saturday in rome

im sorry that it has taken me so long to post about saturday, but ive been really sick. there isn't that much to tell about saturday because i basically dragged myself through rome.

we left ariccia at 1020am and got to rome. from rome termini we took the subway to the colosseum, where we started our scavenger hunt for our homework that is due next week. we were given an assignment where we had to find the answer to 20 questions, and then we needed to find those 20 answers in rome and take pictures of them (they're all landmarks...). so we did some of the homework on saturday.

i was miserably sick. you know that feeling when you're in an airplane and you have to clear your ears? yah, i had that all day long... i could not clear my ears to save my life. i tried everything. i thought i was going to die wandering around rome. but somehow i survived... and i finally crawled back to termini where we got on the train to albano. on the train i thought my head was going to explode from all of the pressure. once i (literally) ran home from the train station, i took sudafed and advil, took a hot shower where i FINALLY cleared my ears, and laid in bed watching bridget jones' diary. i fell asleep soon after that.

i laid in bed ALL day sunday (didnt change out of my pajamas... just so you know that i really mean i laid in bed all day) and watched inglorious bastards (awesome!! go rent it) and the duchess (depressing, it made me mad). my friends went to the genzano carnival and i saw pictures. it looked awesome. all of the kids were dressed up, there were thousands of people, and there were cartoon characters like mini mouse there! i was jealous, but i knew i needed to stay in bed to get better.

i did feel ok today. i will post more tomorrow. enjoy the pictures.

colosseum

colosseum

arco di costantino

roman forum

pantheon

sidewalk along the tiber river

jewish district!

(cydney's people)

beautiful fountain

i forget what it's called

piazza di campidoglio

statue in the piazza di campidoglio

(this is the only time the sun came out all day...)

arco di tito

roman forum

roma!

some of the roman forum

courtney drinking her cappuccino

she looks like the weird animal from ice age

hahhaha

tgif

we really didn't do anything today. the mayor was busy so we headed on to genzano. we walked there. the weather was pretty bad so we mainly stayed inside. we just went to a couple of shops, and stopped in a cool wine store. you tell them about what amount you want to spend and whether or not you want white or red and they give you the best at that price. it was really nice. i might be visiting it a couple more times.... after that we came home and watched the hangover with cinzia.

i realized i didnt post any pictures of the town of ariccia. so here you go... eat it up

this is the view of ariccia. the white building on the left is the chigi palace where we live. and this is a really famous bridge. ariccia's so pretty

some more ariccia

more more more

tomorrow courtney, cydney, heather, lauren, and i are going to roma! happy weekend!

frascati scottie!

today was really fun! minus waking up with a horrible sore throat. but thankfully as the day went on it got a little better. katie gave me some medicine out of her 3 jumbo ziploc bags. hopefully that will help.

we got on the bus at 930am and headed for frascati, the town that i was the expert on today! once we got there, i got to give my little speech on frascati over the microphone on the bus. because i had terrible printing issues here, i had to recite it from memory. but it still went really well.

one of the many villas in frascati. frascati is known for their incredible villas, built by papal nobility around the 16th century. there are many of them. some were destroyed in world war II though, and you can only visit their gardens

then we were allowed to wander around frascati for an hour. immediately we ran in to this older italian man who was lusting after our group of american girls. first he kissed me on both cheeks, then he went to kiss krystle on both cheeks, but purposely missed and kissed her on the lips. after that warm greeting, he followed us in to a bakery where he tried to convince us in broken english that he was as beautiful as george clooney or brad pitt. he got down on one knee and broke in to song for cydney for about 5 minutes. the entire bakery was starring at us, and cinzia's face what priceless. she couldn't understand what he was even talking about in italian. it was definitely interesting.

crazy man singing to cydney. that's cinzia in the background in the black. her face is like "what is going on"

from there we went down a small side street where we found some shops, and i found some hunter boots on sale! it was extremely exciting because i have been coveting hunter boots for months. BUT the most exciting part about it is that the pair on sale that i got were a special design. they look like riding boots, not the rain boots, and they have padding on the inside. i have never seen them before, and when we looked them up i think you can really only find them in europe right now? so i love them. they're navy blue. and im so happy, great investment.

my new hunter rainboots. notice how they're fitting to the leg, they come up on the sides, and they're padded on the inside.

after courtney and i spoiled ourselves with new hunter boots, we headed over to a couple of the churches in frascati. we checked out the church of santa maria in vivario which was really beautiful. i really liked the interior of this church. it also has a cool story. back in 1656 some plaster peeled back off of one of the walls of the interior of this church and they discovered a fresco painting of saints sebastian and roch (who is the protector of the plague). soon after this happened, a plague broke out in rome and frascati was the only city not affected by it. from then on they were their patron saints, and statues of saint sebastian and roch were put on the front facade of the church. neat, huh?

really pretty angel detail in the santa maria in vivario church in frascati

Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter Apostle in frascati

this is the main church in frascati

frascati is known for it's white wine. funny fact - the night before i left america i had dinner at an italian restaurant with jordon and we ordered a bottle of frascati wine! i said we had to because it was from the lazio region of italy, which is where i am, and turns out that i have frascati as my expert of the week topic on day one!

also, frascati has a pastry, or cookie, that is of a three-breasted woman. it's very famous here because they say that the people of the town grow up drinking wine from when they're little, so the middle breast is for wine, while the outer two are for milk? definitely weird, but apparently it's normal here?

the three breasted woman cookie

this really pretty fountain in front of the monk's church

after frascati, we went to castel gandolfo, which is where the pope summers! its so, so beautiful on lake albano. in october there is a festival here when they change all of the water out of the fountains and instead push wine through. so you can fill up your wine glasses in the fountains of the square during the entire festival. last year they accidentally mixed up the pipes and were sending wine through home pipes and wine was coming out of peoples' sink faucets! i got my first italian gelato since ive been here which was delicious, but cold. and we also looked inside of the church right across from the papal palace. then heather mailed a postcard to her parents from the first mailbox in the world. yep, the first ever mailbox.

the papal palace

you know the pope is there when there are swiss guards outside and the vatican flag is hanging above the door.

the church in castel gandolfo

this is above the altar in the church

i thought it was a really cool detail

i love the angels

the fountain in castel gandolfo

our whole group in front of lake albano

gelato!

chocolate and strawberry

10 million x better than ice cream. duh.

heather mailing a postcard to her familia from the first mailbox ever

once we saw castel gandolfo, we went to nemi which is another cool town. they're known for their strawberries. i started to feel kind of sad because i did all of this research on my town and i read how in world war II 50% of frascati was destroyed, and in castel gandolfo you can see chunks of the walls gone because of the war, and then we heard about how the germans set on fire an entire museum of famous ships from hundreds of years ago in nemi. i guess growing up in america you don't see any sort of fallout from wars. of course we hear about pearl harbor and there are monuments and cemeteries, but you dont see physical evidence of war. you actually see it here and everywhere we went today we heard, "well this isn't the original because it was destroyed in the war." it's pretty depressing how these historic things are gone now because of it. but the strawberries are awesome! they're so tiny! i ate some sort of strawberry tart which was amazing. we all need to go back and get some more. then i filled my water bottle up in the fountain!

the chunks taken out of the walls in castel gandolfo

best strawberry tart ever

tiny tiny strawberries!

me filling up my water bottle

then we headed up the mountain to see the the view of the entire castelli romani (the castelli romani is the entire area that includes ariccia, albano, genzano, etc...).

the view from the top of the mountain

we came back to the palace after this and headed to the grocery to get a couple of things. so get this... wine here is like the cheapest thing in the grocery store. not kidding. there was a bottle for 99 cents. santa margharita, which is a wine you can get in publix for like $20, is only 6,49 euro here! amazing. i love italy.

tomorrow we meet the mayor of ariccia and we're going to genzano. ciao!

chigi palace

today was a little uneventful. we learned a lot about the palace. tommy and cinzia talked to us for a very long time in the morning reviewing the syllabus and talking about impression management and how we are perceived by the italians. it was really good.

we broke for lunch and we all went to a small restaurant that cinzia recommended. here is where i met my new husband (sorry jordon). he is about 6'0" tall, bald, and 60 years old. he was with his wife. but that didnt stop him! he kept coming over to the table offering us bread, trying to tell us how to make bruschetta with it. he spoke broken english and was biting his hand in the "oh my gosh" way and pointing at me. it was the funniest thing ever.

in the afternoon we headed over to the palace where we met maurizio who is one of our teachers and the director of the program, francesco who is the museum curator and our art history teacher, and susanna who works in the museum and used to have cinzia's job. maurizio speaks really good english and was fun to talk to. francesco was hilarious. he was cracking jokes the entire time, but he's incredibly smart. he studied architecture in rome in college and then went back to school for art history because he loved it so much. so now he's the museum curator.

they gave us the tour of the palace where we saw the big events room and the chapel. then we went up to the tower where we were able to overlook all of ariccia and albano when the sun was setting. it was beautiful. then maurizio took us to our classroom and handed out more information booklets for class.

this is in the chapel at the chigi palace

it is the ONLY fresco that bernini ever signed

very very very famous

its of joseph with baby jesus

the altar in the chapel

the ceiling of the chapel in the chigi palace

we went up in the tower at sunset in the palace

so beautiful

the church across from the palace

pictures of cardinals

they're trying to restore them

after all of this cinzia took us to the supermarket so that we could buy groceries. i got some things, but it was really difficult shopping without brand names that i recognize. usually when i go into the grocery store i know what i like and i pick it up quickly. but i cant do that here! i had to browse around for forever and figure out what looked good and how much it cost. quite the long trip to the supermarket. but i got a lot of food to hold me over the rest of this week/weekend.

then i had to do my homework. we have all been assigned different topics throughout the semester that we must be "experts of the day" on. tomorrow we are going to the towns around ariccia and i have frascati. so i had to research all about the town so that i can print off a handout and speak about it for around 5 minutes. it's pretty interesting. maybe ill post my homework later.

ariccia

we finally made it to ariccia. i am so tired after our week long travels, but they were well worth it. it is really nice to have all of my stuff unpacked and sorted. the palace is amazingly beautiful. i have only seen the part that we're living in, but i can imagine what the rest is like.

once we got here we threw our stuff down and showered. once clean, we went down and had a sandwich that they had nicely provided for us. they were famous sandwiches with pork on them called porchetta. apparently that is very big here. they were delicious.

then we all cleaned up and headed out around albano (the small town right next to ariccia) where cinzia, roberta, and tommy showed us around. tommy is a big guy from america who works with the program and comes over for the spring semester classes. cinzia and roberta are both from italy. it was so funny meeting cinzia for the first time because she kissed me on both cheeks, which i forgot they do here.

we learned where to buy our train and bus tickets, where the pharmacies were, where the best chinese food is, and then we got our cell phones. it's crazy to have a phone after not having one for so long... not that i really am going to use it, but still.

then it was off to dinner at the ariccia hotel. they had reserved a huge, long table for us to sit at. there were bottles of red and white wine, and amazing bread. this older couple came to dinner (i can't remember their names right now... ill let you know later) and they're apparently our new grandparents. they were really sweet. dinner was delicious. we had a starter that consisted of prosciutto, bruschetta, mozzarella cheese, eggplant, and fried artichokes. then we had a plate of lasagne, and a plate of al dente. we finished it off with really good cake for dinner. it was so much food, but of course i finished every single plate :)

we just came home from dinner and i completely unpacked. tomorrow we have to be ready at 9am. we have an orientation where we go over the syllabus and learn more about the palace. in the afternoon we are taking a tour of ariccia and going to the grocery. should be fun!

pictures of where im living:

this is the living area when you first walk in you can see in the back there are chairs because we hold class in here sometimes. and then at the end of this room is the entrance to the hallway where the dorms are

our kitchen

it is on the right when you enter the dorm area

the kitchen's huge!

it's in the same room as the picture above

the bathrooms are so nice. there are two of these rooms.

there are 2 or 3 sinks in a room like this,

and then 2 rooms that have a toilet, bidet, sink, and shower.

really nice and private!

pretty wall of italy pictures

the hallway outside of my room.

you're looking at our grad student's room, olivia.

at the end on the right is a hall to the bathrooms

and a door to another room of girls that is connected to ours

the benches under the windows in our room

this is a view of our room kind of.

you can see the sleeping nooks on the bottom floor,

and the loft where i live.

the stairs leading up to the loft that

me, cydney, and heather live in

my sleeping nook is so comfortable.

i love it. it is like camp,

but with internet and italians

these pictures don't even do it justice. this place is gorgeous. the pictures kind of look like normal dorm furniture, but it's really nice, dark wood furniture. i love it.