one month left...

So, this will be a long post because I haven’t posted in a while and haven’t been keeping you all very up to date. My recommendation for reading this (unless you’re old and retired and have lots of time) would be to skip the words and look at the pictures, especially the ones at the bottom. DO NOT skip the pictures from Cinque Terre, as it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever been in my whole life and you need to see them.

Its Monday, I’m sitting in Villa Borghese, absolutely drenched in sunlight and am just really loving life right now. The simple things, like the fact that we were able to dip our toes in the ocean yesterday (more on that later), are so not simple here. Anyway, today is officially the last month marker of my trip and this last month is going to fly. I’m warning you right now, some of the posts might be delayed – as in, not until I get back to the states.

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One thing I forgot to mention about the mozzarella farm – we ate a 13-course lunch. We had nine appetizers – including half-kilo balls of mozzarella – two types of pasta, two types of meat, and two different desserts. Our appetizers were: eggplant parmesan, potato casserole (cooked with cheese and prosciutto), ricotta casserole, baked ricotta, sampler plate of meats (3 different kinds), a sampler plate of cheeses (5 different kinds), a fourth type of meat with arugula and cheese on it, eggplant casserole with mushrooms and cheese, and mozzarella balls (1/2 a kilo is a pound). Plus bread. Then for primi piatti (first course), we had two types of fresh homemade pasta – one small pasta with a cream sauce and ham in it and one big pasta with tomato sauce and mushrooms. Then, for our secondi piatti (second course) we had fresh sausage and fresh grilled pork (meaning, made from those pigs you see in the pictures). We had potatoes and salad as our contorni (side dishes). For dessert, we had fresh fruit – kiwi, apples, pears, and oranges – and two different types of torte – strawberry and peach. It was absolutely delicious, but totally and completely filling.

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After the mozzarella farm, the week passed pretty quickly. Friday morning, I got up around 5.30 to get to the airport by 8 – I live pretty far – to pick up Mom, Barbara, and Linda. We spent a busy long weekend seeing Rome:

Friday, we took the train and then the metro to get them to their respective hotels. I got Mom and Linda checked in with the nuns they were staying with and then took Barbara over to her Best Western. The nuns were absolutely fantastic and wanted to hear all about them and how they were visiting me and why I lived in Rome etc. Even though I had my Italian oral exam that day, being with mom & her friends was the best oral exam for me. Anyway, after that, I took them for their first breakfast in Rome – cappuccini and cornetti, pastries and cappuccinos, and sometimes spremuta, fresh squeezed juice from blood oranges. We then did a walking tour of the parts of Rome I am in the most. We walked from where my classes are held (if they’re held in the classroom) to the Tiber River (Fiume Tevere) and walked by a few of the bridges over the river. We then went to Piazza del Popolo, a great place to hang out, do homework, eat lunch, or people watch. All of which I do quite often there. Then, we walked down Via del Corso, the main road of Rome. They did a little window-shopping and we got lunch. We ate our pizza on the Spanish Steps, and did some good people watching. After that, I put them on a bus back to their hotels and I went to my Italian oral exam. Which means that now, I’m finished with Italian! After the exam, I went to pick them up at their hotels. We walked around a bit more and went to Largo Argentina, where we saw the cat sanctuary (now it’s a cat sanctuary, but it used to be 4 sacred temples) and where Julius Caesar was murdered. We ate dinner a cute restaurant in the area and then did a couple very important sights by night: the Pantheon and the Trevi fountain. After spending a bit of time at all of these sights, I took them back to their hotels where they went to sleep after not having slept for about 30 hours. Side note: Friday was gorgeous!
Saturday was another beautiful day. I had class all day at the Roman Forum and at the Colosseum, but luckily, my teacher knew there would be many parents/friends visiting and had invited them to come along. We spent all morning in the Roman Forum, learning about the center of Rome and its importance to all Roman citizens. We had a couple hours to break for lunch – and we went to a nice place and ate outside (we had pizza, panini, and crepes). Then, we went to the Colosseum. We learned about why it was built and what it was used for – both classes were super interesting. Saturday night, we got dressed up (well, Barbara and I did) and we went out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants in Rome. All of the pasta is homemade there and their dessert is super delicious. I even made my mom try it – and she liked it. Its basically a waffle cone filled with strawberries, which are covered in delicious cream. On top of the cream (which is not overly sweet) is drizzled hot chocolate. How you can refuse that, I’m not so sure. After dinner, we walked by the Colosseo at night – a truly gorgeous sight – and then I took them home. Here are some pictures from the day:



This is the left over wall from the Temple of Saturn.



View of the Foro Romano – it looks nice, but its hard to explain exactly what everything is without a guide, so just accept this as the ‘skyline’ of old Rome.



Church that sits over half of the Curia (where the Senate met) and a Victory Arch built by Septimus Severus.



There’s mom in front of the leftovers of the Temple of Saturn



Detail on the Victory Arch



More detail of the Arch



This was the most impressive part of the forum – it is so well preserved. Notice the flowers on the roof of the arch, they’re so pretty!



Mom, Barbara, and Linda (l to r) in the Colosseo



Inside the Colosseo



The very dramatic Colosseo against the beautiful sunny sky (notice there are no clouds).



Colosseo from the inside; its hard to get a good picture of the whole thing, but this is my best try.



One more of Mom and Barbara. Looking good!

Sunday, I let them do their own thing in the morning, because Linda wanted to go to mass and see the pope. Unfortunately, they managed to lose Linda in St. Peter’s Square, on a Sunday, during mass time. How they managed to pull that off, I don’t know. Anyway, once we had found her, we headed off to Ostia Antica, which is the ancient sea port of Rome and supposed to be a bit like Pompeii, but for Rome. Anyway, it was pouring down rain and they wouldn’t give us a discount to get in to see the scavi so we just sort of explored the town, had lunch, walked around, and then headed back to Rome. They did a little bit of shopping and then I met up with them again for dinner. Linda was tired and took the night off. I took Mom and Barbara up to the Janiculum hill to see how large Rome is and how beautiful it is at night. On the way, we stopped at St. Peter’s Square, another beautiful spot at night. Then, we went down into Trastevere, the oldest neighborhood in Rome, for dinner. We ate a huge dinner at a great Sicilian restaurant and walked down by the river at night, which is really quite pretty. I brought them home and we all went to sleep. Here are some pictures from the day:



Mom smiling in the rain in St. Peter’s Square, Linda pointing to where she would prefer to take the picture, and Barbara hiding from the rain.



In the rain at St. Peters, with the fountain and the dome behind them.



This is a really bad picture – in the rain at Ostia Antica.



A tree lined street in Ostia Antica.

Monday, they were bent on shopping, so we spent the day on Via Cola di Rienzo, which is one of the best, more economical shopping streets in Rome. They bought lots of presents and even got some things for themselves. We had a nice lunch in a cute place on Cola di Rienzo and then I had to leave them to go to class. While I was in class, they kept shopping. I finished class around 6.30 and went to pick up Mom to bring her to my house for dinner. We got there around 8.30 and my mom met everyone, after a bit of talking (and by that, I mean that I was translating) we sat down for dinner. My host mom knew that Mom doesn’t like meat so we had pasta with cheese and tomato sauce, and then we had two types of bread, tons of mozzarella cheese (mozzarella di bufala!) and tomatoes. My host mom also made a salad with oranges, fennel, and olives. It was delicious! For dessert, we had fresh ricotta cheese with fermented wine poured on top. We spent a lot of time talking and it was really fun. After dinner, Margherita, Costantino, and I drove my mom home and then we came home and went to bed.

On Tuesday they left early in the morning.

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The rest of the week passed by pretty quickly. I was planning on staying home and not doing much this weekend but Thursday, Bea and I got the great idea of going to Pisa and Cinque Terre!

On Saturday, around noon, we left for Pisa. We went straight downtown to the tower and took some pictures etc, but Pisa is surprisingly small, and surprisingly boring. We ate dinner at a little restaurant and then went back to our hostel and went to bed early (try 10 pm, early). We had to get up really early the next morning to catch our train to Cinque Terre and we were at the first of the five cities by 10 am. We spent the whole day walking the five towns (which are only connected by train, boat, and foot) and exploring. We walked between the first two and then took the train to the third one. After climbing almost 400 stairs, we were at the third town. We walked from the third town to the fourth one, which is the longest and hardest climb. At one point, we almost fell off of the mountain. At the fourth town, we ate pizza and people watched. We then took the train to the fifth town and ate gelato and sat on the beach. I got sufficiently burned in the sun (it was HOT) and we even got to go wading in the Ligurian sea, which is part of the northwest Mediterranean. Right across the water from us (and by that, I mean several hundred miles) was Monaco. Cinque Terre is probably the most beautiful place in all of Italy. I took many pictures, none of which really show just how beautiful it is, but I did try. We took a train back to Rome and were home by 11. Here are the pictures of Pisa & Cinque Terre:



The day we get to Pisa, there is a soccer game, this picture doesn’t represent it as well as it seemed, but there were people all over the streets trying to get to the stadium for the game. We almost bought Pisa gear and went to the game (it is really that exciting/convincing to walk in the streets) but then we realized that actually we are true ROMA fans and couldn’t buy Pisa gear and go to the game, plus, we were on a mission: find the leaning tower of Pisa.



We found it! Its just so far away, we had to figure out how to get there…



It was literally behind this wall, and we weren’t sure how to get over the wall, so we decided to jump. Here is Beatrice, practicing her jumping skills.



Finally after finding it, we realized it was falling over, here I am, trying to help hold it up.



Tower.



The duomo with Beatrice in front of it.



Some artistic side angle of the duomo.



This is me being really artistic – notice the light in the top hole of the tower? That’s the moon…



Again, and not so blurry.



Just to show you how much its really leaning.



These are our Japanese friends who we met on the train. The lady in the middle thought we were so beautiful, she wanted to take our picture. She told us she was from Tokyo. The lady on the right did not like us at all. The lady on the left thought we were funny. We told her we were from Washington DC and she freaked out. She then introduced herself to us as Obama. Which made us a bit confused. She pointed to herself, shook our hands, and said Obama! Maybe, she’s just excited about him, I’m still not so sure. Anyway, they were nice.



So typical Italy – some guy leaning out of the train, smoking a cigarette.

Now, the pictures start to get a bit repetitive, I’m going to label them by place and then you can just look because they all kind of are the same. If theres anything special, I’ll give it a caption.

Riomaggiore: the first town











Cactus plant with some type of cactus fruit – the vegetation on the mountains was beautiful – more on that later.





This man had climbed down this really dangerous part to go fishing, he was old and really intense. We tried to join him, but the wind from the water came up through the rocks and almost blew me off of the rocks into the ocean (I’m not even kidding, it was that strong). I kind of thought for a moment that it was a monster because it sounded like a monster. I was legitimately terrified. So we didn’t go down that far.



Here we are with the sun on our faces and the ocean behind us. That’s France you can see off in the distance.



There’s that man fishing again – he was so cool.





Bea is welcoming the sun and the water – so pretty!



Cactus plants with peoples names carved into them.



Bea showing off two things: number one, how hot it was – we were in t-shirts and rolled up our jeans; and number two – how dangerous where we were climbing is – the sign behind her says so.









Now, we are on Via del Amore – Lovers Lane. Which connects the first two cities: Riomaggiore and Manarola.
And this is the symbol of Lovers Lane.



Bea, looking through a window.



Bea, hanging off a cliff.



A nice cactus plant, with peoples names carved into it.



Me with the cactus plant.

Manarola: the second town



At the train station in Manarola, a cat sunning itself. So cute!



While waiting at Manarola for the train to Corniglia, we saw a boat.



And a dog that’s been somewhat following us.



The city of Manarola.



More of Manarola.

Corniglia: the third town.



There’s Bea, climbing walls as usual.
















Me in a secret archway that I found.



This is my house when I retire.



Mountains upon which the Cinque Terre were built, with vineyards and houses and trees.

















This sign says it all.





A church we stumbled upon in Corniglia.

























At this point, we’ve climbed all the way up a mountain and all the way down, and then all the way up another mountain. Now all we have to do is go down. Bea is demonstrating our strength. Also, please note, this is the hardest trail and it is technically closed this day we’re doing it. We aren’t sure why, but it seemed fine for us. Except for one part where the trail ended because part of it fell off a cliff and we had to jump over that and then we were fine.



For Gracie, wild cats chilling in the forest.



Another cat that we found asleep in the grass.





Although I’m not the biggest dog person, I love this picture because this poor dog really wanted to go outside and the look on his face is just precious. Also, the colors of the house are really typical of the area and I think it just shows them so well.









On our descent into Vernazza!





Vernazza: the fourth town



I loved the bright colors of these boats.



Monterosso: the fifth town.



A man landed on the beach!



My feet in the Mediterannean!



Bea and me after a long day, sitting on the beach, in the sun.

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Now, as far as the reasoning as to why I will be failing when it comes to posting: I have a very busy last month scheduled:

Next weekend, we go to Pompeii, Sorrento, Naples, and Capri. It should be a fun trip, and very educational.

Three days after I get back from Naples, I leave for Spring Break – London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Paris, Oslo, and Prague.

Three days after I get back from Spring Break, I’m going to Barcelona to celebrate my friend Alex’s 21st birthday. She is living in Barcelona right now, so I don’t have to worry about finding a place to stay, etc. I’ll be there for 3 days. On a side note, I bought my ticket to Barcelona for only 6 euro – there was no tax or anything! My ticket back was a little pricier, about 30 euro, but it was fine because of my super cheap flight there.

Anyway, four days after I get back from Barcelona, I leave to come back to America. Which means that I will be very tired and will be a very busy person between now and then.

Anyway, thanks for reading, I’ll update soon.