Leave of Absence

I may have difficulty blogging in the upcoming week. I have two eight-page papers and a marketing plan to work on. I want to do as well as possible on these, so I will most likely be spending my time working on those instead of blogging.

Ciao!

Florence

I am FINALLY going to Florence. It was the one place I wanted to visit when coming to study abroad in Italy. There was no way I was leaving Italy without returning to my favorite Italian city.

Alicia and I are heading out at the early hour of 6 a.m. A good portion of the trip will be spent on the train. It takes four hours to travel to Florence from Rome, but the tickets are cheap! We will be spending two nights in the small city. Then, we will be spending the day in Assisi on Sunday.

I am prepared to come home broke after this trip. Number one goal: lots and lots of leather! Number two goal: do not come home with a black eye (could not resist that one).

Ciao!

No Lights=No Good

I thought this might be a good time to talk about some aspects of Italian culture. I am not going to talk about language. I am not going to mention food. Nor am I going to discuss art history. I am going to talk about dog poop.


Ew right? Well, try walking down the streets of Rome and seeing dog poop covering the streets left and right. Romans have a tendency to not pick up their dogs' little presents. As Professor Patania has so often said in my International Marketing class, there is a lack of enforcement in the laws regarding dog owners' picking up after their pets. The dog poop you see on Monday will still be there on Thursday afternoon.

You cannot walk down the street with a carefree attitude. You need to pay attention to the sidewalks, looking for dog poop. Now add a lack of street lights at night. Over the past week, the street lights have not been lit up along the walk home from the metro stop. You cannot see where the dog poop is if there are no lights at night! I just have to hope I miraculously avoid the mess on the streets.

Now imagine what it is like when it rains in Rome...

A Day of Wandering

A group of us decided to take a day trip to Siena on Saturday. Little did we know the adventure we were going to get in that day before we even made it to Siena.

Some of the boys were late getting ready. I, on the other hand, accidentally dismissed my alarm that morning in a sleepy stupor. I woke up ten minutes before we were supposed to meet. I was able to get completely ready in those ten minutes. It is funny that boys make fun of how long it takes for girls to "get ready." That was not the case Saturday morning. Everyone was freaking out on the subway because they thought we were going to miss our train.

We arrived on time, though. A three-hour long train ride goes very quickly when you sleep through a majority of it. Upon arriving in Siena, we chose to take a bus to the center of town. Haley and I asked a bus driver if his bus went to the center of town. He readily answered "si" and waved us onto the bus.


I think this bus driver wanted to play a joke on a bunch of American kids. Twenty minutes into our bud ride, we realized we were no longer in Siena. The bus had taken us completely out of the town. We hopped off the bus to find ourselves outside of a few cafes and a grocery store. After purchasing random food products from the grocery store for lunch, we decided to find our way back to Siena.

We spent a good 30 minutes at the bus stop with a one-armed man carrying a bag of boxed wine (it was noon). He attempted to talk to us in his Italian dialect that none of us could understand. The only word I understood was "tourists", which he asked us if we were about five or six times.

After making the journey back to Siena, we found out we had gotten off at the bus stop right before the bus turned around to return to Siena. Eventually we found ourselves in Piazza del Campo. After wandering the square for ten minutes, we traveled to the Duomo. I found my favorite church when I was in Siena.

Even though the Duomo is not as elaborate as the one in Milan, I loved the colors utilized in the architecture. The black and pink with what I assume is marble created a peaceful but aesthetically pleasing view. Even the inside of the church was completely striped with black and white. Asian influences could be seen everywhere in the church. The engravings on the floor of the church were of ancient Asian warriors and others. I could have sat in that church all day and found so many things to look at.

Porta Portese

I became addicted to haggling when I went to Tunisia for Spring Break (I bet you are still waiting for that blog post!). I easily immersed myself in haggling again when I went to the Porta Portese flea market Sunday morning.

The vendors in Africa and the vendors in Italy are different, though. The vendors at the Porta Portese flea market were much more difficult to haggle with. Men at jewelry stands would offer me authentic silver jewelry for 25 euro. I would offer much lower prices like I had in Tunisia. The vendors here are more difficult to persuade! I would get vendors in Tunisia down to extremely low prices (although, sometimes I had to put a great deal of time into haggling). Here, though, they would refuse to budge on "final prices."

Most vendors, here and in Tunisia, spoke enough English to converse with a majority of the tourists exploring the market. I tried to use as little English as possible. I had an entire conversation in Italian with one vendor. Point of advice: when male vendors ask if you are single, just say no! Otherwise you may be offered potentially unwanted "companionship."


I love flea markets, but the Porta Portese market is basically similar to flea markets in the United States: rows and rows of tables with vendors selling jewelry, clothes, shoes, food and various items you will never need. The only difference was conversing with the vendors in another language.

I walked away with a decent amount of silver jewelry and beads to make earrings for my family. Since I was so absorbed in haggling, I did not take pictures at the market. So, thank you internet for the pictures displayed in this post.

Keyhole

The dome of Saint Peter's Basilica is one of the most recognizable symbols of Roman culture. You can see the dome from any aerial view of the city and some unusual places throughout the city. I took some friends to probably the most unique way to see the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica: the keyhole.

Walk up the Aventine hill to a military square at the top filled with obelisks and military trophies. Carabinieri guard the Priory of the Knights of Malta with a wooden door with a small elaborate keyhole. Look through the keyhole. The first time I went to the keyhole I was scared to look through the keyhole. Was a joke going to be played on me? What was I going to see through this keyhole? My friends' exclamations of incredulity today was the same reaction I had the first time I saw it. Each person would walk up to keyhole, exclaim how awesome (and in Mike's case "magical") the view was, leaving our other friends wondering what the view was.


You can see the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica perfectly framed by the circular keyhole. Two hedges line the gravel path creating the frame around the dome. Unfortunately, my camera could not capture the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica (the picture above is borrowed from the internet).

Some cool facts I found on the internet:
- The piazza was designed by Piranesi in 1765.
- The sovereignty of the Knights of Malta, the last surviving order from the Crusades, is recognized by the Italian state.

After looking through the magical keyhole, we wandered into an orange grove that overlooks the city. We relaxed on the ledge before being overtaken by tourists. Matt climbed a tree and picked us all oranges. Unfortunately, these were not tasty oranges. They were more like orange-colored lemons- so sour. Everyone then decided the un-eaten oranges were the perfect baseball. We played catch until we grew hungry enough for our dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

What you are now we were, what we are you will be

Is seeing the bones of 4,000 monks from 1528 the neatest thing or the most disturbing thing you have ever seen? I am leaning towards the neatest.

The Capuchin Crypt, which is located under the Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, is the "resting place" of over 4,000 Capuchin friars that died between 1528 and 1870. The skeletons of the friars were de-constructed and arranged in designs throughout six rooms. Each room has a theme and unique display of bones, such as the Crypt of the Pelvises and Crypt of the Resurrection.

It was both creepy and fascinating at the same time. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed in the crypt. There are fully intact skeletons still dressed in friar robes and even several skeletons of what I am assuming are children. Jaw bones, skeletons and smaller bones were aligned to create intricate and elaborate designs on the ceilings and walls. Hundreds of skulls are arranged as resting places for whole adult skeletons in friar robes. There are even entire chandeliers created out of bones. Below the bones are the graves of monks. The soil for the graves was brought from Jerusalem!



In the last room, the Crypt of the Three Skeletons, an entire skeleton is placed on the ceiling holding a scythe, a symbol of death that cuts humankind down, and scales, a symbol of the evil and good deeds considered by God when he judges the soul. It is the size of a small child. Below the skeleton, a plaque reads:

"What you are now we were, what we are you will be."

Haunting.

Saint Patrick's Day in Rome

I never thought Saint Patrick's Day would be a popular holiday in Rome. Apparently I was wrong.

We determined that the Irish pubs around the city would be packed with Americans. The other option was to go to an American/tourist trap with a nightlife. You know what that means: Campo! Apparently everyone else in the Temple Rome program, not to mention Italians, thought the same thing.



I am not sure if Saint Patrick's Day is popular in Rome. I would have thought so because Italians love the idea of Irish Pubs..why wouldn't they love the Irish holiday? Campo di Fiori was packed, mostly with Italians. You could see giant "Saint Patrick's Day 2010" hats and people under 30 everywhere. Just from looking at the piazza, I determined Saint Patrick's Day is a popular holiday. Probably just so the Italians could hang out, watch, and "another verb of your choice" the Americans.

Campo was a disaster by 1:30 a.m. Bottles littered the square, whether they were empty or broken into pieces on the ground. Drunk Americans and Italians were running around the square with Saint Patrick's Day toys and trinkets that were bought from the gypsies.

A small group of us decided to investigate Scholar's. We got in without paying thanks to Richie's name dropping. For a half hour, we danced and sang (sometimes not knowing what we were singing) with a live band. Then we took the bus home..

"We All Live In A Yellow Submarine" was never more entertaining.

A Weekend in Bed

It is a very good thing I did not go to Florence this week. I woke up Friday morning in serious pain. I could not go back to sleep, but I could barely walk when I tried to get out of bed. I spent the entire day trying to sleep. My body refused to feel better. I spent the entire day today doing the exact same thing: laying in bed attempting to sleep and hoping the pain would go away. Here I am, though, at midnight on Saturday night not feeling any differently than Friday morning.

It is frustrating being sick while I am in Rome. I feel like I wasted a weekend that I could have been exploring Rome and seeing things I still have not seen. Instead of exploring, I have not left the residence in about 36 hours. Kelsey wanted to take me to the hospital, but I did not want to go. Partly because I am not fond of hospitals and partly because I did not want to pay for the expensive cab ride there. Not knowing what medicine would be best for me from Italy, I have been taking the over-the-counter pain killers my roommates brought from home. They are not working that well.

Overall, I have been lucky health-wise since I have been in Rome. Until now. I am driving myself crazy looking at the walls of my apartment and laying down for hours upon hours. It is even worse when friends from home are visiting for the week and I cannot see them because I can barely stand. It has not been a very good weekend unfortunately.

Spring Was in the Air

Well, it was nice weather for about one day. That may be an accomplishment for Rome. I returned from Spring Break very late Sunday night. Monday was an unusually beautiful day in Rome. It was warm and sunny. Everyone had spring fever in Rome. Since I had been gone for over a week and a half, I have no idea what the weather was like while I was gone. The difference from when I left to when I returned was noticable, though.

On my walk to school, I saw so many people out in the streets. Usually it is a little cold or rainy, and people tend to stay indoors. Not yesterday, though. Romans were outside enjoying the weather. I saw shop owners talking to other Italians outside. Students and families were walking around, laughing and talking with each other. Many more street vendors had tables set up along the sidewalks. Even the men I usually see selling roses or umbrellas were selling bright yellow spring flowers.

The warm weather just puts everyone in a better mood. I know it made me happier yesterday, even though I had to be in class all day and not outside celebrating the weather.

And then the rain came... I woke up at 7:50 a.m. this morning when I had to leave at 8:00 a.m. for my on-sight class. I threw moccasins and sweatpants on. Poor choice. It ended up pouring, and I am now soaking wet for the rest of the day. I have no desire to venture outside for lunch. I would rather sit in this computer lab and wait for classes to be over. Rome was just teasing us yesterday. Aftering being in the warmth of Tunisia for a week, this makes me long for warm weather even more. At least I am not in Philadelphia with feet and feet of snow every week or so..