Part 2: Last European Vacation- Prague

Early in the morning on Friday, the 26th, my parents and I left to go to Prague. Prague was one of the places that I really wanted to visit while in Europe because I've heard a lot of great things about it and it is part of my family heritage. (I also wanted to go to Ireland to honor the Irish in me but was told by an Irish man at my hostel in Munich that this time of the year wasn't a good time to go up there.) My mom really wanted to go since her father is from there, and between the two of us, we were able to convince my dad that we should go.

On our first day in Prague we just simply walked around to see what was in the area, but first we stopped by a great Czech restaurant to eat lunch. For lunch I had a beef broth, chicken, potatoes, bread dumplings, and a Czech beer. SOO tasty! The bread dumplings tasted pretty similiar to my Baba's (grandma) dumplings so I was in heaven. My family and I enjoyed this restaurant so much that we went back for a second time the following day. Night quickly fell upon us as we were walking around the city and before we knew it we were ready to head back to the hotel due to the coldness. For dinner, we decided to eat at our hotel because they were offering a special at their French cuisine restaurant. We'd be able to order as many options as we wanted individually from a selected menu and have house drinks for 990 CZK, or about $50 for each person. At the time my parents and I did not fully understand the conversion rate (I understood more than them, of course). I was in heaven, and by the end, we got a good deal out of it. I think I went through 3 starters, 2 soups, 4 entrees, 1 dessert, and 4 glasses of various wine. Before you react, it is crucial to know that the portions were smaller than normal. I was able to order the food in any order that I wanted and as many times as I wanted. It may have been the best food I've had during my whole time in Europe. To top off our night, my parents got our room upgraded to a suite for free because they thought there wouldn't be enough room for all 3 of us to sleep comfortably in our smaller-than-normal double bed room. (All the beds in Europe are small so a double size bed is really just like a little wider than a twin). It was very helpful that my dad has special points with his frequent use of Sheraton hotels for business!

On Saturday we took a private tour to see the sights of Prague. We visited the Prague Castle (and other buildings within the complex like St. Vitus Catheral), Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, and Wenceslaus Square. The mosaic stained glass windows at St. Vitus are beautiful! They are the best that I've seen while over here. It was really cool to see where St. Wenceslaus is buried since that is the Catholic church I was brought up in throughout my childhood. On Sunday, my mom and I did what we know best; we shopped. We made a lot of souvenir purchases; it was a little hard to pack them all into our luggages. Possibly the most exiciting part about our Sunday was getting a white chocolate mocha at Starbucks. Rome doesn't seem to have any (not that I have found), and they were everywhere in Prague. I was overly excited to drink it and made me ache for America a little more.

Overall, Prague is a beautiful town. I'm curious to know if I would enjoy it more during nice weather. It was quite cold the whole time we were there. We even got to see their first snow fall of the season, which typically doesn't happen until January. I also think I would have enjoyed it more if I had gone at the beginning of my travels. At this point I am just simply burnt out. Everything looks the same and means the same thing. It is a place that I definitely want to visit again, though.

I'm counting down the days until I leave to go back to America. Only 19 to go! I'm excited and ready to be back. But at the exact same time I'm sad to be leaving such a great place. Wandering around in Omaha or Ames just isn't the same as wandering around in Rome. :-) This semester went by quickly, and I know that next semester, my last semester of college, will go by just as quickly. My plan for after college is to obtain an interior design related job. I'm open to moving anywhere at the moment, so you should talk to your friends and see if they'd be able to help me out! :-) Getting a "big girl job" will be an exciting chapter in my life, so needless to say, I'm really looking forward to it. Until then, I'll just continue to enjoy and embrace these last college moments that are flying before me.

Part 1: Parents in Rome

First off, I would like to apologize for the lack of blogging that I've been doing. I've had a busy past few weeks, but now it should be smooth coasting until the end of my time here in Rome. All I have left is to complete 2 projects for my mixed media studio and one last step to my semester long retail design studio project.

On the 20th my parents arrived in Rome. It was nice to see some new faces that I could actually communicate with here in Rome! While they were here, I gave them a basic tour of the city and showed them the tourist spots. The plan for the week was for them to tour the city on their own during the day while I attended class; at night time we would meet up for dinner. It worked out well for them to basically discover Rome on their own since I had my art history final to study for and a critique for my studio project in the middle of the week.

On Tuesday night, I surprised my dad by taking him and my mom to a soccer game (AS Roma vs. Munich Bayern)! The process to obtain these tickets wasn't like in the US. I had to go to a small office a week before to purchase them and convince them to sell me them even though my whole party wasn't present. Then, on each ticket they write down the ticketholder's birthday and male tickets cost more than female tickets. We ended up getting seats in the AS Roma fan section. My friend, who also went with her boyfriend, and I thought that the office had given us bad seats because they were higher up in the bowl of the stadium, but little did we know, they were actually fantastic seats!

It was relativaly easy to make our way to our section and seats. Once we were in our seats, there was no room to move because of the amount of people packed into the area. The AS Roma's fan section is unlike any other that I have seen before. They consistently cheered loudly throughout the whole match, jumping from one chant to the next with AS Roma scarves and flags swaying in the air. I was a little worried about how my mom would react to the crazy European scene, but she handled it quite well. Her one question she had for me was "Kelly, is marijuana legal here?" Yep, it sure is, and you could smell it everywhere. We were lucky enough to see AS Roma score a goal and the crowd's reaction to it. They go ballistic-- everyone screams and jumps on top of each other for an extended amount of time. Some people in the stands like of fireworks and different flares; there are also some smokebombs with the AS Roma colors. After being down 2-0 at halftime, AS Roma came back to win the game 3-2 with a penalty kick in the last 5 minutes. It was a fantastic atmosphere to be a part of and is unparallel to any sporting event in the United States. (Thanks Katie for the photos!)

On Thursday, for Thanksgiving, we went to see the necropolis underneath St. Peter's Basilica. I had booked tickets for us a few months ago to give us something special to do on Thanksgiving. Only about 200 people can go through the necropolis a day and is very hard to book during high tourist season. Down there we were able to see the excavations done below the church. Before St. Peter's existed the area was a giant cementary. We could see the different family tombs enriched with decorations of carvings, frescos, and mosaics. At the end of the tour, we were shown where St. Peter was buried, which is directly 3 layers below the high altar of St. Peter's Basilica. His bones have been moved throughout time and are currently placed in the same spot where the were found in the excavations, in a wall. Overall, it was a cool experience, but at this point, seeing one saint's bones seems just about the same as the next and crypts are all about the same, too. Don't get me wrong; it is very honorable and humbling seeing the bodies of various saints but to me, they are all equal and one isn't any more significant than the next.

Instead of participating in Black Friday shopping (since it doesn't exist in Europe, obviously), my mother and I went shopping after seeing the necropolis. I found 2 dresses and a skirt. It was the one time I've splurged this whole time in Europe, and I plan to do it again before I leave! :-) We ended our Thanksgiving day with a homecooked meal that I prepared. I made Italian chicken and dumplings. Sounds close to a typical Thanksgiving meal, right? Okay, so maybe it wasn't a normal Thanksgiving meal but it was very good! My parents were quite shocked to see me cooking and cleaning up after myself. I guess I'm not a kid anymore. Ha.

Italian Traveller

This past week I went to Milan, Venice, and Verona, Italy for a school field trip. It was six fun packed days of travel! But before I left for the field trip I got to celebrate Halloween here in Rome!

I've been known to come up with some pretty clever costumes for my sorority's house parties, but being in Rome threw quite the spin into my costume creativity. Halloween is only celebrated a little in Rome. I'd say it's currently at 1/3 of the American celebration. I saw kids dressed up as witches and devils but nothing too extensive. On Halloween defeat set in with no Hobby Lobby to run to to create a costume; I opted to go out that night as a cowgirl to the American bars. A mere 3 hours before the time we were going to head out an idea popped into my head to be pasta for Halloween! A hot glue gun was immediately pulled out and I grabbed noodles from the kitchen to create my costume. I stringed pasta noodles together to create a belt, bracelets, and a necklace. Additionally, I sewed tomatoes, onions, and garlic onto my necklace. For my headpiece, I cooked some spaghetti noodles. As those were cooking, I glued some noncooked spaghetti noodles onto a base. After the ball of noodles I cooked were cool and dry, I was able to glue them onto the base. My headpiece didn't last all night, but it was cute when it did!

Our first stop on the North Field Trip was to Milan. There I had the chance to see an opera, see showrooms, window shop, tour the Triennale, and tour some famous designers' studios! I loved seeing Castiglioni's studio. His daughter gave us a tour of it, and it seemed like he fun light hearted guy. I would have loved to meet him. Another highlight of my time in Milan was finding FALL! I've missed seeing the trees turn into their pretty fall colors; I don't see that in Rome because there aren't many trees near where I live, nor parks. Plus there is a lot of pollution in Rome. Blah. I managed to not buy anything in Milan. I figured it'd be best to return one day when I'd really be able to take advantage of the shopping around. :-)

The next stop was Venice. It didn't take long before I was in love with this town. Everything is so quiant, and it was nice to not see one car or bus. Sure, there are boats but it's easy to find yourself in an area without any. Here we learned the process of glass blowing and visited the Biennale. I also took a gondola ride with 5 other gals. It was SO peaceful! On the last night in town our class had a group dinner filled with Venitian food. That means I ate crawfish, squid, snails, scallops, and shrimp among many others. I've been working on my transition into liking seafood, and I think this dinner really helped! Infact, tonight I was craving some seafood. Here are two fansinating facts about Venice:

1. There are 495 gondolas in Venice. And I rode on one of them!
2. About 90% of the jobs in Venice are tourist related.

Our field trip officially ended in Venice, but Katie and I went continued our travels in Verona for another day. I was already quite tired from our adventures and could have easily been done without seeing Verona. My excitement for Verona stemmed from wanting to see Juliet's balcony. Katie and I recently watched Letters to Juliet prepare ourselves. Watching the movie before going led to disappoint, though, because they've recently renovated the brick walls where letters were once placed. Now, if they catch you trying to leave a letter you're fined 1,000 Euro! In a mere 10 minutes, my purpose for my visit in Verona was over. We spent the rest of the day touring the city-- churches, bridges, towers, etc. At this point in my European journey, a lot of these things look the same. We did manage to spend a lot of time in Castelvecchio. It's pretty nifty to say that I've toured a castle! All in all, after some hotel and transportation problems (to our hotel and to Rome), I was happy to return to Rome.

Now, I'm trying to focus on completing a lot of projects before Thanksgiving rolls around. My parents are coming to visit on the 20th. We're going to Prague on the 25th! I'm very excited to see them and for that trip, too!

Art History in Vatican City

My apologies for not posting in the past few weeks. Homework took control of my life for a little bit, but now most of the stuff has been turned in! We are now over the half way mark, and I've determined that my assignments can move to the back burner a little bit allowing some more time for extra fun. I currently have A's in all my classes-- that includes a 100% on my Made in Italy test, which was possibly my first 100% in college! It only took until senior year. :-)

On Wednesday we had a review day for our interior studio. The project was to redesign a museum into a lighting showroom. We had to develop an 'atmosphere' or concept in photos and then carry out that idea through our design. I toyed the idea around of creating an oversized lamp object to become part of the two story structure of my face. I see it as a light-hearted, interactive design. As I was nearing the final stages of completing this project my computer got attacked with a virus this past Friday. The virus wouldn't allow me to open any of my programs and use them. It definitely created a major hiccup in the completion of my project. So, on Saturday and Sunday I worked at school on their computers. On Monday, the IT guy that comes in every other day was able to remove it manually. However, I discovered later that all my licenses to use programs like Adobe Photoshop and Revit were removed; thus, I still can't use the important programs on my computer. I'm hoping to get that solved tomorrow. Anyways, my critique went over quite well and now I just have to make some minor adjustments for Monday's due date.

This past Friday I went on a night tour of the Vatican Museum with my art history instructor. She had put in the time and effort to take us along this tour outside of class time because it didn't fit in with our schedule well. The majority of the class ended up passing up their typical Friday night to attend this tour together. I think that really shows how much we LOVE our art history instructor. She spoils us with baked goods almost every week! Oh right, and the information that she shares about the pieces of art are very enticing, too. She can definitely speak about art very well to keep the average person's attention (non-design people). Touring the Vatican Museum at night provided a nice ambiance and made for a great evening. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures of the Sistine Chapel but I did get one of Raphael's The School of Athens, which displays a bunch of different philsophers like Plato and Aristotle in the center.

Do you notice how in the fresco the guy in the front and in purple stands out different from the rest of the figures? That's the philosopher Heraclitus. Heraclitus wasn't looked highly upon because he never finished a writing, was grumpy, and always kind of kept to himself. Raphael included him because he's actually giving a tribute to Michelangelo. At the same time when Raphael was painting his frescos in this room, Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. One night Raphael went into the Sistine Chapel to spy on Michelangelo's work, which was a big no-no. Raphael wanted to show that he, too, can paint like Michelangelo so he placed this figure by using that technique and show homage to Michelangelo's work in the Sistine. Raphael also included his portrait as a face peeking out behind people on the lowe right side of the painting. I could go on and on about this piece and Raphael, but I'll resist.

Today for Art History we visited St. Peter's Basilica. It was my second time being inside of it and still was quite remarkable to see. Some quick fun facts about it are:

• La Pieta is not placed in its original location and before 1972 you were able to physically touch it and admire it up close.
  
• Mary is shown as a young woman in La Pieta and not at the right age she would have been at the time (near 50 years old). She is also displayed in a much larger proportion than Christ to help emphasize his fragility.





• In the crossing, there are 4 large statues of saints completed by 4 different artists. Three of them appear to be cohesive while the last one done by Bernini appears to be softer looking. Upon closer examination one can see that he left his statue unfinished, without a polish placed over it.


• St. Peter's Basilica is 10 stories tall along the nave and 15 stories tall in the dome area, but there is still a sense of closeness due to the same materials and colors being used on all parts of the interior.

Things are now quite regular here. I have to remind myself that I'll be going home soon and I need to bask in as much as possible! On Tuesday we leave for our North Field Trip. We'll be staying in Milan for two nights and in Venice for another two. On Saturday Katie and I are extending our trip by going to Verona (the location of Romeo and Juliet). The weather is chilly here now with being in the low 60s. Next week might finally be the time where I'll have to start wearing a jacket. I've been okay in sweaters so far. I can't complain-- it's much better than the weather that is happening back in the Midwest. :-)

Happy Halloween! This is a picture of real children's bones and other human bones around it as decoration. Over 4000 friar bodies were placed in this crypt known as "The Bone Church". It was eerie but cool!

What do I want to do before I leave Rome?

Have you ever watched the show on MTV called "The Buried Life"? It's a TV show about 4 guys traveling across America to complete their list of 100 things they want to do before they die. For every item that they complete on their list, they help a stranger out with something that they want to do before they die. I love the show because it combines comedy and emotion in almost every episode. Their show has inspired me to create a list of things that I'd like to do before I leave Rome/Italy/Europe. In no particular order...

1. Learn how to make 10 different sauces for pasta. (I believe I'm up to 7.)
2. Visit Prague.
3. See the Pope.
4. Give money/food to the homeless man that I see nearly everyday twice-a-day on my walk to/from studio.
5. Leave a mark and/or message on something somewhere in Rome.
6. Become Facebook friends with Simona and Raphael. They're the people that work at my gelato place.
7. Get "swept off my feet" by an authentic Italian guy.
8. Find and purchase all my Christmas gifts.
9. Visit the Catacombs.
10. People watch on the metro for an extended period of time (without having a destination to travel to).
11. Make at least one over-the-top purchase on an article of clothing.
12. Finish my projects early (aka not have an all-nighter).
13. Start to establish where I want to look for a job and what type of job.
14. See rain come through the hole of the Pantheon's ceiling.
15. Get free gelato from the Frigidarium. With all the income that they're getting from me, I think I deserve it.
16. Attend an European football/soccer game. My family will disown me if I don't.

I talk about my weekends and travel experiences a lot in my entries, so you might be wondering how is my life in Rome is actually going. I've found that I have a lot of down time. If I'm not in class, then I'm at my apartment occupying my time by finding meaningless stuff on the internet. Typically in Ames, I go from class to work to sorority activities to club activities and then do homework for x amount of hours before bed. I'm jut not used to having so much extra time.

Classes are going well. In my mixed media class I am working on an altered book. Basically it is an artistic scrapbook about our time in Italy. I made my cover to look like a really worn out book and it is pretty cool! In my studio class we are currently redesigning a current historic museum space into a lighting showroom. We just presented ideas/atmospheres to our instructors today and soon will be putting them into Revit! I'm really excited to work with my idea; it is a bit extreme (like utopia architecture) but I think it'll come together nicely in the end. I've already mentioned that I love my art history class. Seeing what is being taught about in person is 100 times better than slides. And then my fourth and last class I have is Made in Italy; it's just a typical lecture class...nothing too exciting.

My time is Europe is just about half way over. This coming Monday will mark two months of being overseas. I've become real settled here in Rome, and I feel like I've lived here for much longer. I am just now starting to discover the things that I truly love about the area that I live in. There's a gorgeous giant fountain (2-3 stories tall) in the building complex next to my apartment. Via Governo Vecchio is my favorite street to walk along. It's quaint and filled with great shops and famous tourist attractions (only the hardcore tourists, the ones that have done research, come along here). The buildings all boast a lot of lively character. As much as I hate the 74 steps that I climb up and down every time I leave my apartment, I secretly love them since it is a situation that I'll probably never encounter again after leaving Rome.

I can't believe my time here is nearly half over; it has flown by. I imagine the next half will go by just as quickly. I do already think about what life will be like when I return back to the States. So much has changed and is changing at home and in Ames; it'll be interesting to see how things pan out. Oh, and let's not forget the fact that next semester will be my last semester in college! I can't believe how quickly that is approaching. As a child and teen, graduating from college always seemed so far away. Now that it is approaching, it seems like just yesterday I was that teen thinking about how long it'd be until I was out in the "real world".

Oh life. It's always an adventure full of successes and failures. And to think, at any one moment it can be over. I've really started to notice this with all of the deaths that have been occuring at ISU. So I have to ask you... What do you want to do before you die?

Cinque Terre-ific

When Katie and I travelled before heading to Rome, we used a Eurail pass to get around. Because of the type of pass we bought, we had 6 travel days to use within 2 months. During our pre-school travelling, we only ended up using 4 days so we had 2 left to use. Since time is winding down now in our 2 month limit, we figured it'd be best to use them. Thus, we decided on making two day trips-- one to Cinque Terre and one to Florence next weekend.

Cinque Terre stands for 5 towns and is located along the coast more north than Rome. It's attraction to tourists is the ability to hike between the 5 little towns. They offer different trails with some being more rigorous than others. We opted to take the scenic trail along the coast line.

The hike between the first town and the second was a quick and painless one. It merely lasted 20 minutes and had a paved sidewalk throughout. I was anticipating on this "hike" being a little more authentic than just walking along a paved sidewalk. So at this point I was a little bummed. I was also bummed that the second to third town hike was currently closed off due to a possibility of a landslide. Bummer. So this part of the hike turned into a crammed train ride and within being at Cinque Terre for 45 minutes, we were already at the third town.

Lucky for me, the hike between the third and fourth town was more authentic. There were steep inclines, narrow paths, crossing over little streams, branches in the way, etc. I loved every minute of it. I got to see spectacular views, reflect the situations I've been encountering, and get a great workout. (My legs are still sore 2 days later.) At the fourth town, Katie and I took a break for lunch. I opted to get a pesto lasagna since Cinque Terre is known for their pesto. It was decent; I think the restaurant was more of a tourist trap with overpriced items for what they distributed. Oh well... you win some and you lose some.

At this point Katie wanted to be done with hiking, but I wanted to continue since it was what we came here to do. Plus, I really wanted to make it to the last town for the thought of accomplishment. We decided to part ways, and I would continue to hike, turn around half way and meet her back in the fourth town. This part of the hike ended up giving me the best view yet on the trail so I'm glad I went! When I neared the time of when I'd have to turn around and make my way back, I really wanted to keep going and make it to the last town. I had already gotten about half way there. I would have cut it close with time though, and I didn't want to worry Katie, so I made my way back knowing that the fifth town will have to wait until another time.

While in Cinque Terre, I did notice one odd thing. I heard more American English in Cinque Terre than I've heard during the rest of my time here. Had I not known better, I would have thought I was in city in the United States with tourists from other countries coming there. It was a bit bothersome to hear so much; it made my head hurt. Cinque Terre is definitely an American tourist attraction.

I do recommend going. We saw people of all ages and sizes there! Therefore, anyone can complete it! Quite a few women were complaining to their husbands though about the trek and had to make frequent stops. Rather comical. MANY MANY uneven stairs, but the views and workout make it all worth it in the end.

This coming Saturday we're going to head to Florence for the day. On Sunday there are 6 people being canonized (becoming saints) in the Catholic church so I'm going to go scope out the Vatican City and hope to view the ceremony for that.

Katie DeSchepper, not Katie Ledin

To all my SK sistas:

It seems there has been some confusion regarding my blog posts. When I mention "Katie", I am talking about my roommate Katie DeSchepper, not Katie Ledin. Unfortunately, Katie Ledin lives quite a distance away from me and is another studio room so we don't constantly see each other. Katie Ledin, Lisa, and I are lucky enough to have our art history class together, so it is always great to see their faces there and chit chat about Sigma Kappa stuff. No worries, I keep them updated on things.

We miss you all! Best of luck with initiation and homecoming!

Part 2: Calm in Capri

Our field trip ended at about 3:30pm on Friday. This meant that we had the option to travel wherever we wanted to for the rest of the weekend or head back to Rome with our instructors. Katie and I decided to take advantage of the opportunity (we'd be reimbursed 20 Euro each) and planned a trip to Capri. It ended up being the perfect relaxing weekend that I needed!

Getting onto the island of Capri was relatively easy. A handful of other girls in our program were also heading onto the island so we travelled there together. It was a bit of a marathon to catch our ferry in Sorrento; thankfully we made it. Yes, there were more ferries coming through but I wanted to get onto the island ASAP and make it to our hotel before it got dark. The ferry ride over was quick-- only 20 minutes-- and very scenic. I couldn't help but close my eyes and smile as the wind blew through my hair. (Sorry for the cheesiness.)

Immediately upon getting onto the island, I wanted to check out this private boat tour stand that I had read about online. All of their reviews raved about how good it was and it sounded decently priced, too. I got there just as the shop was closing up but they were able to fit my group in for a tour the next day. It cost 100 Euro, but we got to split it 6 ways since there were 6 of us going on it. That's 17 Euro a piece-- a good deal in Capri! The next task was figuring out how to get to the hotel which was located in Anacapri. (The island is made up of Capri and Anacapri.) We were going to take the bus over there but we found out that our roommates were staying at the same hotel and had arranged for a car to pick them up! I don't know how we went without discussing this before we left for our field trip; I guess we need to communicate more. The car had enough space for us so Katie and I hopped in for what ended up being the scariest but most thrilling ride of our lives. Seriously.

There are no stoplights in Capri and the street is one lane in both directions. There aren't any divider lines. The road is made to travel up and across their mountain hills... aka lots of weaving on roads. Plus I think our driver liked to accelerate. At one point our driver turned off the main road onto the side street... or should I say sidewalk. The width of this "road" was literally no wider than 6 ft. This "road" also had a big drop to get onto it. All of our mouths dropped open and our eyes widen at the sight of this. Many giggles were shared on the ride and thankfully we made it safely. Our driver was a super cute old guy who wanted to assist with all of our needs. He pointed out things to us (as much as he could with the communication barrier) and pulled over THREE times for us to take scenic pictures of the city below us. After we got back into the car from the first pull over, we literally drove for 15 seconds before he pulled over again. Very comical.

The hotel we stayed at, Il Girasole, was beautiful! It had a wonderful view overlooking the ocean and had colorful flowers all around. The actual interiors of the rooms were rather basic and small (think Super 8 but smaller). The most exciting part about our room (in my opinion) was that there was a switch to turn on/off the main lights in the middle of our headboard! A bit tacky? Yes, but very convenient. To add to the setting, we had a real rooster crow "alarm clock" to wake us up the next morning! Okay, so the first rooster call was cute and so was the second one, but after that they kind of got annoying. It was like I was hitting the snooze button every 3 minutes. Katie and I ended up not making it out of our room until about 11am or after (Katie was the one who wanted to sleep-- not me for once!).

We decided to "hike" down to Capri. We thought it was going to be a simple walk but it was more rigorous than we thought and took over 1 1/2 hours to make it down to the port. Pedestrians walk on the side of the road since sidewalks don't really exist. Needless to say, we put our life in danger more than once. Fun fact: During high tour season, people aren't allowed to drive in Capri unless you have special privileges and what not. Down at the port Katie and I had were convinced to have lunch with this great server named Carlo. He was a charming and funny guy.

Next up was the private boat tour. We met the other girls at the stand and the owner of the boat tours said her tour guide was running late and should be around in ten minutes. We went off to grab some beers to take onto the boat and quickly returned. The owner seemed to be getting a bit flustered with the guide not being there. She explained that there had been a situation and that we had a different tour guide than scheduled helping us out. (At least I think that's what she said.) As the guide, Christian, was walking over, she pointed him out and well, we were all pleasantly surprised and got even more excited for the boat tour to begin! :-) I highly recommend going on a boat tour if you're ever in Capri. It felt rather special to be on a private boat tour. We got to bask in the sun while listening to tunes, hearing about the island, and asking our tour guide questions. Christian let us swim through one of the grottoes. Not all of the girls had swimsuits on, but Katie and I did so we took advantage of the opportunity. The water was so clear and pretty! And salty. As we swam through the grotto, I looked up at the rock formations above me and couldn't help but have a "I'm so thankful for this opportunity of a lifetime" moment. It was by far one of the coolest moments of my study abroad so far.

Katie and I ended up drinking wine on our hotel's terrace that evening with our roommates. I actually didn't drink because I wasn't feeling well but was around to join in the conversation. The next day we took a lift to the highest point in Capri. Once again, there were spectacular views to be seen! And just like that we had to start our journey back to Rome. One cool thing about the ferry ride home is that there was a swordfish jumping out of the water! Pretty cool. This day proved to be Katie's and my lucky day. We literally made all of our connections with less than 5 minutes to spare. That's one ferry, one metro, one train, and one final bus ride to our apartment. Then, when we got to our apartment we discovered that our exterior door lock had been replaced so our keys no longer worked. Someone came out of the door less than a minute after we got there. It's a rare occurrence to ever run into someone entering/exiting the building at the same time in our building so it was just another lucky moment.

Part 1: Flashback to 79 AD

This past weekend my class went on our South Field Trip to Napoli (Naples), Sorrento, and Herculaneum. We did a brief stint at the Archaeological Museum in Napoli to view artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum. These two towns ended up being wiped out in 79 AD when Mount Vesuvius erupted and covered them both with lava. The lava ended up perfectly preserving these towns' buildings, frescoes, and other such objects. Thus, the purpose of our field trip (to view these items) and the towns themselves. After visiting the museum we walked through some gallerias, ate some pastries, and wandered the streets before heading to the train for Sorrento.

Catching our train for Sorrento ended up being a more difficult and comical task than planned. We arrived at the platform about 10 minutes before the train was due to arrive, but it hadn't been clearly communicated what time our train was coming in. For anyone who knows the metro/train system, then they know that within 10 minutes two or three different trains can roll through the same platform. Anyways, I was dying for a drink so I went off to buy one because I had heard we had about 10 minutes. As I walked away from our platform and up the stairs to the sales stand, a train stopped at our platform. I had looked and saw that it didn't say Sorrento on it, so I was betting that it wasn't our train. At the same time, I saw two of our instructors walking down the stairs towards the platform. I asked them if this was our train and they said "Yes." So oh well, I was going to go without my drink. I walked down with them and mentioned that the train didn't say Sorrento on it. My instructors quickly looked at each other and then began to sprint down the platform. At this point, all my classmates had boarded onto this wrong train and now my intstructors were running by knocking on windows and yelling at them to get off. Everyone managed to get off except for four people. To where they went, I have no idea. Luckily, they had cell phones on them, and we were able to quickly contact them. Overall, it was a pretty comical sight to watch it all happen. I ended up getting a perspective of it that no one else had, and at the end of it all, I was able to get my soda. :-)

After getting onto the correct train, we took it to Sorrento which is where we stayed the night. We had some time to kill before dinner, so I went shopping with a few other girls. I ended up making my first clothing/accessory purchase of my European stay in Sorrento! I bought a long strand of real pearls for 5 Euros! For dinner, our instructors set up a group dinner at a restaurant they now referred to as "The Lemon Tree". There we got served a delicious 4 course meal and had 4 bottles of wine to split at our table of 8! After dinner, Pia, our instructor, had set-up a special deal at disco club to get in and get our first drink for 8 Euro. Unfortunately, not a lot of people decided to take part in this but it was a lot of fun for those who did! It was rather comical to see our instructors showing off their moves on the dance floor. We even got to sing and dance to Alejandro by Lady Gaga with our instructor Alessandro!

Early the next morning we caught the train to Herculaneum. The place was soo cool! Herculaneum is smaller than Pompeii, but the building walls that are preserved are larger than those at Pompeii. We got to walk into different domuses (houses), baths, insulas (apartments), and stores. It was an amazing occasion to see frescoes dating back almost 2000 years to still be filled with color.




In my opinion, the general concept of buildings have not changed much from this date. Dining rooms and kitchens were close to their outdoor space. Bedrooms were placed near the back. Retail spaces advertised their products through their windows and painted advertisements on their exteriors. Wood beams and brick were used to build walls and tiles were used for flooring. Walls were being decorated with colored plaster (more beautifully than how walls are typically painted today). They had roads with sidewalks; even had holes in the sidewalks to tie up their horses. It makes me wonder is it just simply amazing how crafted and wise these people were during their time? Or are we unwise to still rely on some of these basic concepts? The more I looked around the area the more I thought, "Wow. We haven't advanced much from this time." Sure we have computers, phones, electricity, etc. but that is all technological and not what I'm focusing on for this point. What about building structures? I think it is merely an expanded idea of what these former figures have created. Then again, that is common design. Different art pieces are typically an adaption of something done before. So, that statement alone brings me back to my initial thought. These buildings from 79 AD are worthy of appraisal just like some buildings are today. They've been created ingeniously by a designer who has decided to design it based of what they have learned and analyzed with a personal stamp. And that is what continues to make the design wheel spin.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post about my trip to Capri tomorrow so be sure to check back!

News of the Week and Mailing Address

We had visitors come this week to see us!! Katie's sister Tara, who is studying in Spain this semester, came to visit with 3 other people (Lydia, Brittni, and Megan) she doing the program with through her school. It was nice to meet new people and have to play the role of tour guide for a little bit. Katie was a great host for them, and I'm sure they had a great time.

European Skittles

One of the highlights of their visit was that Tara brought me Skittles!! The Skittles she brought ended up being European ones that she found in the Madrid airport. She had packed American ones in her luggage, but long story short, she ended up not being able to claim her luggage before she left for Rome. (Their group did a pit stop in Madrid before coming over.) European Skittles are different than American. Instead of grape, there is black currant. Not too sure what that is but it tastes a lot different. The rest of the flavors were a little off but not as bad. The skittles themselves are not as bright in color as American ones are. All in all, I still prefer American ones but these worked enough to suffice my needs for a bit.

Gelato
Another major part of their trip was getting gelato every night. :-) They agree that Katie and my gelato place is pretty spectacular. In personal opinion, it is even better than the famous Giolitti gelato store. Giolitti does have more flavors to choose from, but the people just aren't as friendly and the portions are a rip off for the price you have to pay. At the Frigidarium, we can get a larger portion for cheaper. With their visit, we made major progress on making friends with the workers at the Frigidarium. We're now on first name basis (Simona and Raphael), little larger scoops than normal, and friendly conversation terms. Tonight they joked with me about switching my usual order and getting fruit gelato on a cold night versus chocolate. Typically people order fruit gelato on warmer nights/days. Tonight Tara, Lydia, Megan, and Brittni got to take a picture with them, and Simona even made extra special servings for them since it was their last night. Katie and I are starting to wonder if we'll get any special treatment during our last night/week here. They have giant to-go containers, and we're hoping for at least one free one of those.

Vatican City
Earlier today we went to Vatican City. I knew the Vatican was close to my apartment, but with walking to it for the first time, I really realized how close it is to my apartment. We decided to go today to take advantage of free admission (National World Tourism Day? Or something like that.). We left our apartment too late to get a chance to see everything and ended up only making it into St. Peter's and into the Popes' tombs below. Pretty spectacular sights! It was a little much to take in in such a short amount of time; luckily, I have the opportunity to go back, and I'll be able to enjoy it more then.

School

School is going well. Last week was a bit busy with a lighting drawing being due today for my Made in Italy class and a model in Revit due last Wednesday and also this Wednesday. For our Revit model, we had to go measure a museum space using triangulation and put it into the computer. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, we had been divided into groups and each group only measured their certain part and did a drawing for that (section or plan). When it came time to put them all together, it didn't go too seamlessly. After figuring out certain measurements, we had some troubles with putting it into Revit. Revit likes straight walls and none of the walls we had measured were straight since it is a building from the ruins era. After a few headaches, mine has finally been pieced together, and we'll be moving onto the next stage this following week, which is to design our lighting showroom.

Every week my walking art history class gets better and better! My instructor has now made us baked goods two weeks in a row! This past week we went to the Capitoline Museum. It is filled with famous ancient sculpture pieces like the She-Wolf. It's hard to imagine that piece of sculpture being buried in the Roman Forum and being found x amount of years later, but, yet, at the same time it's so cool! It's even sweeter to imagine all the emperors and people we hear about today worshipping that exact same piece of sculpture that you are now looking at.

Field Trip!

My class is leaving for our South Field Trip Thursday morning, so this week will go by super fast. I'm excited for the trip and even more excited to go to Capri after it is over for one night. Hopefully the weather will be nice, and I'll be able to enjoy the beach!

Mailing Address:

I've been receiving a lot of requests for my mailing address, so here it is again. I'm anxiously awaiting for mail to arrive now that I've received so many requests for it! :-) If you want to send a package, make sure you write "used personal items" or "gift" on it and claim it to have no value. Italian Customs will search through the packages and decide if extra charges should be added, which can get to be quite expensive and out of my own pocket. Writing down "used personal items" or "gift" should help to eliminate those costs. Letters are always appreciated too!

Kelly McCann

Iowa State University Rome Program

Piazza delle Cinque Scole 23

00186 Rome, Italy

The Adventures of Climbing Stairs, Hills and Buildings

Stairs

Not one is the same as the next. For example, in my apartment one flight of stairs will be very steep while the next are rather flat. Some are worn out in the middle while others are just fine. The Colosseum stairs were quite steep! I had to have my hand on the rail the whole time. It amazes me how older people can move about in the city of Rome. Anyways, I had the chance to see the Colosseum twice (well actually three times) this past week. On Thursday I went and toured it with my art history class. SOOOOOO cool! The history behind these places is what makes it cool. Our instructor shared with us the different types of fights that would happen in the place and where everyone would sit. Did you know that ex-gladiators were never allowed to go to the Colosseum after they retired? They were afraid ex-gladiators might jump into the action if they saw their gladiator friend in action not performing too well against the challenger. Gravediggers also weren't allowed in because of bad omen.

I saw the Colosseum for the second time this past week on Sunday. It was the 140th celebration of the Roman government and a lot of places had various events going on. The Colosseum ended up being lit on fire. Yep, that's right; it is all gone now. Kidding. Some artists created the display by placing screens between the arches on the second and third levels and projected a fire image onto them. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, my camera wasn't good at catching an image of it. I did, however, get this cool photo of the Arch of Constantine which is right next to the Colosseum!

Hills
Assisi is built on the side of a hill. This makes for a lot of various alleys and layers to the city. It is basically a small strip of established buildings and homes and is very quiant. I went into St. Francis of Assisi church and St. Clare's. Churches are starting to get a bit repetitive. Don't get me wrong, each one is beautiful but they tend to blur together. What was special about these two churches were all the relics they had including garments of St. Francis and St. Clare and even St. Clare's hair. Other than churches, the rest of the city was filled with places to eat and tourist gift shops. It is really pondering to think that all of those tourist shops can exist in such a small place. Seriously, it was one after another of basically the same products.

Buildings

I forgot my keys last Thursday as I was starting a little shopping adventure. Luckily, my roommate, Morgan, was sleeping inside, so I thought I'd be okay to just go and return later and just have her let me in. My excursion took about 1 1/2 hours, and when I came back I had no luck in waking her up. I pressed our speaker button on the outside of our building and yelled her name but nothing seemed to work. I didn't think much of it and went to go buy some groceries. Half hour later I came back and had the same problem. So, off to go wander and get gelato I went. Came back; no luck. So, off to the Piazza Navona I wandered. Came back; no luck. So, this time, I sat in front of our building. At this point I was getting really strange looks for calling out her name and having my hands full with groceries but no place to go. Finally a woman went into the building and I was able to convince her to let me in. After I got up to my apartment, I rang our doorbell repeatedly and still could not wake up Morgan. Being quite exhausted from my long afternoon out, I decided I'd do whatever I could to get inside. This involved going out onto the community patio, climbing up on the ledge, and walking it over to our kitchen window. Sounds daring, right? Well, it was considering we live on the top floor which is 5 stories up. But the walk was just a quick 5 steps away and the ledge was large that I walked on. I made it safely and now have learned to always carry my keys. Walking on the outside ledge of our building once was enough for me!

Things That I Miss About Home and Don't Like About Rome

On Saturday I found out that my parents put my dog, Daisy, to sleep. She was a wonderful dog to have throughout my childhood and teenage years and will be greatly missed. She's the first major death in my family (other than one uncle who I did not know well)! I've shed my tears about it, but I'm curious to see what my response will be when I come home in December to not find her there. Since finding out about her death, I've been in a bit of a debbie downer mood. I told myself that today is the last day that I can let myself be overly negative, so in spirit of that, here is a little rant of things I miss about home and don't like about Rome.

• I miss eating Skittles/Starbursts/Nerds. I'm dying for fruit candy; everything here is chocolate.
• I hate how men think they can just pee on the street randomly. I've seen this twice in the past three days. All the urination does give the city a funky smell.
• I hate all the commotion in the morning. It gets SO loud and all I want to do is sleep!
• I miss the meat selection from home. Meat here is expensive and cut very thin.
• I miss seeing grass and plants everywhere. I went to Assisi on Saturday, and it was beautiful! However, it made me realize even more how much Rome lacks in greenery.
• I hate not being able to invade conversations since I can't understand them. :-) I won't know what to do with myself when I return.
• I HATE all the smoking!!!
• I miss Hy-Vee Chinese dinners every other Wednesday at the Sigma Kappa house.
• I dislike the water temperature for our faucets. It's either too cold or too hot, never perfect.
• I hate how all the slow walkers find it necessary to walk in the middle of the street.
• I miss the wide selection of juices and soda in the United States. Soda options here include Sprite, Coke, Diet Coke, Fanta, Pepsi, and I might be forgetting one? Juice options= very minimal.
• All the public affection in the street is disgusting and annoying. At first it was cute, then I probably got a bit jealous, but now I'm to the point where I ask myself if it is really necessary for couples to be doing such things in the middle of the street. I can't think of many situations where it is needed for a girl to straddle a guy while he carries her down the busy shopping street and makeout.

Okay, now that I've done my little rant (and it was harder than I thought to come up with those twelve), I'm going to share some things that I'm in love with Rome.

• The liveliness. Yes, it can be loud, but it makes the days exciting. There's always something to notice and things to do.
• Campo di Fiori. I feel proud of my purchases every time I get something from there. I can get so much for so little! Katie and I did notice this week that green beans are being out of season while potatoes are becoming in season. I'm excited to see what other fruits/veggies will start to be cheap and in season!
• Frigidarium. This is the name of my favorite gelato place and favorite flavor. It has caramel, cookies, and chocolate in it. They stick a cookie at the top and then dip it in chocolate. So delicious! Every time Katie and I go (which is often) we become better friends with the gelato guy that works there. Tonight I ordered in Italian to him "Posso avere il frigidarium?" He got a good laugh as I struggled to correctly get that out. There is another girl that regularly works with him. They both know what Katie and I order aka we're officially regulars. :-)
• Location! I am able to walk to everywhere. It's nice to be able to window shop and admire what is around me while getting a nice little workout. Though stairs can be annoying, they add nicely to the workout. I typically climb 350ish stairs a day (74 stairs to/from my apartment in my building about four times a day plus school stairs and wherever else).
• Young Italians and Europeans! I believe every young Italian that I've tried to communicate with knows some English. While I feel guilty and incompetent about not knowing Italian well, it has been easy to communicate with people here in English.
• The windows to my apartment. They swing open and have shutters. At night we close and lock the shutters to keep out the light but keep the air flow. During the day, we swing them open and attach them to the outside of the building. As dumb as it sounds, it's refreshing to swing the shutters open, stick your head out the window, and get excited for the day ahead.
• Art history. My instructor is great! She made us chocolate chip cookies this past week and always tells us fun facts about things. I lucked out on getting placed in her class.
• Window shopping. Windows are constantly changing with new clothes being displayed. I feel like I'm able to shop without spending the money.
• All of the alleys. It makes Rome feel smaller than it is. You can feel lost in the city even if you know exactly where you're heading. Some of the best discoveries come from taking an accidental left or right or taking a new route home.
• The landmarks. Every single one is everything you imagined it to be and more.

I can assure you that there are other things I love and hate about Rome, but my brain isn't coming up with them right now. Rome is wonderful, and I'm having a great time, but it isn't a fairytale. There still are nuances and things that get in the way of the fairytale. In my eyes, it is a rather regular life but just in a different location which adds new excitement and activities to it.

Notable Moments

Here are some notable moments and thoughts from the past week or so:

Store Openings

Even though a store in Rome says they are open on a Saturday or a a certain time, it does not mean that they are open. For our lighting project, we were asked to go view selected lighting stores. Katie and I went together 2 Saturdays ago, to find only one store out of the 4 open and according to each store's hours, they were supposed to be open! Oh well. Katie and I went back yesterday to one of the stores to pick out a light to draw for our Made in Italy class. The store said it'd open at 10, but by 10:30ish it still had not opened. I guess that is Rome for you.

ISU Tailgating from Rome

For those who don't know, this past Saturday was the Iowa State vs. Iowa game. I think Iowa State won, right? Ha. Since Katie and I wouldn't be in attendance and we couldn't find a bar to show the game, we decided to tailgate Italian style and watch the game via Skype. Our Italian tailgating food included bruschetta, stuffed mushrooms, and homemade pizzas. It was all delicious and made up for the embarrassing ISU loss! And yes, we got our ISU gelato (raspberry and mango/passion fruit).

Beach Babe

This past Sunday Katie and I went to the beach! It was about an hour commute away but very worth it. We struggled a bit to find what part of the beach we could go to. There are a lot of places to pay and go into, but we were looking for free. After a ten minute walk down the strip, we found a sliver of free beach. The beach was filled with all types of people: men in speedos, women without tops, people wearing swimsuits that they shouldn't, lovebirds, people looking for a tan, people looking to relax, families, and the rowdy group of teenagers. Every few minutes we'd have a guy come up to us and try to get us to purchase something, too. It was a relaxing way to spend our afternoon. I managed to not get burnt (or tan) without putting sunscreen on and the sun was out in full force. I found that quite odd. I sure hope we can make it back to the beach before it gets cold!

Narrowly Getting Robbed

On the way to the beach, I got a nice little reminder that I always need to carefully be watching my belongings on public transportation. I was carrying our backpack and on the bus I had to stand in the aisle with my back in it. I don't know if it was my subconscious or maybe I felt something, but slowly I started to readjust how I was standing. When I went to check my bag, I felt that my zippers had been unhooked (they were clipped together) and one was halfway unzipped. Luckily, nothing was taken. I either had moved at the right time or the guy didn't find himself to be interested in stealing our towels. Lesson= learned!

Self Navigating

I'm really starting to understand how to get around Rome. Everything is a short walk away from something else. Going to the Piazza Navona? Might as well go to Campo di Fiori and the Pantheon. Colosseum? Better see Trajan's Column, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the Roman Forum. And the Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps will make a nice addition to a shopping trip. :-) Today, for my mixed media class we were walking around to various places, sort of just wandering, and we happened to be in the area where I live. I was rather excited about this, so of course I showed off the exterior of my apartment to my classmates and instructor. At this point, my instructor wanted to go to the Piazza Navona but didn't quite know the way (she was tired-- not thinking straight), so Katie and I got to guide the class to the place! I felt very accomplished.

Fireworks Show

On Saturday, there was a fireworks show going on along the Tiber River by my apartment. Upon hearing the loud "booms", I rushed up onto our roof to watch the show. I'm not sure what it was for, but it was beautiful! Might even rank higher than an American fireworks show. I feel like that makes me very un-American to say such a thing? The fireworks here seemed much brighter, louder, and a larger variety. Being able to watch it from my rooftop with other Roman rooftops and the fireworks in view, made it pretty spectacular. It was one of those moments where I almost had to pinch myself and ask if it was real.

Missing You

There are things about home/America that I miss so ever much. Yesterday, I had a HUGE craving for either pancakes or waffles. Today, I wanted either cupcakes or a cake. Who knows what I'll want tomorrow. I'm starting to miss seeing and getting to hang out with people that I normally would at this time of the year. I'm especially upset that I missed Miss Molly O'Day's lavaliering and candle passing! I'm sure I'll really miss Homecoming when all the Greek events start to get into full swing for it. I just have to remind myself of how lucky I am to be here, and that I still have nice hot weather! :-) I've already been in Europe for a month; time flies!

Why are you in Rome? Oh yeah, I'm taking classes...

Classes are officially in full swing and most are enjoyable! Here's the scoop about them:

Made in Italy: This is a class I have on Mondays about Italian design history. We have a project that involves drawing a lamp that we choose and draw from various angles to coordinate with our studio project. Overall, this is just a typical lecture class.

Mixed Media: I take a mixed media studio almost all day on Tuesday. My instructor, Brenda Jones, has so much wisdom and knowledge! She's been able to share a lot of pointers about Rome and always has a story to share. We'll be making a "scrapbook" in her class about our travels, a class mosaic, a water color painting, and maybe something else? Anyways, right now we just started our book. We had to buy a used book in which we'll transform the pages into telling a story about our travels. Our book is to be modeled off an artist from a list she gave us. I haven't quite narrowed down my options enough to decide.

Italian: I take an Italian class every Tuesday and Friday. The class is rough since we are speaking in Italian the whole time, but luckily, it is only a 3 week long class! The Italian is helpful, but my pronunciation is terrible. Definitely not my favorite class.

Studio: I have studio ALL day Wednesday (7 hours!) and for a few hours on Friday. This is a retail studio and our project is to create a lighting retail space. Not too sure of all the details of it yet since we're working on the project in steps. For the first part we had to study the interior of a picked/assigned retail space and then draw the floor plan in an isometric drawing. With the drawing, we raised two sides of the space and did some shading. I turned in my drawing on Friday, and already got my grade back-- first A of the semester!

Art History: I've only had this class once (last Thursday), but it just might be my favorite class of the semester. Instead of seeing slides and having a normal lecture about art history we actually go visit the sites and then talk about the pieces there! It is SOO cool and easier to remember the facts! Basically, I have a walking tour guide every Thursday for 4 hours; jealous, right? This week we are visiting the Roman Forum and inside the Colosseum. And after last week, I could talk about the Pantheon for at least an hour.

Overall, I haven't had much of a workload. Cross my fingers that it stays that way; I can dream can't I? I actually wouldn't mind them to pick up a little. I've been rather bored after classes are done for the day, and I'm tired of spending time on my computer. I know what your saying, "You're in Rome! How can you be bored?!" Well, we all know that I'm one to follow rules and be a good student :-) so the only time I've ventured around in the dark is on weekends. Plus I haven't figured out much to do on weekday evenings/nights. Yes, I could go to the bars, but that's rather expensive; I'd prefer to spend my money in other ways. So, in my evenings, I become glued to my computer checking anything and everything and watch a movie or show on YouTube (only way I know to watch US movies/shows overseas). I have a feeling, though, that my classes will be picking up and this routine will be changing.

Path to Obesity in Rome

I have been in Roma for almost a week now (tomorrow it will be). Sometimes it seems like time is flying by, while at other times it seems like I've been here for at least a few weeks. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Hmm. To start off, I'll give you a fun fact. Amor= to love and Roma spelled backwards.

Slowly, I'm learning to live the "Roman lifestyle". That involves making almost daily trips to the grocery store, shopping at the open air market, Campo di Fiori, having pizza for lunch, eating gelato, taking the side streets to studio instead of the main ones, loving the heat, walking everywhere...etc. Ha, just realized the first 4 things I mention involve food. Typical me; food is always on my mind. :-) Guess I'll talk about that first then!

Almost every day for lunch Katie and I have ate at the local pizza stands that are around. We've been trying various ones so we can find our favorite. We've been eating out for lunch because the price to prepare a sandwich or whatever on our own is about the same as getting pizza. Depending on the stand, sometimes it is cheaper. For lunch last Friday we treated ourselves nicely by going to a Chinese restaurant that one of our instructors pointed out to us. It tasted sooo good and pretty cheap! The entrees were less than 5 Euro, but the fried rice was just over 5 Euro. Obviously, next time we'll skip the fried rice. I've very thankful to know that I won't have any Chinese withdrawals here in Rome. I am trying to find a good sushi place and edamame, but haven't had any luck with finding edamame or been daring enough to try the sushi here. Not sure how I'll survive without edamame.

The easiest and cheapest thing to do for dinner is pasta. Thank goodness I love pasta; however, I am concerned that I might grow tired of it at some point. We'll see. A bag of pasta will give Katie and I two meals each to eat and only costs 40 Euro cents. We've been having various sauces with the pasta; tonight's was pesto! It is my goal by the end to know about 10 different pasta sauces to use. Thus far we've either bought them or made super simple sauces of our own. We'll have to get courageous soon. I'm thinking a homemade alfredo sauce will be next since only red sauce is sold in the stores, and I'm usually a white sauce eater. Other than pasta, we had one meal of sausage and tomato and another of mini-hamburgers (minus the bun). The rest equals pasta!

I can't forget to mention dessert aka gelato! Sooo tasty! I'm very proud to say that I've only bought gelato from the vendors twice. But Katie and I bought a carton of it, so I've been have a shot glass full every night. This carton of gelato that we bought from the supermarket costs about the same as one small serving from a vendor (2 Euro), so we figured why not-- at least we're being cost effective, forget the waistline. We did make a rule on Saturday that for every ISU football game, we have to go get a serving of raspberry and mango gelato (red and gold) from a vendor to show our support for the team. Sounds like a great rule, doesn't it?

Not to worry, Katie and I have been getting our servings of fruits and veggies, too. On Saturday, we went to Campo di Fiori for the first time. Campo di Fiori is one of the most famous open air markets in Rome. Tourists flock it every day, even on Sundays when the market isn't operating. We quickly discovered that all the produce was MUCH cheaper here than in the grocery stores. We bought lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, apples, bananas, peaches, and dried fruit, and spent about 11 Euro on the produce (minus the dried fruit). Today we made a return visit to restock. I bought about 15 Roma tomatoes for 1,90 Euro. The dried fruit is expensive here, but tastes so good! I ended up spending 8 Euro today just on dried fruit. Yikes! I divided up my dried fruit into 3 containers in hope that I can make it last longer than my last batch did. We're lucky to have Campo di Fiori just a ten minute walk away from our apartment, and it is on our route for our daily walk to class, so I can easily grab something for breakfast.

We've been going to various places for cheese and some meat-- still trying to figure out the best deals and offerings. There's so much cheese here that it is hard to know where to begin! Bread has been a little difficult to find. Good cheap bread, that is. We might have finally found the spot to go to today but it is across the river (a long walk from our apartment).

Now that I've finished talking about food, the bottomless pit is hungry again... Oh, and just to put your minds at ease, I'm not busting at my seams. In fact, the scale says I've lost a pound or two which I assume is due to all the walking. Then again, it has only been one week; I might be obese by the end. :-)

Settling in Rome

Yesterday, Katie and I arrived in Rome-- two hours later than when we were supposed to. We had taken the night train from Paris to Rome. It was a pretty decent train ride, and I was able to sleep for awhile; however, it was annoying that we did not get updates as to why our train was running late. We were out of the train station within three minutes, in a taxi, and on our way to the housing office. Checking in was fairly quick and simple; we were soon at our apartment.

My apartment is nice, better than I expected. There's a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and two bedrooms for four people. Shortly after Katie and I put our stuff away and did a load of laundry, we were off to venture through the city. We wanted to find a grocery store and did, but it was a rather far distance away. Carrying the groceries home was rough. Luckily, we've now found a closer one. Before finding this one, we had been given directions to a grocery store by a guy at a local pizza stand/mini-mart. He tried to get us to get our groceries from there and even offered a discount. We told him we needed more and promised we'd be back another time for pizza.

Today we went back for that pizza we promised him, and he gave us a deal on our pizza! There were some other people in the place and he immediately turned his attention to us. Katie and I have plans to continue going to this stand every two to three days to increase this blossoming relationship. This evening we walked around our area found a mini-mart right down the street from us. We asked the guy for his recommendations on cheese, and he ended up giving us a discount, too! I sure hope my luck continues!

I'm finding in quite amazing and am in awe with all the ruins around me. It's fun just to walk and run into something famous like the Piazza Navona or the Pantheon. I haven't gone around Rome and toured like a tourist, yet. I'm pondering the idea if I even really want to. I think I might play with the idea of continuing to wander around the city to see what I find. If it gets close to the end and I haven't seen something, then I'll make an exception.

Playin' and Hangin' in Paris

Our train ride over to Paris ended up being a bit of an eventful trip. We had to switch trains in the middle and only had nine or ten minutes to do so. Doesn't seem so hard to do, right? Well, it is not as easy with a heavy load of luggage. Fortunately, we had made friends with a German who spoke English on our first train and was connecting onto the same second train. We made it to the new platform easily for the second train, but the signs were showing that the train was delayed. Our train ended up coming about 40 minutes late and we had to switch platforms. Our ticket also didn't match the train number and type of what they told was coming. Long story short, everything ended up working out smoothly thanks to our German friend! We would have been lost and quite frazzled without him.

At this point into our trip, Katie and I had almost mastered the train systems throughout Europe. We easily got onto our metro train to take us to our hostel and got off at the right stop. However, we didn't take the right exit out of the station. Once again, there were a few Parisans that were very willing to help us out. I guess it was our lucky day with obtaining help!

The hostel in Paris, St. Christopher's, was the largest we stayed in. Our room had ten people in it. Throughout the time we were there we shared the room with people from Australia, Sweden, Austria, and Taiwan. The bathrooms here ended up being my least favorite; they smelled like wet dog. And there were some minor problems throughout are time at St. Christopher's but it ended up being my favorite place to stay.

I did get a sore throat in Paris during our time there. Luckily it turned into no more than a nasty cough. Today, it's still a little sore, and I have a small cough but it is much better than it was.

Day One in Paris

We went on another "free" walking tour in hopes that we'd be able to figure out where all the tourist places were throughout the city. I didn't like our tour guide as much as the one in Munich but the tour served purposeful enough to find the attractions. After our ended Katie and I went on to get a closer look of the Eiffel Tower. The structure is massive! While we were taking photos with the Eiffel Tower, it started to rain. And it went on to rain a little every day we were in Paris. Katie and I joked the whole time though about how we could sense it was coming and were always timely in running for cover. (I like to think it's a Midwestern talent.) When I was posing for one photo with the tower, a person in a gorilla outfit decided to hop into my picture. I figured whatever, he/she can join. After Katie took the photo, they asked for money. I denied them saying that they were the one to hop into my photo. We bickered a little, and then I saw a guy selling Eiffel Tower key chains waving his finger "No." The gorilla saw this and immediately turned to fight with him; Katie and I turned and quickly walked away. This was probably the closest we came to getting mugged in Paris.

After the Eiffel Tower we went and walked to the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe is in the middle of a massive roundabout that doesn't have any traffic lanes, signals, etc. in it, and it is VERY busy. The officials don't want to ruin the look of the star pattern the lanes have, I guess. Katie and I had no idea of how we were going to get onto this "island" but we were determined. Unintelligably, we ran across the lanes dodging motorcycles racing through the roundabout. Once we were on the island we realized that there was an underground passage to get onto it. We had a good laugh at ourselves, and it made for a memorable moment as we saw our life flash before our eyes.

In the evening we spent our time updating our blogs, Facebook, and chatting with friends/family... That is up until some drunk neighbors decided to walk the hostel's terrace and climb into our room through the window. Quickly, a drunk conversion began and an Italian-Asian picked me to be his new object of affection. He was funny and made the night very comical! These neighbors invited us over for drinks (2 windows down on the terrace) so Katie and I joined them. Besides the Italian-Asian, there were two Canadians, Tanya and Natalie, and another American that we got to know. We moved our gathering to the downstairs bar and met three gals from Poland. The Italian-Asian continued to pursue me down there along with one of these Polish girls (even though she was a lesbian, and her girlfriend was there.) As funny as this night was, the Italian-Asian did not remember me at all the next day, which we all found to be shocking. And yes, I was a little broken-hearted.

Day Two in Paris

I was very excited for day two in Paris because we had Versailles on our agenda! Katie and I saved a few Euros by doing this on our own versus through a tour group. We stopped at the Versailles tourist office instead of at the palace to buy our tickets. While in line, there were two ladies trying to figure out what pass to buy, and they thought the ones being offered were the wrong ones. I quickly informed them that indeed, these were the ones that they wanted, but these ones cost a mere 2 Euro difference from the ones being offered at the palace. They would spend a little more money, but save LOTS of time waiting in line. Needless to say, they were very thankful for my advice, and we started up a conversation. I found out that they were from a town north of Chicago and told them that I knew a lot of people in the Chicago area. We went on to discover that they've seen and know about my boyfriend's family's landscaping business. Small world!

The Palace of Versailles was very royal looking, obviously. Gold was everywhere and all of the ceilings were painted. As beautiful as the interior was, I didn't get to enjoy them as much as I would have liked because the whole time it felt like I was being herded through rooms, and there just was never an open area to sit or stand for a while. The rooms also began to feel very repetitive. I did really enjoy seeing the Hall of Mirrors and the Queen's quarters.

Katie and I went to Versailles on a special day where they were going to turn on the water for all of the fountains in the gardens for a certain period of time. We had some time to kill before this began so we went on a hunt to find the place where Marie Antoinette would stay and hide from people. This place, the Petit Trianon, is quite a distance away from the palace and is rather small. I thought it was pretty cool that Marie Antoinette had her initials placed in the Grand Staircase's railing.

The Gardens of Versailles were AMAZING! Definitely worth going on a day when they have the fountains going. There are numerous little gardens that make up the whole thing and each one of these gardens has some type of large sculpture piece or fountain in it. Unforunately, my camera had died by this time, so I'm going to have to steal pictures from Katie's camera. As we walked, Katie and I joked about how certain gardens would be a nice place to get married or proposed to. Ironically, on our way out we saw a bride and groom, along with a large group, going into the gardens (I assume). Made the idea become a little more realistic in my eyes for, of course, whenever that time comes.

On our second night, we took part in a pub crawl with the hostel mates we met the night before. The pub crawl was part of the tour company that we had used for our first day's tour. As our IDs were being checked in the beginning we were shocked to learn that our Italian-Asian friend was only 17! Drinking age is 18 in Paris, so he couldn't go but was so confused as to why he couldnt' come. Throughout the night we went to 5 different bars and at each one for every drink we bought, we'd get a shot! No worries, I didn't drink at every one. I met another person from Chicago. His little brother is a junior at Iowa State and is in Pi Kappa Alpha, which is the fraternity that my sorority was paired with for Greek Week this past spring. Once again, SMALL WORLD! At the second bar I met a couple from Finland. I also met two guys from California; one had just graduated from law school, so we had a nice time chit-chatting about that. The two had a nice system going on how to memorize names; one would write all the name in a little notebook and so when the other ended to know a name, the notebook would just get whipped out. I was "Kelly from Nebraska". A big group of us ended up leaving the last bar early (drinks were 15 Euros!) and headed back to our hostel to continue the night. Katie got slammed by the metro train's doors on the way back and another person in the group danced with a homeless man on the train. As you might have guessed, it was a good night!

Day Three in Paris

Churches were on the agenda for day three. The first one we went to was Sacre Coeur. This church was built on the largest hill overlooking Paris and was exhausting to get up to it. It takes commitment to get up to the top and attend church there. A cool fact about this church is that the stone it is made out of allows it to wash itself. Therefore the exterior of the church has never been cleaned, but yet it still looks as good as new! When we got inside, we discovered that mass was going on; it was a Catholic mass. Yet, even though mass was going on, they allow toursits to walk around the perimeters of the interior. It was rather cool to tour a church as mass was going on. However, at the same time, I felt like it was disrespectful, and that I shouldn't be in there.

The next church we went to was Notre Dame. It, too, had mass going on but it ended as we were in there. Such tall ceilings and pretty stained glass windows! Definitely worth seeing-- no wonder it is a tourist attraction! As we were sitting in a garden behind Notre Dame, Katie overheard two people talking about Sainte Chappelle. Katie really wanted to see it, so we asked for directions and were off to find it. We did find it and had to stand in a security line for about 20 minutes. This church was part of a former palace but now the whole area is a governmental. We had to pay 5 Euros to see the church, which is currently under restoration. The appeal of Sainte Chappelle is its large stained glass windows. My mouth dropped as we first walked in; it was beautiful!

Katie and I had McDonalds for dinner; I had more success with ordering my meal this time! After dinner we joined our Canadian friends, Tanya and Natalie, in the bar. Our time in the bar quickly moved to spending time in the "Chill Out Room" in the basement of our hostel. Tayna and Natalie wanted to play flippy cup (or flip cup as they call it) and were determined to teach other countries. The game grew throughout the night and by the end we had a good 20-25 people playing; Tayna and Natalie successfully taught the others and soon flippy cup will be dominating the world! We were even able to play by countries/continents; the North Americans were on one side while the Australians were on the other. The Australians took the English to play on their side, and we divided the two Swedish girls up onto both teams. I held my own quite well, but we had one Canadian guy that just blew it for our team almost every time. Oh well; it was, by far, the best night that I've had so far on my journey! By the end we must have gone through 30-40ish bottles of beer and wine. (And the beer bottles are a lot larger than back in the US.)

Day Four in Paris

Katie and I took an overnight train to Rome from Paris, giving us an extra day to spend in Paris. However, at this point we had spent about all of our money that we had in cash, so we had to keep our plans simple. The plan was to spend the day in the Jardin des Tuileries. This is a garden in front of the Louvre. It has a nice large fountain in it and a large amount of green lounge chairs for pedestrians to move around and sit in. The plan would have been perfect if the whether had remained nice; but as our luck goes, the day was quite cold. I think we only lasted at the park for a hour to 1 1/2 hours. While we were there we did get to see a little photo shoot happen. It was cool; the photographer was going to stand in the dirty fountain water to take the picturs but it ended up being too deep to stand in with his jeans on. We spent the rest of the day looking through souvenir shops and hanging out at our hostel before we said "Au revoir!" to Paris.