La Città Eterna

Cioè, ROMA!!!!!!!!

So yeah, got back last night from an AMAZING trip to Rome...

I left wednesday after school and we took a small train

(il trenino ...little train)

(inside little train..this i found on the internet)

 to Paola (about 30 mins) then from there we took a big (and extremely nice) train, an Eurostar, all the way to Rome!
I have to say, thus train was x100 nicer than the one i took back from the camp October.

(train i took in october)

(Train i took to and from Rome..also stolen from internet)

Yeah so we arrived in Rome and got to the hotel which was pretty fancy, our balcony was almost bigger than our room haha. 

It was already about 8:30 when we got there so we changed and went out for supper at Dai Toscani, with some of my host mom's colleagues, which was really good but I ate to much cause they served appetizers then pasta and then meat and dessert but I only made it to the pasta haha.

Thursday morning we ate at the hotel (Cake, fruit, yogurt...tried the scrambled eggs but they were gross ecc it was good =) Then we (Me and Sofi, as my host mom was at the Congress...which is the reason we went cause she had a medical congress) met up with Sofi's cousin Giampiero (who's in is 4th year of university in Rome) and he took us to the vatican even though he didn't want to take us but we convinced him since he'd never been before haha. 

(Me and Sofi in front of St. Peter's)

(Taken while waiting in line for "La Cupola"...the dome)

(Inside the basilica from la cupola)

(Me in the cupola)

(we thought that was it...but no there were more stairs...sofi was dying haha)

(I think the view was worth the 320...{not 151 lol} steps...we didn't want to pay 7 euro for the elevator)

(Meee =)

(inside the basilica)

(one of the ceilings)

(the swiss guard)

(Castello St. Angelo...from the car as we were leaving)

By the time we left it was already about 2 so Giampiero dropped us off at Piazza Del Popolo where we met up with Sofi's friend Marta (who came to visit in January) and her friends; dafne, Francesco, and Massimiliano. We were all starving and normal food is expensive in Rome so we went to BK lounge...for those who don't know Dane Cook...that's Burger King haha. I got a Chicken wrap and fries.

(Piazza Del Popolo)

Then we went and walked around for a bit and saw a few things 

(Via del Corso, main street)

(La Barcaccia at Piazza Di Spagna)

(La Colonna di Traiano)

(Palazzo Montecitorio)

(Il Panteon)

(Street Performer)

(Fontana dei 4 fiumi)

(again-fountian of the rivers)

Then we went back to the hotel and showered and got ready to go out. We went to a seafood place for supper, with my host mom and her colleagues, and once again ate to much...but it was soooooooo good!

Friday morning was the same, up, get ready, eat 

We spent the morning and early afternoon around Rome with Marta and Massimilliano.  

(Me at the Trevi fountain)

(La fontana di Trevi)

(Via del Corso)

(a church)

(L'altare della Patria)

(Police man directing traffic and the Mussolini's window)

(Pretty churches)

(Me at l'altare della patria)

(I Fori Romani)

(Me and Il COLOSSEO!!!)

(Me and l'arco di Costantino)

(Me and the colosseum...again) 

(Sofi getting some proof for her bucket list...First McDonald's in Italy...it was HUGE.)

(back to front left to right; Me, Marta, Massimiliano, Sofia...just hanging out after lunch at MacDon's) 

So after lunch we tried to take the subway cause we were going to Ostia/Casalalocco...which is where they all live...but turns out there was a strike and the subway wasn't running so we hopped on the city bus (The most crowded one i've ever been on...i was literally squished between the wall and 2 other people =S) to try the other subway line which turns out also wasn't running -.-  So we had to wait until i think 3:30 so we just chilled for a bit

(Sofia and Marta)

(The second subway was at the colosseum so we ended back up there from the other end of rome =P )

We eventually got to Ostia and Marta's mom picked up. We went to her house for a bit and played foosball =) Then we met up with the other and hung out in a field haha. It was fun. Then we went out for pizza with a bunch of people...and i ordered pepperoni pizza and when it arrived i was like oh haha right in italian that's peppers lol.

(Left-right by head placement; Me, Marta, Sofia, Dafne, Massimiliano, Alex, Francesco)

(There we go, this one's better haha)

(Me feet after 2 days of all day walking...those are now rock solid callouses -.-)

Saturday we slept in...YAY! After breakfast me and Sofi took a walk to Villa Torlonia and just kinda chilled for about an hour. 

(Corner of the villa)

(inside the villa)

(lol)

(Such a beautiful day)

(Make a funny face!)

After that we went back to the hotel and finished packing, then we went out with Candida (host mom) and saw more sights. 

(Pic i took of Sofi's glasses at the hotel...it thought it looked kinda cool)

(Il Circo Massimo, where the roman's held races)

(La Bocca della Varità...The Mouth of Truth)

(The other colosseum)

(Il Campi Doglio)

(La Lupa Capitolina)

(I fori Romani)

(Sofi and her 11 post cards with il PanzOne hahaha)

(Cheese!)

And that was my trip to Rome! 

xoxoxoxo

Zumpa ru ruaspu e zumpa ra rana e chini un zumpa è figliu i puttana

So looks like i imagined writing a blog post about easter haha cause it was a week and a 1/2 ago and they're isn't a single thing written about it on this blog.

So here, easter is a big holiday we got a full week off, from the 20-27th (which was wednesday-wednesday).  The days leading up to easter were pretty relaxed,
the night of the 20th we were supposed to go to the greek restaurant for supper but we showed up (in a group of about 18) and turns out we had made reservations at ANOTHER greek restaurant haha i wasn't aware there were 2 =P
Thursday or friday (i don't remember which), my friend Francesca from Castrovillari came to visit me! She came to Cosenza in the morning with her friends and when they went home after lunch she met up with me and we just kinda roamed around until about 7. It was kinda cool, because the last time i'd seen her we were talking in english (she speaks english really well) and this time it was in italian, so i guess that means i've improved =)
Saturday morning me Sofi and my host mom spent about 3 hours grocery shopping we did a "megashop" at a huge store and guess what i found?!?! PICKLES!!! (they weren't the normal ones but still first time i've seen them since i got here!) and BLUEBERRIES!! woot! also saw a 189 euro easter egg that was almost as tall as me...
That afternoon, a group of us went grocery shopping for Pasquetta "easter monday" and bought a bunch of meat for grilling =)
Sunday we "host family" went up to Sila to my host dad's "Agriturismo" (ie: Bed & Breakfast/Restaurant/Potato farm) for a huge but delicious lunch,  even though one of the pasta dishes had walnuts in it ;) 1st of 3 times i would encounter nuts in under 1 week and a half -.- (luckily i noticed before i ate enough to get sick each time and only had a bit of a stomach ache and a funky feeling mouth =) After lunch me and Sofi went for a walk in the fields/forest and just hung about.

(the river)

(the potato fields)

(the red building is the bed and breakfast/restaurant and the long hanger like one is the potato shed.) 

(it was pretty)

Monday was the infamous Pasquetta (which i think we should start a tradition of celebrating) and we went to the mountains to a friends "under construction" house (when i say under construction i mean it was build a reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaally long time ago and it's just concrete walls no doors or anything and they're kind of remodelling it) and basically had a BBQ party and ate loads and played games and laughed and just had a blast it was an awesome day =) 

(the BBQ loaded with bread, sausage, steak, and bacon!)

(The egg!)

(haha Dario after some of the girls convinced him to let them but on "makeup")

(Michela and her very first cake...everyone said ti wasn't very good and to sweet but i thought it was delicious!)

Video from Pasquetta

The 27th was a pretty good day =) I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast and they actually turned out really good and fluffy! To make the day even better, i had an awesome gym practice! We were doing dismounts on beam and i did front tucks and cartwheel backtucks for the 1st time in about 2 years! and best part...i did my 1st EVER FONRT WALKOVER ON BEAM!! honestly NEVER thought that would happen! WOO!

I'm apologizing now cause this seems kinda long and i'm not done...

This past saturday was AMAZING, it was probably the best night of my entire exchange (maybe, the nights with the other exchange students come pretty close) anyways, in the afternoon we went and played Q-zar which is a type of laser tag and had a BLAST it was way funner than i expected! (and i didn't do all that bad!) So if was our normal group that went plus a friend of our friend Nino (yes that is his real name...Nino), Antonio (who's only 13) and I was on his team (along with Sofia, and another friend Claudia) and pretty much the entire game (55 mins) he kept screaming (over the music and sound effects) "DON'T TOUCH THE CANADIAN!" haha this is just were it starts. 

So after we all go home to shower change ect then meat back up for supper (I just used the improper "meat", but i'm going to leave it to show you that my english sucks.) And turns out Antonio came out for supper to...so basically that entire night consisted of him asking ridiculous question about canada (Ie: do you have planes in canada? do you have cars in canada? do you eat pizza in canada? do you wear shoes in canada? do you have running water in canada? the list goes on and on and on...and on.........and on plus another 1/2 hour that was spent trying to teach my jokes in dialect...from 8-midnight. We laughed soooooo much my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. (that my a few lines ago was a me) Yeah so all in all it was great. oh i almost forgot, Antonio also convinced me to let him call me Annelise...because he couldn't remember my name haha. Come dicciamo quoi, lui è un grande! (and no for those of you guessers or those using google translate is doesn't mean he's a big haha it's an expression that has no english equivalent.)

That's pretty much it updates wise...Osama was killed sunday night for anyone is extremely isolated and hasn't heard. I started reading Moby Dick.

now, LA SECONDA PARTE 

So, today, while walking to the gym (i've decided since it's nice out i might as well get the exercise even if it takes 40 mins) I was thinking. Holy w;EJKFBWCIA;JKV ;BAIERUJSDB;CWIE (<--- not sure what that's supposed to mean?) I'm in Italy...i've been here for almost 8 months...i haven't seen my family or friends in almost 8 MONTHS! I must be insane? Then I had another thought...I'm walking down the street, in ITALY, on my way to gymnastics...in ITALY...thinking about being insane...in ITALIAN. Yeah i know right? I kinda had this revelation today and realized how freaking amazing this is! Just the fact that thinking back to like eighth grade, i NEVER in a million years would have thought this could have been possible, but here I am (well i guess for you, here i'm not).  This whole experience is...well you really can't explain it. (this is also what i was thinking about...in ITALIAN!) It's something beyond words, you have to live it to experience to to understand. It's a life changing experience and it changes your outlook on everything! Before my exchange i had written a bucket list of all the things i wanted to do before I died...and it consisted about 90% of things i wanted to see. (for ex: the great wall of China, the pyramids at Giza etc...) But now that i've been here and i've lived the life, I realized it really isn't about "seeing" it's about experiencing and leaning.  Yeah I still think it would be cool to see all those places i wrote down, but I'd rather take the time to get to know the CULTURE and the LANGUAGES than to just see the sights, because culture is what really counts. Another thing i was thinking about was...damn i forget...maybe because it's midnight and i should be well asleep by now...if i remember i'll post tomorrow...

oh right, tomorrow i'm going to ROME for 4 days with my host mom and Sofia! I can't wait!! i'll put lots of pictures!!! 

Ti voglio bene!

xoxoxoxo

p.s. i feel like i'm forgetting something? Oh I apologize also for my bad habit of always using this "i" instead of "I". I think thats it.

...

Sooooooooo bored -.-