Rome-ing Athens: November 2011

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Busy all day, everyday

Ciao everybody,

I just thought it would be a good idea to make a post about some of the cool things I've been up to here in Rome.

Our campus here, College Education Abroad-Rome has been putting together all sorts of great activities for us too. Greg, our adviser for our group has been busy planning fun stuff for us too! Staying busy!

During our first week, we had a Pizza and Gelato Crawl. We went out together in Campo di Fiori to try a few different pizzas and Gelato flavors.

There are actually different pizzas for different times of the day.

For lunch, people buy "Pizza Rosa" or "Pizza Bianco". Pizza Rosa is basically pizza bread with garlic and red sauce. Bianco, is just the bread with olive oil and rosemary. Both were quite good. Then, we moved onto the dinner pizzas. I had a Spicy Pomodori- (peppers and tomatoes) and just a Margherita (a fancy word for 'just cheese').

The more adventurous ones in my group had a pumpkin one which was apparently very good, and some fresh mozzarella. The mozz cheese is really fresh and looks like the white of a hard boiled egg. It doesn't taste much like anything, but people in Rome are crazy about it.

Also, it comes from water buffalo. That's....kinda weird.

Gelato continues to amaze me. I won't go on forever, but I can't believe the kinds of flavors they have. I tried a pistachio (my new favorite) and some strawberry and chocolate orange. All really good. They have champagne, red pepper, celery, bleu cheese, amaretto, and tiramisu flavors too (among hundreds of others). Part of me wants to try them before I leave, just so I can say I had celery Gelato.

Another event they planned for us was a visit to Cinicetta- one of the largest movie production studios in Europe. We toured a few Saturdays back and they brought us around to many of the sets.

The street from "Gangs of New York"

The set of the HBO series "Rome"

A movie they are currently working on about St. Fancis of Assisi

One of the editing tables used until the 60's!

We went through their museum too, and I was surprised to find that "Nine" and "The Passion" were filmed here too. What a great way to spend a morning!

Last week, the school arranged for us to try crepes with Nutella at another restaurant in Camp di Fiori. I had my first crepe ever and it was delicious. For those, like me, who have never had one before, they make a flat pancake right in front of you, and while its still hot, they pour on Nutella and walnuts.

So good, but so rich. It was a luxury to eat outside in the square and people watch though!

Yesterday morning, our group had arranged to meet with Father Nick (one of the priests from Saint John's who is in Rome for the next few years working on his masters degree), to hold a mass for our group at Saint Peter's Basilica. Andrew and some of the boys on our trip know him because he was the residential life director and lived on their floor with them last year. Our whole group was up and at the Vatican right at sunrise, and Father Nick took us down below to the Grottoes- 70 chapels below the basilica where there are services being held all the time.

We walked right by some sisters in white and blue habits, who Fr. Nick pointed our to be some of Mother Teresa's missionaries. We all made our way to a tiny room, the "Irish Chapel". It was small and beautiful, with lots of gold Celtic knots decorating the space.

Afterwards, we all went out for coffee and hot chocolate and stayed way too long. I think I was an hour late for Greg's class. However, I'm pretty sure it was forgiven and a great start to our morning.

Greg brought us up to Villa Bourghese (the HUGE park in North Rome to watch the sunset and to reflect like an artist on our walk). What a great assignment. I was so happy about this one.

This was my view of the sunset from Villa Bourghese over St. Peter's Basillica miles away!

Arrevedierci!

Kirsten

Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Problem with Bidets

Sunday night, after returning home from Naples, Judy, Gretchen and I awoke around 4 am to a pleasant little drip of water in our bedroom. Coming from the ceiling was a pretty nice flow of water collecting in a puddle by Judy's bed. We put a pot under the drip and went back to sleep.

20 minutes later, Judy turns on the light because the water drippage was expanding. The end of her bed was soaked and the puddle was spreading toward her shoes. We put up some towels and some more bowls to catch the mysterious indoor rain, Judy moved to the couch and we tried to fall asleep again.

20 minutes later, the water was raining from most of the ceiling, Gretchen took her blankets out to the living room.

Not much longer after, I woke to our whole floor covered in water from the ceiling above. We started our evacuation. Everything including our dry mattresses was moved into the living room because our whole room was wet with the water streams from the apartment above.

It was about 6 now and the situation was getting desperate. Gretchen and Judy went upstairs to talk to our neighbors, who came to the door to look through the peephole, but didn't answer. I wrote in an emergency maintenance request, and made a phone call to get this taken care of.

Dealing with all of the water

Three hours later, We could have taken a shallow swim in our room. Gretchen tries to talk to our neightbors again.

This time, they answered. It was a cute, little, old Italian couple and they didn't speak English. They invited Gretchen in and showed her their overflowing bidet.

At this point, I'm thinking:

"Oh yay, The water that's all over our room is from the bidet.... "

Awesome.

They were just as desperate to stop it as we were so there wasn't anything really we could do until our "emergency maintenance crew" finally arrived.

Eventually the water stopped, and the maintenance guys showed. But we couldn't move back in until it was all dried out.

So, we made the living room our second bedroom. And it was great :) I think we got a little too comfortable in there, for some reason we all slept like rocks. We stayed an extra night just because it felt like a fun, ten-year-old's sleepover.

Judy hanging out in our "new" room

All in all, it was quite the adventure. We're moved back in now. We are so lucky that it happened Sunday night instead of Saturday when we were gone!

Just pray that our lovely little neighbors can remember to shut off their bidet in the middle of the night from now on!

Love always,

Kirsten

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pompeii, Sorrento and Naples

Ciao everybody,

Last weekend we made it to Pompeii, Sorrento and Naples for our excursion as a big group. We had great weather for walking around.

Saturday morning we hopped on a bus to Pompeii. As soon as we arrived in the tourist-y base of the ruins, we were greeted by our weekend tour guide.

I'm feeling pretty bad right now because I forgot his name.

But, he knew a lot about the area and he spoke perfect English.

We toured the ruins of Pompeii- a 2,000 year old city in ruins because of the neighboring volcano (Mount Vesuvius) erupted and covered the town almost instantly- preserving everything in the end moments. As they uncover it now, it's amazing how much they know about it. We walked through the Roman bath house, the city streets, "restaurants", homes, and gathering places. We saw some ancient Pompeii-ans preserved in the lava rock too.

I really enjoyed it, and I loved that we were able to see Mount Vesuvius!

The "Piccola Teatro"- the little theater at Pompeii

One of the pillar holders

Mount Vesuvius!

Some of the items found in the ruins

Preserved in the lava

The Marble/Rock flooring inside an ancient home

Way to brush! The real teeth and bones were still in tact.

After staying out a little too late the night before, and walking around all day, I was beat. We arrived at our hotel in Sorrento (Which was gorgeous by the way), and my hotel-mates Kate and Ali and I just got to our rooms and passed out for a ridiculously long nap.

Side note: I seriously need to stop napping. Athens did a number on my sleeping patterns, I feel like taking a siesta daily.

Unfortunately, I woke up three hours later and it was already dark. Sorrento seemed like a really beautiful little coastal town, and I did go on a walk there later in the evening, but I missed my chance to see it during the daylight.

Anyway, we had a delicious meal of chicken, rigatoni, and fresh green beans served to us at the hotel that evening. During dinner, we talked about games we used to play as kids, and after someone mentioned "Sardines" the nearly vacant hotel led to a pretty weak round of it. We had to try. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't fun though :)

The next day we took our bus over to Naples.

With all the places we've been visiting, I had some pretty high hopes for charm in Naples. And I have to admit, I wasn't super impressed.

Talking about the ruins in Naples

Taylor and our program leader, Greg. If this doesn't represent the reason why we are late for everything, I don't know what does. We have a lot to see, and unlimited memory cards.

Old and New

Checking out the famous nativity scenes on the Christmas decor street

The guys playing Ninja tag- the new pastime

Nuovo Castle = New castle... looks pretty old to me though!

Naples, Italy is the place that pizza was invented. So I'll give it that.

But besides the pizza, it was cold, there were lots of shady people, full of business buildings, lots of busy traffic, not a lot to see, and no where to sit.

I'm happy that I can say that I had pizza in the land that it was invented, and that I finally saw a castle in Europe!

But I'm not a fan.

We made it back to Rome later that night and all in all, I'd say it was a pretty fun weekend.

Arrevedierci!