I love being a local

So there is this bar by my house that I just absolutely love. (It is an Italian bar which means it is a cafe, you go there to get coffee not to get shitfaced.) Part of the reason I love it so much is because it is amazing, seriously one of the top 2 cappuccinos I have gotten in Rome. (The other one being from Tazza D’Oro the super amazing place next to the Pantheon - widely considered having the best coffee in Rome.) But the other reason I love is because they remember me. Every time I walk in the lady behind the bar laughs, says hello, and recites my order. She then proceeds to give me my order straight away, even when it is crowded I never have to wait, and she ALWAYS gives me a piece of chocolate on the saucer of my cup. She always offers me water too, which is normally only given to people who order  a cafe (espresso). Once when they didn’t have my order, I normally get un cappuccino e una bomba con cioccolato, she looked very upset. But I just happily ordered something else.
        As I am getting closer and closer to the end, I am getting more and more excited to go home. (11 days!) I can’t wait to see my family and my friends and my city, but I keep realizing how much I am going to miss this place. And not the big things either, but the lady behind the counter at the bar, and the guy who checks our IDs at school.

A much needed update

Well since my last post a lot, and at the same time not a lot, has happened.

I went to Brussels which you can see here. It was amazing. Such a beautiful little city. We weren't there that long, just two days which with travel times really was more like a day and a half. We had a shaky start involving loosing people in the metro system when we first got there...yeah not so much fun. But the rest of the trip was amazing. The chocolate was great. My favorite was the hot chocolate spoons, which were these wooden spoons that have a chunk of chocolate on the end. You then stick them in hot milk and stir to melt the chocolate. It was beautiful. The food was good, the city was beautiful. Felt like something out of a fairytale, all of the architecture was gothic and just amazing. Also we went to the comic book museum there, which was very very cool. I had a ton of fun, despite all of the rain.

(On that note it has been raining here for a month straight. I am so tired of it.)

Then my family came for Thanksgiving, which was a blast. You can see pictures here. Tons of food, tons of fun. I had so much fun, saying good bye was hard. But I will be home soon enough. Just need to get through finals.

In terms of work I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had two tests today, one in Latin and one in Italian, an 8 page paper due tomorrow, which I finished already. Then Monday I have a 10 page paper on slavery, then the week after I have 5 finals and one 5 page paper on Ovid. Then home! Insanity. Where has the time gone?

All of my roommates are going to Paris this weekend. So I will be home alone. But I am going to try to use the time to get my paper done and to do some last minute sight-seeing before finals. I would like to get some pictures of things that since I see everyday I haven't yet. Like the Tiber/Ponte Sisto, and the area I live etc.

Back to food. Tonight I tried another traditional Italian dish. From Sicily I made "Pasta alla Norma" which is basically pasta (I made penne) with tomato sauce and sauteed eggplant and grated cheese on top. It was delish. I am very happy, I now have about 5 traditional dishes in my belt. Mission accomplished. :)

Ciao tutti!

2 Jews in Rome

Liat, one of my roommates and a fellow New York Jew, and I decided to go for a walk today. (Actually I needed to stop by campus to print out my boarding pass for Brussels tomorrow, but the servers were down so I couldn't. Fuck. But not the point of the story.) It was a really nice day, first in a while. And we walked down to campus, then around the Jewish ghetto for a while. We had the most amazing lunch. We went to this amazing kosher restaurant and got falafel, humus, tahini, baba ganoush, Israeli salad and sigariot. It was so amazing! Anyone who has spoken to me lately know how much I have been craving non-Italian food. This was perfect. It was so lovely. We both felt like we were back in Israel.

Tonight we're going to make lasagna (back to Italy), and tomorrow I leave for two days in Brussels with Kate and Catherine! So excited!

New Love for the Vatican City

So today Kate Catherine and I had a fun day around town. But I must admit my favorite part was going to the Vatican City. Catherine and Kate went to the museums there, but I had done that already so I just hung out in the St. Peter's Square and such. I went to the Vatican post office and sent a few postcards. So much fun! I got Vatican City stamps too. I love sending things via pope-mail*. So if anyone wants a postcard just give me your address, I will *gladly* do that more.
<--- There you can see one of the many Vatican mailboxes. Once I finished that errand I just hung out in the square while I waited for them. I drew a little, but mostly took pictures. By the time that the girls were done, the sun had set. And I must say there is little that is more beautiful than the St. Peters at night. See:

If you want to see more pictures from the day (and from past adventures, such as our trip to the Gianicolo Hill which I forgot to blog about - we got to see a canon get shot!) you can see them here.

*The Italian mail system is notoriously bad, so not only will you guys get things faster via pope-mail but it is ten times cooler. Also, thank god, now I know for sure you'll get it. (Pun intended.)

It all makes sense now

I understand how it is that Rome gets more inches of rain per year then London. It may not rain as often but boy does it rain hard.

How do I know this you might ask? Well I just essentially swam to the ATM and I now understand how my dog feels when she gets out of a bathtub. I just toweled off a bit, and now it is time to get back in bed and finish my reading of "De Rerum Natura" by Lucretius. The man wrote science and philosophy in Latin in verse. 'Tis an odd reading, but I like it. Thank god I only have to read it in English though. I did by a bomba for motivation. Once I finish my reading I can indulge in the chocolaty, sugary goodness that is an Italian doughnut. That is assuming it survived its journey 20,000 leagues under the sea. I didn't open the back to check. Once the bag is open there is nothing to stop me from devouring it.

Cooking Classes

Kate, Catherine and I have started taking cooking classes together. So far we have had three and we're learning authentic Roman/Italian dishes. We've made, Rigatoni All'Amatriciana, lentil soup, and Lasagna Bolognese. They are all so good. Next time we're going to do a meat dish and make Saltimbocca. I am having so much fun with them. I can't wait to show off my new skills when I get home.

Something Funny Happened in the Circus Maximus

So, my history professor told us about this huge thing happening in the Circus Maximus last Sunday. I decided to check it out, being the geek that I am. It was a historical reenactment of the military and other cultural things from Ancient Rome. It. Was. Awesome.

I went with Savannah and took SO many pictures. You should really look at them all here, but I will walk you through the day a bit here and post a few with descriptions.

So first half of the Circus Maximus is set up like a military camp. There are tents everywhere and people dressed up just hanging out that you could talk to. There were tables set up that showed you the different types of weapons, armor, etc. it was really cool. There were shields lined up everywhere, and a bunch of soldiers just milling around eating. There was also a few stalls set up that told you about Roman coins, jewelery, medical tools, and mosaics that was set up like a mini-market.

(A brief photo break, then there will be more about the day)

 

Then there were a bunch of dances, which were strange and mostly consisted of belly dancing. Felt very eastern, and not very Roman but whatever. Then there were a bunch of military drills. They showed us some of the military formations and then there were a few man-on-man fights. This part was a lot of fun. (Apparently earlier in the day they did Roman vs Celtic fights, which were fun. I heard this from my history professor when we were talking about it after the midterm.) I have a lot of photos of this, a ton of action sequences so check out my facebook album that I linked to earlier for more. 

    Then there was a reenacmeant of a Roman wedding, which was really interesting to watch. From the actual souvenir market all around the festival, I got a t-shirt with all the money I had on me at the time. But I really like. They were also selling armor (for the reasonable price of 300 euro), helmets, swords ad shields, but try explaining that in customs. 

I really like her helmet.

API trip to Florence

So last Friday and Saturday I was on the API overnight to Florence. I must say, Florence is a beautiful city. It is a lot smaller than Rome and a lot quieter. I really loved it but I think a few days was the perfect amount of time. I got to see all of the major sights and I had a lot of time wander around. I also had the most amazing meal with a girl from API in Tuscania, Maria. We got mistaken for being Italian in the restaurant and we were very proud of ourselves for that.

So we left Rome at about 7 am and got there midday. It was drizzling and we went on a guided tour of the city. Then we gto a quick bite to eat and checked out the leather markets. The markets were a ton of fun, bags, belts, wallets, gloves, jackets, etc everywhere. I wound up buying (over the course of both days) 2 pairs of gloves (1 purple, and 1 blue), a leather bound book (I am going to use it to put my Italy pictures in at the end of the semester, and a super soft green scarf.

Later on Friday Maria Savannah and I wandered while the rest of the girls stayed in the market. We went on the old bridge which has stores ON it and window shopped. There were a ton of jewelery stores there, but none of us were willing to put down 500-2000 euro on something.

Saturday we went to see the David, and while it is very beautiful I must say I don't really get the hype. Then I wandered around the city on my own. I found a bunch of cute churches, one playing organ music! and some really beautiful buildings and piazzas. You can see all of my pictures here, but I will post a few in this post as well.

The Duomo looked like it was made out of candy, it was all white and green and pink. So beautiful, and very intricate.

 

 

Dante's House!

When I was walking around the city I kept on running into this bride and groom taking their wedding photos. It was so cute, they seemed to happy.

Recent Hiatus

So Midterms have started, so I have been studying a lot the past week - hence the recent lack of posts. (Last week I had a paper, a test and a midterm, this week I have 2 midterms, then I have another a week from Monday.) However you can expect in the near future (today? tomorrow?) a post about Florence (I was there Friday-Saturday) and perhaps a post about the craziness in the Circus Maximus, oh and another post about food. Cooking classes have started and the first 2 have been amazingly successful.

Food, Glorious Food!

So I had a wonderful culinary weekend. On Friday I made ratatouille and thought about the movie the whole time. Saturday I made chicken and eggplant Parmesan with Liat, for us and a friend. But the real highlight was today. Today I made "Torta di Ricotta con Gocce di Cioccolato" which is an Italian cake with chocolate chips with Kate. This was one of the recipes that our API RDs sent us. It was fantastic. Just scroll back up and look at the picture. Yum! I am really happy we decided to go for an authentic Italian dessert. Then for dinner we made AWESOME asparagus risotto, with tomato mozzarella and chicken cutlet. The risotto was creamy and cheesy and wonderful, and Kate realized the beauty of asparagus. She had never had it before.

As promised

Here is what I drew today:

Well out of the few pictures I did today, this is the only one I am really happy with. I drew a few of the statues in the Piazza del Popolo, and this has always been one of my favorite statues. I didn't really capture it here, but I love the way her dress looks like it is moving. I am just really happy with the face. The other one I did was of the statue across from her, which was this male togaed dude. I am happy with the way I got his arms and the part of his chest you can see, but the clothing and everything above his shoulders was just so off.

I am in one of those moods though that all I want to do if knit. I was planning on going to Lake Bracciano tomorrow, but I might just do that some other time. Maybe Sunday the 17th. We will see. I want to get up tomorrow to go to this open air market which is supposed to have yarn. Maybe if I go early enough I could do both...

One Month

Well it is official. I have been here for a month. I can't believe it has been that long, but I feel like it has been longer at the same time. But I must say, I really have loved every minute of it. Yes, there have been moments that I missed people, but I never wanted to not be here.

I must admit one of my favorite parts about being here has little to do with actually being here and is something I could've done at any point in my life but never did. I love cooking dinner for myself every night. I know that last year I had a kitchen and could have cooked, but I was on the meal plan so I relied on the cafeteria for food. Right now I don't have that option and I am so glad. I love seeing what I have in the fridge and trying to make a meal out of it. While I have not really been living full time at home for over 2 years now, it isn't until now that I feel like I am not living on my own but I guess I feel grown up or something. I am not in a 'dorm' I am not eating in a dining hall, it feels a lot more adult to me. When I go back to the Rock, even if I am on the meal plan, I am going to try to cook dinner for myself.

I spent the morning drawing again. I am really glad I did. I am not drawing nearly as much as I would like, I miss being in arts classes. I am going to try to draw more this afternoon, so I will post any successful drawings later.

Also on a side note, the other day I was walking home from class with my roommate Savannah and we had a great conversation. (Well I hope it was a conversation and not just me babbling away - sorry Savannah if I talked your ear off.) I mentioned how being here made me realize that I can live on my own and out of my comfort zone. At the Rock I go home every 5-6 weeks, and if I wanted to could go home on the weekends. I never did go home unless it was a break, but it was nice having that security blanket. But it also meant that I didn't really feel like I *left*. Right now I am in a different country, timezone, culture, everything. There is no way that this was in my comfort zone, but I did it/am doing it. I have always sort of joked about wanting to move to Ireland or the UK but I never thought I would do it because I didn't know if I could be that far from my family. I didn't even think I could leave the East Coast. But being here has really made me think about it. I would love to live abroad for a year or two after I graduate. I need to take time off anyways before doing grad school, so if it would be an feasible option I would love to spend that time somewhere else. We will see.

Well I will end this post with some pictures that I took last week when I went on a 8 hour adventure with Catherine Kate and Savannah. We just wandered around the city and it was amazing.  We started up by our apartment and meandered all the way down to the Bocca della Verita, which we didn't actually go see/touch because the line was too long.

Catherine and I just love all of the water fountains in Rome. The Water is just so good.

We found a children's museum by us, the outside was so cute.

Savannah at the museum

We went to the Leonardo da Vinci museum. So much fun!

Kate outside the da Vinci museum

Catherine sitting at the Piazza del Popolo

About halfway through the day Kate got a little tired outside the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.

Have I mentioned we like to eat...

Kate Schlinke and the Cornetto al Cioccolato*



We love our neighborhood bakery. (Maybe we should stop going there daily...but the cornetti and bombe con cioccolato are just too good.) Points to those who know what this song is from.

*I totally spelled her name wrong in the video. My bad.

Because all I do is post my professor quotes

"And the Romans had festivals like every few days. That is why Italians are so lazy." My History professor after explaining how business were closed on days there were festivals.

"It isn't like they were walking around saying, 'Hey I am in a penis-shaped forum!'"My Art History professor after pointing out that the Forum of Augustus sort of looks like a penis from above, but not from the ground level.

Eat, Pray, Love...and eat some more

So last night API hosted an English movie night. They took us to see "Eat, Pray, Love" at a movie theater that had American style popcorn. I can see how people wouldn't like that movie, but I loved it. I do like bad movies though.

I must admit that in the beginning when she was in New York, I got really homesick. Especially on the cut of her leaving, when it panned out. I miss my New York streets. But then something weird happened. They showed her leaving, and I mentioned how much I miss home and I thought of how beautiful it was. And the I realized she was in Rome, not New York anymore.

She was standing on the Castel Sant'Angelo looking out at the Vatican. That is part of my daily bus route to school. I realized I associated that as home to some extent as well. This is my home for the next few months, and that area is really part of my everyday experience. Then as she went around the city, I knew everywhere she was going. I walked by those restaurants before, seen those sites, experienced the same type of people. I really loved the part when she was eating gelato with the nuns, because I ride the bus with a group of nuns every day. And I see them everywhere, so that felt very real.

But I have been noticing a lot of things she 'learned' in the movie. Italians know how to live, where Americans know how to work. I keep noticing how much longer the Italian meals are, how they drink to taste every sip, walk slowly and talk loudly. The one that really hits me is how much slower they walk. Being from the city, I tend to hate slow walkers, but being here I keep trying to force myself to slow down and relax. When in Rome, right?

The food though. Don't even get me started on the food. I am not holding back in any sense of the word, I love it so much. Not just eating out, but I love the grocery store and going shopping there. I have been cooking a lot, and I love it.

Long story short I admire the Italian ability to live and enjoy everything. I hope that I can pick up some of that before I leave. They are so much more relaxed, I envy it.

Professor Quotes take II

My Lit professor was on a roll today. When talking about how Rome transitioned from a monarchy to the republic, and how this model is applicable for all past present and future governmental overthrows he said:

"It really helps if there is a sex scandal."

After talking about a particular legend as told to us by Livy he said,

"And this is where we get the phrase 'I will put my hand in the fire'. Do we say that in English?...I guess we don't"

And last but not least, after telling us how they are studying the Etruscan language at the University of Wisconsin in Madison (or is is the University of Madison Wisconsin?) he said,

"Some of the strangest things happen in the strangest places"

Sunday Flea Market

So Savannah and I, in an effort to resolve our stir-craziness, decided to go for a walk. We tend to only go through a certain half of our neighborhood in our day to day activities, so we walked in the other direction. We found this great little park square thing that had a fountain in the middle, and, as it turns out, on Sundays they have a flea market there. It was really nice, they had great stuff. I hope it is a weekly thing, I would love to bring people there.

I love our little adventures.

We just love the tiny cars here

More images after the jump

Struck by the Muses

My trip to the museum today proved to be very inspirational. I've been drawing from the photos I took. This isn't the best photo of the picture, the lighting in my room isn't the best for this type of thing, but I am really happy with the drawing. Took me 20-30 minutes. Hopefully this is the start of a lot more, I haven't been drawing nearly as much as I would like to be.

A few more words about my trip last weekend

My lovely roommate Savannah just posted some pictures from our trip, and I want to share a few with y'all.

The first of which is a picture of the amazing gnocchi I was telling you about. Alas, she didn't have a picture of one of us eating it so you can't see the amazing texture of the sauce. But now you have more of a visual. Just think that since it is a tomato sauce how much mozzarella they had to put into it to make it that color. It is a masterpiece.

She also snapped a candid of me on the beach in Capri.

Haven't been up to too much today, I went to the Capitoline Hill and the museum there and wandered around the area. Here are a few of my favorite pictures form the bunch that I took.

Now this is why I am studying abroad

I love Thursdays. I have my best classes on Thursdays. (Luckily this week Friday is a make up day for the Thursday we miss for Thanksgiving, so I have two Thursdays this week. In a row nonetheless!)

My on site class is amazing. I love it so much. It really epitomizes why I chose Rome as my study abroad location. I toyed with the idea of England or Ireland, and even Sicily, but when it boiled down to it what better place to study the Classics than Rome? In "Ancient Rome and its Monuments" I get to walk around one a week for three hours just looking at the remains of Rome, and learn about them in that context. It is such a unique experience and I love it so much. My professor is awesome, and we get along nicely. But it is such a fantastic class and I am so glad I get to take it. I get to study Rome not just from a textbook or a photo, but in person walking around each monument and really getting to see it.

Then I also have Literature and Society of Ancient Rome which is an amazing class. My professor is so smart, I could listen to him all day. The two classes, along with Roman history, really compliment each other nicely. Everything I learn is getting really enforced by my other classes, and I can reference my discussions from one in the other.

Today in Ancient Rome and its Monuments we went to the Capitoline Museum and did a tour of the Triumphal Temples. Yesterday we walked all over the Palatine Hill and Forum Valley. I am so dusty from walking around outside, my jeans and shoes are much grayer than they were on Wednesday, but I love it.

Tokens from my travels

As promised I will show you some of my lovely souvenirs, whether you care or not.

Now Sorrento is known for a few things. One is lemoncello, which I mentioned before. And you can find stores filled with bottles of it. However seeing as I couldn't finish one glass of it, I decided to go down a different road when it came to souvenirs. The area is also known for inlaid wood pieces. So Savannah and I found a cute store specializing in inlaid wood boxes. Most of them were obnoxious music boxes, that no matter how beautiful they were on the outside the music annoyed me too much to buy. The store also had a few beautiful small little boxes. I had a rough time deciding between this black one an a faded turquoise one, but black won out in the end.

As you can see in this shot I am using it to hold my jewelery. Also you can see that the ring I normally wear every day is in there, which leads us to my next purchase.

While on Capri we stopped at one of the many jewelery stores. These store were FILLED with coral, pearl, and cameo jewelery. Some of my roommates also went shopping there, Catherine got lovely cameo earrings and Kate got coral earring for her mother, and a pretty silver and coral pendant for herself. I got a ring. I like it, it is really simple. That plus my seashell bracelet Joelle gave me and my pearl pendant I've been wearing, I really seem to be going for the jewels of the sea.

While on Capri we went to the beach. Now my mother has me trained so that if I am anywhere rocky I immediately look for heart-rocks. I found a cool one there for her. (Mom, I will give it to you when you visit. I tried to find you one from Mt. Vesuvius too but that didn't work out.) It is one of the heart shaped hole variety. I had to flip the image so you could see the heart right side up, so the picture is a little weird but there you go. Hope you like it.