Ho bisogno di...tea?

Ugh, I'm terrible at keeping up on this cursed blog. Lots has happened since I last wrote!

First off, I had my first full week of classes after the Siena trip, and I am pleased to say that for the most part, I love them all! It's actually too bad I like them all so much...I think I'm taking too many. Somehow I ended up taking 20 credit hours, which is more than I even take at home. Eek. It includes some really great classes though, and then some I need to graduate. I added the Italian Conversation class, which has already in one week improved my Italian immensely! I feel like I can actually at least some of the time get my point across, and I can speak more naturally every day. The only negative to this class is that the only one I could take is offered at 8:30 in the morning, so it makes for a much more painful morning on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. I also still have to take Italian 101, so I'm taking two hours of Italian a day four days a week. It's nuts.

My three three-hour long classes have definitely been an experience. Each one is completely different. My music history class is a blast - the professor just babbles on and is so passionate about what she does, you can't help but be swept in to her love for these composers and the music. I'm seeing Beethoven in a whole new light. I can't wait to fall in love with music even more than I already have. Sociology of Italian Culture brings up some really interesting points, but it's a very convoluted class. It moves slowly, so after three hours it gets to be rather painful. I hope it picks up and we really start to learn soon, because it has the potential to be really interesting. My last three hour class is a writing class based on travelling, where we mostly do a ton of chatting trying to get ourselves inspired. This week's assignment was to write about a journey or to write about some aspect of American culture as if you're an extra-terrestrial, so I'm trying to combine both and write a short story about a journey, half real and half fictional, of a mother and father driving up the pacific coast to a family reunion with their three year old daughter, written from her perspective. Unfortunately I've only got the idea but haven't started writing yet, and it's due at 3:30 pm tomorrow, so I may have to simplify or just keep working on it after class. If it gets to be something I like, I'll post it for sure.

After the week's classes were over, we had about three hours to pack and then we were off to Rome! It was the opening tour for the Spring-only students, so about 33 of us with two student life coordinators took a four hour bus ride to Rome, in which Rob and I memorized about 150 Italian words to keep my mind off being carsick. We had some incredible three course meals each dinner, and really got the chance to know a lot more of the spring students. Friday morning we woke up early and went on a walking tour of one of the city museums, the ruins of the forum, and the Colloseum with a really great Italian tour guide. We found a really fabulous bar across from our hotel to have lunch in every day, where we got lightly fried calzones with mozzarella e prociutto cotto (just 2 euro!) and worked on our Italian. That afternoon was spent on a tour of some of the nearby piazzas and Jesuit churches with our chaplain Fr. Brian, who is currently studying Catechismal Law (gross) at the premier university for it in Rome. We got to see where he lives, a gorgeous villa with stunning views from the roof of the vatican and St. Ignatius church. He took us on a private tour of the rooms of St. Ignatius himself, and we saw where he worked, wrote, and died. We also saw some brilliant frescoes done by a Jesuit in the church that, next to St. Peter's Basillica, has to be my favorite. That night we crammed ourselves on public busses to get to a really cozy neighborhood for a fancy dinner. Unfortunately, the busses were a horrible experience. Many of the girls, myself included, got grabbed on the bus by a particularly unsavory gentelman who then quickly made his way off the bus before we could do anything about it. Then another Italian man wedged his way between me and Rob and proceeded to have a claustrophobic panic attack, which then set off my own panic attack. Miserable. Then, on our way off the bus, our tour guide had his wallet stolen, and the pickpocket was caught by two undercover caribineri (policemen) and interrogated in front of our whole group. It was very scary until we knew what was going on, but then a really interesting experience once we realized the undercover cops weren't holding us all up but instead protecting us. Italy is such an interesting place.

The next day we did the Vatican Museums, which are completely overwhelming. There is so much beautiful art! Rob was saying that they should alternate that art with some not-so-good art so you can tell the difference...after a while you start criticizing really incredible art just because it's next to the most beautiful art you've ever seen. Speaking of criticism, I'd like to point out one of my own: the Sistine Chapel. I had the chapel built up in my mind and couldn't wait to see it, but I was really let down. People weren't giving it the respect it deserved at all. First of all, it was packed, which was disappointing. I had hoped they would try to preserve it as looking like a chapel, but it was just a big empty room to leave space for all those people. Also, I was extremely frustrated with how loud everyone was. It's a chapel! I had hoped that people would be quiet so that the reverent attitude for the art and for the intention of the space would be preserved. Of course, Michelangelo did not disappoint. The art was phenomenal, regardless of how rude everyone else lookinng at it was.

After the Vatican Museums, we went inside the Sistine Chapel, which was an awesome experience, let me tell you. Everything in there is so much larger than life, and it's just an incredibly beautiful and inspriational space. I was so disappointed that I didn't get the chance to go to mass there, but I plan on going back to Rome before I leave Europe to do so. I also didn't get the chance to climb the cupola, since it was getting late and we were famished, but I will go back and do that as well.

That afternoon we took the opportunity to do some shopping. Both Rob and I have decided to devote the majority of our spending money in Europe not on touristy stuff that we're bound to lose or forget its meaning, but on art painted by locals depicting our favorite spots in Europe, at least one work from every place we visit. The work we bought from Rome we purchased in our favorite piazza, Piazza Navona, where there are three beautiful fountains, a bunch of outdoor cafes, a few living statues and incredible musical street performers, and a daily art market where local artists sell their works, both of the typical watercolors of monuments and their own oil paintings and more original contemporary works. It's really an amazing place, just full of life and color. We bought a watercolor from a really nice guy who put up with our broken Italian and horrible accents, and it depicts the piazza at sunset, which is just about when we bought it. It serves as both a beautiful piece of art and a great reminder of a wonderful memory. I can't wait to get a whole collection of these to frame and put in my living room when I get home.

Speaking of collections and things to bring home, if there's anyone who wants anything specific from Europe, let me know! I'm keeping my eye out for fun, original things that remind me of all the people I love in my life, but if you can think of something specific you'd just die to have, I'd be happy to pick it up. Florence especially is a great place to shop for almost anything, especially leather coats, purses, and boots, scarves, and art. I've been having a blast shopping around, though I'm taking my time looking for exactly what I want, since I'm in no hurry.

Anyway, I'll wrap up, since it's getting late and this has been a marathon post. We took the high speed train Sunday afternoon back to Florence, which was a very pleasant experience (if it weren't so expensive, I think I'd travel by high speed train everywhere!). The only unpleasant part is that one of my new friends, Georgina, got her phone stolen on the bus on the way there by a sleazy guy who seemed to be so nice and helpful, but then got caught with his hand in her purse and jumped off the bus before she could grab it back. Poor thing. We made it back just in time to do some quick homework and crash, and then the twenty hours of class thing started again! I have so little free time during the week, I've been fighting for a time to do laundry (it's a three hour process in which I take a whole suitcase of clothes about six blocks away and sit and watch them while they wash and dry) and just found one after a week of searching. This is the longest I've ever gone without doing laundry (three weeks! ugh) and it's such a relief to have all clean clothes again. I never thought I'd be so relieved by clean clothes in my life, haha.

Anyway, I better go -- it's pouring rain here and the water pouring off the roof is lulling me to sleep. Tomorrow I have my first voice lesson, which should be very interesting, and then the day after I leave to go skiing in the Austrian Alps and watch the World Cup of ski jumping in Innsbruck. Wish me luck. Ciao!

P.S. I promise I'll get pictures up... I have about five hundred as of tonight, and it takes a while to get them all organized and captioned. I'll post a link as soon as I can to the recent ones, but the trip over and the first few days can be seen here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010770&l=7a187&id=1019640054