A few pictures

I've figured out how to upload images onto my blog but it takes forever! Here are a select few:

The Tiber River

Posing with a Swiss Guard
I think I read in Angels and Demons that Michelangelo designed their outfits.

St. Peter's baldachin

Marks St. Peter's tomb and was designed by Bernini.

Sydney and me in St. Peter's Square

Inside the Colosseum

Great travel quote!

I really liked this quote that Steph had in her journal. I'm going to write about my day today later but I just wanted to post this real quick:

"Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life."

A few thoughts

Some things I have discovered or learned in my two and a half weeks in Rome so far:

• I shouldn't have waited this long to do laundry for the first time. The washer is so shallow and barely holds any clothes. I had to do about four or five loads which equals about two in a normal sized washer in the States. Also, with eight girls in one apartment, there is always someone who has laundry to do. We don't have a dryer so our place currently has drying racks everywhere with all assortments of clothes.
  
• It was very unfortunate that my brand new umbrella broke the first day here. Luckily I have a rain jacket, but it has rained three of the past four days, and I haven't bought another umbrella. Yesterday was a beautiful day and today started out to be one; however, when I got out of my last class, it was pouring. Some friends and I waited for the tram to come and when it finally did, it was packed completely full. There was no way for us to get in so we had to walk the 20ish minute walk home in the rain. I usually walk anyway for the exercise but getting caught in the cold rain was not fun!
• I love not having Friday classes. Four weekdays and three weekend days is great! I had registered for classes at Clemson for this semester (I wasn't sure if I would end up going abroad) and finally got a schedule that had all my classes from Monday to Thursday -- so even if I didn't come to Rome, I wouldn't have Friday classes!
• At the supermercato near our apartment, they have taco kits and ground beef. I want to make tacos so badly. However, I don't think cheddar cheese or shredded cheese exist here. I really could go for a Cheesy Gordida Chrunch at Taco Bell!
• There is so much dog poop on the sidewalks. It's repulsive. I'm waiting for the day that I accidentally step in a pile. Steph did last week and it was disgusting.
• The pizzas here are all square -- I have yet to see a circular one like at home.
• I've been here for more than two weeks and i still haven't seen the Trevi Fountain or the Pantheon. I think that will change this weekend though!

Last night, my roommates and I, along with the group of guys we hang out with, went to a club (also known as a discoteca) called La Maison. It was so packed but I ran into Lindsey Puliti -- one of my best friends from high school! She just got here two days ago and will be here all semester. It was so funny seeing her. I think she lives near me in Trastevere so I'm sure I'll be seeing more of her.

Our roommates Lauren, Cara S., and Suzy went to Dublin this morning for the weekend. I'm so jealous -- Dublin is one of my favorite cities. The rest of us just booked a day trip for next Saturday to Venice for Carnivale! I can't wait to take a gondola ride.

If I have any more random thoughts I'll be sure to share them!

A Weekend of Sightseeing!

A large group of us went on the Colosseum Pub Crawl on Thursday night -- it was so much fun but a little disorganized. At one of the pubs I talked to an Australian who was touring the world with his two friends for their summer break. He told me they had been to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York (they spent New Year's at Webster Hall in Manhattan), London, Barcelona, and now Rome. They were going to Berlin (I think) and Hong Kong after leaving Italy. After their trip, they would have spent two and a half months traveling and about 15,000 Australian dollars (which he said was about $13,000). I thought that spending four months in Rome was cool but traveling the world must be so much cooler!

JCU doesn't offer any Friday classes so Korissa, Steph, Sydney, and I took advantage of the first day of the three-day weekend to go sightseeing. We decided to go to the Colosseum; we've seen it multiple times since we arrived but we hadn't been inside. It cost 12 euro to get in (no tour or headphones included) which is about $18, so it's pretty pricey but I know that I have to go at least once in my life or else I would regret it later. It was cool inside but not too much to see because of its simplicity. It was fascinating to think about how old it was and that it's still standing. We wandered around for an hour or so and realized that we were all starving, as well as freezing (definitely the coldest day that we've been here for so far). We walked to Piazza Navona which has some good restaurants plus Fontana delle Quattro Fiumi, which is a fountain by Bernini that I recognized as the fourth Illumanti marker in Angels and Demons! However, it's currently under construction and has no water which is kind of a bummer. We didn't go out Friday night because we wanted to get up bright and early for Vatican City.

On Saturday, we left our apartment just before ten and took the tram then walked a bit to Vatican City. We first went to the Vatican Museum which took at least two hours to get through. I was excited when I saw the painting "The School of Athens" by Raphael since I learned about it in my Art History class sophomore year. There were also so many ceiling paintings that my neck was sore from looking up so much. They had about 20-30 signs that said "Capella Sistina" which was a tease since the Sistine Chapel was all the way at the end of the museum and the museum was huge. When we did finally make it to the Sistine Chapel, however, it was just as amazing as I had thought. Sydney got a headset for the museum and she let me listen when we got to the Chapel. I learned that Michelangelo had little experience as a painter before painting the ceiling since he was mainly a sculptor, and it took him four years to complete. He had to paint so many people with such detail that I'm impressed that it didn't take him longer. My favorite part was the Creation of Adam which is the famous scene of God giving life to Adam through his finger. It was also so surreal to be in the room that is the site of Papal conclave. I really wish I could have gotten a picture of the ceiling but the guards were getting very angry at the people that tried. Apparently, their biggest concern is that people will use the pictures for commercial reasons and try to make a profit off of it.

The Sistine Chapel was the last stop in the museum so after that we went through security for St. Peter's Basilica (also known as Papale di San Pietro in Italian) which was free admission. St. Peter's is by far the most amazing place I've ever been. It is absolute beautiful and so huge. To the right as soon as you enter is the Pieta by Michelangelo! All I said all day was how excited I was so see the Pieta. From reading a few Rome guidebooks I found out the reason why it is in a glass case -- in the 1970s, a man stormed the sculpture and screamed, "I am Jesus Christ" while taking a hammer and damaging Mary's nose and some of her fingers. It is also historically inaccurate because Mary is portrayed as much younger as she really was at the time of Jesus' crucifiction. There were so many other beautiful pieces of art. The alter by Bernini is over the tomb of St. Peter, an apostle and the first Pope. There was a small, quiet room off of the side where Sydney and I went in to pray for a few minutes that was not any less beautiful than the rest of the basilica. I was so overwhelmed by everything there that I am definitely going to go back at some point to take it all in again.

After our long day of sightseeing the Vatican, we stopped at the supermarket and bought ingredients for dinner. Korissa was the mother of the night and made us bruschetta, salad, and pasta while we drank wine. I don't like tomatoes so I didn't eat the bruschetta but it looked delicious! That night Korissa, Sydney, and I went to a bar in Campo di Fiore, the "Drunken Ship", which had a lot of Italians. A few groups of them came up to Korissa and me to chat. I still don't know anything in Italian except how to say "Non parlo Italiano" (I don't speak Italian) but a lot of them had a pretty good understanding of English so it wasn't too difficult to communicate. Plus, Korissa took a semester of Italian at St. Mary's so she knew a little bit. One of the guys was Roman but lived in Morocco for a while so he knew French too (this was the first time I heard that they speak French in Morocco). I pulled out some of my knowledge from my seven years of taking the language and tried to talk to him in French -- I'm trying to practice for when I go visit Paris which is number one on my list of places I have to see while I'm in Europe! We went home rather early, and I slept in this morning and have had a lazy day. Class tomorrow -- I'm beginning to forget why I'm here in the first place!

PS. Last night, I booked a flight to Barcelona for the weekend of February 18th to visit Jenna Shulman who is there for the semester! At least two of my roommates, Cara and Sydney, are coming too. I can't wait to see her, and I heard Barcelona is awesome!

Settling in Rome!

The first week of classes is done and it's officially the weekend! The last time I blogged was on Monday -- my Tuesday (and Thursday classes) are not too bad. My first class is Political Theory at noon. I've never been interested in taking Political Theory back at Clemson (especially because Dr. Woodard is the teacher and since I've had him for Political Parties and Elections, I've sworn never to take another course with him again) but the class fit nicely into my Support Course/minor requirements and would transfer easily. The professor is very lively and almost way too enthusiast about Plato and Aristotle; hopefully I'll surprise myself and end up enjoying them too. I get out of that class at 1:15 and then don't have another one until 2:15. An hour is not enough time to go back to the apartment so on Tuesday I was awkwardly walking around by myself trying to kill some time; I stopped and got some gelato but still was a half an hour early to my class. Luckily, today Steph and Korissa had the same problem, and we all just sat around together. It also turns out the Steph is in my 2:15 class -- International Marketing. We had no idea until she walked in on Tuesday to the same classroom as I was in! I think that I'll like that class; I wouldn't be majoring in marketing if I didn't find it interesting. Plus -- the professor is a young 30-something Italian who wears jeans to class and easily relates to the students. I'm done at 3:30 on T/TH so on Tuesday I wanted to go to the supermercato to pick up a few things so I could eat at home. I went by myself which was very overwhelming -- there was some food that I wanted to get but I realized I couldn't read the directions in Italian so I wouldn't know how to cook it! There were a few recognizable things such as Tony the Tiger (they're called Frosties over here instead of Frosted Flakes) and Barilla pasta. I didn't stock up because the supermarket doesn't have too much of a selection.

Tuesday night, Steph, Cara, Korissa, Sydney, and I, plus Cara's friend Casey from St. Norbert, decided to go out to a bar in Campo di Fiore. We were getting ready in our apartment and waiting for Casey when a fuse blew. There is a sign with directions on how to reset the fuse but we were having the hardest time figuring out where the fuse box was. The sign said it was in the "Porter's Box" -- we realized that this was the small office of the security guard at the lobby of the building. This was around ten or eleven o'clock, however, and the guard is only on duty during the day. We went down there with hopes that there would happen to be someone there but there was not. Since we decided that it couldn't be considered an emergency, we realized we would be out of power for the night. Suzy, Lauren, and the other Cara weren't going out that night so we felt bad that they would have to hang out in the dark until they went to bed, but we ended up leaving for a few hours so it wasn't that bad. Lauren and I woke up at 11:45 the next day and the lights were still off. Everyone had left for class and no one thought to go to the guard to ask him to flip the switch so Lauren and I went down there and she was able to communicate that box #11 had to be turned on. We finally regained power. BUT after she left for class and Sydney and Steph came back, the power went off again about an hour after we got it going. I went back down by myself (bad idea) and there was a different lady there with this old Italian couple talking to her. I tried to tell her what had happened but she did not speak a word of English. Finally I got it across to her that our lights were out and she pointed to the light in the office and understood what I meant so she flicked a few switches. The old couple started speaking to me in Italian -- it sounded like they were giving me a lecture of some sorts probably for our usage of electricity. I didn't want to be rude and walk away so I stood there nodding with a look of absolute confusion on my face. Also, I apparently didn't convey the number 11 fully (and I still don't know my numbers in Italian) because when I ran back up the six flights of stairs our lights were still off! Steph went down to try again and luckily she was better at communicating to them than I was! Our electricity hasn't gone off since -- if it does again, hopefully it won't be in the middle of the night when we are helpless!

Yesterday after my American Foreign Policy class, Jordan (who is in my class) and I decided to try to find the book store to buy our books. I got directions from Lauren which told us which bus to take but it seemed very confusing. The map also showed us that the store is all the way by the Spanish Steps! Luckily, there was an Italian kid and full-time JCU student in our class who mapped out a much easier walking path for us. It took us about 30-45 minutes to walk all the way over there. Oh, and I should have brought a notebook or two over here because it is virtually impossible to find any normal notebooks in this city. On the way to the book store, we found a store that we thought could carry them but all they had was weird graph paper (today, Korissa told me about a place near our house that had notebooks that were someone legitimate). Jordan and I got our books just before closing at 7:30 and walked all the way back to Trastevere with them.

Today was a normal and uneventful day of class but it's finally the weekend! A bunch of us are thinking about doing a Pub Crawl tonight. Some people are going away for the weekend -- a few boys are going to Interlaken, Switzerland to ski the Alps and some people might go to Florence. We were all planning on going to Florence but we could not find a train ticket cheap enough and we wanted to explore Rome some more. I still haven't seen the Trevi fountain or been in the Vatican! Tomorrow we're planning on going to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.


More later!

First weekend & first classes in Rome!

So, Saturday during the day we had orientation for John Cabot University. They told us about clubs and sports teams that we could join while here, plus other resources that might be helpful to us. After that, Korissa, Cara, Steph, and I went wandering around trying to get something to eat for lunch. We ended up splitting up and Steph and I went to a restaurant, and I got a salad and some fries. We also had an appointment for our "Permit to Stay" which is required by Italian law to stay in the country. I'm not sure how it differs from a Visa but apparently they won't let us stay if we don't complete the process. We waited in two lines literally for forever -- it ended up taking us about 2.5 hours and we still have more steps to go. Then the four of us wanted to see the Spanish Steps so we walked over the Tiber River and finally found them. I'm not sure what the significance of them are because they just look they regulator steps but it was cool to actually see them in person. It's also pretty looking down at the city when standing at the top. We were all tired of walking so we got back to our apartment but not before stopping to pick up a few things at the grocery store. I just got the ingredients for grilled cheese because I didn't feel like thinking about what stuff I wanted to buy; I still haven't gone back to the Supermercato but I really need to get food so I can eat at home!

Later that night we went over to our guy friends' apartment to hang out before we went out. We planned on going to a discoteca. However, when we got to the trolley stop, our friend Jordan randomly ran into a girl he graduated from high school with who goes to JCU full time. She said she knew of somewhere fun to go and that she would take us there. We took the trolley all the way to the end and then she was like, "Oh, this isn't it", so we followed her all the way back. Then it seemed like we did four laps around the perimeter of Rome until we got there (later we found out it's only a few blocks away from our apartment - ha!). It didn't end up being a discoteca but it was so much fun; they had televisions up that were playing American football. I'm always up for watching football no matter the time or place!

Yesterday, Sunday, we went on the free SAI walking tour of Ancient Rome at 3PM. There were so many people and only one tour guide that it was impossible to hear what was going on. So a group of about ten of us went off on our own and walked to the Colosseum. It was just as cool as I thought it was going to be. It wasn't open to go inside so we could only see it from the outside but hopefully at some point during this semester we'll take some time to do that! We ate at a restaurant around it -- I just got pizza (which they say is the size for one person but it is huge). At all restaurants in Italy, you can't just order tap water. They bring water in bottle and it isn't free -- that's one thing I really don't like at the restaurants here. We walked home after that and got things prepared for our first day of classes which was today.

My first class, Italian 101, was at 1:45 PM this afternoon. I really hate taking languages and always struggled with learning French, but I figured that it will be beneficial to have some knowledge of Italian while I'm here. It's been so hard not knowing more than 6 or 7 words in the language. That class ended at 3:35 and my next wasn't until 5:15. One of my roommates, Sydney, and I both had the same break so we took a walk up to the Vatican to see St. Peter's Square. It was so cool (and so weird to technically be in a different country) and I can't wait to go in and see the Sistine Chapel! I saw the Swiss Guards (who are surprisingly very cute) and having just read Angels & Demons, I recognized a bunch of things from the book.

We went back to campus for our 5:15 classes; mine was American Foreign Policy. I have this class with my friend Jordan so it will be good to have someone I know with me for the semester. The class seems like it will be a lot of work; we have a film review and two book reviews plus a research paper, a presentation, and a midterm but I don't think that the professor is going to be too difficult. We'll see how it goes.

I'm back at my apartment now just hanging out -- more later!

Ciao!

So I've finally gotten the time to actually sit down and write an entry in my study abroad blog! I guess I'll start from the beginning. My flight from Philadelphia to Rome was long and uncomfortable, and I felt nauseous for more than half of the trip there which did not make things any better. There were individual televisions on the headrests that you got to choose the program, so I watched "Juno", an episode of "Sex & the City", and "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince". During Harry Potter I was attempting to get some sleep; I'm not sure if I succeeded-- if I did I got maybe 30 minutes of rest. We finally got to FCO airport a little before 9 AM (Italy time), and I realized I was all alone in a foreign country without speaking the language. That was especially great when I could not even follow the crowd to baggage claim, because I was last in the bathroom line and everyone was far ahead of me. I got a little anxious when I realized that I had to take a monorail from the part of the airport that our gate was at to the area that had the baggage claim.

While waiting for my bags, I met one of my apartment-mates, Steph from Philadelphia, who was on my flight. She did not know anyone either so it was good to have each other to figure out where to go and what our next move was. It was raining in Rome, and since all of the streets are cobblestone and therefore lack good traction, there was a ton of traffic because of accidents. We ended up waiting about 1.5-2 hours for a bus to pick us up from the airport and bring us into the city. We got driven to the SAI (Study Abroad Italy) office near John Cabot University (where I will be taking classes) to check in and get our keys. Then we had to wait AGAIN for another shuttle to then take us to our apartment (which thankfully has an elevator to take our luggage to the sixth floor). Three of our other apartment-mates, three girls from Long Island, were coming down the stairs as we were moving in so we briefly met them and then headed up to check out our apartment.

When we got up to our floor we had the hardest time getting the key to open the doors; everyone that we've seen try have also had problems so there must be something different about European locks. We finally got in after about 10 minutes and dragged all of our stuff in. The apartment is awesome. There are four bedrooms with two beds each, a kitchen, and two bathrooms. We have no common room but I think it's because one of the bedrooms is supposed to be a living room but they converted it into a bedroom to house more people. We also have three separate balconies which is amazing. I'll post pictures of my apartment when I take some good ones.

At this point I was dying to take a nap due to my lack of sleep but I also hadn't eaten much (airplane food- yuck) so Steph and I walked around the block a few times looking for a quick bite of something to eat. We ended up getting slices of pizza which, honestly, tasted exactly the same as something you could find in New Jersey. I took a good 2-3 hour nap and woke up to shower to get ready for a roommate dinner. The shower, however, was freezing and absolutely miserable (2/3 out of my three showers have been like this -- the third started hot but very quickly got cold). My roommates are Steph (from Philadelphia and goes to Indiana University of Pennsylvania), Cara (Chicago/St. Norbert), Sydney (St. Louis/Missouri State), Korissa (California/St. Mary's), Lauren who I share a room with (Long Island/Cornell), Suzy (Long Island, Wisconsin), and Cara (Long Island, Wisconsin). The eight of us went to a restaurant called Sale e Pepe (aka Salt and Pepper) -- I got a spaghetti dish with cheese and pepper which was good but filling so I kept some leftovers and ate them the next day for lunch (but without a microwave, it was a challenge figuring out how to work the kitchen appliances to heat it up).

Although we were all really tired we wanted to check out the nightlife in Rome so we met some people that the Long Island girls knew. Somehow our group grew to include more girls and some boys and then split into two. The group that I was with went to an Irish Pub for a little then met up with the rest at Campo dei Fiori, a piazza that across the Tiber River. We ended up leaving rather early because we had to get up early for SAI orientation.

The next morning we walked to JCU at 9 AM for an orientation on pertinent information for our time in Rome, as well as Europe in general. The jet lag was still getting to me, however, and I still didn't feel quite right so it wasn't fun sitting in the room for two hours when all I could think about was taking a nap. We all ended up sleeping for about 3 hours when we had originally planned on sleeping from 12 to 1:30, or should I say 12 to 13:30; it's going to take some time for me to get used to the time format, as well as the Celsius temperature and the euro. We had to go back to JCU to get our picture taken for our ID cards so we took the trolley and took care of that. On the way back, we decided to stop for gelatto (my first ever!) and walked home along the Tiber. I had no idea what most of the flavors were since I don't speak a word of Italian but I saw "Coco" and a white gelatto so I figured it was coconut. It was and it was so good! I seriously think gelatto can solve my health problems, because I felt fine after eating it-- Ha!

We hung out at home until 22:00ish and Steph, Sydney, and I went to a different restaurant for a bite before we went out. I was planning on getting a salad this time but the gnocchi on the menu looked just too good to pass up (Tara -- I know you are jealous reading this). That, of course, was delicious. The three of us went to Campo dei Fiori to meet up with Cara and Korissa and some of the guys we had hung out with the night before. We were talking to their roommate that hadn't been out the previous night and it turns out he goes to Clemson too! It was great to find out that there were more Clemson kids with SAI besides me and Grace (who is a sophomore Chi O). He also introduced me to another guy from Clemson who he had just meet as well. This night was a lot more fun because I was starting to become accustomed to the time difference and was more comfortable with the people I had met. We went home at 2AMish and had to get to sleep for another early morning.

This morning my roommates (minus the LI girls) and I woke up at 7:45 for an excusion to Ostia Antica Archeological Site. Ostia Antica, according to the SAI orientation schedule, "during ancient Roman time, was a bustling working port town of 60,000 people and offers a look into the daily life of average ancient Romans. The site includes remains of docks, warehouses, apartments, flats, mansions, shopping arcades, and public baths". Our tour guide compared it to Pompeii. It was pretty interesting.

We got back on the bus and drove 45 minutes to Borgo di Tragliata Organic Farm for lunch. It was so nicely set up -- like a reception for a wedding. We were at tables of ten with bread, wine, and bottled water. I was looking at the menu on the table and I was wondering what I wanted to eat... however, that was unnecessary since they served us all of it. It was so good and really filling. After that we went on a tour of the ground which are beautiful and then headed back to our home city of Rome. That brings me to now! Tonight we are going to grab something small to eat for dinner (the lunch took care of any hunger that we might have had today) and then meet up with people at the bars. I will update this again when I have more to say!


Arrivederci!
Kelly

PS. Wikipedia, Google, and pop-up ads on my computer are all in Italian! It's so weird to see and impossible to read so I guess it's good that I'm taking an Italian language class this semester!

PPS. Everyone in SAI seems to go to either Wisconsin or St. Mary's. I have met a mix of people, however, including ones from Delbarton and Livingston!

So Soon!

Leaving for Rome in five days... can't believe it!