Rome: Part 1, 2, and 3

Holy crap Rome is amazing. Rome is so amazing. Tonight marks the end of day 2, and life is so good. Upon arrival in Rome around 6 or 7 pm two nights ago, my heart stopped. And I'm pretty sure I've died and gone to heaven, as cliche as that sounds. The buildings. Gorgeous. The streets. Wide enough to actually fit cars. The food. Life changing. I can even get over the tremendous crowds of people. 

We came to Rome just after a walking tour of Naples with a middle aged Italian man named Gianni who kissed people's cheeks and cracked corny jokes in the most charming way you can imagine. But after seeing Naples, I have come to the conclusion that Naples is to Detroit as Rome is to Boston. That's over simplifying it a lot. What I mean is that Naples is pretty sketch. It's the crime capital of the world. The mob's headquarters. Or something like that. Rome is clean and beautiful. Granted, all big cities have their dumpy areas. But Naples was 90% dumpy. The contrast between the two cities may account for my initial reaction when I saw Rome. Part of me was just thinking, "thank God I got out of Naples alive!" I have found the light at the end of the dark tunnel! Alas, this is the Italy that I idealized in my head. So I will forego details of the Naples walking tour because the only part worth nothing was our fantastic tour guide who I already mentioned. Oh and I had the best pizza that has ever been created by humans. Anyways. I will jump straight into Rome because Rome is all that matters right now. Rome is "bae," for those of you who understand what that means. 

We got to our hotel. We went straight to group dinner at a restaurant that I cannot pronounce. It lasted about 3 hours and we got 5 small courses. 2 pastas. Salad. Meat and peas. Fruit. I don't know what's wrong with me but my appetite had been embarrassingly small since we've been here. I didn't finish half of my food. But it was quite good. And so was the company. After dinner, some of us went for gelato near the Vatican. Cause that's just the casual thing to do here... Stroll around near the Vatican. Still blows my mind. Anyways. End first night. 

Full day 1 in Rome: walking tour. Good lord. What a day. Walking tours are great I guess, but when your tour guide's English is choppy and the tenor of his voice could lull a baby to sleep, then no one is happy. I found myself in Lalla land for the majority of the six hour tour. I just kept imagining that I could see the ancient romans still sitting around chilling. Telling their slaves what to do or voting for some sort of political thing or conquering some people. Or fighting with swords. All of them looked like Russell Crowe from gladiator, of course. I will say, I did enjoy the coliseum. Everyone enjoys the coliseum. And we went into a few churches full of the most breathtaking decoration I've ever seen. When the tour was over, however, I cheered. We finally separated from our tour guide, Mauro, and our professors left us, forcing us to find our way back to the hotel on our own just to prove we are capable of using a map without getting lost. After we made it back, I went for a run around a castle. Because that's also normal here. Just casually jogging in a park around a castle that is centuries and centuries old. Guys, I'm pretty much a local here now. As soon as I'm fluent in Italian, I'll be good to go. Goodbye America. At dinner after my party in the park, I had the best pasta of my whole life. It spoke to me. It moved me to become a better person. It inspired me and it gave meaning to life. Our waiter said my name in an Italian accent too. First time I've ever heard this. I really recommend it. I swear everything they say here just sounds like a beautiful sonnet or a concerto. My name had never sounded so good. Is it sad that him saying my name has been a highlight of the trip? He wasn't ever good looking or anything like that. It just sounded so delicious. Just not as delicious as my fettuccini. Nothing will ever be that delicious. 

So a few hours after dinner, some of the girls and I decided to try out the ice bar. It's a bar that is made with 40 tons of ice.  The cups are ice. The seats are ice. Everything. Ice. Why? Who knows. But it was cool. It was -5 celcius inside, and they gave us all huge parkas before entering. Aside from 2 Canadian girls, we were the only people in the joint. We stayed for about 30 minutes then headed off to an Irish pub. An Irish pub in Rome? Yeah, we're pretty lame. But I don't regret it. We got a taxi to bring us back to the hotel because we were several miles away and didn't think it was the safest idea to walk so far at 2 in the morning... See, even I have some sense. 

So that brings me back to today. I slept until about 11:30 to catch up on all the sleep I missed because of these dang walking tours that start so early in the morning. Me and another girl spent all morning just wandering around and shopping for nothing in particular. I got back to the hotel around 4 where I ran into Dr. Letteri who decided he would help me try to hunt down some tickets for the soccer game tomorrow night (the Italian cup championship game: Lazio vs. Juventus). We searched high and low for these tickets. I'll tell you the shorthand story in bulletpoint form because that's the only way it will make sense:

Concierge tells us to buy them at a bar across from the metro station. 

Bar across from the metro station points us in the direction of another shop.

We don't find other shop. 

Instead, we find a workout facility. 

We get a discount rate for workouts for the next few days. 

Man who owns workout facility points us back to the first bar we initially tried. 

He comes with us to speak to the guys at the bar. 

(No one speaks English very well. Most don't speak it at all.)

Guy at the bar tells us to go to "the betting place."

We are thoroughly confused. 

We go in direction of betting place. 

We find a shop that sells lotto tickets. 

We talk to the owner of the shop. He's really fat and Italian looking. 

He speaks no English. 

He points us back toward the first bar!!! 

We continue searching for the "betting place."

We go further down the road and find a casino. 

Guys in the casino place tell us to get on bus #2 to go to a plaza across town to find tickets. 

But one guy points to a spot on the map and says we could find then closer. 

We don't get on the train, but we walk to the closer spot. 

We get there and we don't see what place he was talking about. 

We go inside another shop that sells lotto tickets. 

This man tells us to walk to the Lazio shop, just 20 meters to the right then take a left. 

We follow his directions. 

No Lazio shop to be found. 

We give up. 

No tickets. 

Fail. 

So Letteri and I bonded pretty hard during this tragic process. Hopefully we will have better luck tomorrow because I gotta go to this game. This kind of stuff doesn't happen in the states. And I may not ever get another opportunity. So we got back to the hotel around 7 and most of the other students had already left for dinner. Thus I got stuck with the three professors, which ended up working out in my favor since they bought my dinner. And of course I just love listening to really smart people talk. My favorite English professor is on this trip, so I'll never complain about getting to go to dinner with him. And now I am completely exhausted. I have no soccer ticket to show for it. Every gift I bought at a store today I have to return because I realized that Italian sizes run way smaller than American sizes. Go figure. We are all obese. But despite the depressing outcomes of my day, it has probably been the best day yet. Just because of the company. And because finally there was a day without scheduling. I feel so free!

Pompeii

Today I was on a train from Vico Equense to Pompeii. I looked out the window, and I saw a young man walking down the sidewalk sporting a shirt that read (I kid you not): "pussy forever." Am I missing some sort of Italian translation here, or is this kid for real? Yesterday I stood outside of a church in Portofino. I saw a young girl on a field trip with her middle school wearing a hat that said "get money" in huge graffiti letters. I wanted to ask her if she was even old enough to get a job or if she understood the concept of income. I know I didn't at that age. All I lived for was chuck-e-cheese tokens and Pokemon trading cards. These were my form of currency at age 10. Also, I might clarify, I was not familiar with the term "pussy" (excuse my language.)

Though, yes, I automatically judged these two individuals for their despicable taste in clothing and morals, I have definitely seen them before. I've seen them in many different people I know in the United States. The bold teenager who wears vulgar shirts that he finds in the back of Spencer's. The one who disregards everything his parents have ever said to him ever. Or the little punk middle schooler that thinks he or she is the hottest thing since lava in a toaster oven. I guess it was a relief of sorts to see that these little pests aren't just an American trend. They're everywhere. In my imagination, I saw Italy as a glamorous place full of two types of people: well behaved, beautiful, brown-eyed angels who bake bread and harvest grape vines and the scary, intriguing mafia dudes from The Godfather. My imagination is pretty limited, if you can't tell. 

All this is to say that, yes, Italy and America are two different worlds. But I find a little comfort in knowing that at least we share one common element: little fiends of society. So that's just my little fun tidbit for the day. Food for thought. Since I can't share the Italian food with you, the least I can do is give you a nice thought to chomp on. 

Now to the stuff you actually care about-- what I did today. Class at 9 (a writing workshop). My essay was in this first group of critiques. Basically that means everyone reads your essay and we talk about its good and bad qualities in class. Because I'm an English major, I'm used to this sort of critique, but I think some people are pretty scared... It's kind of funny actually. So without sounding too proud or arrogant, I'll just say that everyone liked my essay and it got chosen to be posted on the class blog for all of the parents to read. After some editing, of course... 

After class we had two hours of free time for lunch, during which I ran in the city and did some exercise in my room. Turns out that was a mistake because we spent about 6 hours walking around in Pompeii this afternoon. We initially had a tour guide, but Dr. Letteri didn't care for him too much. To make a long story short, he sent the guy packing after about 45 minutes. The whole scene was pretty dramatic... Letteri got in his face and told him exactly what was gonna happen: "if you don't like being hired for a 4 hour tour, then you can just leave after 2 hours and I'll take over. Better yet, just leave now. We don't need you." All of us girls, so dainty and innocent, had to turn away, embarrassed of the display. Inside, however, I was cheering. I couldn't understand a single word of the guide's thick Italian accent. So once he left, we just split up with our professors and conquered the tour on our own. To put Pompeii in a nutshell: it's a bunch of really old stuff (older than the bible) that was buried under a bunch of hot stuff back in 79 AD. Now it's just a bunch of broken stuff that's being restored and fixed. There is 6 hours in two sentences for you. My synopsis skills are impeccable. 

By 7 o'clock, my feet were numb and I wanted nothing but a chair and a foot rest and maybe some water. Dinner was at the hotel at 7:30. Fish and potatoes. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it about a 5. But it did the trick for sure. After dinner, me and 10 other girls walked down to an outdoor cafe and spent about 3 hours just goofing off and telling stories. These are my favorite moments of traveling... I love to see all these people outside of their usual furman element and in another sort of world where they don't have to pretend to fit any mold. We are all foreigners in a new place, and we can all be whoever we want. It's a refreshing thing to watch. 

Amalfi Coast

Today's adventures, though the funnest of all, must be short winded and probably boring. We just returned to our hotel, it's past 11 o'clock, my eyelids are heavy, and I've got an early morning tomorrow. It started with a lovely 2 hour class this morning, which, though boring at times, I managed to pay attention to. After class I took an amazing run along the shoreline and got honked at by several cars, and I still haven't figured out why. I was on the sidewalk. Can I just say that every street here is wide enough for just one car, and yet they somehow squeeze in two cars... All the cars here are like little toy play things. Except for the big travel busses. Those things aren't playing around. And the drivers aren't either. They don't care who's coming, they just honk their horn before going around a bend and they pray that no one else is coming who didn't hear them. Because the other car would get smashed and would probably plummet off the side of the cliff and into their demise.

Anyways. After my run in the most perfect weather imaginable, I sat down with my professors for some lunch because one of them offered me half of her sandwich, and who would pass up free food? Somehow the conversation of bed bugs came up, and I told them that I had a bunch of weird bites on my legs. They immediately thought bed bugs. And I immediately thought oh crap that's gross. So Dr. Radel, the self-proclaimed bed bug specialist, came up to my room and ripped the bed apart looking for the bugs. None were found, but I will not sleep in shorts again for the rest of this trip, I'm sure. I've got on the tightest leggings I could find right now, and if one of those sneaky devils can get into my pants, then I applaud him. Because I can hardly get into these pants.

Once the bed bug issue was dealt with, we all piled into a bus and headed for the Amalfi Coast (specifically a town called Portofino, excuse my spelling). I cannot stress enough how beautiful this place is... As soon as I can transfer my photos from my phone to my iPad, I can upload some stuff on here for you to get just a glimpse of how incredible it is. 

We arrived there at 2 o'clock and were told dinner would be at 7. The rest of the day was ours to conquer. We toured a church briefly, another girl and I got gelato, and then we met up with two others to go exploring. I don't know which brilliant mind it was, but someone suggested taking a boat tour. We talked to some men about it and they said that all the tours for today had left, but we could take a private ride for a little extra cash. We deliberated at length over the pros and cons. Pros: adventure and new sights. Cons: potential abduction or drowning. We went for it anyway, and it was absolutely amazing. Our captain, Alfonso, barely spoke any English but he was the most talented boat driver i have ever seen, weaving between rocks and taking us into grottos and such... We applauded him quite frequently. Luckily that's a gesture that doesn't need translation.

Alfonso brought us back safely, and we managed to avoid a Taken situation. Dinner was fantastic, of course. Bruschetta and eggplant pasta. Photos coming soon. Mom and dad, I promise I will talk to you within the next few days.

The Party Has Arrived

I briefly mentioned in my last post that there were one or two packing catastrophes... Let me explain. I was in the middle of triple checking my underwear supply when the zipper on my perfectly proportioned bag busted. By perfectly proportioned, I mean that it was 45" or less, a requirement that our professors absolutely insisted we have in order to be able to travel through Venice or anywhere else that requires boat transport. So yes, my zipper broke and so did my heart.

That's it, I can't go. It's not meant to be. I really took that 45" rule to heart, and I searched high and low in most every discount store I could find to discover this magical, poorly fashioned magenta bag. And now it is dead and so are my hopes and dreams of meeting a pop star in Rome and becoming his partner's doppelgänger before performing at a national music awards ceremony (that makes sense to anyone who has seen the Lizzie McGuire movie.) So with no bag and no morale, I had no choice but to re-pack in a different, larger bag. Turns out all my stress over the bag size was wasted energy because I've now been informed that the worst that can happen is I have to pay an extra charge in Venice for a big bag. But hey, more clothes for me. I even considered bringing my dog and keeping it on the hush hush. Except I don't have a dog, so I don't know how that would have worked out.

Now, after recovering from the tragedies that befell my preparatory processes, here I am on a bus in Rome, trying to ignore the mysteries and beauties that surround me so that I can produce something that could potentially be worth reading some day (I have to write essays for this class and mine is due today at 5). I'm kicking myself for not doing it earlier. But if, like a good student, I had done it much earlier, then my brain would have been boringly rested. I wouldn't be in this zombified state of mind that gives me the ability to really illustrate what it's like to travel in a plane for 9 hours next to a very chatty 39-year-old balding construction worker who thinks he's still in his 20's. What you have before you is the product of a mind that has had only 6 hours of sleep in over 48 hours. Welcome to the world of a travel noob-- a noob so dumb that she didn't get enough sleep to function properly for her academic trip. I guess I just can't hang with the experts. If it weren't for my professors, I would probably have ended up in Kansas or some other horrid place. I couldn't even obtain my boarding pass without some sort of hiccup. And I wasn't even doing that on my own. I'm hopeless.

But to alleviate my travel inexperience, the aforementioned 39-year–old balding man on the flight gave me a pearl of wisdom from his self-proclaimed "years and years of travel adventures." He predicted that I'm going to get off the plane and I'm going to want to immediately dive in and experience everything, no matter how tired I am. He warned me to beware of this instinct because it is the sure fire way to become burnt out when week two comes around.  He is dumb. There isn't a bone in my body that wants to do anything but inhale a pizza and pass out in my bed or on a chair, whichever comes first. If that means "diving in" to the Italian experience, then I must be confused.

What I'm really trying to say is that so far I have learned three things on this trip: if you stuff a 45" bag full with 46" worth of stuff, you cannot defy physics, and it will bust; investing in Benadryl or alcohol or some other sort of sleep aid will be worth it because no matter what you may hope for, airplane chairs simply aren't sufficient for sleep; and lastly, 39-year-old men who think they are still in college are not credible resources for much of anything.

Finally, I would like to announce that today I had my first truly Italian pizza. It was everything I ever hoped for, and now I can die a happy woman in the arms of the food that I love.



Also, I'm currently sitting next to three elderly British folk who are saying things like "quite lovely" and "rubbish" and "a cold drink would be brilliant right now" and "where is the Lou?" I'm so tempted to sit down with them and try on my most convincing accent and maybe even lead them into thinking I grew up only 40 miles away from their current residence. I don't think I could do it. I'm too lame. So that's all for today. I'm going to wonder around alone and see if I can get into some trouble.

Travel's Eve

It's like right when I think I'm ready to go and everything is packed up tightly in its proper position, I come up with yet another thing I'm missing or something that's in the wrong place or something I have but don't need or something that I already have but don't know that I have or something that will get me arrested at the airport and detained indefinitely until the entire trip is over and all of my worrying about packing will have been for naught! You see, even preparing for this trip has driven me insane. The last thing I want to happen is forget a pair of underwear, because I'm certain that the Italian underwear will not be sufficient for my large American stature. No worries though, I triple checked the underwear.

So people have been asking me, "what are you looking forward to the most?" And I'm like... Well. Is it wrong to say that I have absolutely no idea? I know nothing about Italy. I haven't done the readings that our professors assigned us yet (oops)... Thus I am horribly uncultured. The closest I've come go anything Italy is papa johns pizza. Or that Disney movie Ratatouille. Yes, I know, I am a moron. For this reason, I will not be giving my professors the address to this blog. Sorry, fellas. That would mean censoring my real feelings and my honest, good-for-nothing-Italian-related thoughts. And i just can't do that. I guess if I have to answer what I look forward to most, I would say that I'm excited to become friends with my fellow classmates and experience a new culture with them as we learn to get along with and deal with each other. All girls. I'm not so moronic as to think I will get along with all of them or like every person (I am human after all), but surely out of 25 or however many there are, I will make one friend. And that is enough! Just as long as I don't have to roam (or "Rome"...lol) the streets alone and get abducted like that one chick in Taken, then I'll be just fine. I've been told my street knowledge is equivalent to that of a newborn infant child. Because this is true, I think maybe I should hire body guards and travel in a wolf pack of sorts, making me safe while also giving off the impression that I am important. Fear me, Venice!

And now, after a morning full of tragic goodbyes and suitcase catastrophes, I sit in the airport and ponder over the best ways to waste away the two hours before my flight. And then, even worse, how to waste the ten or so hours on the plane. Is it even ten hours? I don't know. Guess I'll find out when homeboy on the plane tells me. By homeboy, I mean pilot. And by pilot, I mean the individual who holds my life in his his hands as we traverse the Atlantic. We, as patrons of US Airways, preemptively salute you, sir, for not killing us.

I'm gonna go ahead and tell you right now, mom and dad, I'm thinking I'll probably get some sort of weird ear piercing or something while I'm there... And I do have that screwed up white tattoo on my wrist that needs to be covered up/replaced. At least I'm warning you this time! I'm 21 and I'm stupid and I'm trying to saturate myself with all sorts of recklessness and adventure before it's too late! That means piercings. Love you guys!

I look forward to writing about something of substance... But for now, this is all that I have. Time for food. Boarding in an hour. Party time.