Fashion Whore

One thing that is no different no matter where I am is midterms. They are always bad. Admittedly, they are not as stressful or involved as Notre Dame midterms, but considering I am in a very low-key, low-work, low-scholarly-motivational environment, midterms seem just as hard. Fortunately, I'm mostly through them and only have one more left tomorrow.
This past weekend was a weekend dedicated to fashion. This kind of happened accidentally, as we only actually had one fashion-related thing planned. On Friday, Kristina, Jackie, Caitlin, and I went to the Valentino exhibit in the Ara Pacis museum. I had been there before, but it was for my Ancient Rome and its Monuments class, so when I stopped to gawk at the dresses, the professor screeched in her faux-British accent (she's from Baltimore or something and studied in England) "Stop looking at the dresses! We are here for class! I used to like pretty dresses, too, but now is not the time for such frivolity!" So I begrudgingly turned my attention to (fell asleep while standing in front of) the Ara Pacis and some other old rocks with historical significance blahblahblah. Actually getting to go through and enjoy the Valentino exhibit was definitely worth the trip back to the museum. It was a very creepy display. Strange music was playing and all the manikins were shiny and bald and had really long necks. They were either hung on a wall or posed with their arms extended, seemingly beckoning you into their world of high fashion. It got a little less creepy when we got to the display of celebrity gowns. It was really cool to see dresses I remembered Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, and Jennifer Lopez wearing. All the dresses were gorgeous and it was definitely a nice break from looking at ancient Roman architecture or Renaissance religious paintings.
After the Valentino exhibit, Caitlin and I bought chocolate and coffee and hopped on the metro to go to Cinnecitta. We really knew nothing about this metro stop, except that it was near the end of the line and the name sounded cool. Cinnecitta is like the Hollywood of Italy and I think it produced Gangs of New York and The Passion. The production studio was directly outside the metro stop, but when we tried to go in, a security guard stopped us to inform us that it was not for the public, but for work only. I thought about saying that I was there to see Spike Lee, as he had recently been spotted at Campo dei Fiori, but I decided to just pursue an internship there so I could go there every day without lying. The are around Cinnecitta looked very un-Roman, as there was no sign of the ancient to be seen. It was very industrial and open, so with nothing else to do, we just walked down the street. And then we found it. A mall! In Rome! Hooray! I don't mean to seem material, but it was really cool to see a giant 100 store mall in the middle of Italy when stores are usually no bigger than dorm rooms. Also, I just like to see Italy's take on American things (America's take on Italian things--like cappuccino--just don't compare). The mall had a department store (!!!) and a bunch of other chains, much like our own malls. But unlike our malls, people brought their dogs in with them (they were not blind) and instead of cell phone kiosks, there were bars advertising happy hour. Shopping and just walking around the mall was excellent and afterwards, we went to Piazza di Spagna and had a delicious dinner. We took a bus to the Vatican and as usual got kind of lost in a place we'd never known existed, but eventually made it home. Online, we found another mall on the eastern side of Rome that has 210 stores (!!!!!), so the plan is to make it there this weekend.
Saturday was the one day of actual planned fashion. Caitlin and I had signed up for a JCU sponsored trip to the fashion outlet stores in Tuscany. Since this was a JCU trip, there was a long walk early in the morning, an even longer bus ride, and really obnoxious people. The bus was packed, so on the way to the outlets, Caitlin and I could only get seats diagonal from each other. This put us sitting next to people as shallow as puddles and dumb as mud. I wasn't exactly expecting a group of MENSA potentials to be going on this trip, but I was expecting college students who acted like college students. Instead, there were what appeared to be high schoolers imitating what they've seen on Laguna Beach, though they were indeed college students, mostly from American University. Here are some tidbits from their conversations that made the bus trip nearly unbearable. (my comments in parentheses)
On Sororities:
Shallow Sally: I really didn't want to join my sorority, but they wanted me, so I guess I just kind of had to be nice (isn't that generous of you to offer yourself when they want you sooo badly)

Dumb Debbie: I joined a sorority without a house so I wouldn't have to live with all of them. Wouldn't that be awful, having to live with your sorority sisters? (why join a sorority if you hate the people in it???)

Shallow Sally: At your school, which sorority has the fat chicks?

Dumb Debbie: My big sister (assigned in the sorority--lucky her) sucked. She totally ignored me because her brother died! (how selfish of her!)

On everything else:
Sally: Counting is hard! (for some...)

Debbie: She looks like she has down syndrome. It's probably because she's Swedish. (so what's your excuse for acting retarded?)

Sally: I always have really awesome birthday parties. My 10th birthday was on a boat, so it was really mature for 10 year olds. The next year, we took a limo to Dave and Busters. (Dave and Busters?! High roller!)

Sally: I get 7 days of my birthday and 7 days of Christmas!

Debbie: (referring to the houses near the outlets) I doubt the people who live here can actually shop at these outlets (they were nice houses...)

Once the bus stopped, I ran off. These girls were too much for me. Our first stop was a store that had just Prada and Miu Miu. Caitlin and I soon realized that 50-70% off of designer fashion still puts the price at 300-1200 euro, so we got bored pretty quickly and decided to walk around a bit. Past the parking lot of the outlet, all we found was a closed sandwich shop and some guy peeing on the side of the road, so we just sat outside. The next stop was much better because it had a lot of stores. They were still really pricey, but it was fun to look at all this stuff. The restaurant at these outlets was so trendy and had fashion TV playing and was the only place I've seen in Italy that offers salads as a meal and not a side dish (though the salad looked like something I would make because it was just tuna thrown on top of lettuce with some corn, a tasty and unusual combination).
The bus ride back was quieter since people were sleeping. It got noisy again when people started pointing out the window and yelling "Prostitutes!". All along the road back into Rome were hookers. First, transvestites, then actual women. Most of them were not wearing pants, only thongs, or some version of that. They were all just out in the open, standing on the side of the road. A few cars did pull over as we were stuck in traffic. They did look better than the hookers we saw in Rome near the Vatican earlier that weekend.

Thus ends the weekend of fashion...and of annoying people...and hookers.......

Venice is Sinking, So Get There Quickly

Oscar commented on the last post that I must have done nothing in Venice. This is simply not true. I just wasn't ready yet to write about how incredibly awesome Venice is!
I left for Venice by plane on Friday morning and returned by train on Sunday. I flew with Ryan Air (really cheap European airline) so I was expecting the worst, but it actually wasn't that bad. The flight attendants were wearing tacky royal blue suits and the safety instructions were attached to the seat in front of you. Since Ryan Air is an Irish airline, all instructions were given in English first and then occasionally in Italian, so in case of emergency, all Italians die. Before boarding the plane, all the passengers lined up at the terminal. People pushed their way to the front of the line, as there were no assigned seats, so the first people in line get first pick. However, as soon as the doors opened, we were all shuffled into a bus, so those who were first in line in the airport were shoved into the back of the bus and were the last to get on the plane.
After arriving in Venice (the flight only took about an hour), we had the arduous task of finding our hostel. We started walking from a train station and ended up in the Italian suburbs. It was neat to see this kind of area in Italy, but after walking up and down the same street for a couple hours, it was no longer that charming. Bicycle seemed to be the main mode of transportation in the area and 70 seemed to be the average age. We didn't quite figure out right away that there was a sidewalk for bikes and a sidewalk for walkers, so cyclists rang bells at us and scowled at us as they passed. After asking a bunch of people for directions, we finally found our budget hotel, which was pretty nice, except for the 5 pound key we had to carry around (seriously, the key was attached to a big hunk of metal). The nicest part about the hotel was its proximity to the bus stop that took us into the main part of Venice.
All the sketchy traveling and getting lost was worth it once we got into Venice, because the city is gorgeous. I expected it to be smelly or for the water to be murky, but it was neither. Unlike Florence, it was not overcrowded and unlike Rome, it was very quiet. It's amazing how quiet a city can be without the noise of auto traffic. What's even more amazing is that there's an entire city built on water and the main transportation is boats and water taxis. We spent most of Friday wandering around the city, just taking it in. It's very calm, yet not boring, and there is plenty to do, but it's not overwhelming.
The bad things about Venice are that it is pretty expensive and pigeons attack. In St. Mark's Square, we went to a caffe to get coffee, but quickly left when we saw that espresso was 6 euros (it's usually 70 cents). Pigeons don't care about how expensive things are around St. Mark's because this is their main hang out. I had a handful of granola and was about to throw it to the pigeons when one jumped up on my hand to steal it from me. These pigeons are so fearless that you can walk up to them and pick them up (some kids were doing this and then throwing the pigeons). Once you feed the pigeons, they won't leave you alone for a while and will follow you, land on you, scratch you, etc. Some crazy tourists put granola on themselves and just stand there while the birds collect on them. This was funny to watch, but not to participate in. Pigeons are gross.
Though Venice does have designer stores and some random other shops (including a male cross-dresser store), most of the shops sell Venetian glass or masks. It gets pretty frustrating shopping for these things because it's hard to commit to buying something when you're not sure if the store next door has something prettier or better priced. I ended up with oodles of glass, my favorite purchase being a set of wine glasses I bought on Murano (the island of Venice where most of the glass is made). I carried my box of wine glasses around all of Saturday and when I got on the bus that night to go back to the hotel, I realized I didn't have them with me. It was 10:30 and the buses and water taxis stop running at midnight, so time was limited to look for them. Emma was so nice and ran off the bus with me to look for the glasses. We hopped on a water taxi and went to the last place we were in an attempt to retrace my steps. Amazingly, they were sitting in the bakery where I had left them, totally unharmed. What had happened was I bought a cookie, forgot all about the glasses, and left happy with the cookie. I am an idiot. We fortunately made it back in time to catch all the taxis and buses required to get to the hotel. Later, in the train station on Sunday, I bought an apple and left the wine glasses at the counter. Fortunately, Emma knew by this point that food distracts me from paying attention to anything, so she picked up the wine glasses and handed them to me just as I realized I had forgotten them again. I should never be trusted with valuable things, or if I am, I should be starved.
Other things I did in Venice included walking through St. Mark's Cathedral (another big church, woohoo), the Doge Palace (weapons rooms+prison+Bridge of Sighs+biggest oil painting in the world=loads of fun), going to Murano where they make a lot of glass (we saw a glass blowing demonstration. The dude has a cigarette in one hand and a red hot ball of glass on a stick in the other. He was bonkers!), eating an awesome fast-food joint called "Jumanji" that had bites taken out of the pizza (the pizza man claimed the oven had eaten it), drinking belinis (while doing this, a mouse ran into the bar we were at and hid behind the Coke machine. When someone tried to tell the bar owners, they didn't seem to care), and taking a gondola ride. The gondola ride was done last minute right before going to the train station, and it was totally worth it. I can see how it would be very romantic, but considering I was in a boat with 3 other girls and it was 10 in the morning, it was more just pleasant than romantic. The gondolier and his apprentice were both wearing the traditional outfits of striped shirts and hats. The apprentice was not the sharpest gondolier in the canal, because every time we asked him a question, he got it wrong, and the older gondolier would sigh with exasperation and say, "No, Michael, that's wrong, again! The canal is 3 meters deep, not 1." It was pretty easy to forgive Michael for his blunders, as he was very adorable.
Venice is a lovely city and 2 and half days there was the perfect amount of time. If I had stayed any longer, I would have no money and oodles of glass.

Life Skills

Things I am learning to do in Rome

• Travel Plan: I could give up on my education right now and become a travel planner for Ryan Air and Hostel World.
• Dodge Traffic: This is a necessary skill for living/staying alive in Rome
• Ignore People: When Italians shout at you or when people try to sell you roses or toy cars, ignoring them is the best way out.
• Get More Wear out of Clothing: There are 3 washing machines for the entire apartment complex. If it doesn't have stains, a little Febreze is all you need.
• Push Your Way Through Tourists: I feel like I've lived here long enough to scoff at tourists and roll my eyes at the giant crowd waiting outside the Vatican Museum as I shove past them every morning on my way to school. Silly tourists, don't they know the line is much shorter in the afternoon? What tourists!
• Use Public Transportation: The metro is pretty easy once you get the hang of it and the buses are bad either. It's watching the people make out on public transit that's difficult. That and not falling.
  
• Cook: Some of you may be shocked by this. Out of necessity, I am indeed delving into my inner kitchen skills I know my mom must have passed on to me somehow. However, the goal of my meals at this point is not so much gourmet taste as is edible/not poisonous.
• *see recipe for my favorite and most frequent dish below
• Grocery shop: This goes along with cooking. I never realized how difficult grocery shopping was until I tried to do it every week and each week end up with a random assortment of food that doesn't go well together. I usually buy staples such as eggs, cheese, bread, and lunch meat then from there I just grab whatever looks good at the moment like raisins or kinder kandy or pineapple juice.
• Use the American stereotype to my advantage: If I don't pay the correct rate for something or otherwise get an advantage I should not, I just play dumb and say "Non lo so!" Maybe not the most respectable thing, but it occasionally works.
  
• Make Renaissance Art Fun: Madonna and Child is only interesting and pretty to look at for the first 140 versions, so after that, attention should be paid to how weird the baby Jesus looks and why there are floating baby heads around Mary. This or similar strategies may save you from losing all appreciation for the works of Botticelli and Michaelangelo.
  

In addition to all of this, I suppose I am learning cultural knowledge, some stuff in class, and general life lessons. The cooking thing will probably come in most handy.

*Recipe for Everything in the Kitchen Sink Pasta

1. Take necessary dishes (pot, spoon) out of sink. Washing optional.
2. Boil the pasta and accidentally add too much salt. Correct this accident by purposely adding even more salt, thus making this not an accident.
3. When pasta is perfectly al dente, throw frozen veggies into the boiling pot and overcook all contents of pot until they are mooshy enough to gum.
4. Drain pasta in the sink (clearing out of other dishes in sink is optional). Allow veggies to fall through colander. Save what you can.
5. To add protein to the dish, put an entire hard boiled egg on top of the pasta. Substitutes for egg include mixed nuts or lunch meat.
6. Instead of making the difficult decision of which sauce to use on the pasta, choose all them. Mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and tomato sauce to the concoction.
7. Sprinkle on some oregano and black pepper
8. When you realize you have made too much (too much, in fact, for all the food to fit into one dish) offer some to your roommates, who will politely decline.
9. If there is any salt left, add some more.
10. Enjoy the 15 taste sensation!

I'm No Mountain Goat

First of all, you may have noticed that I recently added a hit counter to my blog (hit counter=counts the number of times someone visits my blog) and that the number of hits is rather low (I'm sure this is due to the fact that the counter is so new, and not because people don't LOVE my blog). Anyway, if you could just hit refresh on your internet's browser a few times before reading the rest of this, thus adding numbers to the counter, that would be great. Thanks!

Last weekend, I was in Assisi for a Notre Dame sponsored/subsidized retreat. I hadn't been on a retreat since high school and, to be honest, thought they were a bunch of hooey. I still think this, however, I did enjoy myself. The retreat wasn't intense at all. We visited churches and prayed and such, but we had a lot of free time and didn't play any stupid trust games (however, we did play mafia a lot). We stayed in a convent and were served delicious food the whole weekend. We visited some key spots in the life of St. Francis and went through the basilicas dedicated to him and to St. Claire, which were both lovely. Assisi itself was gorgeous with lots of old buildings, olive groves, and hills. The town also has fantastic gift shops, which for some reason, all sell medieval weapons such as maces, crossbows, and swords. The weapons present a nice juxtaposition with the many religious items found in the same gift shops.
I was feeling very relaxed after Friday and Saturday, because we just sort of walked around Assisi and hung out with each other. However, this state of relaxation was destroyed on Sunday, when we went for a "4 kilometer walk" that turned into a freakin' long 3 hour hike up a mountain. What made me most upset was that we were not warned about this at all, so I did not have the appropriate shoes or pants or anything. The hike went along a path that basically went straight up the mountain, so there was a constant super steep incline, and the path was covered in slippery rocks. To top it off, the retreat leaders didn't know exactly where we were going, and the entire group got split up due to different walking speeds, so everyone was getting lost. The goal of this hike was to get to a hermitage that St. Francis supposedly prayed at every day or something (though I find this very hard to believe, considering it would take a gladiator to climb that mountain daily). We finally see the hermitage, but we can't find that path that leads directly to it, and we end up jumping over a wall and sliding down a hill to get to it. We were able to spend about 20 minutes there before having to turn around and head back. I was so stressed out and exhausted after this that I couldn't really enjoy the rest of the retreat, which was basically over after the hike anyway.
So in conclusion, Assisi was very pretty, I still don't like retreats, and you should warn me before taking me hiking.

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.