Pirates of the Ventotene

The Internet in my apartment has ceased to function. Considering the efficiency of Italian maintenance, this will probably not be remedied until November. Therefore, I am writing this from the lovely computer lab at JCU, adjacent to the Lemonless Tree Courtyard. I'm at a computer next to a girl named Sunshine. I'm not kidding. Her name is Sunshine and she's sitting right next to me. I don't actually know her, so I really hope she doesn't look over at my computer screen. In fact, I just tilted the computer screen away because this could get real awkward. I know that her name is Sunshine because she's in my on-site art history class and one time, the professor said, "Sunshine, get off your cell phone. There are gypsies about!" Speaking of names, let me just say one more thing about JCU students (the American kind). Most of the professors are Italian, therefore, their pronunciation of American words and names is not the best. This should be acceptable, but for some, this just will not do. Maybe it's easier for me to accept a mispronunciation of my name because I've been called Elsie/Elisa/Alice/Alisha/Eliss my whole life and here my name is pronounced L-eeeeeze, which I actually kind of like. However, one student in my international marketing class does not appreciate the mistaken pronunciation of her name and she makes a point of this at every class roll call. Her name is Annie Lou, which is stupid to begin with and she should be happy that someone would call her something else, but the professor pronounces it "Anyelloo" and she corrects him EVERY TIME. It's gotten to the point where the whole class chimes in with the correct pronunciation of her name during roll call. Anyelloo really needs to just give it up.
Enough JCU and name bashing for now.
Last weekend I went to Ventotene, a small (really really small) island off of Italy in the Mediterranean. It is absolutely gorgeous, with all pink and yellow buildings and clear blue water. However, it is incredibly small and very non-touristy, which made for a nice escape from the city and a harsh reminder of my dwindling Italian speaking skills (since my stay was only for 2 days and one night, I managed to not die from lack of communication with the locals). The trip was through JCU so it was led by a student. This student, let us call him Joe (because that's his name), was Portuguese and did not have perfect English, which made for an interesting conversation with him. Allow me to give you some tidbits from our talk.
(Joe sits next to my friends and me to discuss the trip schedule)
Joe: It is hot!
Me: You could take your jacket off
Joe: Then I would be cold
Me: Well, I have no more solutions for you
Joe: What about my jacket?
Me: It's up to you whether or not you want to leave it on or off. You said you were hot
Joe: (stares blankly) What are we talking about?
(some moments into the conversation)
Joe: (looking over at Teresa and Amy, who are sleeping) Are your friends drunk?
Me: (sarcastically) Yeah, they are smashed
Joe: (seriously) Oh, well, that will happen
(Joe explains the meal option, which involves lots of seafood. I decline and he asks why)
Me: I don't like seafood.
Joe: How come? It is delicious
Me: I don't like things that swim
Joe: It wouldn't be swimming. It will be dead.
Me: I know, but it used to swim
Joe: Do you like to swim?
Me: Yes
Joe: Do you like yourself?
Me: Yes
Joe: Well then you should like seafood (this is the best logic ever)
Me: I don't want to eat myself
Joe: Just eat the seafood. But be careful when you swim
Me: I'm not eating the seafood. And why should I be careful?
Joe: Because there are sharks
Me: No there aren't
Joe: Ok, but there's a monster of Ventotene.
Me: Really? What's it called
Joe: It's called the Joe-fish. It is vicious.
(more awkward conversation and time passes)
Joe: We are renting boats today. Do you know how to drive a boat?
Me: No
Joe: You should. Just don't play the pirates (note unnecessary use of the word "the")
Me: How do you play pirates?
Joe: Well, last year, some drunk guys took a boat out and got hungry, so they ran their boat into Italian yachts, hopped on screaming, stole their food, and left.
Me: Well hopefully there will be no pirates this time
Joe: Yes, if you don't play the pirates.
(Joe asks me some more questions and I respond to many of them with "I'm not sure")
Joe: Do you smoke the marijuana? (again, unnecessary "the")
Me: What? No! No! Why would you ask that?
Joe: You sound like you do. You keep saying you aren't sure.
Me: Is uncertainty a quality of pot heads?
Joe: (long pause) What are we talking about? (I think Joe smokes the marijuana)
(Joe finds out that Teresa is half Chinese and wakes her up)
Joe: Is it true that it is good to burp in China
Teresa: Yes, it can be good.
Joe: I'm going to go to a Chinese restaurant and when the waiter says, "How is your meal?" I will say "BLAAEEEERRRRCHHH" and he will say "Thank you!"

This went on for a while, especially considering he only wanted to ask us one question about the meal plan for the trip.
We finally get to the island, get settled into our apartment (which has a shower with no basin or walls. It's just toilet, bidet, shower head.), and go to rent some boats. I got on a boat with Teresa, Emma, and Amy and none of us had ever driven a boat. We ask for snorkeling equipment and a guy with a ponytail and no shirt throws us one mask for the four of us. A Ventotene native named Chiro (he says, "Like the pizza from Napoli!" for some reason I give an enthusiastic "Oh yeah!" as if I have ever heard of that pizza before) drives us in the boat out of the docking area, gets on a boat of his own, and says goodbye. We wave "ciao" to him and Teresa revs up the engine and runs straight into Chiro's boat. Eventually, we make it farther out into the ocean and have a lovely day of boating around the island, which takes about an hour to drive around. Our lovely day does have some interruptions, however. We find a lovely spot to swim and test out our single diving mask, so we turn off the motor and jump off the boat. The water is super salty, so its really easy to float in (Emma claims it is impossible to drown in. We did not test this theory). I didn't see any fish (not even a Joe fish) but the water was pretty enough to look at. We got back on the boat and tried to start the engine. No dice. We try about 50 billion more times and still, nothing. Fortunately, we have oars. Unfortunately, we are on the other side of the island from the dock and the water is very choppy. We thought all was lost until some Italian guys in speedos spotted our flailing oars and pulled over next to us. We tried to explain our situation in Italian and when the Italian guys could no longer take the butchering of their language, one said "I speak English." We rejoiced. However, he could not even start our engine. This was good in that we no longer felt stupid, but it was bad in that we were stuck in the middle of the ocean. Finally, English-speaking speedo man got the engine started and we were off. The situation got awkward though when he said "We'll see you later tonight, right?" and they went off in the same direction we had been heading and we continued on our course, so it looked like we were following them. Eventually, they split off to go somewhere else and invited us along. Our orientation week full of creepy Italian men stories taught us never to accept any invitation, so we said "No, we have to be back by 6:00." Good thing it was 3:30 and it would have taken us 30 minutes to get back to the dock.
We took the boat a little farther out than before and were driving around another island when the coast guard pulled up next to us, honked his horn, yelled at us in Italian, and pointed us back to the docks. Thought of Italian prisons and excommunication ran through our heads and we kept practicing the necessary phrases we would need to know in Italian, like "We didn't know!", "Take me to the embassy!", "We have some extra sandwiches. Would you like them?" and "We are stupid Americans!" Fortunately, the coast guard went to chase after someone else and we headed back for land.
When we did finally bring the boat back in the dock, we turned the engine off too soon and couldn't get it started again, leaving us stranded about 5 feet from where we needed to be to tie the boat off. Chiro had to come out and help us. Best of all, the guys who helped us earlier were on the dock watching this happen. When we got off, they said, "Glad to see you back on the island!" I guess their earlier question of seeing us later was not a social matter, but more of a looking-out-for-us thing. We've been jaded into being skeptical of every word that comes out of an Italian man's mouth.
Teresa asked for her ID back from the ponytailed guy who owned the boats (she had to give her ID to him before getting on). The dude told her he had given it to one of his friends, and he would give it back in 10 minutes. We waited 10 minutes and no ID. We asked him again and Chiro ran over saying in rapid Italian "It's at my house! Just a 10 minute motorino ride away! I'll get it! Just 10 minutes!" Everything happens in 10 minutes intervals on Ventotene. Teresa did get her ID back, but we have no idea why Chiro had it at his house. Her ID photo will probably surface on the Internet within the next month.
That night on the island, there were a few live bands performing in the town center. Our apartment was right on the center square and we had a balcony that overlooked it, so we had pretty sweet seats for watching the performance. The accordion band, complete with bass guitar, drum set, tambourines, and vocalist was especially awesome. The African drum band would have been cool had I not been trying to sleep when they were playing.
The second day of Ventotene was spent touring the Alcatraz of Italy and lying on the beach. The prison was on a small island about a 10 minute boat ride away from Ventotene. The walk up to the prison was a steep incline and I thought our hobit-esque tour guide was going to die, then I thought I was going to die when he gave the rest of the tour with his shirt off. Anyway, the prison was really cool to see and was a blend of really beautiful and really creepy.
We got to spend about an hour on the beach after the tour. The sand was really dark and the water was clear blue, which made up for all the unnecessary European nudity. Teresa, Emma, and I swam out to a nearby rock, climbed up, and jumped off. It was the most thrilling thing of the weekend! Since the water was super salty, it shot you right back up as soon as you fell in.
On the boat ride back to Italy mainland, there were oodles of children running around unattended, which was actually a trend in Ventotene as well. I do not like children so much, but a rather drunk man on the boat did. He was super creepy and kept trying to grab kids who ran past him. Fortunately, the boat ride was the short part (1 and half hours) of the travel home. The bus was the long part, but we got to watch the Italian Job, so yay. Then, after the 4 hour bus ride came the one hour walk back home. Needless to say, it was nice to be back in the apartments.
This weekend, I'm headed for Assisi for a religious retreat sponsored by Notre Dame. But now, I must go to class and hear Annie Lou correct the professor AGAIN.

Three Angels in Space

NOTE: This blog is really long. The first stuff is more of a detailed account of what I've been doing. The last stuff is more like little anecdotes. You might want to pick and choose what you read.

I made it through another whirlwind weekend, this time in Florence. But first, let me recap the week leading up to my trip: I went to class, ate at a Mexican restaurant, went to a wine tasting at school (oh, JCU), and saw a cool light installation at Circus Maximus (we hurriedly took one of the last trains out to Circus Maxiumus to see this light display, and as soon as we got there, the lights went off. After some pouting and near-crying, the lights turned back on. There is still no explanation for this event). Now for Florence.
I left on Friday morning by train. The station in Rome was really cool and was like an airport or a mall. Once in Florence, we went to our hostel, Emerald Fields. When we checked in, we got upgraded to Emerald Palace across the street. A palace indeed! It exceeded all of my expectations, though never having been in a hostel, my expectations were quite low (I pictured dungeons and bathrooms without doors). The hostel was very clean and spacious. I was traveling with two other girls, Meaghan and Caitlin, and we were in a room for four people. We found our roomie making bruchetta in the hostel's kitchen. He was a Canadian video game maker traveling through Europe alone. I was sure he would kidnap us and take us to murder hostel, but he was just socially awkward.
The first time in our Florentine journey was the Uffici Gallery. After finding out which of the 50 lines to get in and forking over 13 euro (this would end up being a trend in Florence), we had the opportunity to gaze upon great Renaissance artwork by Botticelli, Da Vinci, and Michelangelo. It was all very stunning and really cool to see paintings I had before only seen in textbooks, but by the end, I was pretty tired of looking at fat cherubs and weird babies with old man faces (the German artwork was especially keen on painting not only weird babies, but ugly people in general). The Uffici was really great, but ginormous and tiring. Considering this, we headed to the Academia to look at more art. Yay.
The Academia was actually really cool and I liked it even better than the Uffici (perhaps because it was smaller). The David was incredible to see and they had some of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures on display, which gave some insight on how he actually carved it. Unfortunately, a rule of the museum was that you could not take pictures and there was one museum worker in particular who was very intent on letting no one take a picture of David. At the first sight of an eager tourist pulling a camera out of their fanny pack, she would rush over, chattering in Italian and wagging her finger until the bewildered tourist tucked the camera away and took some mental photos instead. She was more concerned on guarding the front of the statue than the back, therefore I have some pictures of David's butt and some blurry ones of his front, taken as I was running away from the camera nazi.
The rest of the afternoon was spent shopping and walking around and getting dinner. Florence is more what I expected Italy to look like than Rome. It is smaller, has tiny parks with patches of grass, all the roofs are terracotta, and the dogs are fluffier. Its a beautiful city, but it is more touristy than Rome since the same amount of tourists that visit Rome visit Florence, but Florence is smaller. Everything is very expensive and the streets are packed with vendors selling everything from leather coats to boxers. I was able to spot the Italians in the city pretty easily, as they were the ones catcalling (we got an "Oh my God! Three angels!" on our way to a bar) and wearing t-shirts with confusing English phrases (these included "Set, Ready, Be!", "I'm going to eat you so much!", and "I like too much to be...Snob").
That night, we decided to go to Space Bar, an outer space themed bar. The name alone made it sound promising, and the fact that we got handed a flyer for it on the street made it seem like fate that we should go (plus, it sounded better than the flyers we got for the "Free Crazy Party"). While getting ready at the hostel, our creepy Canadian roomie asked us where we were going, then invited himself along. Fortunately, when it came time to leave, he said "Oh, sorry guys, but I think I'm going to just stay in tonight." We put on our best fake-disappointment-to-hide-our-contentment faces and left.
Space bar was all I had hoped it would be and more. There was a "VIP room", a discotheque, an aquarium, karaoke, and a giant UFO above the dance floor. However, we didn't really explore much of the club, since the bartender took an instant liking to us and we found him too interesting to leave. His name was Fabio. 'Nough said. He was one of the strangest and most entertaining people I have ever met. He spoke English, but insisted on writing us notes on napkins with little drawings or symbols in place of words. He even wrote us a poem: "I like coffee/You like tea/I like you/You like me." Fabio is a literary genius. He requested that we sing "Love me Tender" by Elvis Presley on the club's karaoke, but since we didn't know the words, we sang the next best thing--My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas. Once the bar started closing, Fabio's friends showed up. They were kind of old and poor Caitlin got stuck talking to Massimo, who looking like a skinnier and older version of Gunther from Friends. I struck up a conversation with Fillipo, who didn't speak much English, so I had a whole conversation in Italian for about a half hour. It was a very cool and accomplished feeling. I guess this whole living in Italy thing is improving my Italian skills. At around 4:00, we noticed that we were the only ones still at Space who did not work there, as the bar closed at 3. After promising to come back the next night (we didn't) and being offered some motorino rides back to our hostel (we refused) we walked home and promptly fell into our beds.
After three hours of sleep, we woke up for a bus tour through Tuscany. As soon as I woke up, it became apparent that I would not be going back to Space Bar that night, let alone staying out past 9. Caitlin and I dragged ourselves to the bus stop, our groggy sluggishness leaving no time for coffee. We got on the packed bus full of middle aged male and female Australians, Brits, Americans, and Nick Nolte (well, he looked like him plus an afro with dreadlocks in the back, creating an octopus-like hairstyle). As we were just settling in to fall asleep for the 2 hour bus ride to Sienna, an Italian man in the front of the bus got on a microphone and started cracking corny jokes and telling useless facts about the tour destinations. This was not a good start to my day, as I do not like being talked at by a squaty Italian man while I am uber exhausted. To top it off, the Australian women sitting behind me decided to punctuate each of the tour guides sentences with a loud "tsk tsk" and a repeat of keywords. So the soundtrack of my morning bus ride sounded something like this: Tour Guide, "In Sienna, a-everybody is-a very rich, but they-a don't like to show it, so it a looks-a very poor, but don't-a be fooled by the man from Sienna!" Australian women "TSK TSK TSK Oh dear me, did you hear that? They're rich! In Sienna, they're rich. But they look poor. In Sienna. Rich. TSK" I was about to jump out that bus and roll down a Tuscan hill. Fortunately, once we reached our destination, things got much, much better. We split off from the group and got coffee.
Sienna is gorgeous. I'm going to live there one day and open a hostel. It has all the charms of Florence without all the tourism. I was actually able to find a restaurant with an all-Italian menu! (most in Rome and Florence have English descriptions on the menus). Sienna seems to have popped out of the pages of a Tuscan travel journal. While walking around, we came across a wedding where all the women were wearing hats and all the men in nice suits. Later, walking by that same spot, we saw a man carrying a large owl. I'm assuming the two events had nothing to do with one another. In Sienna, we stopped in the cathedral, which had beautiful green and white marble striped pillars all around it and within it. That was the most beautiful cathedral I have seen.
The next stop on the tour was a farm house in Tuscany where we had lunch. Think of your stereotypical image of Tuscany, and that's where this farmhouse was. All around, you could see vineyards and hills and little houses. The food was excellent and Caitlin and I sat in between a family from New Zealand and a couple from California (everyone from America in Italy is assumed to be from California). They were nice to talk to, but then we saw the family from New Zealand walking around Florence the next day wearing the exact same clothes. It was weird.
Next was San Gimignano. Caitlin and I were a little tired of beautiful landscapes and cathedrals, so we went to the Museum of Torture. This was an excellent choice and possibly more interesting than the likes of the Vatican and Uffici. The mode of torture I found most interesting was one where the victim's feet were covered in salt water and a 3-day water-deprived goat licked the skin off the feet. San Gimignano was a little too touristy for a small town and had a lot of kitchen stores, but it was pretty and had good gelato.
The last stop on the bus tour was Pisa. Pisa sucked. This is probably due to the fact that I was very tired by then and Pisa has absolutely nothing except the leaning tower and tons of fake purse stands. Plus, it is incredibly difficult to take that picture where, because of a trick with perspective, it looks like you're holding up the tower. Caitlin and I tried this a million times and now we have a ton of pictures of us standing next to the Leaning Tower of Pisa holding our arms straight out in front of us.
Sunday was spent doing some last minute sightseeing in Florence. We went to the Church of Santa Croce, where Michaelangelo, Machiavelli, and some other important Italians are buried. It was actually kind of a dull cathedral, but nothing can really compare to Sienna's cathedral. We walked up the bell tower of the Duomo. There are 400+ steps and they are all incredibly narrow, dark, and windy. To make things worse, there were people going both up and down, so occasionally, we would have to stop walking, pin ourselves against the wall, and wait for the people going the opposite direction to pass. One little girl who was walking down while I was walking up was huffing and puffing harder than anyone and used my butt as a railing as she passed by. Once we got to the top, all the walking and pausing and groping was worth it because the view was breathtaking.
We walked around Florence for the rest of the day, stopping at some parks and the Ponte Vecchio. Along our walk, we heard a high pitched squeaking/smacking sound that we thought was a bird, but we soon found the source of the sound was a couple making out across the street. They're kissing had the craziest sound projection I have ever heard. Instead of being offended or grossed out, I was just amazed. If I haven't mentioned it before, the PDA in Italy is the most extreme I have ever seen. People make out anywhere and everywhere (especially public transportation). However, this is not the same kind of public making out there is in America. Instead of just going at it in a way that is at least comical for onlookers, Italians kiss incredibly sensually and slowly, so as to make everyone around them very uncomfortable. You might think the goal is to make everyone so uncomfortable so that they go away, but these couples don't even seem to realize they are in public, since inappropriate groping often accompanies these slurpy makeout sessions.
Our last hoorah in Florence occurred on the way to the metro. We walked past a big tree stump that was smoking. Upon closer look, we realized the stump was on fire because someone had put their cigarette out on it (genius!). After we stared at it for a while, an Italian lady on a bicycle stopped by to join the staring, muttered some Italian at us, then left after Meaghan poured her water bottle on the flames. We saved Florence from burning down. Huzzah!
After this long tiring trip, it was nice to get back to the apartment. I guess there's no place like Rome...

Ok, enough of the nitty gritty details about my trip. Here are the fun stories.
I should preface the following by saying that I am a total disaster. Unlike a normal person, I find myself in strange and awkward situations daily that most people would instinctively avoid. For example....
I was buying shoes in a store in Rome, so of course, I had to try the shoes on. The store was about as big as a dorm room, lined with boxes of shoes, and had one chair. The chair was being used, so instead of being a normal person and a) waiting for the chair to be vacant or b) sitting on the ground and trying them on, I tried on the shoes while standing. So of course, I fell. In the process of falling, I grabbed onto Kristina, who gave me a perplexed look and let me continue to fall on a boots and boxes. Awesome. I fell in a Roman shoe store.
Next disaster moment occurred in a clothing store. After trying on the dress, the saleswoman insisted that I come out into the store to look in the big mirror. She instantly starting adjusting the dress, which was fine, until she reached under the skirt to lift it up and adjust the slip. I just had to let her do her thing, mostly because of the language barrier, and I didn't even know what to say to something like that in English.
During one of the stops on the Tuscan bus tour, I went into a bathroom, only to be called out by a weird old man, who made me pay 50 cents for toilet paper. I got in the stall to find nothing but a whole in the ground. Egad! I wanted out of there as quickly as possible, but when I turned the handle on the door to leave, nothing happened. I turned the lock every which way, jiggled the handle, but no freedom. I really started to panic because I was stuck in this walled in hole for a good five minutes before the creepy old guy who took my money unlocked the door and yelled at me in Italian. That was the worst experience of my life.
In Pisa, Caitlin and I were buying some fake bags and the guy selling them asked if we were from Sydney. A while ago, we had decided that we were going to tell people we were from Canada for a while, to see if we would get treated differently. We did. We got spoken to in French. We did not think through this plan. We told the salesman that we didn't speak French. He seemed confused and said that all Canadians speak French. Nope, not us. We're special Canadians and we learned Spanish in school instead. So he spoke to us in Spanish. After we gave him more blank stares, he scolded us and said that he speaks 7 languages and that anyone who speaks only 1 is a failure in life. Yet he is selling purses in Pisa.
When we were finally leaving Space Bar in Florence, we said goodbye to Massimo and Fillipo with the European kiss kiss on both cheeks. I had not had the opportunity to do this yet, so I was thrilled to get the chance to take a step further into my Italian immersion. But of course I messed it up. Massimo and I both went the same way, so we ended up awkwardly in each other's faces. This was especially bad since Massimo looked to be about the same age as Methuselah.

BASTA!

Monkey Bones

Last weekend was the longest weekend of my life, but in the best way possible. Since I have no classes on Friday (and only one on Thursday) my weekend starts on Thursday night. Most of the people from the ND group decided to take advantage of our new cultural setting and all the history that abides in Rome and go on a pub crawl. Yep, pub crawl. We heard about the pub crawl when a guy handed us a flyer about it in the Metro. For the bargain price of £20, you got to spend your night at 4 bars, with free wine and beer at the first bar and a free shot at each subsequent bar. Plus, you got a t-shirt! The result of this was a culmination of all that is American youth culture: drunk American college students. It was an interesting night, to say the least, but I'm glad I went. I will never go again. The meeting place for the pub crawl was the Spanish Steps. It was here that a group of tragically unattractive Italian male youths asked Caitlin and I if we would dance with them later. We said no, and then they asked me if I liked to eat (their English was about as good as my Italian). I responded with, "Only when I'm hungry." This, to them, was the funniest thing ever. I don't really get Italians all the time. I did manage to meet one other European...from Belgium. I know nothing about Belgium so in trying to make conversation with him, I attempted to discuss the only piece of Belgian culture I know--Belgian waffles. The Belgian man seemed unenthusiastic about his own country's international export, simply saying that the waffles were "alright."

Friday was a much more culturally satisfying day. I spent about 3 hours in the Vatican Museum, though I could have spent weeks there and still not have seen everything. By the end, I was actually a little tired of gorgeous famous paintings and statues because there were just so many of them. The Sistine Chapel was the last room before the exit and it was nothing like I had thought it would be. I expected a domed room with one single painting on the ceiling, but its actually a flat ceiling with many little paintings. The famous one of God and Adam is only one small part of it. Besides the beauty and art and blah blah blah, the best part of the Sistine Chapel were the guards I have dubbed the Sistine Shooshers. It is their esteemed job to stand around the Chapel saying "Shhhhh" every 5 seconds. The Chapel is supposed to be a place of silence and prayer, but this is hard to accomplish with 300 tourists from all over the world in one room. However, since shhh is a universal term, the Shooshers must work very hard to silence the crowd with their superhumanly loud Shhhhhhhhs. I wonder when the tryouts for this job are...

Friday night, I went to La Baffetta (the mustache), which is the first pizza place in Rome. Best. Pizza. Ever. Mine had a little bit of everything on it, including an egg, which doesn't sound appetizing, but it was wonderful.

Saturday, I went to the crypt of the Cappuccini Monks. This was by far the most unique thing I have seen in Rome (a close second is the way people make out in public, but we'll get to that later). The crypt is at the bottom of a church and is only about 6 rooms, but each room is completed decorated with the bones of over 4000 monks. Real human bones line the ceilings, walls, and even serve as chandeliers. (When I was researching this site, I thought it said cappucin monkey bones, but I eventually caught on that they were Cappuccini monks). It is very eerie, but oddly beautiful. One might not even know right away that they are bones because of the intricacy and beauty of the designs they are made into. There are everything from skulls to pelvises to rib bones and even whole skeletons in the crypts. The words What you are know, we once were. What we are now, you will one day become appear in one of the rooms, making the scenario much creepier. One of the best parts was that it was free, so I am definitely going back sometime.

Saturday night was La Notte Bianca, which literally translates to The White Night, but means a night that you don't sleep. Events were going on all throughout Rome and many stores and restaurants and museums were open all night. The events started around 10 at night and ended around 6 in the morning. It was hard to figure out where each event was going on and when they were happening, so I just decided to wander around. The city was a total madhouse. I have never seen huge crowds before as the ones in Rome that night. Walking to Centro Storico, I happened upon a concert on a float, complete with trapeze artists. The rock band plus an opera singer were eventually lifted into the air by a crane so they looked like a giant mobile in the sky. It was one of the craziest things I have ever seen, but so cool. The metros were open all night and were free, so it was super crazy trying to get home by metro, but we made it in time to get to bed at 3:30.

I woke up the same morning at 5:30 to leave at 6 am for a 7 am bus to Pompeii. As you might imagine, I was not too pumped about having to hike up a volcano that morning. But after sleeping on the bus and catching my first glimpse of Mount Vesuvius, I was super excited (this emotion was followed by an intense feeling of "Holy crap that mountain is huge and I have to climb it!"). The trip to Pompeii was a JCU coordinated event, so everything was planned out, which was nice. We had a tour of the ruins of the ancient city, which was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. It was really cool because you could still see where all the stores and houses were. After getting some very unauthentic Napoli cuisine (the restaurant was like a truck stop that only served pizza and pasta), we began our hike up the mountain. Actually, the bus drove most of the way up (big bus + no guard rails + Italian driver = kinda really scary) then we walked up some pretty steep trails and reached the top. The view was incredibly breathtaking, and not just because the air was thinner at the high altitude. You could see all of Napoli and Capri. We literally walked through a cloud at one point. The actual volcano was not what I expected, as there was no lava and no dragons. It was like a giant canyon with ash but you could still see parts that were steaming. The whole experience was very cool, even despite my 2 hours of sleep. The bus ride home was quite unpleasant, however, as our bus broke down a couple times and we hit heavy traffic, causing us to not get back to JCU until 9 pm for our hour walk home.

And here's some random notes about Italy:

The apartment directly below mine is having construction done on it. It seems the only consistent and diligent workers in Italy work in this apartment, as they are hammering away at 7:30 in the morning. On top of that, our apartment smells like an ash tray because, like most hard-working Italians, they are chain smokers and the smoke wafts up. Excellent.

One of the classes I'm taking is Intermediate Microeconomics. In my intro econ class at ND, the professor used a hamburger and a Pepsi as perfect compliments. In Italy, my professor described this concept with the example of "a beer and a cigarette." I suppose both are examples of unhealthy lifestyles...

JCU decided to test their emergency announcement system the other day during class time. This included a recording of a woman telling us in Italian and English to leave the building because of an emergency. About a minute later, the recording instructed everyone to calmly reenter the building in an organized fashion. These same recordings went on for 2 hours, interrupting classes the entire time. Before they had begun, an announcement was made that they were just a test. However, if you came in during the 2 hour window that the test was going on, you might panic in thinking there was an actual emergency. Result: no one knew what was going on, professors were constantly interrupted, and we are all 100% sure that the emergency loudspeaker system is in perfect working order.

Jay See You

Now that I have been a JCU student for an entire week, I feel that I can judge the school and its students. The school itself is very tiny, consisting of about 15 classrooms in one old building on some random side street of Trastevere. JCU prides itself in its commitment to students' well-being and education. I have received several unprompted emails from the school's registrar, saying that the registrar is not here to help us with registering, which leads me to wonder if something got lost in translation, leaving the office of the registrar tombe do nothing but set up confusing course registration websites. New JCU students also received many emails and speeches regarding the emergency telephone number. Upon handing us this number, we were told never to use it. A Power Point presentation, complete with pictures and music, told us of all the situations in which we are to not use the emergency telephone number. This includes being unable to find an ATM, needing a cab, loss of limbs, and being locked out of one's apartment. Also, the emergency number is not to be dialed at the onset of a true emergency. First, one should call the police, then a hospital, then, once the emergency is most likely on its way to being resolved, one should call the emergency number (but you really shouldn't, because by then it wouldn't be an emergency). Apparently, the emergency number contacts the Dean of Students directly, since JCU does not have a true emergency line. The overabundance of precautions given about the emergency number are due to the many times the Dean has been awoken at 4 in the morning by a student in need of cash, cab, or immediate health service.
Though the administration is the foundation of JCU, its students are its true treasures. These students hail from all over the world, though mostly Italy and America. Italians study there to gain an American style education. Americans study there for the lowered drinking age and easier academics (or study abroad). There are about 35 students in each JCU graduating class, allowing the university to offer an extensive assortment of majors, such as Italian, Smoking, College Life and its Impact on the Surrounding Culture, and Political Science. You can immediately tell which students are Italian and which are American. The Italian students are beautiful, smoke discretely, and quietly sit and judge the passing Americans. They are also frequently seen playing ping-pong in the "Lemon Tree Courtyard", which is ironically devoid of lemon trees. American students wear tennis shoes and/or miniskirts, smoke in places where everyone will see and smell them, and make broad comparisons of JCU to their home university. These students can be further broken down into several stereotypes I observed one day while enjoying a panini in the Lemon Treeless Courtyard.

• Emo Asian guy: There are maybe 2 of these. They have long hair, glasses with thick frames, and stick out in the crowd as some of the only non-white people there.
• Abercrombie guy: He actually lives in my apartment complex and hails from Santa Barbara. He has a permanent sexy brood about him and frequently stands in a model-like pose for several minutes at a time. The world is his catwalk. To top it off, his name is Earlick.
• Fat chicks who smoke: Like their cigs, they come in packs
  
• Chick with basset hound: There is a girl who may not even attend JCU, but walks around the courtyard with a limp basset hound. The dog adorably just flops in whatever direction and might be sedated.
• Fauxtalians: These are the American guys who desperately want to look Italian so as to attract the ladies, because what girl wants to date an American when in Rome? These men forgo their own cultural standards of undershirts and buttons and let the chest hair hang out. Also, without those catchy Truth ads holding them back, smoking is cool again and very European. They usually carry leather satchels as well, which they will give back to their sisters upon returning to the US.
  
• Super Americans: These are the opposite of the fauxtalians. These men feel threatened by the metrosexual Italian culture and feel it is their duty to defend their own machismo American ideals. They wear white athletic tennis shoes, athletic shorts, giant backpacks, some form of camouflage, and a graphic T.
• Made Up School Kids: Instead of traveling with the larger study abroad groups like Notre Dame, Boston College, or MSU, these students travel with only a handful of others from their home university. The colleges they hail from are unheard of and possibly unreal. When introducing themselves on the first day of class, they state their majors, which are ridiculously specific and actually sound like the name of a single class. Example; "International Food Marketing with a minors Traveling Along Rivers and Circuses."
• Tools: It is difficult to define what a tool is, but they seem to exist internationally, as they as plentiful in Rome as in Indiana. Tools are boys who are self-absorbed, self-conscious, self-promoting, and are just jerks in general. Tools have a permanent "I'm better than you" smirk upon their faces and will talk to any girl at any time, only to later rudely talk about her. Tools always have bad idea, always drink too much, and always think you want to be their friend. This definition still does not capture the true essence of tool, but the point is that they exist in Italy.
  
• Hungover chicks: These girls forgo trying to look Italian or even trying to look presentable and just throw on some jeans and the t-shirt they got at last night's pub crawl.
• Laguna Beach Wannabes: These Americans look very Californian with their bright blond hair, miniskirts, and pink camisoles. I wouldn't think a thing of this back in the states, but here, they just look very lost and out of place. Maybe that's because there are no malls in Rome.
  

JCU is a fine place to study in Rome, since I don't really intend on studying all that much. If anything, JCU will just make me that much more thankful for Notre Dame.

Ugly Americans

I have officially been in Rome for a week and I have also officially begun classes. I used this weekend to explore Rome a bit more and sleep in (it felt sooo good after a long week). Friday night, a group of us went to Campo di Fiori, which is a place where Americans can go to escape all the culture that exists in Rome. In other words, it was totally touristy and kind of nuts. The area just has lots of bars and drunk study abroad students. The bars have authentic Italian names such as The Drunken Ship and Sloppy Sams. I did have fun, but it is not somewhere I will go too frequently. I did, however, meet my first non-ND student, though he was from Seattle and not Italy, so it was very uninteresting. I cant even remember what this guy and I talked about, it was that uninteresting. Remind me to never study abroad in Seattle.
Saturday, I hit up Ancient Rome by going to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Thank goodness for digital cameras, because otherwise, I would have gone through several roles of film. It is incredible to see such ancient things that are still in existence, especially considering that nothing in America even compares to the history that ancient Rome houses. By the Roman Forum was a fantastic photo op where we were on top of a hill and had a great view of the city. The skyline is different than anything I have seen. Where New York and Chicago have their grandious skyscrapers, Rome has detailed domes, beautiful columns, and ancient monuments.
We tried to watch the game that night at a local bar, but turns out Rome has trouble getting American NBC. It doesnt seem like the game was really worth watching anyway (I seem to have picked a good season to miss).
On Sunday, some of my apartment mates and I went to the beach. What we expected to be a 40 minute train ride turned into an hour and a half train ride, followed by a 5 minute bus ride. It was worth it once we got to the beach. The Meditteranean Sea is beautiful and warm and blue. We went to one of the public free beaches, so it was crowded and littered with vendors walking around selling Coca Cola, sunglasses, scarves, lost children, etc. I thought I would feel very body conscious, being on a beach full of beautiful Italian women, but it turns out that they look a lot better with their clothes on. While Americans are obsessed with looking good naked and getting that perfect 8-pack, it seems that all that matters to Italians is looking good in your clothes, which makes sense since you should be wearing clothes most of the time anyway. Italian women look slim in their clothes because they wear things that fit, instead of doing the American style of wearing a size two, just so you can say you wear a size two, then having a disgusting muffin top peek out under your XS shirt. The women here do tend to have a bit of a tummy, but they work it and sport the bella figura. The beach was also full of mostly naked old people. Ironic, how the young, attractive people keep their swimsuits on, while the old, icky people decide to let it all hang out. When I wasn't looking at the water, I kept my eyes to my Glamour magazine. Leaving the beach was a task, as we had to wait for the bus, then cram onto it, and I mean CRAM. There were about 50 too many people on that bus and everyone had just come from the beach, so the aroma was not too appealing. Thankfully, the bus ride was short.
Today, classes started. I am already completely lost in my upper level Italian class, but fortunately, a few other students seem to be in the same boat. I have three classes on Monday, Wednesday, two classes on Tuesday, and one on Thursday. I have big breaks in between a lot of my classes, which leaves time to grab a panini. Before going to class today, I stopped in St. Peter's Basillica for Mass. I was in total awe. The Pietà is right by the entrance and there are countless other priceless works of art. The thing is massive and incredibly ornate and I could probably be in there for days and not see everything. I have taken in so many artworks and monuments and beautiful sights, that pretty soon, my eyeballs are going to start shooting out statues.
My apartment-mate, Caitlin, and I have decided to become regulars at a local cafe on the way to school. The old man who makes our cappuccinos is named Tony, so we thought that was very appropriate. When Tony is not making coffee, he is standing outside the cafe, waving at everyone who goes by. It is quite adorable.
The other day as I was walking past a little negozio, a little dog shot out of the store and out followed a very GQ looking Italian man, desperately calling for his doggy to come back. As the GQ man stood there with his trendy messenger bag and leather shoes, pointing at the little dog who was heading towards a cafe, a larger and more manly Italian man came out of the store to run after the dog. The dog went straight into the cafe (maybe he wanted some espresso), the burly man went after him and the handsome man stood mumbling some distraught sounding Italian. And that is my cute little Italian story for today.