Stephen, doing just that. The pigeons are so fearless that you can punch them out of the air or kick them, but the people selling the food don't like when you do that very much...
This is St. Mark's Cathedral from the side of the Doge's Palace.
Stephen, Ashlea, and I are sitting outside the Doge's Palace waiting to meet everyone for dinner. The arches are part of the palace.

Northern Italy Trip

So this past week was our trip to Northern Italy. More specifically, we went to Venice, Florence, and Assisi. 

Venice was like nothing I had seen before! It was a city without roads!! They just use the canals and walk to get around. We LOVED being in Venice. You could just wander around with no particular destination and always find your way back home, enjoying the entire time wandering. It was weird that pretty much everyone spoke English, but also nice because their Italian is very different from that in Rome. It really is like it's just frozen in time. Instead of city buses, they have boats, which we road all the way down the Grand Canal because the city is supposed to be seen from the water. We talked about how weird it would be to grow up there and never see a car. We went on tours all over the city with our professors. My favorite might have been the Ghost Tour with Flusche (the most amazing art history professor ever). It was probably the first city I actually didn't want to leave. [My camera also died here, so I don't have pictures after Venice.]

We moved to Florence next to immerse ourselves in a world of sculpture and art. Florence was also interesting, but it was not as beautiful as Venice or Assisi. We went through some museums and did that sort of thing (including the David and the Uffizi). Florence also gave us the chance to split up a bit and wander independent of a group of 15 people, which was a nice feeling after about 4 months of constantly being with people.

On Sunday, we made our way to Assisi and saw everything Francis. Dr. Stibora took us all over the city (which is actually built on a hillside--like, every time you want to go anywhere, you have to walk up a hill). Assisi was incredible from a distance and from inside. It looked like a picture of an Italian town that you see in the movies or something like that, but don't think actually could exist. 

It was a great last trip away from Rome. It was a really interesting taste of Italy beyond just Rome and the slums of southern Italy. Rome is still my favorite city in Europe, but Venice is definitely a close second. Now we just have a little over 3 weeks of tests and papers until we finally get to come back to the States!! When we were in our hotel in Venice, we were talking about how the room looked like it should be in a horror film and how we should  be able to turn a lamp and a hole would "open into a magical paradise, like America!!" That was when we realized that it must suck to be someone who wants to immigrate to America, but can't. Oh, and we decided that the girl who haunted our room was named Jennifer. The terrible smell that actually made my room mate throw up was her perfume. (Yeah, we loved Venice despite Jennifer. That's how amazing it was!)

Pictures will come later. I need to upload my few and steal peoples' pictures from the rest of the trip.

12 days, 1 pair of jeans, 3 showers

So, we got back from 10-day today (which was really 12 days for us). it was definitely incredibly memorable!!! 

We started with a day in London. Really, it was just the cheapest way to get to the U.K., but conveniently, we could go see Les Mis while we were there! We started out our day by going to Portobello Market. It was really cute and quaint, but then we decided to head into the heart of London instead of just the outskirts. We walked all over London until it was time to go to St. Paul's Cathedral for the Good Friday service, then to Les Mis!!!! We were sitting in row N, so it ended up being about the 16th row or so. It was absolutely amazing!!! We also never figured out how to flush the toilet in our hostel, so we just went in the city before coming back...

After London, we went to Glasgow. I have since been told by like 4 people that I should avoid Glasgow and that it's shady. Before we left, Dr. Roper said to be careful on Day 7 because that's when everything bad happens. Ashlea and I decided to call Glasgow "Day 7". We got to our hostel in the morning and handed the man our reservation for 2 beds in a female dorm. He responded "Female dorm? Well, we don't do female dorms. We'll find you a couple beds and there should be some girls in the room!" At that point, we didn't realize what we were getting into. The guy leads us through a maze of random rooms and stairwells until we finally arrive at our room. The door has no lock. It doesn't actually shut. It's more like one of the kitchen style doors that you just push through. We go in and the guy starts yelling about 

his Irish co-worker who didnt make our beds while he finishes making them. The basic run-down of this hostel goes something like this: the bed below me has blood stains, the linen looked like it had never been washed, the bathroom walls, floors, and ceilings were covered in substances that shouldn't remain in the bathroom, and ashlea tied her shoes to her bed to make sure no one would steal them. we were afraid to change our clothes or brush our teeth in the hostel, so we went to starbucks to brush our teeth and just didn't change our clothes. The second night, I went to tell the guy that we were checking out in the morning (our plan was to go to the airport and take it from there). A different guy was working, so he started yelling at me that I wasn't staying in the room I said I was. Apparently, that was impossible because there's a group of 25 coming into that room that sleeps 8. Ashlea and I were then instructed to go get our bags so he could move us somewhere else. When we got back, there were 2 girls standing there. We started talking to the American and she informed us that 

she was shocked she waited so long before leaving. They had gotten in that morning. The Australian one was talking to the guy and then said something about not knowing how to get to the airport, so Ashlea and I just looked at each other and said "we'll show you!!" so we all told the guy to give us back whatever money we could have and we went to the airport. once we got there, ashlea and i knew we had 2 nights to look forward to in the airport if we didnt find a hotel for the first night. we saw a big sign that said it had a free shuttle to the hotel and there was a free direct line to the hotel, so we figured that was our best option. they took us out to the middle of no where, but we were excited about having a shower and actually bed linens. the shower was colder than river water, so we used the water heater to make sponge baths in the sink. in the morning, the water worked, so we got show

er #1. we then spent an entire day in the airport. we read our lit trad homework, started our theology papers, played Guess Who? for a couple hours and cards for several hours.

After "Day 7", we went to Dublin and met the rest of the Gypsies. Well, really, we met Stephen because everyone else was sleeping in and shopping around Dublin. That's why he's our favorite. We told him that if he hadn't been there, we might have sat crying outside Dublin castle. The three of us walked up to the Garden of Remembrance and a couple other places before meeting everyone for dinner. 

From Dublin, we went to Galway, then to Kinvarra and saw the essence of Ireland. It was amazing!!! We stayed at a farmhouse that had a sheepdog and cows and sheep! Ireland was beautiful and we both want to go back and spend more time there. It was also where we got to take our second shower of the trip.

From Ireland, we went to Germany and stayed with Cara Miller. After a day on the trains of Berlin getting yelled at in German (apparently, we had children's tickets), we made it to her town. On Sunday, she made us a traditional German brunch before we headed into Berlin for a tour. She showed us a bunch of the monuments and such, then took us to the top of the capitol building so we could look out over Berlin. Then, we went back to her town and ate dinner. I had Wild Boar and Ashlea had Eisbhan (which is like pork cooked wrapped in its own fat so it stays tender...i think it was called eisbhan). It was crazy good!!! Monday we went back into Berlin and got our train to Munich. We saw some friends in the train station and were really excited when we knew all 4 of the other people in our couchette. It wasn't that hard to imagine since like half of UD was coming back from Munich on the night train, but it was still excited. We had to buy our tickets in Berlin from a lady who didn't speak English, so we were just happy they got us back to Rome.

We got into Rome this morning and celebrated as each new person got back on campus. It's really fun to trade stories about who didn't sleep in a bed over the entire trip and who got shaken by a man with no eyes in Morocco.

Greece

[This picture is from the fortress in Nafplion. We're warming our hands on an imaginary fire.]

I know it's a little late, but this is the first chance I've had to update about the Greece trip.

I got back from our 10-day trip around Greece about a week ago. We started by driving 7 hours to the port so we could catch the Superfast VI ferry over to Greece. The ferry trip was overnight and they had a discotec (along with an overpriced bar/cafe thing), so most of UD went. There was a sort of balcony above the round dance floor, so the Gypsies and I spent most of our time watching and just dancing with each other when we felt like it. We sent Reed and Ashlea down to request Ratatat, but they didnt have it. On the way back, a girl was trying to show people how to dance and so we had Ashlea show her how it's done in the hood (aka-how black people do it). We were proud.

Our first city in Greece was Olympia. Despite the history and the fact our school found the need to take us there, it had absolutely nothing to offer. We found one cafe, along with the rest of our school, on the one street that went through town. I ordered in Greek and the guy working there thought it was funny, so he helped me learn a couple things. We had been instructed to try ouzo while we were in Greece, so we figured this might as 

well be the place to do it. I will never instruct anyone to drink it, unless they like black licorice. The next day, we went to the archeological sites in Olympia and the Greek kids had to do a 

reading of Pindar so people could hear ancient Greek. We had a race at the original location of the Olympic games and this film crew for the Beijing Olympics taped it and interviewed the guy who won our guys' race. We thought it was funny.

[Walking to the sites in Delphi.]

Next came Delphi which was WAY better than Olympia! Not only was it absolutely beautiful, but the town had 2 streets! We hung out in a cafe that had White Hot Choco

late and overlooked the valley the first night, then we went to the oracle of Delphi, the stadium, etc. the next day. More dramatic readings happened here, as well as every other location, so I'm just not going to mention them anymore. After we finished in Delphi, we headed to Athens.

Athens was a strange, strange city. If you didn't look up, you just saw a normal city. Gross buildings with too much graffiti, beggars, street vendors, a lot of shady people, trash everywhere...Then you look down an alley and look up at the end. Oh, there's the Parthenon. Over there is the aereopagus. Athens was built on hills, too, but there are fewer and they are higher, so you notice it a lot more. Obviously in Athens we went to the Parthenon, the acropolis, the aereopagus, some museums, etc. When we weren't in class, we just kind of wandered around the city looking for stuff to do. We found a brochure for an Irish pub in the hotel, so we figured we'd go. 

[This is the gypsies on the Aereopagus]

About an hour and a half later, we found said pub. We went during happy hour, completely accidentally, so our drinks were only like 6 euro instead of 10. That's right, in American money, drinks were no

rmally $15. We later found out that this was pretty much the only place in Greece that had a happy hour. It was also Monday night, so no one was in the pub, meaning that they felt the need to offer us karaoke. We just hung out in the corner laughing way too much because we were 

the only ones there. The metro in Athens was crazy weird! Instead of going through the spinning bars thing when you put your ticket through, it was just air. We had no idea how they kept people from sneaking on, but we were really tempted to just walk through and find out. We didn't though. We were kind of afraid it was an electric current or one of the huge dogs planted in every metro station. One night in Athens, Ashlea, Stephen, and I decided we would split off and headed to Starbucks and discovered the different flavors of drinks they had. That was the same night that we went to our traditional Chinese food restaurant. Okay, it was the Noodle Bar and not quite as authentic as our other cities, but it's still a tradition.

[Gypsies in front of the Parthenon.]

After Athens, we headed over to Nafplion. The school knew there wasn't much in Nafplion except a beach, so they told us ahead of time not to expect anything. They were right, again. What they didn't mention was that the beach was SO fun. Stephen, Jordan, Rachel, Ashlea and I climbed along the rocks to get to the beach and

 tried to find crabs along the way. Stephen is the only one from a place that has a beach anywhere close, so he would tell us where to look and showed us how to tell the difference between crabs and rocks. He also let us know that we don't want to pick up sea urchins...He laughed at all the mountain/city kids discovering the mysteries of waves crashing into rocks with holes, thus spraying anyone standing over the holes, or of ocean snails, or crabs...We had SO much fun and named one of the snails Sherman. We would throw water on him so that he'd come out of his shell and hold on to your hand, then you could almost flip your hand over without him falling off. When we got to the beach, we saw the man that UD students for years have called "Poseidon". He's this old guy with long hair, a beard, a tank top, and a tattered speedo. We watched in shock that he really did exist, then watched him go into the FREEZING water and float around. This was Nafplion.

[Climbing on the rocks in Nafplion.]

On the way back, we stopped by 

Epidaurus. The main attraction here was the theater where you stand in the middle of the theater on this little circle of concrete and angle your head up just a bit and the entire theater can hear you speaking just above a normal inside voice. There were a bunch of annoying Italians and Germans, so we sent a girl to sing in the middle and she finally consented. Once she started singing, they got quieter and quieter until they were shushing each other to silence. It was a really cool theater, which everyone else apparently thought as we saw mini-Epidaurus-like theaters all over. (in playgrounds, etc.)

The ferry back was NOT the Superfast VI and it was not near as nice. It vibrated the ENTIRE ride back to Italy. Yeah, that's like 12 hours. Not only that, but you could feel it rocking. Most of us woke up at 4:30 in the morning because we were falling out of our beds and hitting walls. It was a good experience, though?
[When we had made it to the beach in Nafplion]

Basically, the Greece trip was AWESOME!!! We had SO much fun all over Greece and got to see a really wide variety of what the country is like. We got back on Saturday night and before we had gotten to our rooms, James had already gotten out his ipod deck and was blaring Ratatat's 17 Years in the dorm, so everyone dropped their luggage where they were and ran to the dance party. It was amazing to see not only the people who listen to the song all the time, but a bunch of other people, come pouring out of their rooms to dance to this ridiculously obscure song.

On Wednesday, we got to get up at 5:30 am to go to the Papal Audience. On the bus into Rome, one of the R.A.s was warning us that it's really cut-throat to get good seats and to beware the nuns, especially the Filipino ones with umbrellas. We thought she was exaggerating...then we learned. We were in a huge mass of old people and we were getting pushed all over. Jordan, Ashlea, Stephen, and I were basically holding each other. Once we made it through the metal detectors, we found out that we were apparently supposed to wear sneakers so we could run. Conveniently, we could pass all the old people because their canes only allowed them to run so fast. The entire time, we were like "are they seriously trying to fight us to see the Pope???" Those nuns were intense, though. No one was kidding around. It was a really interesting experience just getting in the doors! The Pope had to read his speech in like 5 different languages, so it kind of took a while. Then everyone said the Lord's Prayer in Latin (it was written on the back of our tickets, we weren't just expected to know it) and the Pope blessed everybody. When it had ended, we still waited around to see if he was going to walk down our aisle so we could take pictures. He didn't, but that had allowed a lot of people to leave, so we didn't have to fight our way out quite as much. The school gave us 6 euro for lunch, so we needed to spend all of it. After the week of disgusting cabbage, pork, and potatoes that was our greece trip, Stephen strongly suggested McDonald's. Ashlea, Stephen, Cory, Anna, and I went to McDonald's. Our plan was the Pantheon McDonald's because Ashlea and I decided to go there before the end of the semester because you can look at the Pantheon from the McDonald's across the fountain, but we ended up at a closer one. Just so you know, in Rome you pay an extra 10 cents for ketchup. You also pay more for extra napkins. The menu is different and we think it's kind of funny. OH! and there are curly fries, resulting in a large conversation of whether we have them in the states now and just dont know, so if anyone has info on that, feel free to pass it on! (they call them dizzy fries here :D)

[The view from Agamemnon's house.]

"I burped! I have more room!"

We arrived back home/Rome from Barcelona this morning after about 7 hours of traveling. We left our hostel at 4:30, but managed to fight the lack of sleep to get back to school. Our little adventure began on Thursday, but I don't have a lot of time right now, so I'll just give you the sparknotes/pinkmoney/wikipedia/antistudy version of it.

Thursday:
Flight. Go to hostel. Discover that although we have 8 people reserving a room for 8 people, 2 of us are in a different room. Discover that one of the people in the room with 6 of us is an old man. Go eat dinner. Actually enjoy dinner (unlike in Paris). Return to hostel to discover that in the room with 2 people, one bed has become occupied and our 2 must now share one bed. See random person in the bigger room #2, who is a gothic kid. Sleep.

Friday:
Eat really good waffles from a street vendor outside the cathedral. Go to Gaudi park (or Park Guell). Go to Gaudi house. Go to Gaudi "Block of Discord". Walk down Las Ramblas and and the harbor. Eat dinner at Flaherty's. Get ice cream and go to the hostel, stopping in some shops along the way.

Saturday:
Go to Picasso museum, but get bored as soon as half of us get to his recent stuff. Wander the streets by the museum until the rest finish. Go to the Chocolate museum where there are way cool chocolate statues. Return to the harbor. See really cool gymnastics guys on the street doing stunts. Wander down Las Ramblas to go to the church with the dancers. See no dancers. Wander Las Ramblas in the direction of the chinese restaurant we had recommended (it's our tradition to eat chinese food in every country). GO TO THE MOST AMAZING RESTAURANT EVER!!! it had the conveyor belt and you paid a flat price as they just sent food around and it was pretty cheap and tasted wonderful and was all kinds of exciting. Stephen frantically picked up like 25 plates in addition to those he picked up for the rest of us. After eating like 10 plates or so, he burped then said "I burped! I still have more room!!" It was the most entertaining meal I remember for a long time...everything else kind of lives in its shadow. Return to hostel and discover that gothic kid is now an aussie girl, with some advice for us for Scotland and Ireland.

Sunday:
Leave hostel at 4:30 in the morning.

A Weekend in Paris

On Thursday, we discovered the excitement of Ryan Air. When the shuttle from the airport to the airplane stopped and we were in a ridiculously large herd of people fighting their ways onto the plane, we sacrificed Ashlea to try to get 8 seats together. We laughed about how the airplane was a giant advertisement. The landing was more of a drop from mid-air and we kind of tipped a little, but we figured that was how we got our tickets for so cheap, so we laughed it off. Once we got to the exit of the airport, we realized that it's 11:00 at night, freezing cold, and we don't actually know how we're going to get to our hostel. We had the address and everything, but we coudln't ever get directions from the bus stop to the hostel. We ended up just getting a taxi to avoid wandering in the suburbs of Paris indefinitely.

Friday morning, we asked for directions to the bus (which we later learned was not what we wanted). We got on a bus and Anna tried to buy a ticket. Well, Mr. Bus-Driver doesn't speak English, so he's firmly telling her what to pay, but she has no idea what he's saying. A couple blocks down the road, we figured out that we weren't going the right way. We got off at the next stop that had nothing near it and tried looking at the map. The bus didn't leave, so Ashlea tried to go ask how we could get to Paris. As the group is staring at the map, I figured I'd see how Ashlea was doing and we found out that the bus was about to turn around and go to Paris. This made the second time we walked away from a driver only to come back a few minutes later. (We walked away from the taxi at first because it was too expensive, then came back when we realized it was our only option.) We finally got into Paris and made our way to the Louvre. We ate in the food court at the Louvre (one of the best meals all weekend) and then tried to redeem our online tickets. After hopping between like 9 different booths, etc., they finally sent us to the Virgin store where we were told that they couldn't be redeemed because our credit cards didn't match out confirmation numbers. We tried combining them all different ways, then realized that they had all been sent to Reed's house. Reed now has 8 passes to all the Paris museums. We spent most of the day in the Louvre (later learning that it's free for students after 6) then went out to dinner and headed back to our hostel. As we went to get on the bus to go to our hostel, we discovered that buses do not stop running at 12:30, like we were told, but rather at around 9:30. There was an RER station nearby, so we decided figuring it out and it running was the only way we were going to get home for less than 50 euro a piece. The man in the information desk insisted that the stop we wanted (which we found on the map) was simply not possible. We didn't care what he said because this was our only option, so we start looking at the map and schedules on our own. He then decided to tell Reed that the last train to our stop was in 5 minutes. (that's right, all of a sudden, he knows what we want) We had to buy our tickets from the one machine that was working, so Anna is trying to buy them and it has 2 options: 1 ticket or 1 book. At that point, we're thinking we can get 8 tickets at one time. Anna buys one and we can't get it to do more than that without an entire book. I'm standing there trying to get it to take my credit card, but the symbol on the machine and on the screen are opposite, so I keep flipping it. The machine takes about 20 seconds to reload every time, so after trying my card and cory's both directions, we decided to go for cash. It only takes coins, so we're trying to get 11 euro between us in coins. It really must have looked funny to see 8 people shoving any coins they could find in the hole until it said we had paid. As the tickets are printing, we hear a train showing up, so I grabbed them and basically tossed them around to everyone. We ran through the entrance and down the stairs, yelling to see if anyone knew if it was the right direction. Reed kept saying it was and Anna double-checked on a map. We got downstairs and realized that it was the opposite train that we heard and we were going to wait a couple minutes for our train. Once we got to our station, we realized we didn't know where our hostel was from there. We pretty much looked left and right and decided to walk in the direction of more cars. Luckily, we chose right and got to the hostel in about 5 minutes.

Saturday, we got up went back to our beloved RER station to get tickets for the metro for the day and headed into the city. We ate lunch/breakfast at this little bistro, thinking that they had breakfast because Ashlea asked and they said yes. Instead, we all had hot chocolate, eggs with mayonnaise, and about half of us had ham. Most of the people hate either mustard, mayo, or both. Our eggs come and they're hard boiled with a mustard-mayo combination on top. I personally hate mustard, mayo, and egg yolk. UD cafeteria skills came back as people were discussing how they were managing to stomach it. The ham came out later and it was definitely pieces of ham encased in jelly. The escargot was actually the one thing everyone liked. We went from breakfast to the Eiffel Tower, the Arch de Triumph, Notre Dame, and the Rose Line. Anna, Cory, Ashlea, and Anna hurried off to their train and Reed, Stephen, Jordan, and I went to find a restaurant for dinner. We found a little bistro that seemed like it was going to have decent food for less than 10 euro a person, so we went in. Ashlea's fragments of elementary french were no longer there, so we had the ability to say numbers, yes, no, excuse me, and please. We managed to at least get by for the night with that, though. When we went to order, we decided to just point to what we wanted. I pointed to the hamburger and asked "with cheese?" in french (that was Reed's additional phrase that had been figured out earlier that day) and the lady said "yes, with cheese". Jordan then also asked for cheese for his omelet and she said yes. Stephen asked for cheese with his hamburger and she said it was not possible. Our food came and Jordan had cheese in his omelet, but Stephen and I were not so lucky. We not only didn't have cheese, but didn't have buns either....we did have fried eggs, though! It was a great dinner to celebrate Reed's birthday. After dinner, our plan was to go get dessert by the Eiffel Tower. We're on the RER and it gets to a stop where apparently it doesn't go past. The lights turned off and the announcement said something about getting off, so we did, then figured out a new plan to get to the Eiffel Tower and decided we'd just hope we could take the RER home after. We're standing in the metro station figuring it out and this girl is standing next to us and then asks "Where are you trying to go?" in perfect English. It was SO nice to hear an American. She told us how to get to the tower, then the metro came so we turned to get on it. I wanted to know how to get to the hostel, too, though so I asked her how we could get up to Epiney sur Seine. She's standing there explaining it when I hear Stephen yelling at me to get on the metro. She was also getting on (why she didnt say that to start with when we were clearly getting on the metro, i don't know) so we talked with her on our way, then she repeated how we could get to our hostel.

While this was happening with us, the 4 who were riding the train had their own adventures. They had to hop the metro a few times to get to the train station and at one stop, rachel got on and the other three were at the door as it shut. There was like a 2 inch gap and they're looking at each other trying to tell each other where to go when a man walks up, pulls the door apart, pushes Ashlea, Anna, and Cory on the metro, then shuts it. They then went to the wrong train station and had to go down the road a few blocks, but they made it.

This morning, we got up nice and early and headed to the airport. It was a great weekend with a ton of excitement and memories. I think the phrase "I wish Kristen were here" was said like 500 times. Next weekend, Barcelona!

Happy Birthday, Indai!

I don't really have too much to say. We just stayed in Rome this past weekend and celebrated Indai's birthday. We went out to dinner at...a restaurant...then got a cake on the way back and had spumante in cake in the mensa while Indai opened presents. I got her a really old copy of Vergil's Aeneid in Latin and almost made her cry...woohoo for Classics majors! We're going to Paris this upcoming weekend, so I'll have more to tell after that! For now, here are a couple pictures to keep you entertained...The group picture is in front of the statue of Hercules in the Naples Archeological Museum.

Gypsy Tribe

This past weekend, we went on a school trip to Pompeii and Stabiae. Friday night's entertainment (after going straight through the ghetto to get to the center of the city) at the hotel was entitled "Living Frescoes". If anyone ever suggests such entertainment, I suggest you avoid it (unless on a high of some sort). The music part was entertaining, except the bells that wouldnt stop. For one of the frescoes, the girl had an animal horn that she rubbed a stick on for a few minutes. The finale sounded something like motorcycles, but was actually string being slung around in circles. They also "danced" while playing music in a very lyric-asheville sort of way. Basically, it was weird. After half an hour, everyone was just staring with their jaws dropped (not in a good way).

We had multiple homeless moments, such as eating out of bags on a street corner, huddled for warmth. These are the memories we like best :). It was a really fun trip, though. We made friends with a dog we named "Cocoa" while we were walking downtown in Stabiae and deemed him our gypsy dog. He would walk with us, then chase a guy on a motorcycle, then run back to us. We wanted him to walk us back to our hotel, but he had to go home. Oh, in case I havent mentioned it, we're a gypsy tribe now.

When we came back to campus, we went into Albano for dinner and then to Saints and Sinners. On Sunday we went into Rome in pairs and did more exploring and that sort of thing. Ashlea and I found a weird American and a really cool store, so we were pleased. We also got free pastries at a cafe we went to in order to hide from the rain. Free things don't really exist in italy, so this was exciting.

Overall, it was a really good weekend with the gypsies. This weekend, we're going to stay in Rome again and celebrate Indai's birthday. Next weekend, we're going to Paris, then the weekend after to Barcelona. It's crazy we've only been here for a week and a half! We've done so much and had so much fun! I'll put a picture up of Cocoa once I get one from someone.

But she's black

I need to read for art and look up reservation stuff for France, but here is my story for the day:

So today we were in Albano waiting for the bus. Stephen, Jordan, Reed, Ashlea, and I were standing under the shelter-like thing and this little old lady was there. She tried to start talking to me, but I couldn't understand through her muttering and just looked at Reed to translate, who could also hardly hear her words. After having her repeat herself, he responded to her that we were all indeed from the same country. She then asked me if we were from America and I said yes. Then she asked what country I was from and again I told her America. Then she asked what country Jordan was from (for non-UD people, he too is white) and I responded that he is also American and that we are all American. She has now heard that we are all from America 2 or 3 times, but cannot believe that Ashlea (aka-Black Girl) is from America, too. She started arguing with Reed "But she's black! She's not American!". Again, another "tutti, tutti" and the bus conveniently came up. It was the wrong one, but it gave us an excuse to walk away from her.

The top picture shows (left to right) me, Stephen, Reed, and Jordan.
Obviously, Black Girl is in the bottom picture. (the other kid is Anna)

Sabbato nella citta

On Saturday, we had most of the day to explore Rome. We went in right after breakfast and wandered for a bit before meeting the group at noon. We had the option of doing a scavenger hunt through Rome, but Ashlea, Anna, Cory, Indai, Drew, Meaghan, Andrew, and I decided it would be more enjoyable to just wander. Drew, Indai, Ashlea and I headed up to St. Peter's to find Old Bridge because it's supposed to be the best gelateria in all of Rome...we ended up at Blue Ice instead, but just wandered around and observed the area until heading over to Santa Maria Maggiore where we wandered more until we needed to meet the group. We were brought back to campus in a charter but and had 45 minutes to get ready for the wine tasting.

Once we were on the bus, we thought it would be maybe half an hour until we got to eat dinner...we were quite wrong. We boarded the buses at 4:45 and stopped in two towns along the way in order to wander, and thus did not get to the restaurant until about 8. It was pretty windy getting up to the villa, so our row was a bit scared of what might happen when the wine tasting would be mixed with the ride back, but luckily, no trash back clothes were required. We were on the bus around 11:15 and managed to sleep for a little while until a group of less than sober people decided to start singing disney songs quite loudly. We couldn't decide if it was better or worse than the Backstreet Boys they sung when they were sober. We finally made it back to campus around midnight so that we could wake up today for an exciting day of homework...

Overall, it was a very eventful and enjoyable night and we got a lot of great pictures (which will be added soon).

There's a good reason the sun only stays awake for 12 hours

Well, we're in Rome now. I don't exactly know how to distinguish days since we left because it kind of feels like 2 really, really long ones, but I'll make some kind of attempt...

The trip started with me getting to the Charlotte airport only to find out that my flight was delayed 2 hours. Conveniently, I was set up for a 6 hour layover, so it wasn't a huge deal. When I got off the plane, Jordan was at my gate and we made our way to the gate which would be our "new common room" for the next 4 and a half hours. Everyone gradually showed up in their regional groups and we did all the catching up and playing cards that any group of 85 college students would do, much to the shock of the other passengers in the area who would sit on the edge of our group, realize we all know each other, then proceed to move as far away as possible. We were on the plane playing musical chairs to sit with our friends for about 15 minutes, laughing at the stewardess who was trying to figure out who was in the wrong seat because one girl went and said "someone is in my seat". After about 4 people, she gave up, realizing we were all in the wrong seats. After finishing the "food" they served for dinner, I attempted sleeping despite the hunger. My night's sleep consisted of 15 minutes at best of sleeping in between crowds of visitors to the rows around me, waking up from being completely uncomfortable, or simply not being able to.

Once we got to Rome, we came to campus and unpacked, then began the incredible adventure of orientation meetings. Mind you, most of us had been awake since 5am North Carolina time and it was now around 5am of the next day. The first set of meetings, most people would nod off between having papers shoved at them...the last set of meetings saw very few who were strong enough to stay awake the entire time. Stephen and I watched as people fell like flies, then would all pop awake when applause started. That's until 15 minutes into the meeting when he fell asleep, too. We then had an Italian 4 course dinner in the cafeteria, which we decided had a very homeless shelter feeling. We were all wearing winter coats in a room with florescent lights, glaring at everyone and everything because we were so tired. We had incredibly small portions (because it was a 4 course meal), yet everyone was clutching his or her cup or fork feverishly...We then spent a while discussing how amusing and true it was, then we'd bring it up each time anyone looked especially homeless. After dinner, we quickly made our ways to our beds at about 9:15. By the way, that's 3:15 North Carolina Time. Yeah, about 34 hours after this little trip started, we finally got to go to bed...or so we thought, until Anna came in the room at 9:45 to tell us we forgot to sign in for curfew...

Today, we got to wake up at 5:30 to go to St. Peter's for mass. After mass, we went on walking tours around Rome, ending with lunch together at a pizzeria. We saw things like the Pantheon, the Turtle Fountain (according to one guidebook, the "cutest fountain in Rome"), and Campo di Navona. My favorite was probably the ruins of a theatre (at least I think it was a theatre) that has apartments on the top. They're the most expensive apartments in all of Rome...

After lunch, we then started a new adventure entitled "Italian Public Transportation". This little adventure starts with the Metro. When our train came, our group of about 12 looked in the car (which we had just watched around 12 people leave) and saw the complete lack of space. In Italy, this means "push". This stop was shocking enough as we all thought we were crammed in as tightly as possible...Then the next stop came. We looked out the door and saw ridiculous numbers of high school kids and realized what the people felt like when they saw us standing outside. The doors open and they had the same thought we did: "wow! the car is full!" Their next thought was also "push". When we had gotten on, the door shut on our last person because he barely fit. He was about a foot behind me when we got to the high school student stop, but once they made their way in, he was mysteriously vacuumed into the mass of people and in the opposite corner of the car. Luckily, the next stop was our exit, so we all stared at each other in amazement of what had just happened...Next comes the bus! Conveniently, their was a bus going to our stop ready and loading. Inconveniently, so were about 40 UD people. We then got to wait about 20 minutes for the next bus to come while we observed the rows of buses that were parked with their drivers having conversations. After our half hour bus ride back to campus, we made the walk from the bus stop and finally arrived. It was a rather adventuresome day or two or three...

A few days left...

I fly out Tuesday morning from Charlotte to DC. The group meets in the Dulles airport, then flies to Rome! I'll update once I have a chance from there.