Playing Catchup....

       Buona Pasquetta! (aka, Happy Easter Monday!) So I know that this is totally unlike how I've been writing these blogs lately, but I'm going to write two today! This one to catch you all up on what I've been doing and the other one, well, you'll see!
       I've been noticing over the last few weeks how much more comfortable I'm feeling in Rome. I know my way around so much better now, and from any point in the city, I can figure out more than one way to get home. For those of you who understand how Roman public transportation works (or doesn't, depending on how you look at it), this is a pretty useful skill. I'm also doing things like walking by Vatican City or the Colosseum without a second thought. I have also stopped taking so many pictures of the really big and famous things, and now take pictures of the random smaller things that just catch my attention - the one below is a bench that is in the park right beside Castel Sant'Angelo.

       I spend a lot of time in that park (near Piazza Adriana) because it is only 2 blocks away from my university, and is such a great place to pass the time - especially since the weather has been warming up so much! I also spend a good amount of time with the other 3 Americans at my residence, and we do things like have after dark picnics on Janiculum Hill (which overlooks Rome), go to bars that play live music (rockabilly night was my favorite) and make American food (casseroles and BLTs) just to surprise the Italians. It's really nice to occasionally give my mind a break from all of the Italian and Spanish and just have fun every now and then!

lookout over the center of Rome

       This month, we also had a "Culture Week" in Rome (which I'm pretty sure was also recognized across Italy in general) where a good number of the museums and historical sights were free! It was such a great week - I finally made it into Castel Sant'Angelo (which has a really great up-close-and-personal view of the city), the Colosseum, and the Roman Forum. All of these are pretty important and famous sights in Rome, but I guess I had just been waiting for the right time to check them all out - and that week was it!

visiting friends - Bridget and Mo - at the Colosseum!

       On April 9th, I took a day trip to Pisa with a friend from school. It is a very cute little town, and walking around it was a relaxing break from all of the noise and busyness of Rome. We started off by wandering around the city for a little while, and actually found a really cool farmer's market (Italian style, of course) where they sold just about everything between all of the different vendors. Obviously, we made a stop at the Tower (it's the main attraction of the entire city) and Kevin even convinced me that we should go up...since we were there. Although it was only about a half-hour visit inside, it was really pretty cool. If you can imagine trying to climb all the way up that tower with its centuries-old stairs at a slant, you can understand how confused my brain was - and how lopsided I felt when I looked out over the city. It was definitely a lot of fun, and we took the obligatory pictures with the Tower (and also of the other people taking these pictures) before wandering around a bit more and heading back to Rome.

The other big event that happened was Il Seminario delle Palme at the residence, and it was basically a weekend conference for all of the students that I live with, and took place over Palm Sunday weekend. I wasn't able to make it to all of the presentations and speeches, but it was really cool seeing all of the students come together to host guests from outside the city, put on a spectacular play, and serve each other at the lunches and dinners - not to mention the dance party they threw together on Saturday night. The interesting part (for us Americans) was seeing the end of the conference approach on Sunday. After mass and lunch, the guests all started to leave, but as we watched, so did a good number of the people we actually knew. We came to learn that because a good number of them had very few classes (if any at all) that week, they were headed home so that they could have a week-and-a-half or even two week Easter vacation. Just one more thing that the States could learn from Italy...

Dan's fingers got in the way...

       Other than all of that, I spend a good amount of time hanging out with people from school, people from the residence, or commuting between the two. Some of the more interesting friendships I've made actually are with people who don't fit into either of these groups, but are people that I know from the neighborhood in which LUMSA (my university) is located. One block to the north of my classes is a street called Borgo Pio, which is a pedestrian-only zone and is full of all sorts of interesting little shops and restaurants. If you go to the end closer to the Vatican, it gets pretty touristy...so I stay at the other end. I've discovered a neat little restaurant named Hungry Bogart (cute, right?) and the owner of the place is interested in hearing all sorts of stories and talking to basically everyone, so I go there to grab lunch pretty often. Between our conversations and the rest of the people in the place (and the fact that the rest of them are all Italian) a quick lunch usually turns into a two or three hour ordeal. There's also a 75-year-old man who lives across the street named Franco who stops by pretty often. I spend a lot of time on Borgo Pio talking to all of these people and I really enjoy it - what better ways are there to practice a language than to speak it with the natives?
       To close this blog, I'm going to add a picture we took at Giuseppe's birthday party back at the beginning of the month. Living in a community definitely has its perks - where else would I be invited to join in on a dinner on the terrace that just turns into a birthday party? These are some of the people I live with - all of whom are really great. Coming to stay at Villa Nazareth was such a great decision!

Doralisa, Camilla, Mattia, Giuseppe, Andrea, Valentina, and I