Only In Rome...

Since last Wednesday...hmm

On Thursday I had class again, both Italian Media and Italian language. During my Italian Media class we found out some more amazing facts about our teacher. We started to talk about the history of all the Popes and how they all communicated. He just tells the class "oh yea when I met Pope John Paul II the day after he was made Pope..." as if it was no big deal. Then he proceeded to say, "...then we traveled 60 different countries together, but I'll tell you those stories another time." What?! We then started to talk about who we wish we could communicate like and someone in our class said Mother Teresa. Of course our teacher had a response..."funny you should mention Mother Teresa, I wrote a book with her in the 1980's." So of course after class I googled him (Sean Patrick Lovett) and a bunch of stuff came up about him and I then found his book, which was a best seller by the way. Unbelievable! I have learned even more in that class since last week. I love it.
Oh yea, how did I almost forget this! On my run Thursday morning I was out at 6:30am so pretty early and I saw a bunch of people gathering around this building. It was right on the street leading up to the vatican (so down the street from us) and as I got closer I saw Eclipse (Twilight) posters. Huge posters. We learned that there was going to be a 10 minute or so premiere of the movie, but what we didn't know until after classes was that the actors were coming at 6pm. So of course we knew we had to come back at 6. It was so hot that day too, but we got there around 5:20 and found ourselves sandwiched between strangers that were speaking italian quite aggressively towards us...oh well. Anyway the paparazzi was everywhere, we were right next to the fence, it was hot and humid, people were sweaty, but we were determined to stay and see them. They arrived fashionably late but the screams of the girls then the flashing of the cameras indicated one of the male actors was there. Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black in the movie) came. My favorite!!!! He was so close. We kept yelling "We are American! We speak english!" We are dorks, I know. Then Kristen Stewart came and we got tons of pictures of her too. I took a lot of video so this whole fiasco was well documented, but apparently my video camera does not work with mac computers. I'll figure something out.
That night we went to the guys apartment on the other side of the Vatican. They have a balcony! We watched the game there because their TV actually works and they have a living/sitting area. After, we came back to our apartment by the metro and wow, was it creepy. No one was on the metro at our stop...but we survived!
Then Friday I had to get up and run at 5:55am because we were going to Orvieto for the day. It was gorgeous. It was an old Etruscan city (from BC) on top of a hill, roughly 1,000 ft above sea level. The view from the top looked fake. We also got an underground tour of the city in the caves, which we learned about their wine development as well as their pigeon breeding...strange.

Friday night was awesome. Our landlord Tedo, came over and cooked us a real Italian spaghetti dinner. He came over at 9pm. We were starving. We did not eat until 10:45 or so. As we all cooked together I wrote down all he was doing. Oh yea, I don't know if I mentioned this before but he speaks as much english as I speak Italian. So we had our translation dictionaries (picture) out and were flipping through them all night. He was so patient with us! We made the sauce from scratch. We used about 60 little tomatoes and cut them up and about half a bottle of extra virgin olive oil and seasoning. I never have liked tomatoes but this pasta and sauce was amazing! Then he brought over some gelato and cherry's. So good! He left around 11:45 and then we decided to go down to Campo di fiori to hang out with other people. It was a lot of fun. We met a group of locals that spoke english. It was fun interacting with some italians our age!

Saturday Michelle and I met up with Amy along the river! It was great to see another gopher here :) We ran together for a bit

and we showed her our apartment and area. Hopefully we will be able to meet up with her a lot while she is here doing her internship. Then the rest of Saturday we wondered Rome. A few of us went to Piazza del Popolo. There are a bunch of stores there, but I didn't buy anything. I actually have not bought anything since I have been here. We'll see how long that lasts! We stopped and had some food and gelato then found ourselves at the Trevi fountain again. We were on the hunt for this one store that apparently has a bunch of Italia soccer gear/jerseys but we never found it and we got lost. We ended up in front of the colosseum and Monument to Vittorio Emanuele II (picture). Shocking! We wandered around for hours. Only in Rome do you get lost and find yourself in front of these amazing monuments!

We honestly walked a good

6 miles that day on top of a 7 mile run. Saturday night we went out again and met some people from Florida, New Jersey, and North Carolina as well as other Italians.

When I got home I started to get a little homesick. I am definitely missing the comfort I had at home. Also the experience I had in Colorado is making this trip very challenging. I know God has a plan for me and there is a reason why I am here! Hopefully I'll figure that out sooner rather than later.

Sunday we bummed around all day. I was exhausted. At 4 we went and watched the Italia game. We didn't want to order dinner yet, so we ordered a dessert. Strawberry's and cream. AMAZING. it was so yummy. We were still hungry...so we gave in. We ordered french fries. It hit the spot. Oh my goodness. A little taste of America, I loved it. After the game we made dinner back at home, I made gnocchi. It was nice to change it up a bit! Then we were all sitting at the table doing our homework and trying to decide what to do this coming weekend.

Today we had classes again and long story short I got horribly lost in Rome. We had a surprise site visit for my Made in Italy class. By the time we got there I could only stay for 20 minutes because I had to be back for my next class at noon. (They honestly are so relaxed about time schedules here!). Anyway I had to get back to the school by myself. My teacher told me the wrong bus. What should have only taken me 30 minutes took me an hour and 45 minutes. I definitely saw a lot of Rome! I was 45 minutes late to my Italian class but it was all good. At night we went to this restaurant called Fluid. We did this thing called "Aperitivo". You pay for a drink ( a little more pricey than normal) and then you have an endless buffet. It was so delicious, I finally felt full, but not full enough to pass up some gelato!

Today we have been trying to figure out the details of our trip this weekend. So far we know we are going to Cinque Terre (in Italy) and we are going to camp and go hiking. Supposedly it is gorgeous! It is going to be an adventure! Oh jeez...

That is it for now. i will write again soon!
Ciao
<3