Ciao tutti,
I’m sure you’ll all be very happy to know I had class yesterday! So far we’ve only had 2 classes, one in a coffee bar and one in Rome. Thursday morning we caught the 7:14am train to Rome, and as soon as we got there took off immediately. We went to a church called San Pietro in Vincoli, where they keep 2 sets of chains that Peter was bound in and then miraculously fused together. There’s also a Michael Angelo statue there. The whole church was empty, so we go it to ourselves. Then we walked to the Colosseum and sat down outside it and Kirk gave a lecture right there. How great is school when your classroom is in the shadow of the Colosseum! We walked around inside, got to be tourists for a few minutes and take pictures, and then left for the forum. We walked all through the forum, which was amazing because it was centuries and centuries of history all in the same place. It looked like all the architectural history of Rome thrown together in one place. After that, we stopped by the Pantheon and got a lecture on space in architecture and what it says about the Roman attitude. Basically, Rome is the center of the universe. And, Italians act as if they are the center of their own universe. I can’t even tell you how true that is…people don’t pay attention to where they are walking or driving, everyone cuts in line, and basically does whatever they want when they want to! It all makes sense! We went to a gelato store near the Pantheon that had 150 flavors…it was SO hard to choose! I finally decided on Nutella and Tiramisu. Molto buono! From there we split, and a group of us decided to stay an extra day in Rome.
We walked to our hostel on the other side of the river by the Vatican, dropped our stuff off and got checked in and then headed out to walk around Rome! We went to the Spanish steps, and the Trevi fountain where we stopped to eat more gelato and throw coins in. We ate dinner at a little restaurant on a street right off the Fontana di Trevi, and just sat and talked for a while. When we finally made it back to the hostel we decided to watch Gladiator before we went to bed. As soon as we sat down in the little living room area and put the movie in one of the guys that worked there walked in and said AHH! Basta! Basta! Which means Enough! Enough! He said we were literally the 5th group to come through and watch that movie haha. The atmosphere of the hostel was so great, everyone was young and was either studying or on holiday. There were kids from Germany, Australia and even the States. We were exhausted and all went and climbed into our bunk beds all in the same room. There were 7 of us, so we were toasty warm all night!
Today we got up early, went to St. Peter’s Square and had coffee and ciambelle, donuts, walked to Piazza Navona where it was sunny and warm and local artists had their easels set up all over the place. We walked back to the Fontana di Trevi, later saw the Four Fountains, and the Piazza del Repubblico, grabbed a panino at a café while some other kids ate at McDonald’s haha. Then we went to the train station, where I bought the book Angels and Demons in Italian. I managed to get through about 20 pages on the train before I fell asleep! That was exciting! When we got home we went to our favorite Kebap place where our very sweet Turkish friends work, and now I’m home watching a German TV show called Kebab for breakfast, dubbed in Italian. Very interesting…
Anyways, missing you a lot.
J
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Went to an art opening, and gypsy market. Bri got punched and I ate meat.
Cara famiglia,
Missing you all a lot, but Italy is so wonderful.
Last Friday we went to an art gallery opening. It was called arte & industria, and was all kinds of chairs and sofas and light installations. There is a girl who studied here last semester who interns and the gallery, so we all tagged along and crashed the party! It was fantastic. We stood around drinking spumante and eating all their great food…and apparently there at a lot of midgets in the art world because there were a lot at the opening. Anyways, Betsy, I know you would have loved it…
Then Saturday morning we got up early, really anything is early because we’ve been sleeping in a lot, and we went to the gypsy market! It was cold and rainy, but we walked around for 2 hours. The market was huge and lined a main street in town for probably a mile. The vendors had all kinds of stuff..shoes, clothes, linens. Since it’s the rainy season everyone is selling umbrellas, and everywhere you go you hear umbrellaumbrellaumbrellaumbrella. It’s actually pretty amazing how fast they say it, I definitely can’t do it!
Saturday night…well that was an experience! My roommate, Bri, and I decided to go dancing with some of the local people. We were standing in line to get into this club, Sugar Reef, with our friends Claudia and Bea who were telling us allllll about how jealous Italian women are. They were saying that in the club you have to be careful who you talk to or dance with, and you have to make sure there aren’t any girls staring you down because they might come up and yell at you if you get to close to their boyfriend haha. We all laughed at that and thought it was so funny..but didn’t really think twice about it. Well, about 2 or 3 hours later everyone is dancing and having a good time..and Bri met an Italian guy named Emanuelle. They were dancing and talking for a little while…when all of the sudden, out of NOWHERE, a big tall blonde girl ran over, started punching the guy, turned and PUNCHED Bri across the face, and then went back to attacking the guy!!!!A couple of guys jumped in and protected Bri, and she was fine. She doesn’t even have a black eye, which we were both a little disappointed about. They weren’t lying about Italian jealousy!
We got home around 5 in the morning, went to bed and then had to be up bright and early to catch the 11:45 train to go have lunch at Claudia’s house. Her family is SOOO WONDERFUL! She said her mom cooked and cleaned for 2 days. There was so much food it felt like Thanksgiving, and her mom is and incredible cook. She even made lasagna from scratch..and I had some. I decided I was probably going to eat some meat in Italy and I had a little! I figured if I have to break the streak at sometime…homemade lasagna in Italy isn’t a bad way to go. Haven’t eaten any meat since, and I don’t expect to eat a lot. But to all the carnivores back at home, aren’t you surprised! And proud!? They even opened a bottle of champagne and toasted to us being there…it was so great and they are such a nice family. Claudia’s dad makes his own wine, her grandma lives with them and while we were there had a friend come over to just hang out haha…her mom is the most amazing cook, and Claudia is the nicest person in the worldddd, I loveee her! I think I would like to adopt them as my Italian family. Yeah, it’s decided! After lunch we drove into Siena and went to the Piazza del Campo, if you haven’t seen it, Google image search that! It was amazing, and it’s the only Piazza in the world of its kind. On the drive home I got to see the stars! It has been cloudy and rainy most of the time we’ve been here, and seeing the night sky in Tuscany was..bellisima.
Anyways, Love you,
Jenny
Missing you all a lot, but Italy is so wonderful.
Last Friday we went to an art gallery opening. It was called arte & industria, and was all kinds of chairs and sofas and light installations. There is a girl who studied here last semester who interns and the gallery, so we all tagged along and crashed the party! It was fantastic. We stood around drinking spumante and eating all their great food…and apparently there at a lot of midgets in the art world because there were a lot at the opening. Anyways, Betsy, I know you would have loved it…
Then Saturday morning we got up early, really anything is early because we’ve been sleeping in a lot, and we went to the gypsy market! It was cold and rainy, but we walked around for 2 hours. The market was huge and lined a main street in town for probably a mile. The vendors had all kinds of stuff..shoes, clothes, linens. Since it’s the rainy season everyone is selling umbrellas, and everywhere you go you hear umbrellaumbrellaumbrellaumbrella. It’s actually pretty amazing how fast they say it, I definitely can’t do it!
Saturday night…well that was an experience! My roommate, Bri, and I decided to go dancing with some of the local people. We were standing in line to get into this club, Sugar Reef, with our friends Claudia and Bea who were telling us allllll about how jealous Italian women are. They were saying that in the club you have to be careful who you talk to or dance with, and you have to make sure there aren’t any girls staring you down because they might come up and yell at you if you get to close to their boyfriend haha. We all laughed at that and thought it was so funny..but didn’t really think twice about it. Well, about 2 or 3 hours later everyone is dancing and having a good time..and Bri met an Italian guy named Emanuelle. They were dancing and talking for a little while…when all of the sudden, out of NOWHERE, a big tall blonde girl ran over, started punching the guy, turned and PUNCHED Bri across the face, and then went back to attacking the guy!!!!A couple of guys jumped in and protected Bri, and she was fine. She doesn’t even have a black eye, which we were both a little disappointed about. They weren’t lying about Italian jealousy!
We got home around 5 in the morning, went to bed and then had to be up bright and early to catch the 11:45 train to go have lunch at Claudia’s house. Her family is SOOO WONDERFUL! She said her mom cooked and cleaned for 2 days. There was so much food it felt like Thanksgiving, and her mom is and incredible cook. She even made lasagna from scratch..and I had some. I decided I was probably going to eat some meat in Italy and I had a little! I figured if I have to break the streak at sometime…homemade lasagna in Italy isn’t a bad way to go. Haven’t eaten any meat since, and I don’t expect to eat a lot. But to all the carnivores back at home, aren’t you surprised! And proud!? They even opened a bottle of champagne and toasted to us being there…it was so great and they are such a nice family. Claudia’s dad makes his own wine, her grandma lives with them and while we were there had a friend come over to just hang out haha…her mom is the most amazing cook, and Claudia is the nicest person in the worldddd, I loveee her! I think I would like to adopt them as my Italian family. Yeah, it’s decided! After lunch we drove into Siena and went to the Piazza del Campo, if you haven’t seen it, Google image search that! It was amazing, and it’s the only Piazza in the world of its kind. On the drive home I got to see the stars! It has been cloudy and rainy most of the time we’ve been here, and seeing the night sky in Tuscany was..bellisima.
Anyways, Love you,
Jenny
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Made it!
To my darling friends and family,
So much has happened already, and I’m already learning so much! I guess for starters, our apartment is so great! We have our own garden and giant terrace, my bedroom opens out onto the terrace..which I’m so excited about. It's in the centro storico, the historical center of Arezzo, so it feels like we live in a movie. We’re surrounded by cobble stone streets, and the Italians love to get dressed up and just walk around. Everyone here is so beautiful! They also love to dress their dogs, we see dogs in outfits all the time, and dogs can go everywhere. Coffee shops, grocery stores, malls…I mean everywhere! It really makes me miss my dogs, even if they are horribly cranky and misbehaved. One of the funniest things I’m adjusting to is having to push the doors to enter. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I swear everytime I try to go into a building I look so ridiculous because I always struggle to get the door open! Also, getting into a bank is like trying to get into a spaceship, and the bathtub/ shower situation is…interesting. Arezzo has a big city feel to it, but is actually kind of a small town. We’ve been checking out all the bars (which means both coffee and alcohol..) and are already starting to see familiar faces just walking around the city. The first night I got here, I thought I was going to crash at 8, but instead everyone decided to go out! We went to a bar called Crispi’s and had pizza and beer..they also have karaoke on Thursday nights..so we’re going back tonight! Then we went to a little bar called Marilyn and met the owner, Maurizio. A couple nights later we also met the bartender, Luca, and the DJ, Paolo, who work at Marilyn at a different pub called Mister Bloom. Its so nice to actually know some locals! We’ve met up with the students from Arezzo who were at OU last semester..and they are wonderful! Claudia, Lorenzo and Maria Grazia. They’ve also introduced us to some of their friends here..and given us a chance to start practicing our very bad Italian...but I’m learning pretty quickly. I think. The whole month of February is our language class, we have it 2 hours a day everyday and that should whip us into shape! Our classes are kind of..all over the place so we should have plenty of time to travel ;). Yesterday we took the train to Florence and walked around a little, then went to the US consulate and got a tour and a ‘safety briefing.’ Other than that…we don’t have a lot of school to do and are spending our time eating, drinking, and walking around Arezzo! There is a giant park at the top of the hill in the center of the whole city…and it is so beautiful. I know what I really need to do is get some pictures up of stuff, the adjusting and getting everything figured out has just been crazy. I feel like so much has happened already in the first week..it’s impossible to explain! Anyways I’ll update again soon…more Italian adventures to come!
Love love love!
Jenny
So much has happened already, and I’m already learning so much! I guess for starters, our apartment is so great! We have our own garden and giant terrace, my bedroom opens out onto the terrace..which I’m so excited about. It's in the centro storico, the historical center of Arezzo, so it feels like we live in a movie. We’re surrounded by cobble stone streets, and the Italians love to get dressed up and just walk around. Everyone here is so beautiful! They also love to dress their dogs, we see dogs in outfits all the time, and dogs can go everywhere. Coffee shops, grocery stores, malls…I mean everywhere! It really makes me miss my dogs, even if they are horribly cranky and misbehaved. One of the funniest things I’m adjusting to is having to push the doors to enter. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but I swear everytime I try to go into a building I look so ridiculous because I always struggle to get the door open! Also, getting into a bank is like trying to get into a spaceship, and the bathtub/ shower situation is…interesting. Arezzo has a big city feel to it, but is actually kind of a small town. We’ve been checking out all the bars (which means both coffee and alcohol..) and are already starting to see familiar faces just walking around the city. The first night I got here, I thought I was going to crash at 8, but instead everyone decided to go out! We went to a bar called Crispi’s and had pizza and beer..they also have karaoke on Thursday nights..so we’re going back tonight! Then we went to a little bar called Marilyn and met the owner, Maurizio. A couple nights later we also met the bartender, Luca, and the DJ, Paolo, who work at Marilyn at a different pub called Mister Bloom. Its so nice to actually know some locals! We’ve met up with the students from Arezzo who were at OU last semester..and they are wonderful! Claudia, Lorenzo and Maria Grazia. They’ve also introduced us to some of their friends here..and given us a chance to start practicing our very bad Italian...but I’m learning pretty quickly. I think. The whole month of February is our language class, we have it 2 hours a day everyday and that should whip us into shape! Our classes are kind of..all over the place so we should have plenty of time to travel ;). Yesterday we took the train to Florence and walked around a little, then went to the US consulate and got a tour and a ‘safety briefing.’ Other than that…we don’t have a lot of school to do and are spending our time eating, drinking, and walking around Arezzo! There is a giant park at the top of the hill in the center of the whole city…and it is so beautiful. I know what I really need to do is get some pictures up of stuff, the adjusting and getting everything figured out has just been crazy. I feel like so much has happened already in the first week..it’s impossible to explain! Anyways I’ll update again soon…more Italian adventures to come!
Love love love!
Jenny
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
