la famiglia.

After finally getting through midterms I had a whole week off for spring break!

On Friday I went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D. I absolutely loved it and plan on buying it the second it comes out! :]

On Saturday I woke up bright and early to catch the train to the airport to pick up my mom, my dad, and Josh! It was super exciting to see them in person after 2 months of being separated! After a train, a bus, and a tram we got back to the apartment and settled in. We had a relaxing first day of just walking to some of the smaller sights in Rome such as the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Spanish Steps and Jewish Ghetto. Everyone was pretty wiped out so we all took power naps before going out to dinner. We found a cute restaurant in Trastevere and had a very good meal. We then got some gelato and walked around Rome at night! It was a great first night.

Throwing coins in the Trevi Fountain.

The next day we decided to go to the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and Palatine hill. We walked to the bus stop and were waiting for the bus, but it drove right past the stop, then we went to wait for the tram and it didn't come at all. We decided to just walk since it wasn't that far. Turns out the Rome marathon was going on so all of the public transportation was screwed up! In addition to that the finish line was at the Colosseum. Just our luck! Despite that though it actually wasn't too crowded in terms of Rome, plus it was interesting to observe the runners. We decided to stay in for dinner that night and cooked a homemade meal at my apartment! It was delicious!

My dad, Josh, and me.

Name that movie!

On Monday we went to St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museum and I made my parents climb all 551 steps to the top of St. Peter's to see the gorgeous view! :]

My mother on top of St. Peter's.

My dad in St. Peter's.

I was really excited to see the Vatican museum again, as I hadn't be there this trip yet. The first part was overwhelmingly crowded, but as the labyrinth continued, the crowds dwindled a bit and it became much more pleasant! The Sistine chapel was just as awe inspiring as I remembered. Plus there was a section on Egyptian art which got me really excited for the weekend! [[More on that soon!]]

That night Josh, Clara, and I went out. We went to Campo di Fiori, where we met an Italian named Pino. He was a palm reader so he read all our palms. Clara was first and he said she was a crazy selfless girl who was unappreciated and had wonderlust. Also, apparently she had an accident in her past and she will be very rich. Josh was next and Pino said he will never be rich, but that he will be happy. Also, Josh loves his parents and wants to fly in the sky. Not on a plane though, apparently Josh will be superman! :) Finally it was my turn. Pino said I love the stars (I wonder if he saw my tattoo?) and that I love nature and the outdoors! Very true! Then he said I'm very emotional and like to share. And to end it all he said that I am and will be very rich, though possibly not money wise! Thanks for the insight Pino! It was a VERY fun night!! :D

Tuesday was the family's last day in Rome. :( We decided to just have an easy day and walk around Rome to do some shopping. I took them to Campo di Fiori where the daily market is. They found some fun trinkets to take home. We then walked to Piazza Navona for some gelato and to look at all the local artists! I love that it's finally nice enough out for them to re-inhabit the piazza.

Gelato. My mom getting creative with the camera. :]

I then took them to see the bone chapel and since it was closed for another hour we had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. We walked through the bone chapel, where it was quoted as "the most disturbingly beautiful thing." We then went back to the apartment to pack up our things and go to bed early. We had to wake up at 1:30 in the morning to catch a bus to the airport. We said our goodbyes and I headed off to Cairo and they went home.

It was a really good visit and I was soo glad I got to share a little bit of Roma with la mia famiglia! :]

bottled poetry.

Last night I went to a wine tasting for my Italian Culture Class. It was such a good time!

My teacher for my culture class took a new job last week, thus we currently have no teacher until after spring break! It will make for an interesting midterm on Thursday. When we got to the tasting, the teacher whose taking over the class was there, and I think I'm going to like her a lot better than my old teacher. But, back to the vino!

We did the tasting at a wine bar by the Coliseum, called Bibenda. It was a very cute store. We started the evening with Apertivo, which included meats, cheese, bread, and these AMAZING crackers! There was about a 15 minute presentation by the sommelier, and then we got to try some wine for ourselves.

The first wine was a white from the Lazio region. It is called "Est! Est!! Est!!!" and was my favorite out of the three we tried. The story behind this wine is about a priest and bishop on their way to Rome. The bishop sent the priest to go ahead and write "Est," which is "Here it is" in Latin, on the door of places with good wine. When the priest tried this wine he wrote Est! Est!! Est!!! Rumor has it that the bishop never made it to Rome, because this wine was so good! The wine was indeed very good! :] It had aromas of apple and blossoms.

The second wine was a sauvignon blanc from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region of Italy. It was called "La Buse Dal Lof," which means the den of the wolf. I liked this wine but it had a much more salty and tart taste than the first. Also, the sommelier informed us that almost all sauvignons have the distinct aroma of tomato leaves and cat pee! Isn't that just lovely?

The third wine we had was a deep red wine from the South, more specifically in Sicily. It was called "Nero d'avola." The grapes for this wine are almost exclusively grown in Sicily, and the grapes in our wine were grown on the side of a volcano. You could actually smell some of the ash/mineral component.

All in all it was a great night! The end of her presentation had the quote, "Wine is bottled poetry." It just shows how much wine is embedded in the culture here. In fact, Italy is the number one consumer and producer of wine in the world!

I stole this photo from Clara.

Now it's back to studying! 2 down, 3 to go! 4 days until the family arrives! :)

Pompei.

Yesterday I woke up at the ungodly hour of 5:45 to head to Pompei, Italy. I went with my school so there was about 50 of us all together. After a 3 hour drive we arrived at the ruins of Pompei.

Pompei was a city built somewhere in the 7th-6th century BC, then in 79 AD the nearby volcano Vesuvius exploded, leaving the city completely buried under ash and volcanic debris. Because of this much of the town is preserved including mosaics and frescoes. There is 164 acres of the city, of which only about 2/3 has been excavated. It's a VERY impressive place.

The small theatre in Pompei. This was used for musical performances.

Our tour guide. Carmen.

In the brothel of Pompei there were pictures on the walls of the different "services" provided. This is because the females were slaves and spoke different languages. Art is a universal language...

This is a plaster cast of a body. When the volcano erupted almost everyone suffocated where they were. Over time their bodies decomposed, but the chambers where the bodies were remained. When the excavations started they realized that if they poured liquid plaster into these chambers they would get the shape of whatever had been their previously. They have made at least 45 different body molds, including that of a dog.

We ate lunch in the main square and watched the dogs play. One of them, Menaudrc, was particularly fond of us. Pompei has an adoption program for all the strays who live in the ruins.

In the main square of Pompei with Mt. Vesuvius in the background.

Another plaster mold. In some of the molds you can still see the bones, like in the one above. It's very eerie.

Working at a shop front. The holes would hold wine.

The Abbey Road of Pompei! :D

One last view of the ruins.

After we got done roaming the ruins we walked to the cathedral of the modern town of Pompei. The cathedral of Pompei is dedicated to Madonna del Rosario di Pompei, and has become a site for Catholic pilgrimages in recent years. An interesting fact is that when most Italians hear Pompei they as associate it with the church instead of the ruins.

Bell tower of the church.

Inside the church.

If you can't tell by all my recent posts, I really don't want to study for midterms, but alas, I suppose I should! The family comes in 6 days, then I'm off to Egypt! :D

I'll keep you posted!

this is SPERLONGA.

On Friday some friends and I went to the lovely town of Sperlonga, Italy. It is about an hour south of Rome by train. We left nice and early to avoid the transportation strikes in Rome and arrived in Fondi (town with the train station) just a little after eleven. We had to wait until noon to catch a bus to Sperlonga but it was definitely worth it!

Waiting at the train station and reenacting 300.

Sperlonga is right on the Mediterranean Sea and is your typical beach town, but ten times prettier!

Sperlonga, Italy.

We got of the bus and walked straight to the beach, where we had a lovely picnic lunch. Tony was the only one brave enough to strip down and go swimming in the freezing waters, but it was amusing enough to watch!

In front of the Mediterranean Sea.

Tony swimming in the Mediterranean.

Peace.

5 of the 7 of us.
Alex, Rachel, Stephen, Vivi, Clara

After lunch we walked down the beach to the town, since it's off season it was pretty much deserted.

I miss my cats.

The beach.

We then found ourselves back on the beach headed towards Tiberius' villa and grotto. The walk was about ten minutes and after touring the very small archaeological museum we spent about three hours hanging out in the ruins and the cave. We were the only people there, and it was soo relaxing to just hang out by the water!

Ruins of Tiberius' Villa.

Ruins of Tiberius' Villa.

Hanging out in the ruins.

In the grotto. Where's Lindsey?

View from the grotto.

When we left the villa we walked to the center of town. Almost all the streets in the top part of Sperlonga are staircases and you definitely get the feeling of quaint small town Italy. We found a gelateria where the price and the product were amazing. This one was dedicated to the lovely Katie! :] We ate in the main square with the locals and an adorable dog who "begged."

How precious are these old men? If this isn't the epitome of the piazza I don't know what is! :]

We then caught the bus back to Fondi and decided to walk around the town since we had two hours to kill before our train. The main attraction in Fondi is a castle that lies in the middle of the town. We climbed to the top in time for sunset which made for many pictures.

Castello Caetani.

Me on top of Castello Caetani.

Sooo gorgeous!

After we made our way down the castle we decided to find a restaurant for dinner. Turns out there's pretty much only one restaurant in the town and when we finally found it, it was about 30 Euro more than we wanted to pay. So we went to a small cafe instead and headed back to the train station and found our way back to the eternal city!


As a side note I'm definitely falling in love with day trips! It's soo nice to travel an hour and get a taste of a completely different city. Plus considering it's cheap and you still get to sleep in your own bed, I think I see a lot of day trips in the future! :)

551 stairs.

On Thursday we decided to climb the cupola at St. Peter's. To get to the top it's a lovely 551 stairs with curving walls and tiny spaces. Here's some pictures of our adventure:

Around the Dome. The letters are 6 feet tall.

Climbing to the top with curved walls. This picture is a straight shot.

Part of the Vatican gardens.

Me with Piazza San Pietro in the background.

Piazza San Pietro.

The back of the statues of Bernini's colonnade.

The dome of San Pietro, where we were previously standing.

golden tickets, ice, zombies, and a whole lot of walking.

Ciao a tutti!

This past week I was actually quite productive in life! :]

On Wednesday I skipped my morning class to go to the papal audience. I went with about 8 other people from AUR. When you go to the papal audience you go into this huge auditorium with at least 500 other people to be blessed by the Pope.

I had the golden ticket! Just like Charlie, except I didn't get any candy!

And let me tell you, the Pope is a frickin rockstar here! The second he came on stage everyone started to scream and cheer. It was almost comical.

Isn't he precious? My favorite is his shoes!

Different bishops came and said a prayer in French, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Italian, and would announce the different groups. The groups would then cheer/scream/sing/play (there was an entire orchestra there)! Then the Pope would say a small prayer in each of the languages as well and bless any relics you had. It ended with singing Our Father in Latin, which we all stumbled through. Afterward, we walked up by St. Peters and got to see the changing of the guard. It was pretty cool.

I desperately want to see them fight in these outfits!

Thursday night Clara, Vivi, and I went to school to watch the Goonies! Afterward we decided to go check out the ice bar in Rome. We got to the ice bar and were literally the only people there, but we had fun nonetheless. Listening to 80s music in our huge silver ponchos in a hallway of ice! Good times! :] Plus we had a coupon so we got 2 free drinks!

Rocking the silver poncho!

Me and Vivi. Even our glasses were made of ice!

Friday we went to a National Geographic exhibit that's in Rome. It was all about people, and they had a bunch of photos showcasing women, men, children, and people in general. I really enjoyed it! Afterwards it started to downpour so we made some soup and just relaxed for the night.

Saturday we went to the Catacombs of San Sebastiano. Basically it's a tour through underground passages where people used to be buried. Today there are no bones in the catacombs, or at least not in the part of the tour. We had waaay to much fun on this tour! As we were on our way in we started making zombie jokes and that pretty much kept us entertained the entire time.

Entrance to the catacombs.

My favorite moment was when we were in the Necropolis and all the lights went out. Clara, Vivi, Mickey, and me all start laughing and getting excited that the zombies are coming, when our tour guide freaks out and yells, "WHAT IS HAPPENING?." Turns out the lights were on a motion sensor and the zombies weren't attacking! Maybe next time. Although after about a minute longer in that room our tour guide states that "we have no reason to be in this room any longer." I think it was close to zombie feeding time and they just didn't want us to know!

Afterwards we were going to climb the cupola of St. Peter's but there was some sort of convention for municipal workers of Italy so it was completely packed! We ended up walking to Via del Corso and doing some window shopping while also enjoying the street performers.

Really, the Packers in Rome?

After shopping we decided we were all craving a bit of home so we went to the Hard Rock Cafe for hamburgers. They were sooooo delicious, and we got free dessert, but afterwards we all felt like we were going to explode...literally.

Finally, on Sunday we decided to go to Tivoli, Italy. It's a small hillside town about a hour outside of Rome by train. Me, Clara, Vivi, and Tony met up at 9 am and headed out on our adventure. We got into Tivoli around 11 thirty and went to Villa d'Este. The rooms in the house had many frescoes as well as some fountains. What Villa d'Este is really known for though is the gardens. There are over 500 fountains, as well as pools, grottoes, statues, and plenty of plant life. It was absolutely gorgeous! For everyone whose as cool as me and has seen the Lizzie McGuire movie, it's where Paolo and Lizzie go on their date! :)

After the gardens we got some lunch and decided to go to Villa Adriana, or Hadrian's Villa. Earlier we had gotten a map from information, and it showed Villa Adriana to be close to the city center....WRONG. We started walking down a road to where the villa should have been and before long the side walk was gone and we were walking on a windy road down the hill. We were going to turn back, but we ran into some bikers that assured us the villa was down the road. After about 45 minutes, as we were walking through an olive orchard that was next to the road, I looked at the map again and realized that Villa Adriana was 6km from the city center! That would be 3.7 miles away! At this point though we decided to keep on walking and eventually found ourselves in the other part of Tivoli. After a few helpful locals gave us shortcuts we finally made it to Villa Adriana!

We walked all the way from the town on the hillside!

Villa Adriana is where the Roman emperor Hadrian used as a retreat and later actually ruled from in the early 2nd century. The grounds were huge, and some of the ruins were actually very well preserved. I loved being able to see original flooring and columns from 2000 years ago! Crazy! It was very pretty and we walked around for over 2 hours.

Also, as a plus for the weekend, it was International Women's Day, so we got into everything for free! Well, except for poor Tony!

After leaving the villa we were determined to find a bus to take us back up the hill. We walked back to the main road and after about ten minutes of waiting caught one. What took us a hour and fifteen minutes to walk down, took us five minutes to drive up! It was a bit depressing. :) After walking around a bit more we, grabbed a gelato and headed back to the train station.

Dedicated to Steph!

The ticket office was closed and the machine was broken, so we freaked out for about ten minutes before learning that we could buy our tickets back to Rome on the train! Thank goodness!

This week has been really rainy, I'm hoping the weekend will bring nice weather as I'm going to Sperlonga, Pompeii, and doing a graffiti clean up. Needless to say, more pictures will be coming!

ALSO, I just booked a trip to Cairo, Egypt and Budapest, Hungary! I'm soooooooo excited!