FINALS DAY. *trigger ominous music*
I didn't do a whole lot in the morning, mostly just studied and relaxed. Katie, Gina, and I went to go have our last Roman lunch at Ai Villini, but they randomly decided to be closed. It was like a final friendly slap in the face from Italy before we go. Instead, we ate at Good, which also made for a yummy last lunch in Italy.
The City of Rome final was pretty easy, as I expected, but all the questions were super general. I'm sad that Prof. Locatelli won't be my professor anymore. She was awesome.
The Theology final was also easy, and I found out that I made a 100 on my papal encyclicals paper (woooo! Justice). I wasn't quite as sad to part ways with Prof. White, but I felt a tiny bit sentimental nonetheless.
I spent the evening doing a little more packing, and kind of just doing whatever.
For dinner, Katie, Gina, and I went to L'Insalata Ricca. We had some wine (duh, last night in Italy), Katie had prosciutto pizza, Gina had spaghetti, and I had troffie pasta with pesto (again, new favorite).
Obviously, we went to Old Bridge for our last gelato afterward. It was sort of drizzling, so we ate it under an awning instead of in the little square Katie and I have taken it to other times, but it was fine. By the time I finished mine (obviously the slowest eater), the rain had stopped and we made it home nice and dry.
I apologize for not having too much to say today, but I mean, I had to take FINALS in September, and I'm moving to a new country tomorrow........no big deal.
I'll be writing my next post from Seville! Get excited, because I know I am!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Day 36
Day 36 was sort of a weird day, but it ended in a fun night.
I spent most of the day packing, studying, writing my Academic Service Learning reflection paper, and, of course, doing stupid stuff to avoid doing all of those things. In the end, though, I wrote and printed out the paper, packed up all of my clothes (more or less), thoroughly studied for the City of Rome, and mostly studied for Theology (still have Wednesday morning and afternoon for that).
At around 1, Cristina and Carla (who have been in charge of everything we've done this whole time) took all the DTW students to lunch at L'Isola della Pizza, where Katie and I had actually been twice before. I was thoroughly impressed with the spread. Lots of appetizers, pizza and pasta, tiramisu, you name it. Not gonna lie, the Office of Global Studies tends to be a little stingy now and then, so this multi-course meal really was a nice surprise.
After several hours of more studying and things and really just trying to digest all of our lunches, Katie, Gina, and I went to Raf for dinner. I got the eggplant parmesan pizza again, mostly just so I could take a picture this time. It was soooooooo amazing, but incredibly oily for some reason! I had olive oil all over my hands, which I attempted to wash off in the bathroom after I finished eating.
Instead of getting prosecco for our Tuesday evening festivities, we decided we ought to get something different. We went to the grocery store and looked at the selection for a while, then realized we were freezing, so we ran to campus to change and then ran back to the store (they were going to close in less than twenty minutes).
We ended up buying three Radlers (my FAVE, but not as good as in Munich), and then we each got some sort of spritz thing, too. We also got cookies (duh). It was our last Tuesday night spent in Piazza Cavour, but it was certainly very, very fun. Also very late, despite the fact that it was the eve of finals day.
I only have one full day left in Rome. *cries*
I spent most of the day packing, studying, writing my Academic Service Learning reflection paper, and, of course, doing stupid stuff to avoid doing all of those things. In the end, though, I wrote and printed out the paper, packed up all of my clothes (more or less), thoroughly studied for the City of Rome, and mostly studied for Theology (still have Wednesday morning and afternoon for that).
At around 1, Cristina and Carla (who have been in charge of everything we've done this whole time) took all the DTW students to lunch at L'Isola della Pizza, where Katie and I had actually been twice before. I was thoroughly impressed with the spread. Lots of appetizers, pizza and pasta, tiramisu, you name it. Not gonna lie, the Office of Global Studies tends to be a little stingy now and then, so this multi-course meal really was a nice surprise.
After several hours of more studying and things and really just trying to digest all of our lunches, Katie, Gina, and I went to Raf for dinner. I got the eggplant parmesan pizza again, mostly just so I could take a picture this time. It was soooooooo amazing, but incredibly oily for some reason! I had olive oil all over my hands, which I attempted to wash off in the bathroom after I finished eating.
Instead of getting prosecco for our Tuesday evening festivities, we decided we ought to get something different. We went to the grocery store and looked at the selection for a while, then realized we were freezing, so we ran to campus to change and then ran back to the store (they were going to close in less than twenty minutes).
We ended up buying three Radlers (my FAVE, but not as good as in Munich), and then we each got some sort of spritz thing, too. We also got cookies (duh). It was our last Tuesday night spent in Piazza Cavour, but it was certainly very, very fun. Also very late, despite the fact that it was the eve of finals day.
The lights weren't really working with my camera
I only have one full day left in Rome. *cries*
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Day 35
Guess how I started my last Monday in Rome? ...... If you guessed, "doing laundry," then you're correct!
It would've been an uneventful laundry experience had I not decided to start singing and dancing in the laundry room only to get walked in on by one of the cleaning ladies. She always seemed happy to see me in the hallway before, but now she'll probably avert her eyes. Oh well. When songs from High School Musical 3 get stuck in your head, you just have to let them out.
Once laundry was all wrapped up, Katie, Gina, and I went to Vero because I really wanted hot chocolate. Much to my excitement, the barista put a mountain of whipped cream on top of it, so it ended up being by far the best hot chocolate I've had here so far (and all the hot chocolate here is especially good to begin with). I also had a little cup of cantaloupe, which, yet again, was amazingly perfect.
Katie and I finally started to get crackin' on studying for our Theology final. Most of the test will consist of defining fifteen terms out of a list of thirty that he gave us to study. He told us to work in groups to come up with the definitions for each word as our way of preparing for the exam, so she did 1-15, and I did 16-30. That part of the test shouldn't be too hard. The other part is to write an essay tying in what we've learned in class with the Italian film we watched on Thursday, so I might need to prepare that a little bit. All in all, though, the exam only counts for 20% of our grade, which is weird. Normally, even in some of my English classes, the final counts for 40-50%. But I'm not complaining!
We were worried we wouldn't get tickets at our weekly meeting, since we only have a few more days here, but they still gave them to us. Super clutch! Now we get to blow them all in the next couple days. It was also the shortest meeting we've had, so that was nice.
We had to meet with our City of Rome class at 1:30 at Santa Maria in Trastevere, so Katie, Gina, and I grabbed some eggplant rice balls (so good) at Mondo and walked down there. We were five minutes late, but we were still the first ones there besides our professor. She was like, "I knew you would be the first ones here!" It was funny.
For this class trip, we went to the Janiculum hill. There was a memorial for those who died in the fight for the unification of Italy, a statue of Garibaldi, a beautiful fountain, great views, the American Academy, the Spanish Academy, a gorgeous church, and more. Most people were complaining about climbing steps and walking, but I thoroughly enjoyed the trip as usual.
As we headed back to campus, it progressively got darker and cloudier, looking like it was going to start raining pretty soon, despite the forecast.
I finally got an email back from Viaggio nei Fori about the shows we were supposed to see last week, and they basically told me they couldn't reschedule anything for me and that I would have to get a refund. Not too long after I saw that, though, someone from their office called me and told me she was going to send me tickets for tonight. I was excited, but expressed my concern about the weather. She seemed pretty confident that it wouldn't rain tonight, though.
I Skyped with my mom for a little while, which was fun. Initially I wanted to Skype because I was confused about some of the information the Fori people wanted to get my refund, but then I got the phone call first. Either way, it was a fun chat.
Katie and I went to get our metro tickets in advance so that we'd be ready to rush to the Forum of Augustus right after dinner. For dinner, we took Gina to one of our favorites, Spaccio Pasta. Since we had so many tickets, we got a bottle of Pinot Grigio and each had some wonderful pasta.
We did kind of have to rush down to the forum, but it worked out great. We got there, scanned our tickets, got our audio guides, sat down, and the show started. It was so cool! I almost got a little emotional at some parts, too. It was just so amazing to see the forum recreated and whatnot. The show lasted about 40 minutes, and then we walked over to Trajan's column to wait for the Forum of Caesar tour/show.
Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, and we had 45 minutes before our show, so we went to a little cafe and I sneakily used the bathroom without actually buying anything. Haha! I cheated the system.
We waited on the steps near Trajan's column for a little while, which was chill. There were a bunch of seagulls kind of going crazy and stuff, but they stayed far enough away from us. At last, it was time for our tour/show to begin.
The audio guides were super high-tech for the Forum of Caesar. You had to point them at a red box along the way while walking and then it would start playing the next chunk of information. It was sort of annoying because the audio would start as soon as the first person clicked it, and there were a lot of people, but I doubt we missed too much.
Starting in Trajan's forum, we got to walk underground, underneath Mussolini's Via dei Fori Imperiali, over into Julius Caesar's forum. We saw and heard all about the history of the place, and really it was just so cool to get to walk around down there. I'm pretty sure I got a little emotional again (they showed reenacted footage of Caesar's assassination), but I probably wasn't the only one...
After the 50ish-minute-long tour, we headed back to campus via metro. I didn't take any pictures during the shows, mostly because I didn't want to miss anything, but also because they honestly probably wouldn't have turned out all that great.
Overall, it was surprising that we actually got to see those shows after all, but I'm so glad we were able to! I recommend Viaggio nei Fori to anyone who visits Rome...just do your best to avoid the rain.
It would've been an uneventful laundry experience had I not decided to start singing and dancing in the laundry room only to get walked in on by one of the cleaning ladies. She always seemed happy to see me in the hallway before, but now she'll probably avert her eyes. Oh well. When songs from High School Musical 3 get stuck in your head, you just have to let them out.
Once laundry was all wrapped up, Katie, Gina, and I went to Vero because I really wanted hot chocolate. Much to my excitement, the barista put a mountain of whipped cream on top of it, so it ended up being by far the best hot chocolate I've had here so far (and all the hot chocolate here is especially good to begin with). I also had a little cup of cantaloupe, which, yet again, was amazingly perfect.
Katie and I finally started to get crackin' on studying for our Theology final. Most of the test will consist of defining fifteen terms out of a list of thirty that he gave us to study. He told us to work in groups to come up with the definitions for each word as our way of preparing for the exam, so she did 1-15, and I did 16-30. That part of the test shouldn't be too hard. The other part is to write an essay tying in what we've learned in class with the Italian film we watched on Thursday, so I might need to prepare that a little bit. All in all, though, the exam only counts for 20% of our grade, which is weird. Normally, even in some of my English classes, the final counts for 40-50%. But I'm not complaining!
We were worried we wouldn't get tickets at our weekly meeting, since we only have a few more days here, but they still gave them to us. Super clutch! Now we get to blow them all in the next couple days. It was also the shortest meeting we've had, so that was nice.
We had to meet with our City of Rome class at 1:30 at Santa Maria in Trastevere, so Katie, Gina, and I grabbed some eggplant rice balls (so good) at Mondo and walked down there. We were five minutes late, but we were still the first ones there besides our professor. She was like, "I knew you would be the first ones here!" It was funny.
For this class trip, we went to the Janiculum hill. There was a memorial for those who died in the fight for the unification of Italy, a statue of Garibaldi, a beautiful fountain, great views, the American Academy, the Spanish Academy, a gorgeous church, and more. Most people were complaining about climbing steps and walking, but I thoroughly enjoyed the trip as usual.
As we headed back to campus, it progressively got darker and cloudier, looking like it was going to start raining pretty soon, despite the forecast.
I finally got an email back from Viaggio nei Fori about the shows we were supposed to see last week, and they basically told me they couldn't reschedule anything for me and that I would have to get a refund. Not too long after I saw that, though, someone from their office called me and told me she was going to send me tickets for tonight. I was excited, but expressed my concern about the weather. She seemed pretty confident that it wouldn't rain tonight, though.
I Skyped with my mom for a little while, which was fun. Initially I wanted to Skype because I was confused about some of the information the Fori people wanted to get my refund, but then I got the phone call first. Either way, it was a fun chat.
Katie and I went to get our metro tickets in advance so that we'd be ready to rush to the Forum of Augustus right after dinner. For dinner, we took Gina to one of our favorites, Spaccio Pasta. Since we had so many tickets, we got a bottle of Pinot Grigio and each had some wonderful pasta.
We did kind of have to rush down to the forum, but it worked out great. We got there, scanned our tickets, got our audio guides, sat down, and the show started. It was so cool! I almost got a little emotional at some parts, too. It was just so amazing to see the forum recreated and whatnot. The show lasted about 40 minutes, and then we walked over to Trajan's column to wait for the Forum of Caesar tour/show.
Of course, I had to go to the bathroom, and we had 45 minutes before our show, so we went to a little cafe and I sneakily used the bathroom without actually buying anything. Haha! I cheated the system.
We waited on the steps near Trajan's column for a little while, which was chill. There were a bunch of seagulls kind of going crazy and stuff, but they stayed far enough away from us. At last, it was time for our tour/show to begin.
The audio guides were super high-tech for the Forum of Caesar. You had to point them at a red box along the way while walking and then it would start playing the next chunk of information. It was sort of annoying because the audio would start as soon as the first person clicked it, and there were a lot of people, but I doubt we missed too much.
Starting in Trajan's forum, we got to walk underground, underneath Mussolini's Via dei Fori Imperiali, over into Julius Caesar's forum. We saw and heard all about the history of the place, and really it was just so cool to get to walk around down there. I'm pretty sure I got a little emotional again (they showed reenacted footage of Caesar's assassination), but I probably wasn't the only one...
After the 50ish-minute-long tour, we headed back to campus via metro. I didn't take any pictures during the shows, mostly because I didn't want to miss anything, but also because they honestly probably wouldn't have turned out all that great.
Overall, it was surprising that we actually got to see those shows after all, but I'm so glad we were able to! I recommend Viaggio nei Fori to anyone who visits Rome...just do your best to avoid the rain.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
Day 34
Day 34 began pretty uneventfully. I stayed in bed until almost 10, which was excellent, and then didn't do much of anything for a while.
Since Katie and I had both used up all of our meal tickets from the week before, I suggested we try a different place for lunch. The graduate assistants and staff here put together a newletter every week that they email out to all us students about things going on in Rome and on campus and whatnot, and at the very end is always a restaurant suggestion. We decided to try this week's suggestion: Il Brillo Parlante. The restaurant's logo basically looks like a slightly intoxicated Jiminy Cricket, so it seemed promising.
We were not disappointed. I got trofie pasta (maybe my new favorite pasta) that had like pesto and parmesan and yummy stuff and even came in a pretty little parmesan bowl (which was difficult to cut and tasted like flavor-blasted goldfish). I also had a delicious bellini. The best part, though, was probably our waiter, who was obsessed with me.
We were kind of interested in buying ridiculous Pope Francis t-shirts, so we headed down a little ways toward the Trevi Fountain to check out all the tourist crap shops there. We found some shirts, but instead chose to buy little leather bracelets that say "I <3 Papa Francesco." So cute.
All of a sudden, we were right by Valentino's! We definitely lack the will power to turn that down, even though we technically went there for our "last time" on Friday. I didn't really have change, though; I needed to break a 50 somehow.
I had kind of been wanting to get a bottle opener, so we looked around in all the crap stores for a good one. After seeing Pope Francis shot glasses, Katie thought we should look for a Pope Francis bottle opener. And what do you know--we found one! I bought it, broke the 50, and then went to get Rome's best gelato.
We had a nice walk back to school, and then some nice chill time. I squeezed in a quick Skype session with my parents and siblings while my parents were still in Baton Rouge, and then Katie and I Skyped with Anarita. Typical Sunday stuff. But my last Sunday in Rome!
Mass was great, as usual. This time I only did the first reading, which of course had some weird Old Testament names. We had yet another priest (who was super young, and from Houston!), who was joined by Deacon Rob (who we met at our second mass here) and Bryan (who was with us at St. Peter's yesterday). Other than Katie and me, five people came to mass, which was (sadly) a good turnout. Deacon Rob gave a really great homily (he's going to be a wonderful priest), and the pizza was delicious as per usual.
So I guess tomorrow I actually have to get serious and start studying for my finals and packing and all. Sigh. It's not so bad though. I'll survive.
Since Katie and I had both used up all of our meal tickets from the week before, I suggested we try a different place for lunch. The graduate assistants and staff here put together a newletter every week that they email out to all us students about things going on in Rome and on campus and whatnot, and at the very end is always a restaurant suggestion. We decided to try this week's suggestion: Il Brillo Parlante. The restaurant's logo basically looks like a slightly intoxicated Jiminy Cricket, so it seemed promising.
We were not disappointed. I got trofie pasta (maybe my new favorite pasta) that had like pesto and parmesan and yummy stuff and even came in a pretty little parmesan bowl (which was difficult to cut and tasted like flavor-blasted goldfish). I also had a delicious bellini. The best part, though, was probably our waiter, who was obsessed with me.
We were kind of interested in buying ridiculous Pope Francis t-shirts, so we headed down a little ways toward the Trevi Fountain to check out all the tourist crap shops there. We found some shirts, but instead chose to buy little leather bracelets that say "I <3 Papa Francesco." So cute.
All of a sudden, we were right by Valentino's! We definitely lack the will power to turn that down, even though we technically went there for our "last time" on Friday. I didn't really have change, though; I needed to break a 50 somehow.
I had kind of been wanting to get a bottle opener, so we looked around in all the crap stores for a good one. After seeing Pope Francis shot glasses, Katie thought we should look for a Pope Francis bottle opener. And what do you know--we found one! I bought it, broke the 50, and then went to get Rome's best gelato.
We had a nice walk back to school, and then some nice chill time. I squeezed in a quick Skype session with my parents and siblings while my parents were still in Baton Rouge, and then Katie and I Skyped with Anarita. Typical Sunday stuff. But my last Sunday in Rome!
Mass was great, as usual. This time I only did the first reading, which of course had some weird Old Testament names. We had yet another priest (who was super young, and from Houston!), who was joined by Deacon Rob (who we met at our second mass here) and Bryan (who was with us at St. Peter's yesterday). Other than Katie and me, five people came to mass, which was (sadly) a good turnout. Deacon Rob gave a really great homily (he's going to be a wonderful priest), and the pizza was delicious as per usual.
So I guess tomorrow I actually have to get serious and start studying for my finals and packing and all. Sigh. It's not so bad though. I'll survive.
Day 33
It was back to waking up pre-sunrise again today. We had to be at the obelisk in St. Peter's Square at 8 am to meet up with our seminarian friends for our tour of the basilica.
Mike and Luke, the seminarians we met last Sunday, were giving the tour, along with another one of their classmates, Bryan. Seven other people from school showed up as well, so that was cool.
It was a beautiful morning, and there was really no line at all to get into the church. Before getting in line, Mike gave us some backstory (which I contributed to...I just did a presentation on the history and architecture of the church, remember?), and we took some pictures that for once weren't littered with a million tourists in the background. Finally, we made our way inside St. Peter's Basilica.
The church was just as incredible as I remembered. There's just so much going on in there! Mosaics, papal tombs (three of which show you the incorruptible bodies), huge bronze fixtures created with bronze stolen from the Pantheon, Michelangelo's Pietà, and so on. I didn't take too many pictures, first because I took so many last time I went, and second because I had limited space on my phone (I finally deleted a bunch of old pictures later in the day, though).
After the wonderful tour, which, really, was even more fulfilling this time after learning so much about everything in my City of Rome class, the seminarians treated us to breakfast (using the Campus Ministry budget). I had hot chocolate and some sort of pastry thing. Luke and Bryan shared their stories with us, which were really fascinating to hear. Bryan's especially was interesting: for years he didn't go to church or anything, and worked in Ford's corporate offices, and then now he's a seminarian in Rome. Crazy!
Katie needed to get Christmas ornaments representing Italy and the Vatican City for her mom, so we did a little souvenir shopping. I ended up getting two magnets as well...I just couldn't resist!
We got back to campus around noon, and we were quite tired. After resting for a little while, we went to Good to get some lunch. Since the weather was still super wonderful, we decided we'd walk all the way down to the Basilica San Clemente, which is a little ways past the Colosseum.
The Basilica San Clemente is a small, beautiful church, but underneath it is an old, medieval church, and underneath THAT is an ancient pagan temple (which I think was turned into a church). It's probably not something someone who gets claustrophobic should do, but I thought it was really incredible. Pictures weren't allowed, but it was so dark anyway it wouldn't have mattered.
We realized that we were actually no more than 10 minutes away from St. John in the Lateran, which is actually the main church of Catholicism, so we went there, too. Can you believe it? We inside St. Peter's AND St. John in the Lateran in the same day. So Catholic!
I have to be honest, I definitely prefer the interior of St. John in the Lateran to St. Peter's. I guess it was just more my taste. What was interesting was that the floor of St. John in the Lateran was almost exactly the same as the floor of the Basilica San Clemente: a really fancy-looking geometric pattern, featuring lots of red porphyry. (Apparently only royalty used to be seen as fit to walk on red porphyry. Between those three churches today, though, Katie and I walked on SO MUCH of it that we surely must be queens or something!)
Our walk back to campus was kind of a haul, but still pleasant enough, Gotta get in that exercise.
We chilled for a while, and then headed to dinner at Raf, one of our new favorite places. Let me tell you, it was POPPING. So many people there! I guess it was Saturday, but still! I guess everyone else knows it's amazing, too. I went with a simple Margherita pizza this time (delicious) with a Peroni (refreshing--channeling my inner Mom and Dad) followed by a dessert moscato (so yummy). We were there almost two hours because they just did not want to get rid of us, despite the fact that a bunch of people were waiting for tables, but it was fun. They had free Wi-Fi, so we kept ourselves entertained with Twitter.
I'm sad that this was our last Saturday in Rome, but I'm glad that it was at least a great one.
Mike and Luke, the seminarians we met last Sunday, were giving the tour, along with another one of their classmates, Bryan. Seven other people from school showed up as well, so that was cool.
It was a beautiful morning, and there was really no line at all to get into the church. Before getting in line, Mike gave us some backstory (which I contributed to...I just did a presentation on the history and architecture of the church, remember?), and we took some pictures that for once weren't littered with a million tourists in the background. Finally, we made our way inside St. Peter's Basilica.
The church was just as incredible as I remembered. There's just so much going on in there! Mosaics, papal tombs (three of which show you the incorruptible bodies), huge bronze fixtures created with bronze stolen from the Pantheon, Michelangelo's Pietà, and so on. I didn't take too many pictures, first because I took so many last time I went, and second because I had limited space on my phone (I finally deleted a bunch of old pictures later in the day, though).
After the wonderful tour, which, really, was even more fulfilling this time after learning so much about everything in my City of Rome class, the seminarians treated us to breakfast (using the Campus Ministry budget). I had hot chocolate and some sort of pastry thing. Luke and Bryan shared their stories with us, which were really fascinating to hear. Bryan's especially was interesting: for years he didn't go to church or anything, and worked in Ford's corporate offices, and then now he's a seminarian in Rome. Crazy!
Katie needed to get Christmas ornaments representing Italy and the Vatican City for her mom, so we did a little souvenir shopping. I ended up getting two magnets as well...I just couldn't resist!
We got back to campus around noon, and we were quite tired. After resting for a little while, we went to Good to get some lunch. Since the weather was still super wonderful, we decided we'd walk all the way down to the Basilica San Clemente, which is a little ways past the Colosseum.
The Basilica San Clemente is a small, beautiful church, but underneath it is an old, medieval church, and underneath THAT is an ancient pagan temple (which I think was turned into a church). It's probably not something someone who gets claustrophobic should do, but I thought it was really incredible. Pictures weren't allowed, but it was so dark anyway it wouldn't have mattered.
We realized that we were actually no more than 10 minutes away from St. John in the Lateran, which is actually the main church of Catholicism, so we went there, too. Can you believe it? We inside St. Peter's AND St. John in the Lateran in the same day. So Catholic!
I have to be honest, I definitely prefer the interior of St. John in the Lateran to St. Peter's. I guess it was just more my taste. What was interesting was that the floor of St. John in the Lateran was almost exactly the same as the floor of the Basilica San Clemente: a really fancy-looking geometric pattern, featuring lots of red porphyry. (Apparently only royalty used to be seen as fit to walk on red porphyry. Between those three churches today, though, Katie and I walked on SO MUCH of it that we surely must be queens or something!)
Spotted: the Illuminati symbol?! (Up at the top)
Yay Constantine
Our walk back to campus was kind of a haul, but still pleasant enough, Gotta get in that exercise.
Super cool tiny piece of rainbow we saw!
We chilled for a while, and then headed to dinner at Raf, one of our new favorite places. Let me tell you, it was POPPING. So many people there! I guess it was Saturday, but still! I guess everyone else knows it's amazing, too. I went with a simple Margherita pizza this time (delicious) with a Peroni (refreshing--channeling my inner Mom and Dad) followed by a dessert moscato (so yummy). We were there almost two hours because they just did not want to get rid of us, despite the fact that a bunch of people were waiting for tables, but it was fun. They had free Wi-Fi, so we kept ourselves entertained with Twitter.
I'm sad that this was our last Saturday in Rome, but I'm glad that it was at least a great one.
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Day 32
To say the least, I did not get a good night's sleep. I was exhausted from all the rainy night adventures, but alas, the universe was against me getting the sleep I so desperately wanted.
Around 2 in the morning (I think?) one of the girls in the room next door started Facetiming with her boyfriend (I think?) which woke me up. Now, if she had been quietly talking to him with headphones in, I probably wouldn't have stirred. BUT NO. She was SCREAMING! For like an hour! Yelling at him! And he kept being like, "I'm so in love with you" and all that, but she was so mad for whatever reason. She said something like, "You and me, we're like Romeo and Juliet!" I told Katie later in the morning that I wish they would just make like Romeo and Juliet and DIE.
Finally, at 3, an RA came and knocked on her door to remind her that it was quiet hours. God bless that RA.
THEN, though, at like 7:30/8, the cleaning ladies came to clean the bathroom across the hall from my room and were having a loud discussion that woke me up AGAIN. I was not happy. But, I was able to fall back asleep again until almost 10. Naturally, a chill morning followed, as we were tired and quite disturbed from the night before.
A little after noon, we went to Fonzie's, which was mysteriously closed the other day, but luckily was open this time. It was yummy as usual, and necessary to go to one last time before we head to Spain.
Next, we took the long metro trip out to EUR, the fascist-designed neighborhood that we were supposed to go to as a class on Thursday. I have to say, it was really neat to see. As Katie said, it felt more like being in a US city than in an Italian one, as it was mostly office buildings and such. There's a nice big reservoir-type thing (I tend to call all smallish bodies of water like that reservoirs because we have so many reservoirs back home) that we walked around. I was delighted to see lots of ducks, geese, and fish. The ducks quacked a lot, too, which was exciting.
We basically hiked up this hill, following a bunch of guys in business attire, to get to what we thought was some sort of sports complex. I now know that it was the Palalottomatica, the Sports Palace, which was built for the Olympics. In addition to sporting events, conferences are held there, which is clearly what was going on when we walked around it.
We headed up the main road, Viale Cristoforo Colombo, where we finally saw all the museums and structures we read about for class. At one point, Katie and I both tragically tripped over the same bump in the sidewalk because we were looking up at the fascist obelisk. We didn't fall or anything, but my sunglasses did. They remained unscathed (Ray Bans are the best), but we were quite disturbed. In any case, though, the obelisk was really cool.
We finally found the main building we were looking for: the square Colosseum. It was so cute! And the best part is that it is now the headquarters of Fendi corporate! I love Fendi.
Eventually, we headed over to the other EUR metro station to head back to campus. On the way, though, we saw a precious little kitten all alone in the road. It clearly used to belong to someone, as it came right up to us and let me pet and hold it, but it was pretty dirty and definitely underfed. It also was afraid of grass for some reason. Any time we tried to get it out of the street and into the park, it freaked out. If I held it over the sidewalk, it was super chill, but if I held it over the grass, it flipped out. We wanted to bring it to the cat sanctuary in the city center, but if it wasn't going to let me carry it, there was really nothing I could do. Heartbroken, I left the kitty behind.
We went to look at some monument in the park before going to catch the metro when we saw ANOTHER cat. This one was also super friendly and definitely underfed, but an adult cat. I pet it for a little while, but then it saw a dog and went back to its hiding spot. Finally, we left EUR.
That trip was pretty exhausting, so we rested up for a while before heading out to the Keats-Shelley Memorial House. It's the place where John Keats tragically died, and is also a museum honoring the Romantic British poets/writers who had a connection to Rome, namely Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Seeing all of their handwritten letters and manuscripts and locks of hair was SUPER exciting for my English nerd self. I also ended up buying a lame T-shirt to add to my English major T-shirt collection. (I call it lame, but I'm so excited about it).
Since the Keats-Shelley Memorial House is right by the Spanish Steps, which aren't super far from the Trevi Fountain, which is right by Gelateria Valentino...we obviously then went to Gelateria Valentino. Had to go at least once more before we leave. It was amazing as usual. The same father-daughter pair who are always there were there again, and this time the dad got really into Katie's flavor selection. She just wanted dark chocolate, but he said she needed another flavor. She said she'd also get pistachio, then. He said dark chocolate would go better with Ferrero Rocher, and she was fine with that. He also gave her a tiny cone of pistachio, too. It was great.
We headed back to campus on the Via del Corso, the shopping street. I realized now would probably be the best time for me to check the Adidas and Nike stores for the soccer scarves Will had been begging me to get him. Adidas didn't have anything, but the right in the entrance of the Nike store was a table of Roma gear, including the scarves. I bought one right away, but not without being "proposed to" by the cashier first (it was more like, "Do you need a husband?? PLEASE marry me! I need green card!").
Back at school, we rested some more before going to the ever-wonderful Spaccio Pasta for dinner. I had some wine and my favorite truffle pasta. It makes me sad to think I probably won't get to go there again.
Of course, after a bad night's sleep and a tiring day, you would think I would've been able to go to bed early like I wanted to, but instead I had a hard time falling asleep. Classic me!
Around 2 in the morning (I think?) one of the girls in the room next door started Facetiming with her boyfriend (I think?) which woke me up. Now, if she had been quietly talking to him with headphones in, I probably wouldn't have stirred. BUT NO. She was SCREAMING! For like an hour! Yelling at him! And he kept being like, "I'm so in love with you" and all that, but she was so mad for whatever reason. She said something like, "You and me, we're like Romeo and Juliet!" I told Katie later in the morning that I wish they would just make like Romeo and Juliet and DIE.
Finally, at 3, an RA came and knocked on her door to remind her that it was quiet hours. God bless that RA.
THEN, though, at like 7:30/8, the cleaning ladies came to clean the bathroom across the hall from my room and were having a loud discussion that woke me up AGAIN. I was not happy. But, I was able to fall back asleep again until almost 10. Naturally, a chill morning followed, as we were tired and quite disturbed from the night before.
A little after noon, we went to Fonzie's, which was mysteriously closed the other day, but luckily was open this time. It was yummy as usual, and necessary to go to one last time before we head to Spain.
Next, we took the long metro trip out to EUR, the fascist-designed neighborhood that we were supposed to go to as a class on Thursday. I have to say, it was really neat to see. As Katie said, it felt more like being in a US city than in an Italian one, as it was mostly office buildings and such. There's a nice big reservoir-type thing (I tend to call all smallish bodies of water like that reservoirs because we have so many reservoirs back home) that we walked around. I was delighted to see lots of ducks, geese, and fish. The ducks quacked a lot, too, which was exciting.
We basically hiked up this hill, following a bunch of guys in business attire, to get to what we thought was some sort of sports complex. I now know that it was the Palalottomatica, the Sports Palace, which was built for the Olympics. In addition to sporting events, conferences are held there, which is clearly what was going on when we walked around it.
We headed up the main road, Viale Cristoforo Colombo, where we finally saw all the museums and structures we read about for class. At one point, Katie and I both tragically tripped over the same bump in the sidewalk because we were looking up at the fascist obelisk. We didn't fall or anything, but my sunglasses did. They remained unscathed (Ray Bans are the best), but we were quite disturbed. In any case, though, the obelisk was really cool.
Not the best picture...but there were randomly lots and lots of magnolia trees!!
We finally found the main building we were looking for: the square Colosseum. It was so cute! And the best part is that it is now the headquarters of Fendi corporate! I love Fendi.
Eventually, we headed over to the other EUR metro station to head back to campus. On the way, though, we saw a precious little kitten all alone in the road. It clearly used to belong to someone, as it came right up to us and let me pet and hold it, but it was pretty dirty and definitely underfed. It also was afraid of grass for some reason. Any time we tried to get it out of the street and into the park, it freaked out. If I held it over the sidewalk, it was super chill, but if I held it over the grass, it flipped out. We wanted to bring it to the cat sanctuary in the city center, but if it wasn't going to let me carry it, there was really nothing I could do. Heartbroken, I left the kitty behind.
We went to look at some monument in the park before going to catch the metro when we saw ANOTHER cat. This one was also super friendly and definitely underfed, but an adult cat. I pet it for a little while, but then it saw a dog and went back to its hiding spot. Finally, we left EUR.
That trip was pretty exhausting, so we rested up for a while before heading out to the Keats-Shelley Memorial House. It's the place where John Keats tragically died, and is also a museum honoring the Romantic British poets/writers who had a connection to Rome, namely Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Seeing all of their handwritten letters and manuscripts and locks of hair was SUPER exciting for my English nerd self. I also ended up buying a lame T-shirt to add to my English major T-shirt collection. (I call it lame, but I'm so excited about it).
Since the Keats-Shelley Memorial House is right by the Spanish Steps, which aren't super far from the Trevi Fountain, which is right by Gelateria Valentino...we obviously then went to Gelateria Valentino. Had to go at least once more before we leave. It was amazing as usual. The same father-daughter pair who are always there were there again, and this time the dad got really into Katie's flavor selection. She just wanted dark chocolate, but he said she needed another flavor. She said she'd also get pistachio, then. He said dark chocolate would go better with Ferrero Rocher, and she was fine with that. He also gave her a tiny cone of pistachio, too. It was great.
We headed back to campus on the Via del Corso, the shopping street. I realized now would probably be the best time for me to check the Adidas and Nike stores for the soccer scarves Will had been begging me to get him. Adidas didn't have anything, but the right in the entrance of the Nike store was a table of Roma gear, including the scarves. I bought one right away, but not without being "proposed to" by the cashier first (it was more like, "Do you need a husband?? PLEASE marry me! I need green card!").
Back at school, we rested some more before going to the ever-wonderful Spaccio Pasta for dinner. I had some wine and my favorite truffle pasta. It makes me sad to think I probably won't get to go there again.
Of course, after a bad night's sleep and a tiring day, you would think I would've been able to go to bed early like I wanted to, but instead I had a hard time falling asleep. Classic me!
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