homesick

So i know im in a beautiful city, and its an amazing experience, and i love rome... but today i feel a little bit homesick... for a variety of reasons... im totally sick of studio, i want to go out and explore the city, i want my freedom back and i dont want to have the pressure of trying to figure everything out in english and translate to italian, its no fun... and i miss my friends at school... seeing the same 20 people every day is getting old, and im just started to get aggravated about stupid things that i wouldnt get aggravated about if i had some time with other people... and i want to watch a movie, any movie, even a bad tv rerun would be nice... i havent watched tv in over a month, and even tho it doesnt usually govern my life, i miss it... i miss being able to talk to my family every day, phone calls are expensive and with the time difference its hard to coordinate... i miss friday night getting ready to go out to parties, or for sushi, or to just sit around and drink beer and talk about stupid things with friends... i miss cheap bars, i even miss the ruck... i could really go for some french fries right about now, or some wings... i missed all of fall rush, the barbeques, the parties, meeting all the new pledges... i miss my sisters and our beautiful new house... i want to meet our new girls, especially my little little, erzie... i miss dani, i miss fall 04, i miss megan and lj and amanda and jan and lexie, i miss lazy saturdays in my pajamas... every day here is crazy, its non stop... and if you stop for too long its like youre wasting all those precious minutes that youll never get back... i just want to take a nap... my bed is so tiny here, i want my big bed back... i need to go lay down in dani's bed for a while and hide from the world... i miss greg, i miss all the things we used to do, i miss texting all day long, i miss constant contact... i miss room 12, playing cards on the bar, mug chugs, beer pong with real red cups, i miss all the boys... theres only 7 boys in our group, and its not enough... i miss having time to dry my hair, i miss sitting on the sage coin between classes, i miss wearing letters on campus... i miss chef joe, and only having to cook when i wanted to, and being on a meal plan... i miss ramen and easy mac and cookies... i miss drinking tea every night before bed, the tea here is not the same as at home... i miss making nachos with all my sisters in the middle of the night because nobody wants to do work and we'd all rather be fatties... i miss all my shoes, i miss borrowing clothes from sisters, i even miss sisters borrowing clothes from me... i miss greene and being able to visit all my sisters when i needed a break from doing work... and now that ive gotten all this out, i think i feel a little better... so when you read this, dont think im sad... just know that i miss you, and all the things we do together or apart... and i love rome, but its just not the same as home or even troy... and i love my time here, but sometimes it just gets to me that im really far away from all the people and places and things that i love... but i have some good friends here, and theyre taking care of me... and hopefully im taking care of them too... and im going to try to keep myself busy and distracted so i can enjoy every second that im here, but also so it doesnt feel like so long until im back with all of you again.

ps... if you would like to call me or send me something wonderful, let me know and i'll tell you how

mom jeans

Hey Amy! Looking sexy in those mom jeans. You're like a mom model. Where did you get those jeans? Oh they're Mikes? How nice that they have pleats for your front butt. I should borrow them sometime. Bellissima!

one month in Roma

after one month in Roma, I have:
-walked past the pantheon about 30 times, and remained in awe of it
-been abused by crazy Jan, my history professor
-bought 1 new pair of Birkenstock sandals from 2 very cute old men
-broken 1 white glass ring from Verona by playing the cup game at joes
-had a wire toe ring made ON MY FOOT for free
-finished my own bottle of wine in one night
-found muji
-taken pictures of the Vatican at night
-not watched any tv
-created BAM
-spent an entire day walking miles and checking a half dozen stores only to find a hairdryer in the store around the corner
-learned to take a VERY FAST shower
-learned to live without privacy
-become part of a family
-lived without internet for an extended period of time
-learned to order sliced lunchmeat in italian
-learned to think in euro
-done laundry once
-not done enough sketching
-written a bunch of post cards, but not sent any out
-missed everyone lots and lots
-gotten really excited about all our new alpha gams at RPI
-fallen in love with this city

i <3 fridays in Roma

So I’ve decided that even though every day in Roma is wonderful, Fridays quite possibly are the best…

Friday began with Italian, which is always hilarious. Paolo is our teacher and he’s pretty much ridiculous. He was asking us about our plans for the weekend and Andrew told him "mangio il pane con Il Gesu"… which means literally "i'm eating bread with Jesus" lol. Paolo thought that was pretty ridiculous, and he laughed his very strange Paolo laugh and all was good.

After Italian class I went to la Rinascente to buy this cool bag I saw the other day. It’s a tote with Andy Warhol designs on it, and it was originally 60 euro but I got it on sale for 34, which I don’t really think is too bad. I’ve totally stopped thinking in dollars; it’s just not worth it because everything is so expensive here anyway. But it’s a cool bag and its got pockets on the inside and a little clip thing for my keys so I don’t lose them in the bottom of the bag because that’s the most annoying thing ever.

After lunch I decided that I really wanted to go get another crazy ring. There’s an older man that sits at a table across the campo and he makes beautiful jewelry out of silver wire and there’s these rings that are just like a birds nest of coiled wire and I really wanted one. So me and Morgan ventured over to see if we could find some good ones, and the guy started talking to us about the rings and telling us that he’s not going to make the birds next ones because they use too much wire and its expensive and not worth it for him to make. We paid him for the rings, but he motioned for us to come over because he had something special for us. He proceeded to MAKE TOE RINGS ON OUR FEET!!! Yes, he made me put my foot up on his knee so that he could literally make the toe ring around my toe, just for me. He did the same for Morgan and now we have beautiful matching, but different, toe rings. Only in Roma.

the rest of the northern trip

Sooo im back in rome after my weeklong northern tour… it was pretty awesome but im glad to be back so I can settle into a normal routine rather than just running through beautiful cities all day and night…

To continue our tour, we left Genova for Torino on Monday… Torino was absolutely wonderful after scary genova… it was really beautiful, much safer, and had amazing shopping… I found a new awesome store (muji… google it to see some of their fabulous products)… and some new leggings!! Besides that, Torino had a lot of gorgeous churches.... we went to see the school of architecture (which is in an old palace… man I wish greene was a palace lol)… and we went to see the old fiat factory… which has a test track on top!! We ran around it like a bunch of little kids and there will probably be pictures all over facebook of us running around like crazy people lol

After Torino came a brief stop in Verona… as in Romeo and Juliet Verona… it was really nice… another one of those cities where I probably could have spent some more time… we saw a castle that was pretty cool, spent some time sketching… and ran around a bit… I bought a crazy glass ring… its pretty huge… and white… Amy also bought a ridiculous bling bling ring… you should be jealous of our jewelry… haha

By nightfall on Wednesday, we were in Vicenza… we stayed in a convent where we had a midnight curfew, which didn’t matter much since we were up at like 7 and spent all day running around the city and I was totally exhausted by like 11pm every night… we didn’t really spend much time in Vicenza itself, but we did make a visit to the Nardini Grappa Distillery… which a few years ago celebrated its 225^th anniversary by building a crazy new building… it was beautiful… floating bubbles and a cave… loved it! We also got to taste their grappa… not something you want to be doing
at like 11am… haha… then we went to Bassano where the distillery originally was at the end of a Palladio bridge… bassano was really beautiful… we had lunch there… chilled on the bridge for a while… and of course moved on to the next crazy thing way too fast… the day ended with a visit to la rotunda… fabulous… im pretty sure Palladian villas are some of the most beautiful architecture ever… and I wish I could spend my summers living on the top of a hill in a gorgeous summer home designed by Palladio… another night in Vicenza, and then we caught the train in the morning on our way to

VENICE!!! So I was totally not prepared for Venice to be as beautiful as it was… but Venice is pretty much the most gorgeous place ive ever seen… it was so beautiful to take the ferry along the canals… to walk along the canals… to be surrounded by canals… the only problem was that I was perpetually thirsty and really aching to go swimming haha… we spend all weekend in Venice, but I really think I could have stayed for days… when we arrived on Friday morning, we got ourselves oriented and then a few of us went to St Marks Square to chase some pigeons… the pigeons there are totally ridiculous… they’ll just walk right over your feet if you stand too close… I don’t really like pigeons… theyre just flying rats as far as im concerned… so I spent most of the time in Venice just kicking at the pigeons to keep them from doing something really awful like landing on my arm or my head… gross… we also spent much of that afternoon going into various souvenir stores… pretty much every other store in Venice is a store selling a) glass products or b)beautifully decorated masks or c) a combination of the two… so there were some pretty good opportunities for collecting all sorts of junk… I restrained myself a bit, but some of you most definitely will be receiving some gifts from Venice… Saturday morning landed us at the Biennale… a yearly exhibit that switches between art and architecture… this year was art, and let me tell you some of it was really strange, disturbing even… each country gets a pavilion to showcase their installation art… Italy had some good stuff… Russia was actually one of my favorites… but overall it was just strange… after being sufficiently freaked out by some of the worlds best installation art, we continued our day with a stop in Murano, the glass blowing island… its really amazing the things that they make out of glass… apparently it takes 25 years to become a glass master, but when you get to that point, its because you can do amazing things like make life sized flies of out glass… or a spider web out of the thinnest strands of glass ever… I was pretty much perpetually amazed by the glass crafts made on Murano… then we met all together for a Bellini break… Bellinis are Venetian cocktails that involve Italian frizzy wine and white peach pulp… theyre amazing!!

I spent my last day in Venice just walking around enjoying the scenery… we saw Palladio’s last work, a church out on an island across the water from St Marks… it was positively cavernous inside, with huge columns, curved transept altars, and a beautiful altar… then we had lunch in the jewish ghetto, where I bought a crazy red-orange silk scarf… it makes me look really eurochic haha

By the time we boarded the train at 330 on Sunday, I was ready for a break… traveling was a lot of fun, but it’s really tiring! If I had to pick my favorite cities, id put Torino and Venice at the top of the list… and obviously my least favorite was Genova… Id really like to go back to Venice someday… I couldn’t help but smile the whole time I was there… let me know if you’ve been to Venice and you feel this way too

Now I’m back in Rome for 3 weeks before our Hilltowns tour at the beginning of October… and ive got a crazy week of studio and history classes ahead of me… hopefully I’ll be able to make time for doing like 5 loads of laundry in our crazy small washing machine…

to all my amazing alphagam sisters, I miss you and love you and I know we are going to have the most awesome new members ever!!

To everyone, you should probably visit me if you can, Italy is the best!!

genova is full of shit

so we left yesterday to begin our first field trip at 7am... after a few hours of napping on the bus, we arrived in Lucca, a small city in the region of Tuscany... it was really beautiful (pictures will be posted when i have my computer)... there was a church there that was absolutely amaxing, the stained glass lit it up in a way that words could not describe, and unfortunately pictures were prohibited... so if you ever get a chance togo to Lucca, im sure you will see this church and know exactly what i mean
after some more napping on the bus, we arrived in Genova, our real destination for the day... we began with a short orientation given to us by Giudetta, who works here as a professor and architect... then we went to the aquarium, which was awesome... we were like a bunch of little kids looking at all the fish, taking pictures of the pengiuns, really just relaxing and having fun... then we had a nice dinner which involved ridiculous amounts of beer (shared between 11 people of course) and then we wandered around to see what the night life here was all about... which apparently isnt much, even on a saturday night
today we continued our tour of genova, which is characterized mostly by churches with striated black and white facades and also with frescoed trompe l'oil (sp?) facades that look 3d but are definitely not (you will see this in pictures as well) as far as walking around geneva, its kindve a problem... you see, many people here have dogs, italy seems to be a very dog friendly place... however, dog owners are apparently not responsible for cleaning up after their pets, which means you have to constantly watch the ground toavoid stepping in poop, which would be very uncool
overall, genova is not so bad... theres a new plan in the works to really build up the harbor area, which is already far and away the nicest part of the city... it seems that this is not a very touristy place right now, because it is currently underdeveloped and in a state of rebuilding, and it almost seemed a bit dangerous (luckily we go everywhere in groups of 10 or more)... tonight we spend the night in genova again, and we leave tomorrow morning for Torino!

smart cars, bad drivers

so in rome, everyone has these crazy little cars... not just smart cars but something called a vw polo and a nissan micra... theyre probably the silliest cars you will ever see... theres also tons of people on mopeds, motorcycles, etc... and not just guys, girls in beautiful clothes and designer shoes just zipping dangerously through rome trying to run all us pedestrians over... i really dont think there are any traffic laws here
things are settling down here now that classes have really begun... if we had any time to like explore and hang out id like to do some shopping, but apparently that will have to wait... we're writing a book about baroque rome (seriously) and then this weekend we leave for our first trip, which is like 10 days
i've taken a lot of pictures, which i'm going to post as soon as i finish writing this... so youll see that im actually in rome and not just hiding somewhere on staten island
most of my classes so far have just been like crazy 4 hour walking tours around rome with my crazy professors... our archeology professor is jan (pronounced like yahn) and hes pretty outrageous... he makes fun of us... he called me a slacker and amy a talk machine... both of which are true, so in addition to being ridiculous, hes a good judge of character lol
the other big thing here is wine... im developing a taste for 3 euro bottles of wine, which we all drink every night with dinner... our family dinner... besides wine and my basic 3 meals a day, im eating no junk food (we wont even waste our money on it at the store) and walking everywhere, which is awesome... thats why the italians are so thin... because they walk everywhere... they also sweat out all the water they take in... which is crazy... its so hot here, its finally cooled down, and by that i mean its like 85 degrees instead of 95... crazy... anyway, its time to post some pictures!