The last two weeks have been busy busy busy. I dont know if I'll even have time to write about it all before I have class (at the Roman Forum...how cool is that). Candace and Katie visited two weekends ago from Cairo and Edinburgh. On Saturday, Candace and I went to Anzio, which is this little beach town about an hour away. The Americans landed there in WW2, and that's mostly what it's known for. We saw the beach and some surfers, but then it started raining, so we headed back to Rome, and I bought a lovely book in English. Overpriced, but sort of worth it. Going back to Barnes and Noble and having the entire store in my language is gonna be amazing.
Right before and after that weekend, I had three papers and a presentation due....so that's why I havent' written much. Last weekend I went on a field trip to Pompeii, which was AMAZING. Just being in the south first of all was great; it was warm and sunny the whole weekend. There were lemon and orange trees everywhere, and to top it all off, we stayed at this sweet hotel overlooking the water in Sorrento.
Even though we didn't get to climb Mt. Vesuvius, the trip was great. The ruins at Pompeii are so well-preserved that you can actually tell what they once were, as opposed to Rome where a rock represents an old temple. They also had the plaster molds of people who died in the eruption...some of them even had teeth. And did you know that only 10% of the population of Pompeii died in the eruption? I thought it was most of the town, but nope.
On Sunday we went to Herculaneum, which was also destroyed in 79 AD. It's more intact, but less of it is excavated. That was pretty neat too; even the top floors of some buildings were preserved.
Yesterday was Liberation Day (when Italy was freed from Mussolini and the Nazis). I went to the Vatican for the Pope's audience in the morning. I actually saw him this time! He was zipping around on the Pope Mobile. Then Joe and I went to Villa Borghese (a huge park by the Spanish Steps). We found a pond where you can rent rowboats. There were tons of families there because of the holiday, but we waited in line for one anyway.
Other good things: we got internet in the apartment yesterday! And the school paid for it! It is quite nice not to have a 25 minute trip just to check email. I also finished my last paper of the semester this morning. Soo...I am hanging out and booking hostels and flights till finals!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Monday, April 9, 2007
The Vatican sure knows how to throw a party
Today is Pasquetta...that means everything in Rome shuts down, and everyone takes a little vacation. I should be writing one of my four papers, but I figured that since everyone else gets a day off, I should too. Mostly it's been spent procrastinating and gazing at the jar of Nutella on the shelf.
This weekend was packed, though. On Friday I went to Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum with Joe and Vanessa. There had to have been at least 10,000 people packed into the little space between the Colosseum, the Arch of Augustus, and the Roman Forum. We found a nice grassy spot by a bunch of nuns. We got there almost two hours early, but there was no way we could get near the railing to see the Pope. They hand out little books that have the readings and responses so you can follow along. For some reason I was under the impression that part of it would be in English, but nope, all Italian with some Latin thrown in there for fun. Other than the Pope being there and giving a little speech at the end (oh, and being at the Colosseum), it was like any other stations of the cross.
Saturday was Vanessa's birthday, and you know what that means...excuse to go to Hard Rock. Tasty and delicious like always.
Sunday was hardcore. I got up at 5 to start the tram ride/hike to the Vatican by 6. We got there at 6:45, and there was already a pretty sizeable crowd waiting outside the gate. It was supposed to be a line, but I don't think there's any concept of "line" in Italy, so it was a crowd. They started letting people in at 8:15, and I snagged some seats in the front section about 10 rows back. Not bad for battling with 50,000 other people with tickets. At least we got seats; people without tickets had to stand...and that Mass was a good 2.5 hours. It seemed like we were surrounded by Germans...and this crazy Santa Claus-looking guy who was waving an Austrian flag plastered with pictures of John Paul II (I saw him on Friday too).
I was listening to my iPod waiting for the service to start at 10:30 when I heard someone playing guitar. And I thought to myself, 'Who on earth brings a guitar to Easter at the Vatican? I think they supply some pretty good music and don't really need backup.' But then I realized that it was two nuns playing guitar and starting a sing-along because, well, I guess they just didn't bring their iPods. That was actually a lot of fun. They were singing something in Spanish that I couldn't understand (except "emanuel"), but even the Germans were singing along.
Mass was really nifty too. Except the singing, which was in Latin, almost every other section was done in a different language. And then when the Pope said his message at the end (the one CNN was all over because he said the war in Iraq produced nothing good), he said Happy Easter in over 60 languages. That was impressive.
This weekend was packed, though. On Friday I went to Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum with Joe and Vanessa. There had to have been at least 10,000 people packed into the little space between the Colosseum, the Arch of Augustus, and the Roman Forum. We found a nice grassy spot by a bunch of nuns. We got there almost two hours early, but there was no way we could get near the railing to see the Pope. They hand out little books that have the readings and responses so you can follow along. For some reason I was under the impression that part of it would be in English, but nope, all Italian with some Latin thrown in there for fun. Other than the Pope being there and giving a little speech at the end (oh, and being at the Colosseum), it was like any other stations of the cross.
Saturday was Vanessa's birthday, and you know what that means...excuse to go to Hard Rock. Tasty and delicious like always.
Sunday was hardcore. I got up at 5 to start the tram ride/hike to the Vatican by 6. We got there at 6:45, and there was already a pretty sizeable crowd waiting outside the gate. It was supposed to be a line, but I don't think there's any concept of "line" in Italy, so it was a crowd. They started letting people in at 8:15, and I snagged some seats in the front section about 10 rows back. Not bad for battling with 50,000 other people with tickets. At least we got seats; people without tickets had to stand...and that Mass was a good 2.5 hours. It seemed like we were surrounded by Germans...and this crazy Santa Claus-looking guy who was waving an Austrian flag plastered with pictures of John Paul II (I saw him on Friday too).
I was listening to my iPod waiting for the service to start at 10:30 when I heard someone playing guitar. And I thought to myself, 'Who on earth brings a guitar to Easter at the Vatican? I think they supply some pretty good music and don't really need backup.' But then I realized that it was two nuns playing guitar and starting a sing-along because, well, I guess they just didn't bring their iPods. That was actually a lot of fun. They were singing something in Spanish that I couldn't understand (except "emanuel"), but even the Germans were singing along.
Mass was really nifty too. Except the singing, which was in Latin, almost every other section was done in a different language. And then when the Pope said his message at the end (the one CNN was all over because he said the war in Iraq produced nothing good), he said Happy Easter in over 60 languages. That was impressive.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
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