three months!

its been three whole months already... 3 months since ive been in my nice warm bed at home... 3 months since ive gone to the mall... 3 months since ive watched television for any extended period of time... its been a pretty crazy 3 months... and now a new list of what ive done:

• been inside the colosseum!! (i finally did this today! wahoo!)
• rode a crazy tandem bike at villa borghese (yesterday haha)
• almost not met chris at the airport (but i found him and now hes here!!!)
• helped to orchestrate a real american thanksgiving dinner... 28 people in our tiny apartment!
• almost destroyed chocolate covered strawberries i made for said thanksgiving dinner dessert
• got a pretty new coat
• got a sweet new boyfriend :-)
  
• completed italian class!
• been elected VP Recruitment of AGD (and im soooo excited!!!)
• backpacked (by that i mean i only had 1 backpack of stuff) through europe
• visited milan and climbed a zillion stairs to the top of the duomo
• found out that you need a reservation 2 weeks in advance to see "The Last Supper"
• visited london and realized how much i missed speaking english
• visited barcelona and saw a place where they filmed top model!
• visited paris and hung out with the gargoyles on top of notre dame!
• been really sad about missing formal with all my sisters :-(
• gone down south and saw some cool stuff
• found out theres an architect from Naples named VACCARO! (and here i thought id be the only architect named Vaccaro)
• went to Capri, the most beautiful place in the world
• missed America, Americans, and American shopping malls at this time of year
• started getting excited for christmas at home
• missed the fam, my sisters, and pretty much everyone at home

So ive got exactly 25 days left in rome (less than a month!) and its exactly 1 month until christmas! anyone who's been following along that has been to rome before, what have i missed? im gonna try to jam it all in these last few weeks (while i also crank out my studio project)... final review dec 12... ill be home dec 20th... i have my history final tomorrow so i should get back to studying... wish me luck! miss you all and i cant wait to see you all!

southern trip... 5 days later

so im sorry ive been such a bad blogger lately, ive just been really busy... we got back from the southern trip on sunday night... and now that ive spent a few days drying out, i feel like i can write about it

our trip started in paestum, which is the site of an archeological excavation where the temples of Hera I and II are located... a large portion of italy is an excavation, so we've seen a lot of these types of things... the temples are actually greek and not roman, and are very well preserved... it was also a gorgeous day when we were there, which was a great way to start the trip!
from there we traveled on to matera... which is this crazy city that up until like the 1970s or something people were literally living in caves! and then the president of italy at the time was like this is not working, we need to move these people into real houses and preserve the amazing city that they created... sooo now its protected by UNESCO... and its uneblieveable... unfortunately it was damp and drizzly the whole time we were there... but we stayed in a hotel that is actually renovated housing in the original part of Matera, called the sassi... pretty awesome... we also got to see a reconstruction of a typical home, and some rock chapels... literally churches carved out of the rock... unlike anything we've ever seen before... while we were there we had a HUGE dinner, paid for by RPI (or really by us, but who's counting) where we stuffed ourselves so full of delicious food that i seriously almost busted out of my shirt! it was amazing! before we left, we popped inside a new hotel that is being built in the sassi, and it is gorgeous... we literally fit our entire class inside one of the bathrooms! gorgeous! this is my new "when i get rich" vacation destination... of course ill plan to go when its warm and dry... haha

we left matera midafternoon and headed on to the amalfi coast... our hotel was accessed by the longest windy road ever, navigated without a hitch by our trusty bus driver Fabio (brother of Carlo, our other amazing bus driver)... did i mention it was pouring rain? The next morning, the sun came out in amalfi, which was fabulous, and we took a bunch of gorgeous pictures of the blue sky and the sun breaking through the clouds... we visited the duomo and the cloister of paradise, which were unimpressive but pretty, and then we jumped on a bus to head up up up the hill to Ravello... we then visited another church, grabbed some lunch (mmm salami and fresh mozz on a huge roll) and headed into the garden of the villa cimbrone to do some sketching... which i did, in between scarfing down my delicious sandwich and being completely awestruck by the view... after this, we WALKED down the mountain... which took like an hour, and took a serious beating on my knees and ankles... and we literally walked all the way down, under the main road, to the beach! the water was so warm that jenna went swimming! i chose to stay dry and walk around the little village of amalfi, which was really very pretty, but very small... then it was time for some desk crits (yes, i said desk crits... and yes, we were on vacation) and then we were back out again for dinner in a pretty restaurant on the beach... mmm mussels and linguini! (grandma, if you are reading this, i cannot wait to get home for christmas and stuff my face with mussels! i think of you every time i get them in a restaurant here!) early the next morning we headed out to vetri, to some crazy ceramics factory that i cant remember the name of and i also cant remember who designed it! oh well... it was cool... they make ceramic everything in this crazy building designed specifically to be their workshop... there are even clay pots on the outside of the building that act as a layer of insulation for the shop! too bad it poured rain the whole time we were there, and when we got back on the bus we were soaking wet... gross!

from there we headed to Pompei, the ancient city buried in ash by the eruption of Mt.Vesuvious and discovered in the early 1900s... theyre actually still in the process of excavating it... its absolutely huge and pretty amazing... minus the fact that it looks like every other excavation we've seen so far... we went to the Villa of Miracles... or something like that... where there is a fresco called "The Miracle of Life" which tells the story of a girl becoming a woman through getting married... interesting concept... i had no idea i had to get married to become a woman (haha, i know they were pretty old fashioned back in ancient times)... its really a beautiful fresco, and the colors are still really vivid even today... the frescos in Pompei are really well preserved and for the most part really beautiful... as are the mosaics... after freezing half to death in rainy, windy pompei, mike and i found a cheap pizza place and warmed up to some delicious pizza and some hot chocolate before jumping back on the bus to head to Naples...
We started our visit to Naples by going to the national museum there, which really looks like its in need of some serious renovations... not to mention some paint... we checked out some of the stuff they have there from pompei, and also some things they have from the Farnese collection and the Baths of Caracalla, both things we have pretty close contact with in Roma... the Farnese gem collection is in Naples, and consists mostly of teeny tiny cameos... which were really pretty... luckily after this we were finally able to check into our hotel and get warm and dry before going out to a crazy Napolitano dinner... we went to this restaurant called Nenella or something like that... and they basically come to your table and shout out dishes and you raise your hand if thats what you want and they just count up how many they need to bring out... and the food was delicious... after a while once we were all riled up we were getting really into the crazy atmosphere and that got the server pretty hyped up too... apparently hyped enough to start throwing plated and empty water bottles... which was pretty hilarious... and we got all the amazing dinner we wanted for 11 euro... perfetto! The next day we began by walking all around naples to see the main architectural junk... so we saw the galleria and some piazzas and i think a palace... but the coolest was that we saw the National Post Office designed by Giuseppe Vaccaro (i kid you not!) during the fascist period... so its a very minimalist building, but the attention to details and materials is pretty amazing, and im not just saying this because the guy who designed it might be family... it was a cool buiding... seriously! after that we went and did some window shopping... i found nothing of excitement... so saved my money, and went back to the crazy restaurant from the night before... yum.
In the morning, we checked out of the hotel early and headed to the docks to get on the boat for Capri, which is not "in season" right now, since its not summer anymore obviously... but its still a gorgeous place even tho it was damp and rainy the whole day... we had dinner in a restaurant with a beautiful view, and it also had all their plates and things made by the ceramic place we visited in vetri! pretty cool how it all comes together like that... they also had the most amazing calzones... did i mention italians are the most amazing cooks ever? because yea, they are... i love italian food... then we visited a perfume brewery... ill call it a brewery because it literally had those metal vats like they brew beer in... and the perfume was really pretty, but not my style... so i settled for buying a few presents and then we headed out to visit the garden (beautiful, and with an amazing view) and then to eventually head back down to the docks to get on the boat that took us back to Naples... where we got back on the bus and headed back to rome... end of trips for Roma fall 07.

That was a much longer post than i initially anticipated, so i think now ill start doing some of the other things i really need to do, and maybe later ill throw down a post about thanksgiving here in roma... ive posted all the pictures from the trip so take a look at those, theyre really beautiful!

aaand Chris gets here tomorrow! im super duper excited!

the view from here...

so im starting to get a little philosophical about living here in rome... and its weird... but maybe interesting and kinda cool what ive come up with...
ive started to think about what its like to become intimately familiar with a city that is not "your own"... its not your home, its not even in your country... but for some reason you get to know it very well, and you love it for some reasons and hate it for others... but it could almost be home because you begin to know it like the back of your hand... strange... me and mike were running today and we were looking around (as usual because theres just so much to see) and we saw a pretty high brick wall and mike speculated out loud that it might be part of some old wall circuit... for those of you who have not become intimately familiar with rome, "wall circuits" is the lame-o historical/architectural term for the GIANT THICK VERY TALL BRICK walls put up around the city at different times in its history, and if you walk around you tend to run into still standing chunks of the wall pretty much everywhere around the city... interesting huh? and then i started to think about the 50 or so buildings in rome that i know all the details of... all the w's (who, what, when, where, why)... i could identify about a dozen palazzos, a bunch of villas, a whole bunch of churches... i cant do that at home... which is a little bit strange for me to think about... like why dont i know my own home the way that i know a place that ive been living in for under 3 months? probably because i wasnt required to take extensive history classes on the art and architecture of staten island... but honestly, a lot of this stuff i might have figured out anyway... its very strange
in other news, the prepaid phone company here (TIM) is getting on my nerves today... last week i went to the TIM store and paid them 20 euro (no small sum of money) to put some minutes on my phone... now i dont use my phone much, but when i use it its usually with a phone card to call my parents... so when i put the minutes on my phone and then tried to call my parents with the phone card, i assumed that the reason i got some random message in italian about having no credit was because my phone card was out of minutes... it wasnt until yesterday that i tried calling locally and realized that no, its not my phone card thats out of minute, its my TIM card and now i have to go back to the TIM store and harass them so i can get my minutes! the crazy part of this story is that while i was in the shower today thinking about what i was going to say to the idiots at the phone store, i started planning out what i would say in italian... like completely in italian... starting with "ho un problemo" and continuing along telling them that "non ho usato minuti, ma il mio telephono non ha minuti... ma ho pagato venti euro per minuti la scorsa settimana!" ... all said in a very angry italian voice... for those of you who dont speak italian... that means "i have a problem"... "i havent used minutes, but my phone does not have minutes, but i paid you 20 euro for minutes last week!" hahaha... im out of control... who am i going to speak italian gibberish to when i get home?
this week has been long and pretty much horrendous... to celebrate the end of a bad week and a beautiful fall day, me and mike took a walk yesterday... we picked him out some new sneakers (you'll have to see it to believe it im sure) and then got some pizza foldy thing and ate by the spanish steps (i dont know what i ate but i assure you it was delicious) and then we walked to the villa borghese park... which is the HUGE park that at one time was the private gardens of a villa just outside the walls of rome... and its absolutely gorgeous... theres trees and green grass and fountains everywhere you turn... so we'll have to go back another time to really enjoy it fully... then i went back to the apartment and made some baked ziti (mmmmm) and meatballs... delicious... which i plan to have for lunch in a little bit when i return to the apartment to do some work... im pretty excited about that... all in all, yesterday was a pretty good end to not such a good week... and that made me happy... this morning me and mike ran, which made this weekend even better, but now ive got some work to do because my professor is crazy and we're writing a book about baroque architecture and scripting... so if youve got any thoughts on that topic, let me know and maybe you can get in on the book too... pretty sweet huh?
i'll conclude with a pic of the view out my apartment window...thats the market that sets up every morning in campo dei fiori, literally at the crack of dawn... and sells everything including but not limited to: FLOWERS, kitchen supplies, souveneirs, knockoff prada bags, fruit, veggies, fish, spices... the list goes on and on... its pretty intense... so i see this every day, and this is where i buy some, but not all, of my food... mmm fresh!

i'll be ok

Dear Mom and Dad,
Please send money,
I'm so broke that it ain't funny.
I don't need much just enough to get me through.
Please don't worry 'cause I'm alright.
I'm playin here at the bar tonight
This time I'm gonna make our dreams come true...
Well I love you more than anything in the world.
Love,
Your Baby Girl

~Sugarland

Morgan & Barb Crazy Vacation Adventure

So i wish i remembered half the amazing things me and morgan did over the past week... it all went so fast and now ive just got a ton of pictures (which i am currently uploading) that ive tried to go through and remember everything ive seen and done... but 4 cities in 8 days is an awful lot of sightseeing... and TONS of WALKING! So my feet hurt, actually... everything hurts now... but heres the highlights:

Part 1: Milan
We left at like 5am from our apartment to catch the plane to milan... why? because its cheaper that way... our flight was at 650 am and arrived in milan at around 820 or something... i dont even know... we got to our hostel, which was (thankfully) just a cheap hotel, and we dropped off our bags to get on with our visit... we only had 2 days you know! we went first to the duomo, which materialized as the biggest sand castle ive ever seen in my life! its huge and the entire outside is embellished with sculptures, and its made out of a pink marble (yes erin, its really pink!)... its absolutely gorgeous... we climbed all the way up the stairs to the roof... it was pretty amazing.. we spent the rest of the day walking around the duomo area, doing lots of window shopping... but not any real shopping since we embarked on this journey with only backpacks! later in the day we hung out in front of the duomo and did some people watching... it was mostly beautiful people, but there were also some people in need of a mirror... haha
Bright and early next morning, we tried to go see "The Last Supper" as in, the painting... the real one... but apparently to see that, you need to make a reservation about 2 weeks in advance... so no last supper for us :-( ... we had seen that there was a pretty big park with a (free!) aquarium, so we decided that should be our next stop... in the park we found a giant castle museum, a celtic festival, and the aquarium... so we spent some time seeing all of those things and enjoying autumn in the park... by the end of the day, we were pooped, but ready to head to London!

Part 2: London
We arrived in London around midnight (i think) and we actually met some american guys on the bus who pointed us in the right direction when we got off... well we started off down this street right out of Mary Poppins... no joke, it was really cool... we were also very relieved to be speaking english... we checked into our hostel, which was pretty clean, and eventually settled into bed, only to be woken up very early by our not-so-quiet roomates... we decided to start by walking along the river... we passed by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, we saw all the good bridges (Jubilee, Millenium, London, and Tower)... waved to the London Eye from across the river... saw the Basilica... i cant even remember the name of it right now... possibly St Pauls... we got some Starbucks! mmm... and eventually made our way to Picadilly Circus... all of this we did on foot, which is a really long way... like a really really long way... because the tube (their subway) is 4 pounds per trip... which is somewhere around $8... so that was a no go... we spent that money on candy from Top Shop's Sweet Shop and a movie! (The new Ben/Jerry Stiller movie... not great but it was in english haha)... then we got fish and chips and some London Pride beer for dinner... and headed to bed to rest our feet for the next big day
Day 2 in London led us back to Westminster Abbey so we could go inside and check things out... its a pretty huge church, completely crammed full of tombs... we saw poets corner and the college garden and of course Newtons tomb (this is one of those DaVinci code things haha)... after the Abbey we trekked up through the park to Buckingham Palace, grabbed some soup and had a little picnic in the park, then went on to the palace where we SAW PRINCE CHARLES! yea, im not kidding... he was having tea with some people, i cant remember who, but there was this crazy procession with horses and carriages and lots of guards in funny hats, and we saw the prince and we think the queen was in one of the covered carriages... it was pretty awesome... the funny hat guys i mean... haha! After that it was already time to head out (sad i know)... all aboard for Barcelona!

Part 3: Barcelona
Sooo we got to barcelona late at night on who knows what day of the week... tuesday maybe? and found ourselves in a bus station where the only person working did not speak english (and neither morgan nor i speak catalan) ... so we got a map and headed out... eventually just getting a taxi to bring us to our hostel... which was a dump, but pretty clean and right on the beach... early in the morning we set out for Park Guell, a Gaudi designed park that has some outdoor escalators leading up to it (now i know why those are uncommon, they sounded like they were in pretty rough shape lol)... and we wandered a bit through the park, saw some crazy colorful mosaic stuff... and saw (get this) where they had the scary bride fashion show for one of the top model finales! i have pics so you should check that out... after the park we headed to la Sagrada Familia... which is this crazy Gaudi church that started being built in 1882 and wont be complete until like 2050... its absolutely ginormously huge, and when you look up at the ceiling, its supposed to look like a canopy of trees... its pretty much all based on forms found in nature, which are then somehow created through math objects... i wish i could explain it better, but see the pics, google it, if youre interested... after that we went to la Padrera to hit up the roof (a pretty crazy Gaudi construction), then walked down to Casa Batllo... after the Gaudi fest was over, we headed down La Rombla... or something like that... which is basically a market that goes down the middle of a street... theres a cluster of pet shops, a cluster of restaurants, a cluster of flower shops (they had blue roses, crazy!)... just clusters of things basically... and it leads down to the water... where there was some cool stuff... so by the time we got to there, me and morgan just walked along the water, and eventually along the beach, before heading to bed to rest our feet...
Day 2 had us up and out on the beach again... it was so pretty at night we had to see it during the day... so we walked all along the water, watched the surfers... hung out for a bit... decided to make our way back to La Rombla... saw some salsa dancers and other street performers... walked up and over towards some park that apparently has a zoo (we like animals apparently) but once we got to the zoo and we saw it was like 15 euro for an adult ticket, we said no way and got some ice cream instead... then we headed back to the water to look for some dinner... we ended up having a whole bunch of sangria and tapas on some boat... which was pretty awesome... a good way to end our time in barcelona... we headed to bed somewhat early since we had to be out at around 415am the next morning to get to the bus to take us to the airport

Part 4: Finally in Paris
upon our arrival in paris, we realized that no we do not speak french and NO it is not easy to find your way along the metro... sooo it took us a bit to get oriented... after a good deal of walking and some metro riding, we got to our hostel and dropped our things off... by then it was about time for lunch, so we grabbed some chocolate chip baguettes and headed out towards the Jardains du Luxembourg... or however you spell that mess... the gardens were lovely, so we stopped and took some pictures, and then continued towards Notre Dame, which is apparently on an island in the middle of the Seine River... pretty cool... so we found that and went inside and spent some time gawking at the rose windows... then took a lap around the outside and decided to come back the next day to head up the towers to the roof... from Notre Dame we walked at a brisk pace towards the Louvre, took a quick look at the outside (again to return the next day) and jumped on a metro to see Sacre Cour, the highest point in the city, topped with a garden, some steps, and a basilica... the view was amazing and probably would have been better had it not been so cloudy... but it was a great view none the less... after that we metro-ed it back down to the champs elysees, and started out along that towards the Arc de Triomph... along there some guy was doing silhouettes in "under 2 min guaranteed" and he was so good at them that i paid the 3 euro to get it done and it really does look like me! totally worth it... so then we continued towards the arc, which never seemed to get any closer and then suddenly we were there... took a look at that and then kept right on walking down towards the Eiffel Tower... we got there just around dusk, took a few pics, and decided it was time for dinner... after dinner we headed back to the tower and bought some tickets for the next boat ride along the Seine River... since we had a few minutes to spare we got some crepes filled with chocolate (mmm the Parisians really know how to do dessert) and then went back to catch the boat for our very romantic boat ride along the river past all the good stuff that we spent all day walking past... it was sooo pretty all lit up at night... then it was time to head back to the hostel for bed...
Day 2 in Paris led us straight to the Eiffel Tower... it was a bit cloudy and overcast... but by the time we got there it was clearing up... so we walked up to the second floor, which is really like the 5th floor of a normal building... then took the elevator up to the tippy top... once we got there i could see New York! actually, no i couldnt... but i could see all of Paris... it was crazy high up there! after the Eiffel Tower we headed back to the Louvre for a few hours to see the highlights...first we had to see the upside down pyramid with the little pyramid under it (DaVinci code)... then we hit up Michelangelo's Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave, originally meant to be on the tomb of Julius II before it was redesigned several times... then we saw the Athena Nike... and of course the Mona Lisa... then we had to find the Madonna on the Rocks (any DaVinci code fans out there?)... then we wandered a bit and stumbled upon the rest of the portraits that were originally in the Studiolo of the Ducal Palace of Urbino (we saw that on our Hilltowns Tour)... and also the crown jewels of Napoleon and Josephine (WOW)... we wandered a bit through the museum and then realized it was time to start trucking it over to Notre Dame to see the bell tower... so we started off towards Notre Dame, waited in a pretty quick line, and then climbed the 422 steps to the roof of Notre Dame where we hung out with Quasimodo for a while... again a beautiful view of Paris... theres really so many places in Paris where you can get up pretty high and get a view of the whole city... gorgeous! after Notre Dame, it was time to go... so we racewalked pretty much for about 45 minutes back to our hostel, grabbed our stuff and jumped on the nearest metro to grab the train back to Roma... which nearly hit a speedbump when we were told that since we didnt have eurorail passes we had to pay the difference for the trip, in 1st class!... well the guy was really nice and switched us to a room in coach (still with beds) and we were never charged for the trip... so we had a looooong train ride (from about 7pm to almost 11am) most of which we slept through... and arrived well rested back in Rome this morning...

Back in Roma, we grabbed the bus back to our apartment... i dont think i have ever been so happy to be in a foreign country speaking a language i am nowhere near fluent in... so now ive been blogging forever (its taken me a few hours to get through all this) and i've uploaded all the pictures fit to print (you'll have to see them all to get a real feel for my trip) and i had some gelato! mmm i love gelato... and now im (almost) ready to settle in for a full week of killer studio before my southern trip begins next week... poopy
special thanks to maegen, erin, bratty, christy, lisa yue, and lexie for pointing us in the right direction on our trip... also thanks to lj and erzie for the postcards! and to all the girls who have been facebook messaging me and writing on my wall, i miss you all sooo much and i cant wait to be back with all of you! (even though i looooove rome)

To recap: all was fabulous on the trip... i wouldn't recommend 4 european countries in 8 days (my feet are killing me)... but its totally doable if you get the chance! it was def the experience of a lifetime!!!