pesche

Highlights from the weekend:

Lindsey tried her first kinder egg with elisa.

Family dinner Friday night. I cooked zucchini casserole, Lindsey made grasshopper pie. Had to be creative with ingredients because they don’t have ANYTHING that we are used to. Had a fun evening with dinner and reminiscing of freshman year. Then took a stroll in our lovely botanic park. We even got a shout out of ‘BELLA!’ by a man running in the park, I swear nothing stops them. Linds and I enjoyed the park again Saturday morning with a jog. Had coffee with an Italian, architecture student. She told us some good places to go. After doing homework during the day we decided to enjoy the night with a concert.



Rach you'll be pretty envious of who we saw, but it was one of the most crazy shows I have ever seen. Check out the pic of Linds and I. Look closely because we are completely drenched in sweat, not only ours but the people who were slamming into us. We got pretty good at elbowing people out of the way who were trying to get in front of us, by the end we were in the front row. We’re looking forward to seeing OKGo here in a few weeks. Yay for sweet places. All the people reminded me of those who went to my school in London and it made me happy.



This is the singer, Look how close willa and linds are to her

Sweat!

class is fun

We've been gone over a month now. Three more to go. Crazy. I pretty much love it here. Yesterday we had class at the Colosseum. We walked through the Forum, up to Palantine HIll and into the Colosseum. Not only was learning interesting, but I was trying to retain all I could so I can be a tour guide when my parents come. (I'm excited to show you guys around)! Our history professor is pretty neat. He reminds me of Peter McElligott, except he has an authentic British accent. He looks like one of us as we walk around Roman sites and he cracks me up with the words he uses or the way he pronounces things. And his name is Casper.



A Piu Tardi!

police.

So today we went to apply for our permit of residence at the police station. We had a map with some crazy directions that ended up taking us WAY out of the way, when all we need to do was go down our street a few blocks. Finally arrive, and the police men (who usually only seem good for staring at you as you walk by) told us that the foreign office, which we needed, was closed. Even though we had an appointment at 300pm. We finally get that cleared up and go up to the office to find it's not closed at all. Then the woman tells us that our photos will not be accepted because they are not on glossy paper. She directs us to an automatic photobooth outdoors a few blocks away. We are frustrated at this point because the booth only prints 4 photos and we need to give the station 5. So we have to pay for 8 photos that are not needed. We decide to have a little fun to let out our frustration out. I can hardly contain myself as I hand the woman my phtos and she bursts out laughing at me. She says "bella, why?" because I look so ridiculous. Thankfully she wasn't upset and we recieved our permits. Then we proceeded to be finger printed and everything else went smoothly. Yay.

parkin it.

linds and i sat in a park today. First we sat next to a grandma. she yelled at the kids playing. then they ran away and she couldn't watch them anymore. across from us we had another grandma enjoying her book and smoking a cigarette. across the way we had the bench of bums drinking out of a glass that they would pass back and forth. To the right we had pda couple, or as linds calls it .pdf. They were making out while a poor woman was sharing the bench with them. To our left we had the pregnant woman who was constantly rubbing her belly. HILARIOUS.

some dogs can speak english too

So I just sat next to a doggy on the bus. It made me smile. He understood english.

On Saturday we took a day trip to Assisi. It's about two hours North of Rome, the city is on a hill and it's where Saint Francis (San Francesco) is from. We arrived in the morning to find it starting to rain out. We checked out Saint Francis' church, saw his tomb and frescos by Giotto. I had to buy a 4 euro umbrella because I lost mine somewhere in Berlin. We pretty much explored the rest of the day in the pooring rain. Found some paths we werent supposed to be on, played in a castle, went in some shops and walked up lots of hills. By the end of the day we were sopping wet and had to sit on a two hour train ride and use five different ways of transportation to arrive at our apartment. We were excited to be in the comfort of our home.




Other than Assisi on Saturday, we've been enjoying our time here. Today is the fifth day it's rained. I ran in a pretty park by our flat the other day. It's huge and I'm sure I hardly saw any of it. But everyone was working out, I even saw a man in a speedo who I assumed was swimming in the fountain he was next to. There was a canal that opened up into a lake and swan floating around. I thought it was an amazing park even though it was old and run down, it added to the aesthetics. I'm looking forward to this week, hopefully the rain will stop. I'm ready to go back to the pretty park, even if it's to walk around, there was so much beauty and detail that God opened up to me.

it rainzzz and it pourzzzz

I’m trying to learn to let things go. Living with 4 other girls we kind of have to do this. Especially when you live with your two best friends. But I couldn’t have asked for anything better. Jennifer, one of our roommates, went home on Tuesday. She will be missed, so now our flat is down to five lovely women. I can’t stress enough how amazing, for our relationships and mind, it is not having television or internet. We eat dinner together, read, have conversation and art a lot.

So far we haven’t had a lot of homework and we’ve been taking advantage of our free time by being creative on our own for personal things. I’m finally learning how to sketch and go back to the basics of doing art by hand. On Wednesday I went to the Trajan Market for class and sketched the detail of an old marble block for two hours.


I’m starting to feel like this is my home. I’m not as dumb when I go to the grocery store, although there are so many choices for cheese you never know what you should pick. We are starting to see and recognize the same people in our neighborhood. There’s the fruit stand guy, our red haired grocery checker outer, the man who sits outside his shop in the evenings and says “bouna cera,” there’s the waitress at the café below us, and of course our lovely neighbors. Italian is still hard to learn but I’m trying to use what little I know.

Last night we went to a museum and looked at ancient mosaics and statues for history class. It was great besides being caught in the rain. It started pouring on us. This is Linds and I after being drenched. Check out lindsey's arm.

crispy cripsy—benjamin franklin came over

So this is what I’m getting used to here.

Crispy towels and underwear from hanging them up to dry.
Learning to use the stove and not a microwave.
Hand-washing dishes because our dishwasher doesn’t like to be clean.
Dust covering our flat because of open windows.
Bug bites on our ankles every day.
Grapes with seeds in them.
Everything closing between 1 and 4pm.

I found a pretty park today. I ran around. It was fun.

oat meal?

So because of our fiasco with our door the other night, we decided to bake our friendly neighbors some cookies. Or "no bake" them. So we head to the grocery store for a few simple items. First we cannot find any sugar, and finally find it tucked away in the corner of the store by the frozen goods. Why it's not with all the other baking items we have no idea. Then it's time for some oatmeal. You would think anyone would have simple, dried oats, but no one here has ever heard of such a thing. We opt for some chocolate mueseli and hope that it will suffice. As we are checking out I ask the worker, who recognizes us by now because we're in there all the time, "hai oatmeal?" He looks at us and says "oat...meal? no." and continues to keep repeating the word oatmeal as he rings up our groceries. it was pretty funny. So we make our no bake cookies and go on over to Franco's house. He answers the door in his white boxers and white undershirt and has us come in and sit down with him. He was great, a real George Hamilton with his Italian tan. We converse in broken phrases for a while about art and his family and then head over to Alesias home. His family answeres the door and we talk to their son Marco, who's 19, about how to get to the beach the next day. He can't explain the directions well enough so he opts to take us to the bus stop in the morning. When we leave, we see Sergio coming home so we run upstairs to hand him his cookies. He let's us in his flat and directs us to sit out on his terrace while his wife brings us biscuits and sanpellagrino. His terrace was about the size of our flat, filled with trees and flowers. We sat out there for a while talking to one another in broken english and italian. It was really fun. We found out his wife is a seamstress and she showed us some of her things, they were beautiful! Sergio is so animated when he talks and told us if we ever need anything just to "ding dong" on his door and he will help. haha.


Saturday we met marco outside our door and he walked us to the bus stop and made sure the driver would let us know when to get off. Once off we weren't sure where to go and an old man, out of no where, takes us to the trainstation we need. It's so nice to know God is looking out for us. We make it to the beach, and enjoy the day, although it was the first cloudy day we've had here and it started to sprinkle some. But despite the clouds we all managed to get burnt. It was pretty funny on the beach because there are people that come by about every 5 minutes trying to sell you things. It felt like we were on the MTV show Boiling Point, waiting to see how many people could come and annoy us before we just went crazy. After relaxing on the beach we made it home to our roommate Steph, baking lasagna for everyone and we had a nice family meal together.


Last night in Rome was also a huge festival where all the shops and museums were open late. It was called white night and as we were getting ready to go, Marco stopped by invited us to come out with him and his friends. We thought sure why not, even though they're all in highschool. So we see some crazy acrobatic stage performance for a while and then walked down toward the city center. By the time we wrestled through the crowds to come to a piazza we were exhausted! It was late, and the three of us were tired so we told Marco that they could stay and we were going to head home. He offered to walk us back, "I ama Italiana, I shoulda walka youa back" But we told him we could do it on our own and finally found a bus that wasn't overcrowded.


Now we're enjoying our Sunday after an english church service and will be heading back to our flat soon to work on homework the rest of the day. I am looking forward to sitting and doing nothing. Our bodies need rest!

rotto is the story of our life.

So I had a thought the other day of how I would put my dress in the dryer, once I washed it, because it was a little loose. Then I realized, oh ya, there are no dryers here! We have to hang EVERYTHING up including socks and underware. It's pretty funny seeing everything hanging out windows and around our flat.


So yesterday we are absolutely exhausted after class. Lindsey had a migraine and felt as though she was going to throw up. We wait 20 minutes for our bus to come and pack onto an already full load. These rides make any normal person feel sick, so Lindsey was about ready to die as more and more people crammed on. We had to get off the bus early because we couldn't take it anymore. We finally arrive at our flat to find Jennifer and Elisa (our roommates) sitting outside our door. They have been waiting two hours because their keys won't unlock the door. We try ours with no avail. So I go knocking on neighbor's doors and finally find someone who is home. There are three old men and they don't speak English. Luckily Andrea is pretty quick with her Italian skills so her and I attempt to explain "key rotto (broken)," "porta (door) rotto." It took a while to explain we needed our landlord's number to call. Finally get the number but need them to call because our landlord speaks no english. Franco, the man who lives there, calls and explains the situation as best he understands. They find someone to call our phone back who speaks english so we can explain what is really wrong. We go back upstairs and wait outside our door for someone to come. Franco tries to unlock the door as well. Then our other neighbor comes home, Alex, and he let's us sit in his flat until help comes. We wait over an hour, in his home, while we practice our Italian skills of two days on him, then his wife comes home, who speaks english, and their two children and she is very friendly to us. FINALLY help comes and they fix our door.

By this time we are exhausted, starving, smell bad and just want the comfort of our flat. I know God was trying to teach us something through this, I have no idea what. I mean, we stood in front of the door and prayed that God would open it, but He didn't want to. Looking back it was fun meeting our neighbors and trying to talk with them. I think we will make them cookies this weekend for their generosity.

Here we are reinacting our rotto porta, we looked a lot sicker than this picture shows.


On a totally different note, here are some pics from this last week.

Andrea and I at the Spanish Steps


Here's my roommates, except James because he's a boy


This is our kitchen. We attempt to cook in it with 3 working burners and 2 pots. It can be tough when all 6 of us want to boil water. It's hard living without a microwave. I have to boil water every morning to make coffee. We're going to start cooking for one another.


This is a view I see as I cross the river for class everyday. There aren't many clouds in Rome.


And this is one of many piles of poop. We step over a lot of these on our way to class.




Oh and if anyone would like to read up more about our experiences check out Andrea and LIndsey's blog. We basically have the same life.
www.andreasgiornale.blogspot.com
www.lindseybennett.blogspot.com

good days are good.

today was a good day. i woke up to my boyfriend wishing me good morning over the phone. it took 39 minutes to walk to class. i sat on the terrace and read and enjoyed God's creation. i bought a peach and it was delicious. i've been sporting a tatoo lindsey drew a on my arm all day. it's super cool, it is a heart with crossbones and says justin in it. hilarious. i'm excited for my night class to be over and to eat some peas and rice for dinner.

So we are finally settled into Rome. It’s been hard not having a schedule and not understanding what’s going on. Our flat is really great and I am so happy with all the girls I live with. God is amazing in placing us all together. It’s been frustrating with a lack of communication. We have no telephone and no internet access except from our studio, which we haven’t been able to use, except now class has officially started today so I have access. yay!!!

Friday night Lindsey and I stayed in while the rest of our roommates went to the Trevi Fountain. It was really nice to relax, listen to some Regina Spektor, share a bottle of wine and do some arting. I like my roommates because they like to stretch. It makes me happy. And when they returned home we all did pilates together. Pretty funny.

Here's some pics of our place:
This is Lindsey dancing through our living room.


This is Andrea and I's bedroom.


Here Linds and I are arting the night away.


Saturday was orientation so we saw all of our classmates and took a mini tour of Rome. That was nice because I feel so lost in this city right now. It’s odd to think I will be here until December. I am used to being in a foreign place and being on the go, trying to see everything in a few days. Walking into town takes at least 35 minutes, so it’s a big trek if we want to go anywhere, and to come home takes longer because it is all up hill. We finally invested in a bus pass yesterday after walking an hour and a half to get to church. But it was a church in English and we made it right on time, so it was all worth it. I think we might know of a church that is a little closer to us, which is American.

Here are a few views we see as we walk to class:

First we see some beagles...


Then the city of Roma...


These are steps we have to go down on our way into town... and then back up, this pic doesn't show quite all of them either.


Yesterday was nice because we met up with Patritia, our director here, and some classmates and took a walking tour past Circus Maximus, Hercules temple, Santa Sabina Church, and we also saw the smallest country, Kinghts of Malta. This is a pic of it through a peep hole.


Last night we went out with two of our professors, Dorothy and Brenda, and Patritia. We had a traditional three course meal with bruscetta, pasta, veal and potatoes, and a dessert. It was amazing and so great to to get to know our faculty more.

The three of us trying to be super cool before dinner


I am falling in love with this city everyday as I see more and more. It's amazing how you walk by ruins and they seem so normal being here. There are ancient fountains everywhere. I am listening to one outside our studio right now. The water is fresh, the tomatos are the best I've ever had, and I am trying to capture everything I see into my mind. I wish I could express all the beauty I see here, but I think it shows how great our God is and how He created this world with so much splendor that we cannot even fathom it when we are living in it. It makes me excited for the grandeur of Heaven and how beautiful that will be.

i saw a shooting star as i glanced out my window the other night. it made me smile. my first one in rome.

Kuche ma?

We are finally in Rome, and ready to be settled into our flat. It has been a long week of traveling and hauling our luggage around Europe. London ended well. We were able to have a picnic in Hyde Park and made some interesting sandwiches for ourselves.

It was such a beautiful day and the lawn was covered with all types of people, it was like a circus with some guy juggling, another girl ribbon dancing and then us doing crazy gymnastics moves. Afterward we went to the British Museum to an exhibition about words in art. It was mostly calligraphic, Middle Eastern work and it was beautiful, so different from what we are used to in American art. From there we walked through Covent Garden and ended up in China town where Andrea used her skills, from this summer, to order us some good food. And for the first time we all rode on the London Eye, a large Ferris wheel over the river, where we saw the sun setting over the city. We were so glad to leave our hostel! Sharing two showers for an entire place and sleeping in a room that smells like boy was not entirely fun.

We arrived in Berlin with Andi waiting for us and the question of how we were going to fit all our luggage into his car. Somehow it worked.



Here we are enjoying a kebab, one of Andi's favorites. He said they are much better in Berlin than the gyro man in Ames. I agree.

We also discovered marzipan. And so we shared a corn shaped one, how appropriate. I think I am in love with Marzipan now.


It happened to be one out of two nights in the year, where Berlin opens the museums late and you pay one entry fee and go wherever, so this is what we did. We enjoyed an organ concert in a church, walked on top of a cathedral where we were rained on, and saw the giant gate from Babylon, at the Pergamon Museum, which was AMAZING! So much larger than I ever thought.



Our next days we saw the Berlin Wall, Brandenburg Gate, went to the Jewish museum and saw the new monument they built for the Jews. They built almost three thousand concrete blocks that are all slightly at an angle and you can walk between them. As you walk they get taller and it is almost like a maze. Each slab stands for around 2000 Jews who were killed. There is so much history and so much pain that is instilled in this city and in their lives. I think the Jewish monument is my favorite part of Berlin, just being able to interact with it and see the sun reflect off the blocks was a wonderful feeling.




Andi cooked us breakfast everyday, which was amazing! We had hard-boiled eggs, toast with cold meat and cheese and coffee. He also served us smoked fish on toast in the evening for dinner. It was raw and it tasted delicious. We had never had anything like it.

As our time ended in Berlin, I realized how much I love the German culture and feel at ease with it. It was a good experience trying to speak and relearn the language. But in every city that I encounter I always find things to love and wonder if this could be a city I may end up in, but right now there is so much world out there and so many different cultures I have hardly experienced anything. I am ready to continue my journey.

here is the view from Andi's flat,


and these are his rabbits that lived on the porch. Lady and Louis (we bought Andi a bunny calandar in honor of his little pets).



As we rode in the taxi to our flat this morning I was amazed by Rome. The culture is so different than anything I understand. As we drove up a long rode, I saw the most beautiful scene overlooking the city. In all the places I have been and all the scenes I have viewed, that brief glance I saw from the car made my heart stop, and I know I am ready to be grounded in this city for a while. This thought was reconfirmed as we were carrying our luggage up to our flat and I heard someone behind a door playing the piano. I know God is here, He is encouraging us in small little ways, we just need to keep our eyes peeled and encounter His overflowing love.