Gondolas Galore

Another early departure Friday morning and about a four hour train ride from Rome to Venice but we finally made it to the beautiful city around noon. It was about a 20 minute walk from the train station to our hotel, Pensione Guerrato. Venice is like a maze, zigzagging everywhere and things aren’t clearly marked. There are a few main streets in the center of town and there are alleyways, but everything just snakes along the water and there are over 400 bridges. So all of us zigzagged our way over bridges and whatnot with our luggage (and having to pick up our rolly suitcases and carry them awkwardly over bridges because all the bridges were stairs) and got turned around a couple of times, but finally made it to our hotel. The rooms were different, one of them was a two person room, some four and some five, so we couldn’t easily do the same set up that we have in Rome, so we drew names and mixed up the roommates. I was in a five person room with Jo-Elle, Kara, Dana, and Mariel. All of us immediately went to explore. 

We broke into two groups to get lunch and my group found a cute little restaurant with outdoor seating with pretty greenery and hanging lights. I got margherita pizza…again haha. Then we walked around the maze of the city, stopping in shops and we found a bakery. Alissa got a strawberry meringue that I tried and it was really good. That night for dinner I got only my first salad of the trip (the first was a Caesar in Campo dei Fiori). It had a bunch of different lettuce, fresh mozzarella cheese, carrots, tomatoes, and balsamic vinaigrette. And I had my first Bellini! We also got the house white wine and for dessert, Mariel and shared the profiteroles. They were like cream puffs but in milk chocolate…I didn’t like it very much. Daniela got the almond cake, which was pretty good, but the almond flavor was almost overbearing. After dinner we found some of the girls sitting outside this self-serve café and we went in and grabbed some more Bellinis and headed for the main canal (it’s totally fine to walk around with open containers in Italy).

We went on a gondola hunt, having to split up in different boats because they only hold up to five. Me, Lori, Mariel, and Lauren hopped in a gondola and our gondolier was Ivan. The canal and city was so beautiful at night. I was in awe, trying to listen to Ivan and take everything in at the same time, while also snapping a million pictures. Ivan was hilarious. He didn’t tell us too much history stuff but he told us some stories and he sang to us! He had a beautiful voice haha it was just so perfect…and romantic which brings me to my next point. Gondola rides during the day cost about 15 euro, but at night, they charge more (25 euro) because nighttime is when couples take gondola rides and…well, get a little too intimate to say the least. People pay more to be able to get more use out of the gondola and have the gondoliers literally just turn the other way. Haha I am not even joking, this is for real. But anyway, it was such a beautiful night on the water, so peaceful, and being sung to was the cherry on top :) and then when we passed under one of the bridges, I forget the significance, but he had us kiss each other’s cheeks (like the European way- a kiss on each cheek). We were just being rowed along through the main canal, under bridges, through little canal/alleyways in between people’s houses, like how cool is that. It was a perfect night and a perfect little gondola ride and I’m so glad I got to experience that.

Saturday morning we slept in a little bit and went down to breakfast. When we got dressed we went out to the square and bought some fresh fruit from the market. I got a nectarine, some green grapes and some strawberries. There were markets with fresh fruits and vegetables and also fresh catch fish markets. So as you can imagine, there were pigeons and seagulls everywhere! After we got our fruit we headed back to the main canal where we were the night before to catch a boat taxi over to Murano Island where they do the glass blowing. Venice is famous for its Murano glass. When we got there, we saw a glass blowing demonstration, which was really cool. After they heat it up and shape it on the rod, they literally blow air throw the rod and glow the glass up like a balloon. They made a vase and a horse figurine. At the end of the demo, the guy blew the glass and let it pop/explode. Then we walked in like every single glass store on the island. I got some wine stoppers, a bottle opener, earrings, and I don’t even know what else haha (so all my gifts are done :) ). We spent hours there just admiring everything; it was all so beautiful.

Murano Island

We also saw a few weddings at these beautiful cathedrals on our way to and from Murano. We saw a beautiful bride and groom come out of a beautiful church on the water and everyone was throwing rice or whatever on them. It was so cool, gosh I can’t even imagine getting married in Venice! And then some of the wedding guests got on our boat taxi haha.

We got back from Murano around 5ish and we went to the Rialto Bridge, which is the main, huge bridge in Venice, and it’s lined with stops, vendors, gelato, etc. We went in some of the shops and vendor stands. There was a ton of glass stuff and Venetian masks. We also saw this really cool store with beautiful beaded jewelry and it was all separated by color. There was turquoise, purple, green, red, and white. We stopped at this one artist’s vendor who had beautiful canvas paintings of Venice. Some were watercolors and some were oil paintings. They were so beautiful, I couldn’t resist getting one. I got a bright oil painting that I thought captured the beauty of Venice so well. I’m so glad I have it to frame and keep forever.

Venetian masks

Saturday night we wanted to get seafood (I don’t really like seafood but I wanted to try some in Venice because I thought it would be a sin not to eat their seafood that they catch fresh every morning). We went to this little tiny restaurant on one of the side roads and there was this little bridge that went over a narrow canal and right into the front door of the restaurant. The waiter gave us champagne as soon as we sat down and we got some pinot grigio. They bring the fish out still as fish and debone and skin them right there at the table. I got gnocchi with lobster which was delicioussss!! And some people got tiramisu for dessert.

Gnocchi with lobster

After dinner we went to the square outside our hotel where there was a bar and everyone just hung out outside in the square. After a while, we went to the water and just sat and talked; it was really nice.

           

            Sunday we checked out at 11 and had until 4 before we needed to meet up to catch the train back to Rome. There was a big kayak race through the grand canal and when we were on the Rialto Bridge, we caught some of the kayakers coming through.

A bunch of us went to San Marcos Square (Saint Marks Square) for the afternoon. We went up to the top of the bell tower and the 360 degree view of Venice from up there was surreal. I had to pinch myself I couldn’t even believe how breathtakingly beautiful it was.

San Marcos Square

            We walked all around the square and down to the water and we stopped at a restaurant to grab a quick lunch. I got a tuna sandwich with tomato and it was the best tuna I’ve ever had, I’m pretty sure.

           Venice was just so incredible. The water was so greenish-blue and beautiful, boats and gondolas everywhere, art and masks and glass and it was just so unique and beautiful. I love being on the water so much…I would love to live in an apartment in Venice and look out my window and just see water instead of concrete…yeah I could totally live in Venice :)

Under the Tuscan Sun Day 3

Sunday was a rainy, yucky day, but we decided to take an impromptu trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower! There was 16 of us total including Kyle, so only five girls stayed behind in Florence. We took the train and it was about a 45 minute ride. Pisa is the sketchiest town and ugly and dirty. There were these young girls, like not even teenagers, who came in between our group and tried to pickpocket two of our girls! We also took the roundabout way to the tower from the train station so we were probably going through all the dumpy neighborhoods. We finally made it to the tower and wowww it really does lean A LOT! It was packed with tourists and it was so funny because everyone was standing with their arms out to do the typical "holding up the tower" pose. Of course, I had to get a touristy picture too.. and I'm glad I can say that I've seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Under the Tuscan Sun Day 2

Castello del Trebbio

We caught the bus (a nice tour bus, for once) outside of our hotel at 9am Saturday morning and drove through beautiful Tuscany to Castello del Trebbio (Tuscany is a region and Florence is in the region of Tuscany). We met our tour guide, Alberto, and he was hilarious. It was already one of the best days (maybe even the best) we'd had so far, but he just made it that much more great. He was the best tour guide I've ever had. Anyway he showed us all around the castle and gave us a little history about it. The castle has 40 rooms, which, believe it or not, is small for a castle. The woman who owns it has owned it since she was 24, after both her parents died and her siblings didn't want it, and she is now 46 and it is a family business. They grow Sangiovese grapes to make their wine. During the wine tasting, we tasted two kinds of Chianti (Chianti is the region where the grapes are from, not the name of the grape and there is no such thing as real Chianti in the US, so I feel special for getting to taste it in Florence :) ). Another fun fact is that they eat a lot of wild boar because if not, the boar would eat all the grapes and they wouldn't have any wine!


Alberto first took us in this "sacred" room where we weren't allowed to take pictures, but it was beautiful, and people have gotten married in that room, including Alberto himself! Then he took us in the dungeon where all the barrels of wine were- it was insane!

Barrique barrel: French/American oak. $1,000 for a barrel, $8,000 for a big barrel but the barrique barrels only last for three years because they absorb the wine and then they sell the barrels to whiskey makers

Then Alberto told us all about olive oil production. Oil production is in November and you have to pick and squeeze olives within 24 hours. Olive oil is different from wine in that olive oil doesn't age well like wine does; the younger the better, and you want to look at the harvest date. Then Alberto told us all about olive oil production. Oil production is in November and you have to pick and squeeze olives within 24 hours. Olive oil is different from wine in that olive oil doesn't age well like wine does; the younger the better, so you want to look at the harvest date. Alberto said that we should have two teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil a day. But there is a big difference between olive oil and extra virgin olive oil- olive oil has ten times more acid than extra virgin olive oil, and usually you don't know this because they don't have to write the acidity on the labels. Olive oil shouldn't have more than .3% acid. Extra means that it's under .08% acid and virgin means that the oil was made with pure olive trees- no additives. You want to look for thick, dark glasses of extra virgin olive oil, it's more expensive but it's the best. After he gave us all the background info about olive oil, it was time for our tasting! First we tasted moraiolo olive oil and then frantilo olive oil. There was also a third one but we didn't taste it, we just smelled it, to see the difference between good oils and bad oils. To do the tasting, we warmed the little cup of oil in our hands and then smelled it. When it came time to taste it, we literally took a shot of it- it was disgusting! I chowed down on bread and then drank sparkling water to cleanse my palette. 

After we tasted the olive oils, it was time to go into the kitchen and make homemade pasta!! Adriana, an old Italian woman, taught us how to make our very own noodles and two kinds of sauces! To make the pasta, you add eggs, flour, extra virgin olive oil, and salt and knead them together. Then you roll and roll and roll the dough out until it is paper thin. We could see the table cloth through the dough, that’s how thin it was! Then you fold it and cut off pieces, skinny or fat depending on what kind of pasta you want, and let the strips dry.

After we cut two different types of pasta, tagliatelle which is fat noodles, and tagliolini which is skinny pasta, we all crowded around the stove and watched as Adriana showed us how to make the sauces. We had a sausage sauce and a vegetarian sauce. To make the sausage sauce, you put onion, celery, carrots, thyme, bay leaf and rosemary in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, then add fresh sausage. When the meat is browned, add peeled tomatoes and boil for about an hour and a half. To make the vegetarian sauce, put shallot (a kind of onion) and celery in a pan with extra virgin olive oil, then add grated carrots and zucchini, some thyme and fresh basil, and add some fresh cream and chili if you want! Then BUON APPETITO!!

Sausage tagliatelle pasta

Vegetarian tagliolini pasta

Then we went into a dining room to have lunch and a wine tasting! Our first course was appetizers. We had bread and olive oil, salami, cheese, and a piece of spread with tomato spread and a piece of bread with black olive spread. All of it was delicious. I don’t really like black olives, but even I loved the fresh olive spread. With this first course, we tasted a 2010 Chianti, which is a red wine, and it was delicious. It was my favorite of the three wines we tasted. To taste wine properly, Alberto said to hold the glass by the stem so we don’t get finger prints on the glass because then we can’t see it as well, and the first step is to tilt the glass away from you and look at the wine. Then the next step is the smell it. And of course the third step is to taste it. Our main course for lunch was the pasta that we made! Oh my gosh I think it was the best pasta I’ve had on this trip. My favorite was the vegetable pasta. With the pasta, we tasted a Chianti Reserves. It was thicker and I didn’t like it as much as the first. Then we had biscotti for dessert and dipped it into dessert wine. I took a sip of the dessert wine but it was nasty. It’s not something you want to drink, only to dip sweets in it but I didn’t like it very much.

This castle olive oil tasting/cooking class/wine tasting in the beautiful countryside of Tuscany was the best day so far. It was such a cool experience and so fun and beautiful and I loved it.

All the girls with Alberto!

When we got back to our hotel, we all decided we wanted to check out the market. The market was full of vendors selling everything leather you can think of. Florence is famous for its leather. I bought a brown leather cross body purse and some other goodies :). On our way back from the market, we ran into a protest. It was all in Italian so of course we had no idea what was going on, but looking at the pictures and symbols on the posters, we saw communist symbols, rainbows and trains with x's through them....? It was like a collection of angry people protesting anything and everything. I wasn't sure whether to stand and watch or run and take cover haha. When we got through that mess we went on a hunt for canolies. We found a bakery down the street from our hotel and the man who worked there didn't speak any English but luckily there was a lady in there who did and she translated for us. He was so sweet, not only did he give us canolies, but he also gave us an assortment of other treats and we only paid 8 euro! There was five of us so he would be like buy four and get the fifth free and just kept adding things in there so we got all these goodies for like 2 euro each. And then we told him we'd be back in the morning for croissants but he said he was closed on Sundays, so he put like eight croissants into a bag and gave them to us for free and said to think of him when we ate them for breakfast haha it was so cute. We took all of our goodies back to the hotel and ate them and drank cappuccino....yummm.

That night we all decided to go out and find a bar or two or something fun to do. Florence is much smaller than Rome and easier to get around, so we just started walking until we found something that looked fun. JMU's Florence trip had just arrived in Florence a few days before and as we were walking, Kara saw a guy that looked like a guy in her GCOM class, so she called out "JMU?" and the group of guys turned around and everyone went crazy that two groups of JMU kids ended up together in Florence! They said they were doing a bar crawl, and we were all hesitant to join them at first because our first bar crawl experience, as fun as it was, was also sketchy, but we decided to go ahead and do the bar crawl with them. This time, the bar crawl was so legit! We were at this techno-ish bar at first and had lots of sangriaaaa! Then we went to two other bars and one of them had writing all over the walls of American college kids writing their colleges and fraternities/sororities. Lori and I found lots of Thetas on the walls! We didn't get a t-shirt at this bar crawl but it was really fun and so cool to be with all JMU kids!

JMU Crew

Under the Tuscan Sun Day 1

Friday: May 18th
Public transportation is so annoying. We met at 7am to catch a 7:29am metro to the train station where we were supposed to catch an 8ish am train to Florence but we were on the wrong platform without realizing it until it was too late. We all boarded the train, put our bags away and got comfy in our seats, and then people started coming who had duplicates of our tickets. That's when we saw our train pulling out of the station... So we got off and Steve and Kyle were figuring out what to do and they told us to just get back on the train and sit in empty seats because the train wasn't full. But it's a pain to "squeeze" 25 extra people onto a train. I sat beside some random strangers and the man next to me had horrible breath and I was getting motion sick and was just completely nauseated. I was so miserable when we finally made it to Florence and we trucked about a mile to our hotel with our luggage and then couldn't even check in yet. The hotel was on the second floor of a building, called Hotel Colomba, and the people running it were so nice. We had free breakfast in the mornings which was really yummy and the rooms were really spacious. It was so homy, kind of like staying at a bed and breakfast. Anyway, so when we got there we left our stuff with the hotel people and they said they would watch it and a group of us went to lunch- me, Lori, Alissa, Kelsey, Mariel, Laura, Mary Katherine, Katie C., Katie S. I got spaghetti which was delicious and a Pepsi. The bread was free in Florence but it didn't taste good. It was stale and bland. Rome's bread is delicious though, not free, but so worth it. I felt so much better after eating. We got cappuccino and then headed back to the hotel to get our rooms.

At 2:30 we had a tour of La Galleria Degli Arazzi. It's an art museum in the heart of Florence with famous works of Michelangelo, DiVinci, and other famous artists that I wasn't as familiar with. Our tour guide was so incredibly boring though. We were all so exhausted and just weren't into it. She was so knowledgeable about everything, but assumed too much of us. She thought we were like art history majors or something so she did a crappy job "guiding" us. It was all completely over my head. And it sucks that I didn't get more out of it because I was genuinely excited to see work from famous artists that I've heard about my whole life. Oh well :( Oh and there were people all over the streets posing as full out statues and I don't even know what...they were so creepy and weird.

So the day hadn't been too great as you can tell...but after that dreadful tour it got a little better. Our group broke off into smaller groups and me, Lori, Katie C., Lauren, and Mariel went to Zara's. It was my first Zara's experience..I had been hearing a lot about it so was excited to check it out. It's basically a huge department store but only in Europe and maybe one in NYC? Some of it was pricy but other stuff was more reasonable. I got a lacy shirt. After that we found a little cafe for dinner and ate outside. It was so good, and better yet, cheap! I was craving a sandwich, like a real sandwich, and sure enough, this place had them! I got ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato AND mayonnaise on foccocia bread! Mmm it was the first sandwich that I had gotten in Italy with lettuce and some sort of sauce!

Since we were so exhausted and we had an early day Saturday for the castle tour (which we were all pumped for) we all wanted to good night's sleep, so we were in bed by like 10 and it was the best sleep ever.

STATUE OF DAVID

A Whole New World

First off, I just want to say that I love love love my practicum teacher, Mrs. Raftery. She is from Ireland, moved to London after college and worked as a banker, hated it, went back to school to get a teaching degree in London, met her boyfriend there who is from Rome and moved to Rome with him just this year. She is the cutest, sweetest, funniest person, and I love just listening to her talk because I'm obsessed with her accent and her humor.

Even though it is an American/English curriculum, and therefore the schooling is similar to what I'm used to, the children that go to Marymount are like from a completely different world than kids that I'm used to. First of all, these families are incredibly rich. Tuition for Marymount costs like two times more than my college education. And not only are the parents rich, but they are important. Part of the reason there is security at the gate of the school is because some of the kids are "high profile" because their parents have top secret government jobs. There are children of diplomats, ambassadors, famous Italian actors, the owner of Colgate and the owner of Fendi (jewelry), pornstars (that's just awkward and embarrassing for the kid I think), a famous soccer player, plastic surgeons, and there is even a girl in my class that is technically the Ethiopian Princess (her grandfather was the dictator in Ethiopia in the 1970s so her family is royalty in Ethiopia...crazy! And she acts like a princess too...). The kids wear uniforms to school, but I can only imagine the things that they wear outside of school and some of the things they own--some of the girls talk about Gucci and Armoni and all these other ridiculous things. They all have nannies which they call "ta-tas"and the nannies practically raise some of these kids. A boy in my class, Ricardo, and his brother each have their own ta-ta. A lot of the kids also have personal drivers. Ricardo is an example of a child who is being raised by his nanny..his parents are always traveling or working, and they have him so involved in extracurricular activities and summer camps. Ms. Raftery said she emailed his mom something about a field trip one time, and the mother said she would just forward it on to Ricardo in an email...what?? You have to forward an email to your nine year old son? And he is so cocky and in to himself because his nanny probably boosts his ego so much to make up for the lack of attention he gets from his parents...he is always starving for attention because his parents probably hardly give him the time of day..it's sad. I just can't even fathom these kids' lifestyles and what their homes must be like. Oh and the Ethiopian Princess, Clarissa had her tenth birthday party on Thursday and apparently is was something that could've been on MTVs "My Super Sweet 16"...ridiculous. Ms. Raftery said that most of them are so spoiled and are used to getting whatever they want the second they want it, and she said it is a problem during class discussions sometimes because they talk over each other and are so impatient because they aren't used to having to wait for anything. These kids have everything handed to them, and I'm sure their parents love them, but I think they express their love through buying them things instead of actually being there for them. Even though their lives are glamorous, I wouldn't want that and wouldn't change my life for the world...I'd rather be surrounded by love then by things.

The first day, I was introduced to the class during their silent reading time and Ms. Raftery had them come to the carpet for a morning meeting where I introduced myself to them and they introduced themselves to me. Almost all of the kids are Italian and from Rome, but there is a boy from Spain, a boy from China, the girl from Ethiopia, a girl from Czech Republic, a girl from Sweden, a boy from Sardonia (an island off of Italy), and two girls from US (one from Michigan and one from Fairfax County, VA--again, small world!). The boys all love soccer and a lot of the girls love to ice-skate, which apparently is pretty popular.

This is my first time in an older elementary grade and I love it. I've always thought I would only do the really little ones, but I love my fourth graders. Fourth grade is really fun too--they're still cute and sweet and love their teacher and want to impress you, but you can also actually have real conversations with them and I love that there is so much more teaching. I realize now how much just classroom management and basic skills consume pre-k and kindergarten, and I love that in upper elementary there's more actual teaching, which is obviously what I want to do!

I can't believe how cultured and worldly these kids are. They know so much more than I did at their age and they are ALL bi-lingual if not more! I almost feel ashamed around them that I only know English. 

Despite their lavish lifestyles, most of them act like normal kids and they aren't to the point where they are snobby. They are sweet kids and they have welcomed me so much into their class and are so excited to have me and want to impress me, and it's so cute and I feel so blessed.

  

Marymount

Last week was my first week of practicum at Marymount International School in Rome and I absolutely love it! 

About the School:

• Marymount International School in Rome is a private, Catholic, co-educational day school. 
• Marymount offers students:
• A values-based education modeled on an American curriculum with international standards and benchmarks.
• An American high school diploma, with accreditation from the New England Association of Colleges and Schools and Council of International Schools.
• International Baccalaureate (IB) program, which provides students with a competitive advantage for admission to colleges and universities in the United States, Europe, and around the world.
• Access to the latest technology in and out of the classroom, including state-of-the art computer labs, fully equipped libraries, and wireless technology throughout the campus (They have SmartBoards that are like ours in the States but they call them CleverBoards! They also use EdLine, which I had in middle and high school and it's similar to BlackBoard.)
• A physical education program throughout the school with varsity-level teams in soccer, basketball, volleyball, track and field, cross country, and tennis.
• Extracurricular activities, including music, drama, dance, Model United Nations, National Honor Society, private music and language lessons, and myriad after-school programs.
• A student body that represents more than 50 nationalities and diverse religions (You don't have to be Catholic to go here).
• A beautiful 40-acre campus within easy reach of Rome’s historic center and protected by 24-hour security (The elementary school and middle and high school are in separate buildings, there is a separate building for the cafeteria and the early childhood program, several playgrounds and soccer fields, all in its own gated community).
• A network of Marymount schools that stretches throughout Europe and the Americas founded by the Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary.
• Grade levels: Early Childhood (3 years old) to Grade 12
• Year founded: 1946 
• Since it is an American curriculum, it is only English-speaking. Parents send their kids to this school not only for the exceptional education, but also to be more worldly and completely fluent in English. The teachers are from English speaking countries such as the UK, Australia and the United States. There are also teachers who speak English and are from Italy and other European countries too. The religion teacher lived in Virginia and went to Mary Washington! Such a small world. 

The beautiful Villa at Marymount which is the main office for the school.

Mamma Mia

On Sunday we toured the Colosseum, one of the seven hills of Rome, the Emperor's Palace, and the Roman Forum.

The Colosseum is definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far. It's just so incredible. It is considered one of the greatest works of Roman architecture and engineering. It held 50,000 people and it was used for events for entertainment. There were gladiator contests, animal fights, dramas, and much more. Every Good Friday, the Pope leads the "Way of the Cross" procession that starts in the area around the colosseum.

It was another long day of walking.. Federica was our tour guide again and she is just so funny. After our tour of the Colosseum, we walked up one of the seven hills of Rome, Palatino, and from the top of the hill, it was a beautiful view. We also toured the ruins of the emperors' palace and the ruins of the Roman Forum, which was the center of town and the marketplace in the ancient Roman Empire. Now the city center of Rome faces the opposite side, away from the ancient side, which I thought was interesting. Mamma Mia, it was another hot day, and trucking up those hills and stairs and what not was exhausting. But afterwards, we went to an awesome pizza place and for dessert we had Stromboli with Nutella and cream cheese stuffed inside, topped with chocolate syrup and powder sugar...yumm!! But I think even with all the carbs, I might even be losing weight because we walk miles a day!

We Came, We Crawled, We Conquered

Saturday was an early start--we met at 7:30 and ate breakfast at Bar Danielle (bar is a cafe and pub is a bar in Italy) and I had my very first cappuccino!

Then we took the metro umm somewhere that led us to a longgg road to the catacombs. We toured the catacombs of San Callisto and San Sebastiano. These catacombs are underground burial places that stretch over 30,000 miles and are dated back to the 2nd century! All the bones are disintegrated because the marble stones placed over the graves were stolen. Being Christian was illegal back then, so this was a way for Christians to bury their loved ones in secret. Many families were buried together and nine of the Popes were buried in San Castillo. I liked our first tour in San Callisto, but I didn't really like the one in San Sebastiano because the tour guide was boring, hard to understand, and talked sooo fast I couldn't even process the words he was saying--but the gist is that Saint Sebastian's tomb is in that catacomb. That catacomb is underneath a church. I thought it was so cool--I can't even begin to wrap my mind around how long ago that was.

We stopped by a church on our way to the long walk to the second catacombs. There was a marble carving of the impressions of Jesus's footsteps, and the real impressions were in the church above San Sebastiano catacomb (apparently they're real). 

I decided to light an offering candle even though I'm not Catholic and I didn't know what I was doing. So after struggling to light the candle, I blew out the weird thing we used to light it, and being the idiot that I am, I blew in the direction of the candles and blew out like six people's candles. womppp. I then proceeded to relight them and then once again, being retarded, I did the same exact thing! I was so embarrassed, like really, how stupid can you get? And of course, the lighter thing wasn't cooperating so it took forever to relight them for the second time, and then finally, I had some sense and turned away from the candles. Nuns were in their praying the whole time this was going on. I'm probably going to Hell, right? I mean blowing out people's offerings to God must be sacrilegious. Yeah I'm going to Hell.

Saturday night our entire group signed up for a pub crawl. We saw an advertisement for it on our maps and googled it and signed up for the Colosseum pub crawl. We met the organizers of it at the metro station by the Colosseum and they led us to this sketchy bar in the back of a building with no sign (at least I don't think so haha) and we paid 20 euro and got a ticket for a welcome shot which was lemoncello, a ticket for a shot of tequila, a ticket for a drink, and a ticket for a t-shirt at the end of the night. We got there at 9:30 and it was open bar until 10:45. After we had the two shots, we got a drink of our choice and when we finished it, we went to the front to get another drink ticket. I tried "sex in a bush" and "jack sparrow" which were really good (I need to try to find out how to make them)! Our pub crawl "tour group" consisted of mainly the twenty of us, but there were also some people around our age from Germany and England which was really cool. At 10:45ish they led us through residential neighborhoods and everyone was really rowdy and they kept trying to quiet us down, but really? We finally made it to this strip of bars and walked right into this nightclub that one of the pub crawl tour guides was part owner of, but the drinks were 10 euro..boo. They were playing sucky house music, but then we discovered all these other rooms that were playing the popular songs that we hear at parties in America and it was really fun! A lot of creepers though haha. Actually the whole thing kind of sounds sketchy, but it was definitely a unique and fun experience, and everyone made it home alive! Hey, and I got a t-shirt!

Love at first sight

   
     So everyone drinks wine like it's water with meals. We ate lunch at 11:30 and I had red and white wine and only like a sip of water. Water isn't free by the way, and neither is the bread that they bring to the table. But it's so good. The water is really good and fresh too, but you don't get enough--they conserve a lot more than we do. I didn't think I would ever drink out of a communal water fountain, but when you're touring for seven and a half hours in 85 degree weather, you'll do whatever you can to get water so you don't pass out.... It was actually really cold and refreshing.

     We ate lunch at Da Vito E Dina and tried a variety of dishes including spinach ravioli, mac and cheese, lasagna, and another noodle dish that was delicious. Then they brought out dessert which consisted of a fresh fruit cup, tiramisu, flan, and a creamy thing with raspberry on top..mmm.

     After lunch, we began our tour with Max (our landlord who is so sweet and planned out everything for us to do) but the bus drivers went on strike today so we walked miles and miles, but we saw a lottt. Definitely going back to some of the squares we walked through to go shopping. We walked through a pretty park with a beautiful lookout of the whole city, and a pond where you can canoe. It led us to the Borghese, the art gallery we toured. The Borghese had tons of famous paintings and sculptures, mostly the work of Bernini. Outside of the gallery was my first communal water fountain experience. Our tour guide was hilarious and we all looked like tourists because we all had the headsets so we could hear everything. She also led us on our other adventures...

     We went to the Trevi Fountain!! Our tour guide said "When you see a bunch of Koreans, you know you're getting close to the Trevi Fountain!" And she was right, there were a lot of Koreans and it was packed! I held a coin in my right hand and tossed it over my left shoulder, which means that I will return to Rome one day! If you toss two coins it means you will return to Rome and fall in love with an Italian man :) but don't worry Shawn, I only threw in one! ;)

   
      Then we went to the Pantheon, which was beautiful. The first two kings and Rafael were buried in there, and our tour guide said that Rafael's tomb gets more attention than the kings's haha.

   
 We ended in Piaza Narvona, which had a beautiful church and fountains, and tons of art was being sold right in the middle of the square.
        After that we went to a gelato shop, Fridgadarium, which was the best I've had thus far...I got staccilleto or something like that which tasted like chocolate chip cookies and cream, with chocolate shell on top...so good.

     Long and busy day, we didn't get home until almost 8, but I saw a lot of awesome sights!

Pizza, Pizza!

My first meal in Rome was Margherita Pizza at a little cafe. The crust was so thin and crisp, and the mozzarella cheese and tomato was so fresh. It was delicious! You eat a whole pizza by yourself, but it's so fresh and light, that it's actually the perfect amount of food. And only 7 euro- I could get used to this as a meal :)

Woke up on the plane this morning and looked down to see that we were flying over the Alps!  It was absolutely breathtaking!

JMU Study Abroad! Living in Rome and working with 4th graders in a private Italian school with an English curriculum (thank goodness!). Also traveling to Florence, Venice, and Elba!