Italian Mardi Gras

Yesterday was the day that Dara, Gabby and I had probably been most excited for prior to arriving in Italy. In like October or November when we all figured out we would be at AUR together, I sent out on our facebook message thread, CARNIVALE. It was well worth the wait. Venice was beautiful, the weather was great and we got to dress up and wear our masks we had so carefully picked out.
Originally we were supposed to go to an Aperitivo with all you can eat sweets and all you can drink hot chocolate right in S. Marco's Square (basically the center of all the action). However, the place was a little... snooty and wouldn't let us in simply in our cocktail style dresses and masks, they wanted capes or full on elaborate costumes. So, despite having a reservation, they turned us away and we didn't pay. Instead we wandered the streets of Venice, crossing various bridges and going into various restaurants, bars and piazzas people watching, dancing, singing and watching the little kids go by with bags of confetti.
We didn't make it on any gondola rides, we were told some of them can charge up to 80 euro a person and didn't want to or have the money to dish out on that. Plus we were spending time with a new group of people so it was nice to have a completely different experience in a completely different city. Venice was beautiful and at some point I would love to go back when it's not Carnivale to wander the streets, ride a gondola and soak it in a little more, since I was only actually there for about 9 hours, but for now I'm completely happy with the time I spent there, the new AUR friends I made and even the delicious plate of pasta I devoured while there.

Sun and Seafood

Gabby, Dara and I took a day trip to Anzio today, which was about an hour train ride from Rome. It is a small, adorable beach/port town and the weather was absolutely beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky and it was probably at least 70 at the water. We followed the bits of blue ocean we could see from the train station and made our way to the shore where there was a small street of restaurants and gelato shops. It was so nice to be near the beach, while I'm absolutely in love with Rome and am having the time of my life, it's always nice to have that taste of home. We went armed with books for class, mine was a novella so it was an easy, pleasant read, to hunker down after we got some seafood. The main goal of the day today was to have seafood though, which we had very successfully.
While wandering along the ocean side we stumbled upon, Mare Nostrum, a seafood restaurant that had some gorgeous outdoor seating with a view of the beach. The chef and owner were both extremely nice, tried to help us with Italian and speak whatever English they could with us. They also brought us three courses of free food. We each ordered a pasta with baby lobsters and clams, as you can see in the picture they didn't short you on the seafood, considering that is just the shells of the seafood that was in the pasta. It was probably a 1:1 ratio of seafood to noodle, if not more seafood. After we ordered, they started with the free food, the first was the only dish in my whole month in Italy I didn't enjoy. It was polenta with shaved dried fish on it, we thought it was brown sugar on the polenta when they brought the plate out... but no it was salted dried fish that they used a cheese grater with. The second course they brought were a few pieces of pasta with baby octopus in a red sauce. It was amazing. I really don't know what else to say, my mouth is watering as I think of it though. Then came our main courses, which I probably would eat every day for the rest of the week if I could, and then when we said we were done and didn't want any coffee or dessert, he brought a mini flan for each of us, which was really good as well.
After lunch was when we hit the beach. I don't think my friends really knew what to do with my excitement. I immediately took my shoes off, dug my toes in the sand and headed for the water (which was really cold). It was so nice to breath in the fresh air, soak up the sun and while they went to sit up on this ledge thing to read I plopped down straight on the sand, no towel needed. We hit up a gelato stand on the way to the train station, like Gabby and I had done yesterday, and once again got some amazing gelato for 1.50. Today I got banana and straccialetta (which is their equivalent of chocolate chip). Delicious.
Anyways time to hit the sack, even if it's not even 9:30 yet, tomorrow's one of the big days we've been waiting for CARNIVAL!!!!!! Heading to the bus at 5:30am. My mask is ready and I'm ready for some all you can sweets and all you can drink hot chocolate.

What a Month.. and to celebrate Frascati

Today marked one month since I landed in the Rome Airport to start this amazing experience. Anyone who has talked to me online, on the phone or on skype during the last month knows what an amazing experience this has been for me and how much I am absolutely in love with being here for the semester. Between the food, the culture, the scenery, the city and a not too shabby roommate and solid group of friends... I couldn't pick my favorite thing if I had to.
So today, to mark our 1 month anniversary (ask our friends, Gabby and I have been talking about our 1 month anniversary of becoming roommates/meeting for at least a week and a half), Gabby and I took a couples escape to Frascati, a small town that was a 30 minute train ride from Rome. We wandered the town some before getting our first meal at a restaurant since the Chinese Nun Incident/Florence weekend. It was amazing. Frascati is known for their white wine, so we had some of that, which came from a tap from a barrel and was really delicious. For our meal I got a risotto with pear, gorgonzola and walnuts in it, and Gabby got a thick spaghetti noodle with a spicy red sauce and bacon. They also brought us biscotti and these ginger cookies after the meal as we finished our wine.
After lunch we wandered and stumbled upon the park in the picture, as well as checked out the magnificant view, seeing as this small town had probably just as many hills as people. There were also like 100 stairs to get from the train station to the area of the city. It was an adorable city though. We only needed 2 hours maximum to walk around and know exactly where we were in the city, so we got some gelato before we left. I was still extremely full from lunch (it's a requirement to be part of the clean plate club in Italy), but it didn't take much to convince me to get gelato. It was only 1.50 for a choice of 3 flavors and some panna on a cone. Delicious. I got vaniglia (vanilla... obv), tiramisu and baileys. Nom to the max, got to admit. We then made our way back to the train station to catch the next back to Rome.
It was great to have a getaway and I have decided to make an effort to take a lot of day trips like today because when else will I have the opportunity to just go to these places for the day for a 3.80 round trip fare. I have a much greater chance of going to places such as Paris, London and even Prague when I'm older, but won't be living in Rome for long. Tomorrow I'll be heading to Anzio, a small beach town. While it won't be Hawaii by any means, for starters it will be like 60 degrees tops, I am still looking forward to doing some reading on the beach and getting some seafood hopefully. Then Saturday is Venice for Carnival!!!!

Yup, It's Monday

Starting out my Monday with this view of the Pantheon wasn't too shabby if I must say so myself. For my Renaissance and Baroque class we went on a "Catholic Marathon" as she called it, where we met at the Pantheon, then went on to Basilica di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, Basilica di St. Agostino and Basilica di Santa Maria dell'Anima. The churches were interesting. We focussed on specific paintings in each obviously and I learned a few fun facts:
1. Raphael died of sexual diseases... yuck.
2. There was this thing called the "Fig Leaf Movement" where I guess it was artists went around to sculptures and covered the penis of the sculpture. in the case of a sculpture of Jesus in the Basilica di Santa Maria Sopra Minerva they made a "gold cloth" out of sculpture and covered it. Apparently that was a "polite" way to cover it, since they could easily take the "fig leaf" off if they wanted to later on.
Made it back to school in time to do some homework and chill, watched youtube videos and talked about the way families are shown in TV shows. He used examples everywhere from the Osbournes and Kardashians to the Simpsons, Flinestones, Jetsons, Brady Bunch, Crosby's... I could go on. Then when we got to Italian we had a "quiz" which was supposed to review everything we were supposed to know coming into the class. Good thing it was the length of the tests in all other language classes I've taken. Only like 6 pages, with a listening section and an essay. No big right?... chyea ok.
Luckily after that I got to come home, have a delicious dinner and skype with my mom and grandpa for a solid half an hour. He was disappointed in the Lakers, complaining that my mom had opened windows in his apartment that's normally 85 degrees due to the heater he keeps on constantly, but told me to make sure to ride a gondola while I'm in Venice on Saturday. I don't think he understood the concept of going for Carnviale, but oh well. Alright time to work on some critiques before bed. Buona Sera.

Tips to Survive Sundays in Rome

1. Don't think about going grocery shopping or doing anything else for that matter. NOTHING is open.
2. Caution when walking near churches around 12:30 The bells will be playing loud and people will be flooding the streets as they come out from Sunday morning services
3. The only market that's open is the clothing and shoe market at Porta Portese market.All the frutterie and open markets in the small neighborhoods take a break for Sunday.

Guess since everyone else rests on Sunday I will too... and maybe do some homework.

Tuscan Wine Tasting (aka Food Baby Extravaganza)

Bright and early... well at 7:30 a.m., which for a college student is like the middle of the night, we met near school for our first trip organized by AUR, which we had signed up for on our first day of classes. A Tuscan Day Trip, which consisted of wine tasting, a lesson on making fresh pasta (I'm basically a champ at this point) and consuming more food than I ever thought was possible to fit into my body. No, but really, if you know me you'd be amazed at the amount I consumed.
We spent the day at Fattoria del Colle di Trequanda, which is about 40 km from Sienna and lies in the Chianti region. Our guide of the property explained as we looked at the view pictured above, that certain types of wines can only be produced in certain regions or else it is not truly that type of wine and cannot be named that type. The owners of the vineyard also had a property in the Brunello region, so the property was allowed to sell Brunello wine, as long as it had been grown to packaged in it's specific region. The vineyard was also interesting because it was run by all women. While I may not always be the most "Girl Power" type of girl, I think it's pretty amazing that they have made a name for themselves in an industry where there are only male winemakers and the original reason that they made it all women was because there were no men in the wine-making school that had not already been drafted more or less by other vineyards.
After a tour of the property and a background of history we sat down to taste two types of wine, before noon might I add, then headed on a tutorial more or less on how to make pasta. It was interesting because he didn't use a machine at all like the past two classes I'd taken on pasta making, but I was a little tired so I didn't participate in rolling the pasta.
Then it was off to the traditional Tuscan feast. And yes, feasted is what we did. The first course consisted of a plate of meats, cheeses and really good bruschetta. Next was a thick, flat noodled pasta with chunks of steak like meat in a light meat sauce. They kept bringing around platters of it and offering us more, to the point where they filled my plate three times. For the last time they were like "More?" and I was like no thank you (knowing we had 2 more courses coming) and she was like "You will have more" and filled my plate again. It was delicious don't get me wrong, but my stomach is only so large. Next was chicken. Probably some of the best chicken I've ever had. I don't know exactly what was on it, but my guess was that it was cooked with some stalk and definitely had rosemary. It was served with some potatoes, which may be some of the only potatoes to rival mine and Gabby's mashed potatoes that we make for snacks a lot. The final course was dessert. It was sort of a pie/tart kinda thing. Not sure exactly what fruit, but a shortbread crust and that was delicious as well. Not my favorite of the courses, but I was so full nothing probably would have tasted good. This whole meal lasted a solid 3 hours and included trying two different types of wines. One was called their Cinderella wine, which was probably my favorite of the day, but after the meal I was ready to get back on the bus and pass out for a nap. The bus ride was only about 2 1/2 hours each way, but I slept for at least 2 of the hours each way, which was nice so that we can get ready to go out in a few hours. Although, the food coma is still in full effect for sure. I probably won't want to eat for a few days at least. I know I always say it, but this time I mean it.

Valentines Day + Rainy Mornings

Considering my relationship history and the Valentine's I've had, you'll probably be surprised to hear this was probably one of my favorite Valentine's Days yet. Started the morning in Campo di Fiori... no we weren't starting the day out with a drink, we went over to Chigi's Villa with our Renaissance and Baroque class, which was really pretty and had some amazing ceiling art (my new obsession of course).

I went to the rest of my classes, which wasn't really exciting and then for dinner some of us girls had a cute dinner and headed to our friend Leigh's open mic night (I'll try to remember to add pictures to the post later). It was at this Irish Pub called Abbey Theater and it was really fun. She was sooo good also, she intimidated the Asian kid from John Cabot that was supposed to go next. There was a group of probably 10-15 of us so it was just a fun evening out with friends, and we took up most of the room so there was no room for couples to be all... couply around us.

Yesterday was a pretty bland day. We were pretty tired from being out late, so we just went to class and did our homework and slept. Oh, and Gabby and I did some remixes to songs like California Girls and Bottoms up... we'll be famous soon.

Today is the first rainy day since we've been here. I armed myself with my Hunters and a raincoat, but am still soaking wet beneath them. My on-site writing class didn't let it stop us for most of the morning, but definitely ended early because of the rain. We looked through a keyhole that was really cool because it was through a private garden and all you could see was the dome of St Peters and two rows of perfectly groomed plants made your eyes unconciously go straight to the dome. We also went into some amazing churches like the church of Santa Maria, which has gold mosaic on the ceiling and all sorts of beautiful paintings.

Well off to do some homework, yeah I'm here for school. Also, we need to find a place to eat lunch since the whole campus is outdoors. Non bene.

Porta Portese Market

Since I stayed in last night to do some homework and skype with my grandpa, as pictured. Considering he had never used a computer it was an interesting experience but he really liked it. But anyways, since I stayed in last night I was refreshed and ready to adventure a little in the morning before coming home for an afternoon of homework. I know, sometimes I forget I'm here for school also. Don't hate me mom and dad.
The Porta Portese market is every Sunday and is probably the biggest in Rome. It doesn't have fresh produce or anything, but it was tons of clothes, boots, bags, shoes and home goods sorts of things. I remember reading or hearing somewhere that if you get your stuff stolen during the week, head to the Porta Portese market and you can likely buy it back pretty cheap. We found super glue (for our masks for carnival, we really don't want the strings to fall off so we're taking precautionary measures) and each got a tupperware so that we can take our lunches in a more eco friendly way and possibly have sandwiches that aren't like pancakes anymore.
After that we just came home, made grilled cheese as we call it, but it's bread, prosciutto, and I used brie cheese and an egg and then got in bed for some good old homework. I'll probably shower and get back to my homework in a minute, but tomorrow morning my onsite class will meet at Campo di Fiori... should be interesting to be there during the day since that's the area everyone goes out in at night. Off to do some work. Ciao.

Let's Play Some Ketchup

Sorry I've been a little MIA the past few days, I didn't really have very eventful days, so I"ll do some bullets to go through what I've been up to the past few days:
- Wednesday I had to meet my on-site class at a cafe and I got "I love you" written in my cappuccino. Kinda presh. But then the barista did it to every other American girl that walked in so I didn't feel so special.
- On Wednesday I also completed my "Permit To Stay" procedure. Yayyy I'm officially legal in this country.
-Thursday we walked around a shopping area, my purse broke on the way there so I found a cheap one at H&M to replace it. We also got probably my best gelato yet. I had Bacio and Caffe flavored (nutella and coffee) and this place puts "panna" on it, which is a whipped cream but not a sweet one like in the states
- Friday we took a lazy day and slept and relaxed and got groceries
- We also had family dinner at a few of our friends' apartment last night and had pasta and sausage and Gabby and my contribution was caprese. Noms
- Today we just relaxed again. Walked around the open market in Campo di Fiori and then GOT OUR MASKS FOR CARNIVALE! we have to dress up for Carnivale some because we're going to an Aperitivo which is like a happy hour. But this Aperitivo is all you can eat sweets and all you can drink hot cocoa. So I'll be wearing the orange dress from my dad's wedding (for those of you that know that dress) and I got a mask that matches it basically. It's not for 2 weeks though.

Now, I'm off to start a paper then skype with my grandpa and mom. I know, I'm super cool on this Saturday night.

Authentic Italian Cooking

Every Tuesday night my school offers and Italian cooking class, where a chef from a restaurant near campus comes to teach a group a few dishes. It's the owner of the restaurant I mentioned my first week with the 10euro deal where I had the best bean soup of my life. Andrea was his name and he was one of the nicest people I'd ever met an a group of 7 of us learned how to cook a four course meal. (Apparently it's normally a 3 course meal, but since Andrea looked at the list of names this morning and saw there were 3 guys in the class he did an extra course since normally he's the only guy with 7 girls). We divided and conquered the meal and in 2 hours were able to sit down to the most amazing meal I've probably ever had.
We learned to make carbonara (a traditional dish in Rome, and he also did a vegetarian version with zucchini), a spinach dish with a peppered pork meat I don't know what it was that also had pine nuts and raisins... sounds weird but may have been my favorite dish, a beef dish that was thin pieces similar to flank steak in a sauce with tomatoes and arugula and stuff, and then the dish that I did most of was a pear and chocolate souffle. As you can probably guess I'm racing the clock till I can't fight the food coma anymore because I'm stuffed. He even brought to-go boxes so we'd have lunch for tomorrow.
I can put pictures up later, he took a ton of us doing stuff so we would have them and he will also send us all the recipes so that we can make all the dishes for ourselves. I had so much fun I'll probably hit up student life tomorrow to try to sign up for another class and gabby and I have already decided we'll be heading back to his restaurant soon to support him and eat his amazing food. Alright well my food baby is of epic proportions so I'm off to type out my italian paper, hit the sack and meet with the police tomorrow to get my permit to stay!

That's My Middle Name!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I was busy fulfilling one of my dreams from when I was a child of going to Florence. Of course, when I was little I only wanted to go because it was my middle name and felt I deserved to go simply for that reason. But now that I'm much older, wiser... and no longer have aspirations of being a boy baseball player or construction worker I wanted to go for the beautiful landscapes and historical richness.
We left on Friday morning, well, we started on Friday morning. You see, the bus times are like an airplane time, they are when the train leaves. Also, there are more ways to get to the platform than the stairway that says your platforms number. Long story short, it said our train would be leaving from platform 9 and platform 9's entry was boarded up with the only sign in all of Termini station that was not in both Italian and English, but only Italian. After running through the station and beginning to sweat, we eventually missed our train by 3 minutes (nothing leaves on time here... other than that one train) and exchanged our tickets for the next train, which was only half an hour after, and we didn't have to pay anymore.
Eventually we made it and it was beautiful there. It's a lot smaller than Rome and definitely made me realize that I made the right choice by coming to Rome, but it was gorgeous. We got these amazing panino and fries and sat near the Duomo eating them until we started the trek up the 400+ stairs to the top. Totally worth it. It was probably high 60s and not a cloud in the sky and the view was breathtaking. We could see the whole city and beyond.
We then felt we deserved to check out the Firenze Chocolate Festival and got some waffles dipped in chocolate fountains and tried everything from coconut white chocolate, to chocolate rum and beyond. That same night we walked to the top of this hill to watch the sunset over the city and went to an old church to hear monks chanting. Random I know, but it was a really cool experience.
A bunch of us made probably one of the best lasagnas I have had to date and we sat around feasting on brie and baguette as we cooked it. I even tried chopped liver... nom.
The next day we woke up and went to see the David statue in the Academia and then went on to the Uffizi Gallery where we may not have looked at all the statues in the eyes of artists, but had a really good time making up stories and admiring the works. I realized that my 2 favorite types of art are ceiling paintings (they are always so amazing and elaborate and really hard to do) and sculptures. All the statues butts and abs were really nice.
That night we went to a restaurant that supposedly has the best gnocchi in all of Florence. I'd agree. They gave us the biggest plate ever and it was basically the mac and cheese equivalent and had truffle oil on it. Basically amazing and let me tell you, I did WORK on that plate. We all passed out for an hour and a half nap when we got home because we were in food comas and it just was so rich we couldn't handle.
The next morning I just woke up and got coffee with one of my sorority sisters who happen to be visiting Florence too and went back to the chocolate fair. Then we spent the rest of the day walking around the leather markets, leather shops and city squares until our train at night. We refused to miss this train and did a great job of making it on time.
Now it's back to the grind of school till Thursday and I'm excited to stay here this weekend in order to get a dress for Carnival (and a mask), relax and hang out with some of the friends I've made here. Buona Sera.

Help I'm Stuck in a Chinese Restaurant

I officially survived my first week of school at AUR and have been here for about 12 days and am still convinced I'm living in a dream. Since I only had one class, Gabby and I went on an adventure down in the city center because there was not a cloud in the sky and we felt like being touristy. We went to Capitoline Hill, the Pantheon and then were extremely hungry so we decided to try to get some dinner.
There was a Chinese restaurant near by that we had remembered seeing a cheap menu outside and figured since it was Chinese New Year week... why not. It was only 5:45 so we were on track for the early bird special, until we walked up to the restaurant only to realize they don't open till 6. So we killed 10 minutes, then walked back as we saw a group of 4 Chinese guys walk in. We followed, and while they were placed at a nice table complete with napkins, a rose and a candle... we were put in a corner table with no candle, no rose, and no napkins. They told us there was no option for drinks other than beer, wine, coke or bottled water, so we picked water and each ordered Won Ton soup and chicken with bamboo shoots and shrimp. Sounds promising right? Nope. We decided to grab the napkins from the table next to us, then 5 minutes later a group of 3 came in, two of which were nuns the other a priest and they sat at the table we took the napkins from. Yup, we took napkins from nuns. It was also strange because the nun's and priest were asian, as well as the help staff, and all of them spoke Italian. It is just an interesting feeling to look around at a room where other than a young British couple at another table, we were the only ones who were white, and all the Asians were speaking Italian. Then everyone else in the place got there food long before use (despite the nuns coming in after we ordered) and the servings were small and we got a little scared the chicken wasn't cooked. We ate all that we would touch, and were still left with our stomachs feeling that they were eating themselves.
They offered dessert, but we declined, and when we got the check we saw they had charged 2.20 euro's for the water and an additional like 2 euros as a service fee, so the cheap Chinese meal we thought we were getting that left us hungry turned out to be 20 euro for 2. No bene. Not to mention the nuns were literally 4 inches away from our table and didn't pull their chairs in, so when all we wanted to do was get out of the restaurant, seeing as I am more than 4 inches wide, we had to shift the table into a little nook so that I could squeeze out and we could run for the tram.
To say the least we came home and ate all the food we had that was going to spoil while we were in Florence and were left giggling about our lives the whole way home on the tram. Anyways, 8:30 a.m. bus to Florence! I'll update when I'm back.

A Day Late

I woke up to an email from my dad (love you scuba steve) checking in on me since I had not updated this or my Project365 yesterday, so dad, this one's for you. Haha
Yesterday wasn't all that interesting of a day. I went to my "Writing Rome" class for the first time, which meets once a week for 3 hours and we explore different writing styles, meet on-site often and does various readings all involving Rome in one way or another. It seems like it will be interesting, but yesterday we sat in class for the whole 3 hours and it was pretty dull so early in the morning.
Media and Gender was... special. We watched some... interesting(?) music videos and talked about the nature vs nurture concept of the first words that came to our minds when we heard "masculinity" and "femininity."
Then Italian was canceled! Woohoo! So I got out at 5 instead of 6:40, which I wasn't complaining because a bunch of people came over for dessert/dinner and we made crepes and chilled before going out for a little while.
Today I once again only have class from 2-3:30 so I'm relaxing, going to make a brunch in a little while and then head to class and explore in the afternoon because it's absolutely gorgeous out. Tomorrow morning we leave on an 8:30am train to Florence for the weekend, so we're staying in tonight to get our work done for Monday since we get home pretty late on Sunday.

Before I go off to get ready for my last day of the school week, here's a quote I got from a packet in my writing class that I read and was like "Yeah..that's pretty much how I've felt here":
"I feel happy here, for I learn something new everyday: I try to become impregnated with the unalterable beauty Rome dispenses with such generosity." - Auguste Rodin

Good Thing I Now Have a Month Pass

Day 2 of school is really nothing I could complain about. I didn't have class until 2, and was only in class until 3:20. I spent a leisurely morning around my apartment re-organizing, doing laundry and cooking some eggs as brunch. It was nice to relax and linger in the morning, instead of rushing to get somewhere or do something. I even decided to walk to school instead of taking the bus, which was actually a really nice walk and I even stumbled upon a little open market on a side street with fresh vegetables, bread and meats.
My one class was a popular music class, which was really interesting, but I felt like I was in Hilary Duff's movie Raise Your Voice. We talked about the definition of popular music, which we never concluded what it was and listened to/watched some youtube videos. My second class this week with youtube videos...sweet.
Then I took the bus home with two of my roommates and the ATAC guys (equivalent of WMATA, or the metro police) got on at our stop to check people's tickets. Luckily it was the first day of the month and we had gotten monthly passes on our first day here because they go through the bus asking to see everyone's validated ticket. If you don't have a ticket, or it's not validated, you get in trouble and get a citation. One guy right next to us got one and I'm pretty sure I saw the guy write that it was a 100 euro ticket. Yowza. Anyways, they only stayed on for 2 stops then got off and waited for another bus to come. Sneaky sneaky those ones. They wear navy blue jackets with thin red strips and I forget what their tags said, but other than the fact that there were two older Italian men in matching jackets, I would have had no idea that they were on the bus.
Another early morning of classes tomorrow. Ciao.