holding the world in the palm of my hand

Gianicolo hill, my new favorite spot, overlooking all of Rome

a stroke of bad luck

Well, apparently the legend in my last post was right about if you touch the dog on St. Charles bridge you will get bad luck. This weekend I had my Blackberry, italian phone, and new camera stolen. Stupid pickpocketers. Luckily I brought my iPhone with me to Rome, so I do have some form of communication. If you're trying to reach me, either iMessage (if you have an iphone) or whatsapp my normal American phone. It will come through if I have wifi, so if I don't answer right away that's why. I'm only going to be bringing it to class with me and using it at my house to prevent it from getting stolen too. I'm going to go buy a new italian prepaid phone tomorrow. Sweeeet.

BUT ANYWAY,
This weekend I had some of my friends from Clemson in town. I was their tour guide for the weekend, which was fun because I got to go see all the sights again. We went to Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiori, Argentina, Piazza Venezia, the Roman Forum, Paletine Hill, the Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, the Pantheon, the Vatican, and Trastevere. I also took them out at night to Shari Vari (a club that looks like a cave), Testaccio (an area with a 2 blocks of bars and clubs), and Babel (a club by my apartment). It was a long, exhausting weekend. I'd love to share pictures of it but like I said, my camera was stolen (rough). I'm planning on trying to find somewhere to buy a cheap camera this week, because I refuse to be in Rome for a semester with no camera.

This week I'm spending catching up on some school work in preparation of midterms next week (my first tests). Then this weekend we're heading to Bomarzo with our program on Friday and Christina and I are going skydiving on Saturday (EEEEK) in Le Marche, which is in the top five places to skydive in the world. I'm so excited :)

Le Marche!

PRAGUE!

Tyn Church and Old Town Square

Astrological clock

Sally, Christina, and I in front of the St. Charles Bridge

This past weekend Christina, Sally, and I headed toward eastern Europe to PRAGUE. We went with a company called Bus2Alps... which meant we got to take a glorious (sarcasm) 16 hour bus ride from Rome to Prague, passing through Germany and Austria on the way. We left on Thursday at 4:00pm and got into Prague at 9am on Friday. When we got there we were greeted with an ACTUAL BREAKFAST with eggs, sandwiches, fruit, and pancakes! It was so nice to actually have breakfast since Italians think a croissant is sufficient in the morning.

Once we checked in to our hostel, we headed on a tour of the old town, the new town, and the Jewish quarter of Prague. We had an awesome tour guide who was actually born in Prague. We covered pretty much everything in Prague, and it's safe to say I'm obsessed! We were able to go to the astrological clock to watch the hourly show and Old Town Square,  Týn Church, St. Nicholas Church, the Jewish quarter with the cemetery and museum, Rudolfinum, and finish with views of the Charles Bridge, St. Vitus Cathedral, and Prague Castle. It was such a good way to get a good grasp on Prague.

Christina adding our input to the John Lennon Wall

After the tour we headed to the shopping district since the exchange rate is so good. We were able to head to H&M and get a couple new necessities that we all left back in the states. SO CHEAP. Most things were around $5-10! After shopping we realized we had barely any time before we had to be at our pub crawl. We were hurrying back to the tram to get back to the hostel, and we were able to stop and get SUBWAY!!! Just a background story - Italy does NOT let fast food places in the country. There are about 3 McDonalds, 2 Burger Kings, and one Subway in all of Rome. There isn't even a Starbucks in all of Italy. In Prague, however, they apparently love the United States. On every corner there were Subways, McDonalds, KFCs, and Starbucks. We even passed a sign for Hooters while we were there. I felt like I was back in the United States again. That night we went on a pub crawl in Prague with our Bus2Alps program. It was so much fun - we went to three different bars. Even though apparently they don't have rules against drinking on the job, considering both the bartenders and the guide for the pub crawl were ridiculously drunk. They even led us to the wrong bar for our last stop! After the pub crawl we got pizza and headed back to the hostel to head to sleep, but not before singing one of my friends happy birthday on skype for his 21st (happy birthday Bruce!!).

Rubbing the dog for bad luck...

On Saturday we got up early and headed out for a long day of tours. Our leaders for the program took us to sign the John Lennon Wall and walk across the St. Charles Bridge. While we were walking along the bridge, we stopped at this statue that you're supposed to rub a girl on it for good luck. We saw another part with a dog that some people were rubbing too so we rubbed that for extra good luck. Little did we know that rubbing that part actually gave you bad luck. OOOPS. Tourist mistake of the trip. After this we headed to the Castle district for a tour with the same guide from the day before. We were able to see the Prague Castle, St. Vitus Cathedral up close, the Golden Gate, the houses where the people who built the castle lived, and the torture chambers. After all our walking we headed to some local pubs to try some of their beer. We were able to go to one pub that had all different kinds - chocolate, caramel, raspberry, blueberry, and more! They were all SO GOOD. Then we had a traditional czech dinner with goulash (YUM) and tons of sausage. 

St. Vitus Cathedral

After dinner we raced back to our hostel to head to Lucerna, a famous club with 80s and 90s music. Our entire group went there and it was so much fun and such a great end to the trip. Afterwards, we headed back to our hostel to get up early to head back to Roma after the ridiculously awesome trip. Unfortunately on the way back Sally got her wallet stolen or lost it (we're not really sure). Guess rubbing the dog gave us bad luck after all....

Fontana del Mascherone

Dana on Via Giulia

Yesterday Dana and I spent the day exploring some hidden parts of Rome. We headed out to explore supposedly the most beautiful street in Rome, Via Guilia. Although it was pretty, we weren't that impressed. While there we saw the Fontana del Mascherone (Fountain of the Mask), which was pretty funny because it just looked like someone throwing up. Then after that we got a cafe latte before heading to explore Trastevere area before I had to be at school. We stopped by the Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo on the way. Tonight we're going out to celebrate Fat Tuesday. Rome has carnivale, too, even though it is not as big here. Tonight is the last night so we're headed to Piazza di Popolo to watch fireworks! Ciao!

Buon San Valentino!

Happy (late) Valentine's Day! 

San Valentino catacomb

For Valentine's Day, we actually found out that St. Valentino's catacomb is in Rome. It said online that it was only open on Valentine's Day, so we headed over to take a break from our imaginary boyfriends.  After a trek to find it, it actually wasn't open, and looked like it hadn't been in some time. It was still cool (and creepy) to be able to see the outside though! 

And now we are heading off to the land of beer and sausage... PRAGUE!

Venezia Carnivale

Ciao from Venezia Carnivale!

This weekend we had our first big trip of the semester! We traveled to Venezia for the historic Carnivale celebration. Carnivale is a celebration that occurs in Venice for two weeks before Fat Tuesday. Carnivale occurs all over Europe, but the main city of celebration is Venice. Carnivale started so that the entire town could intermingle. The citizens of the town dress up in elaborate outfits with masks so you cannot tell who is who. This enables everyone to be treated equally because no one knows each individual's status. It was an INCREDIBLE experience.

Gondola in Venice canal

Hillary, Daniella, and I in front of the Rialto Bridge

I went with my roommate and a group of girls in my program that I hadn't really gotten to know yet. We got up at 4:45am on Friday to get to the 8:30 flight (eeeek). I ended up unfortunately being on a different flight than anyone else. My roommate and I arrived in Venice around 9:30am. We checked into our hotel and headed to explore before everyone else got there around noon. The first thing we realized was that Venice was WAY more expensive than Rome, which I wasn't expecting. We were able to find a cheap sandwich place to grab something to eat. After that we walked through the streets of Venice enjoying the sights and getting lost. It was absolutely freezing - a 15 degree windchill! We bundled up and wore pretty much every layer of clothes that we brought. The canals were not frozen anymore, but you could still see the chunks of ice from when they were earlier that week. Once our other friends arrived we started our walk toward St. Mark's and went shopping to buy more layers.  I ended up wearing four pairs of socks, 5 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, and a jacket... and I was STILL freezing. We were staying a 20 minute walk from St. Mark's, which actually ended up being really nice because we were able to see more of the city and learn our way around.

Once we got to St. Mark's it was dark out, and we were all so freezing that we ended up just huddling in a little tourist shop to try to get regain feeling in our toes. We headed back to our hostel, then went out to some bars close to our hotel that night. We couldn't find our original place that we were going, so we asked a Venetian local and he took us to some really cool bars on a side street. 

Jessica, Daniela, Daniella, Hillary, Kristen, and I in St. Mark's Square

Saturday we woke up around 10am to get ready for our long day ahead - the first official day of Carnevale! We headed to St. Mark's square and were amazed at all the costumed people on the way. We were able to make a quick stop by the Rialto Bridge on the way as well. 

We finally got to St. Mark's and it was AMAZING. There were people in elaborate costumes everywhere just enjoying the day. There was a huge stage set up on one end of St. Mark's with music and people dancing. We explored that area - went to the lagoon, went in St. Mark's Basilica, and of course took pictures with the gondolas. After exploring the area we headed back to the stage to enjoy the performances. Some of the girls I came with got cold and tired so they went back to our hotel, but me and Daniella stayed and enjoyed the shows. They had the stage set up where they had a front area with a gate around it then the back area for everybody. Since we were there before the main events started, we were able to stay in the front section. We found out later that they actually ended up charging 15 euro to get in this section! 

Daniella, Hillary, and I

Participant in the costume contest

Suddenly we found ourself in the press box for the main events of the weekend! There was a parade that day, and it ended in St. Mark's, so it actually ended up surrounding us in the front section. The parade was set up to honor the history of Carnivale, with each group in the parade representing a different time period of Carnivale celebrations. It ended with the Precession of the Marie. The 12 most beautiful girls in Venezia are selected and presented to the crowd, and the winner is chosen. This is an incredibly huge honor and is kind of similar to Miss America. The girls were so pretty, and the only ones without masks. 

After this parade a costume contest was held. The outfits for this were incredible! It was so cool because they let the participants in the contest into the area where we were, so we actually got to take pictures with everyone participating in the contest. These costumes were insane - I wish I could've gotten pictures of every single one. The costumes all ranged from the traditional Carnivale costumes to Van Gogh to Smurfs to a deck of cards. During our excitement of realizing we had accidentally gotten such a once-in-a-lifetime experience to mingle and meet the participants in the events of carnivale, we also met two Australians who were studying in Sweden. Their names were Emma and Anthony, and they were in just as much shock as us. We spent the next two hours freaking out about how lucky we were to be getting such experiences. We ended up hanging out with them the rest of the day, and Emma is even coming to stay with us in Rome! Their program is over so they've been traveling around with friends, and she wanted to come to Rome but didn't want to come alone. She's so much fun and so nice! 

After the parade ended and the costume contest was over, we headed to meet up with my friend Julie. She's from Clemson and is in my sorority. I was SO excited to see someone from Clemson because I haven't seen the majority of my friends from there since finals week. It was so nice to see a familiar face. We met up and headed for a break from the cold at a pub. We hung out there for awhile, but unfortunately she was leaving to go back to Florence at 7. 

Once she left, we headed back to St. Mark's for the opening party. This event was the official opening to Carnivale in Venice where everyone comes out and dances. We were up by the stage again enjoying ourselves and two of our friends from our program in Rome showed up. It was so nice to see them since I had gone to Venice with people I didn't know as well. It was SO much fun in St. Mark's - there was a dj and hundreds of people in masks just enjoying the celebration. It was such an experience. Although Carnivale is usually compared to Mardi Gras in the United States, it is actually very different. Although there is still drinking, Carnivale is much more of a celebration of culture. It was so fun to see how much tradition was involved. When we travel to a place, we are able to go see all the sights, but it is hard to actually experience the culture every place we go. However, in Venice we were surrounded by it. The elaborate costumes you see in pictures of Carnivale are not paid street performers, they are the Venetian citizens celebrating their history and Carnivale. After the party in San Marco ended, we headed to get dinner at a pizza place then a couple different bars. We met so many people and everyone was just celebrating Carnivale in the streets. There were djs set up at random street corners and everyone was wearing masks. It was SO much fun.

Flight of the Angel

After the long day, we woke up early for an even longer one. We had to be out of our hotel at 10:30, so we got up and headed back to San Marco for the Flight of the Angel, one of the biggest events of the opening of Carnivale. The angel 'flies' from the Tower in San Marco down to the stage. Hundreds of people in costumes come out to watch the event.  We all expected the angel to basically zip line down, but she went down extremely slow. Everyone was watching, including the cooks working in San Marco.

Flight of the Angel in St. Mark's

After the Flight of the Angel, we headed to go souvenir shopping. I am collecting shot glasses from each place I go to so I can display them when I get home so I made sure to get that. Some of the people I was with bought some jewelry and some glass. After this we were so exhausted that we went back and just sat at the hotel lobby for an hour and a half. I drank three cups of espresso, but it still had basically no effect. Daniella even fell asleep in the storage room.

Eventually we made ourselves to venture back to San Marco to see what was happening there. We came in to the end of another costume contest. They had music again after that, so we just enjoyed ourselves in the crowds of San Marco. After awhile we all had to go to the bathroom and needed a break from the cold, so we got sandwiches and gelato. I know, I know, it was cold why were we eating gelato?! But it's just so good no one can ever resist. After that we headed back to San Marco and watched a jazz concert. By this time, it was around 10pm, so we headed to the train station to catch our 11pm train.

Traveling is exhausting

We thought since we had an overnight train we were going to get beds. We got on the train and it was seriously the train scene out of Euro Trip. I was EXHAUSTED and getting so cranky, and we had no idea how to get the beds to pull down. We eventually successfully got 4 out of the 6, but could not get the last one. It was Jessica, Kristen, two other girls that we didn't know studying in Rome, and a man in the car of our train. Jessica and Kristen decided to share a bed and the two other girls were going to share one, but they were creeped out by the other man in our cab. I was exhausted, so I passed out until a man working for the train came to our door. Apparently we did not pay to have beds (didn't know you had to..) so he got very angry and put our beds back into seats. So for our 6 hour train ride we had to sit up and try to sleep. It was so uncomfortable and we were all cranky from no sleep. We finally got back into Rome around 7 and home to our apartment around 8am. I passed out immediately from one of the longest, but most fun and exciting weekends of my life. All in all, despite the cold, carnivale was a success!


Some pictures of the costumes:

Off to Carnivale!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/02/04/europe-cold-snow.html

Here is an article on the snow situation in Rome. We have more predictions for snow this weekend even though the previous snow has still not fully cleared, but luckily I will be leaving before it begins for Venice. This week has been coined with the term snowpocolypse by Italians.

My Carnivale Mask

I bought my mask for Carnivale yesterday, and we leave on Friday at 8:30am! Our train leaves to return to Rome on Sunday at 11:30pm, and we don't get back to Rome until 6:30am (UGH)... that is, as long as Rome doesn't get enough snow to close down the trains again. Both my cell phones will be working in Venice so you can still contact me as usual. Here goes my first hostel stay (eeeek)...

snow & sports filled weekend

Spanish steps in the snow

Italian snowman

As I mentioned last time, we had a snow day on Friday. Little did we know how bad it would actually be. Thursday night I stayed at my friend Christina's apartment because we went out with a big group of us. Even that night was bad getting anywhere, so we mostly just stayed at her apartment. I didn't end up getting home until Saturday because we were snowed in all weekend. We got around 6 inches of snow, the most snow Rome has seen in 25 years! It has completely shut down the city because they have no snow plows and don't even salt the roads or sidewalks. It has been a pain trying to get around with the metros freezing and buses not able to drive on the frozen roads. It's hard to even walk on the sidewalks because they're so slippery with ice. On Friday we stayed in all day, then on Saturday we ventured out to get food and go shopping. That night we went to a club near us called Babel and had to walk because the taxis don't even want to drive in the snow. It has been an absolute disaster.

Ryan, Reza, Korey, Alex, and I at the AS Roma vs Inter Milan game

Curva Sud section

As I said before, we got tickets for the AS Roma vs Inter Milan game, one of the things I wanted to do the most while I was here. The game was supposed to be Saturday night, but because no one could get around the city they moved it to Sunday at 3:00. I went with some of the guys in my program and it was SO MUCH FUN. We had to leave our house about 2 hours before the game just to make it over there, but it was fun going on the metro with all the excited Italian fans. I bought a sweatshirt a few days ago, so I was in Roma gear but the guys I went with hadn't bought their scarves yet. We kept getting glared at because the Roma fans thought that we were for Inter Milan. Luckily they were able to buy scarves right when we got close to the stadium.

GOAL!!!!! 

The game was awesome, we had seats on the long side about 15th row up. The atmosphere was so much fun. It made me really miss Clemson football season (even though it just ended not too long ago). The curva sud section is on the short side, and it was absolutely nuts. This is the area with the intense fans that can be very dangerous. The whole area went absolutely insane the entire time during the game. It reminded me of the student sections at home.

Anyway, Roma ended up winning the game 4-0! It was so much fun being there for such a big game when we won by so much. AS Roma won by so much that they actually announced for Inter Milan to wait in the stadium for a police escort to take them out so they would be safe from the fans. It was such a blast!!!

Korey and I outside the soccer stadium in the snow

After the game we went back to an Irish pub for dinner and to get a table early for the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is the one excuse to have an American night for all the study abroad kids, and on top of that we had class cancelled today for class. The game didn't start here until midnight, but to get a table you have to go really early. Watching the game was SO much fun. It was such a nice break from constantly trying to fit in with italian culture. We all got burgers and nachos. I've never seen a place so excited for the national anthem. It was about 200+ american study abroad students all singing along to the national anthem and going absolutely crazy with homesickness. The game didn't end until around 4am so it was an exhausting day, but it was so worth it.

Today everyone slept in really late since we all had such late nights. Then I got up and went to lunch with my friend Monet at a delicious panini place. That's one thing I love about it here - instead of greasy fast food they have pizza and panini places that have different things every day. You get to choose what you want and the size of it, then they weigh it and normally it only costs around 2 euro. Then they heat it up in the oven so it melts all the cheese. It's SO good because it's all made with fresh ingredients!

Vatican with Dana and Sally

After lunch I went to the Vatican (finally) with Dana and Sally. I can't believe it's taken me so long to get there. By the time we got there (after getting a little lost on the metro) the sun was starting to go down, but it was nice because there was no one there. The Vatican is absolutely phenomenal. I always thought the Colosseum was one of the prettiest, most amazing places in Rome but the Vatican definitely tops that. It was so much bigger than I expected and absolutely BEAUTIFUL. It blew me away, and I couldn't believe that it is still being used today. We went inside and walked around then went to dinner close by. I'm going into the museum and stuff with my art history class, so I'm going to wait until then to do that. It was still so awesome just walking around outside though.

Well, it's 12:30am and we have class again tomorrow after 2 days of cancellations so I have to get to bed. That is, if I can make it. The snow is still so thick in places and now the sidewalks have turned into complete ice slabs. Eeek!

Ciao!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

THANKS CEA :)
We officially have a SNOW DAY tomorrow. Oh yeah and did I mention.... the weather forecast is rain/snow/sleet, no accumulation predicted. YAYYY!!!

Baby, it's cold outside..

SO this week in Rome is our first week that we haven't had perfect weather. And by that, I mean record lows and rain. It is AWFUL weather here right now. I thought Atlanta couldn't function in the rain - Rome is even worse. All the buses are 30-45 minute waits, the traffic is awful, and the worst part is I found out there's a hole in the sole of my boot which makes walking around in the rain REALLY comfortable (jokes). It's really helping out with me being sick and all.

This week I've been a complete bum. I haven't been able to do anything because of my sinus infection, so I haven't gone to any classes except Statistics last night and Art History today. I also had to call out of work Monday night. I figure I better get 100% better now, or else I'll end up sick this entire semester. It's been awful, but the Zpack the doctor gave me is slowly helping. I'm really sensitive to medicine and pretty much anything stronger than Advil knocks me out for 3-4 hours, so I've been sleeping all day and night. My body needed it though, so it's nice to rest.

I was able to catch up on some of my school work though since I've just been hanging out around the apartment. It feels like it's just a vacation here, so getting my mind in work mode has been difficult. While everyone was out last night and the apartment was quiet I caught up on some of the work I had been slacking on. It's hard getting myself motivated here because the classes are so much easier than Clemson classes. Clemson had it's first hard week of the semester this week, and I've barely even had any homework... which is definitely a nice change. I'm just ready to be able to use the free time I have from not having to study as much to go explore Rome more.

Next stop, Carnivale!

We were also able to book some of our trips during our down time! I went ahead and booked my Bus2alps trips and Venice. We're going to Venice next weekend for Carnivale. It's kind of like Mardi Gras, but italian style! I'm excited to see that since it's a festival and more culturious (thanks Clemson haha) than just visiting the city and taking tours of monuments. It'll be nice since I've already seen Venice how it is normally, so now I can see it during a festival! The festival is the biggest carnivale in all of Europe, so I definitey did not want to miss it while I was here and so close. It was started originally to celebrate that all classes are equal. Everyone wears masks to hide their social class so everyone can intermingle. We're getting masks to celebrate too! The weekend after that Christina and I are going to Prague with Bus2Alps. I'm SO excited because I've heard so much about how amazing Prague is (thanks David). Then we also booked our spring break trip with Bus2Alps where we'll be going to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Some of my friends are going to Dublin for the first weekend before the trip starts, but I'm going to visit Laura in Brussels with Maya, one of my friends I've made here on our program. And finally we went ahead and booked our Munich Springfest trip for in April. This is going to be our last out of the country trip for the semester. I'm just SO EXCITED to start traveling and get well so I can continue seeing places in Rome!

Well I'm off to sleep (again) then trying to find a Roma scarf for the game on Saturday. It's supposed to be 29 degrees, AHHHH I'M GOING TO FREEZE!!