10/23/10 Un fin de semana normal...

I started my day pretty early for going to sleep around 1:30 am.  I met up with Emily and the Rome girls to visit Parc Güell in the morning.  Park Güell is a park that was designed by Antoni Gaudi, the same important guy who designed La Sagrada Familia and pretty much every other cool looking building in Barcelona.  Gaudi wanted the park to be a garden city, and Gaudi reflects on the conflict between man and nature in his artwork.  A lot of his work is done with beautiful mosaics.

            I met up with Emily and the other girls at the metro station.  Emily had been to Park Güell before, so she tried to get us there from the metro station.  She didn’t actually know where she was going though, so we ended up wandering around for a while.  The park is on a giant hill, and we ended up having to walk over the backside of the hill and down the trails to get there.  From the top of the hill, there was a great view of the city.  It was almost like the view from Tibidabo, but the hill is a bit smaller.  We walked down the hill towards the crowds of people.  Venders were selling things everywhere.  They all just lay out blankets on the ground and sell everything from scarves to magnets.  It is pretty hard to describe all the different elements of the park, so I’ll let my pictures do the talking.

After the park, I went home and had an amazing lunch.  One of my favorite meals.  We had a saugage pasta soup, but it was a little bit thicker than soup.  My second course was Calamari a la plancha, cooked in an olive oil, parsley, garlic sauce.  Finally for dessert, we had sweet potatoes.  I like having sweet potatoes, because there are often vendors in the street roasting sweet potatoes and chestnuts.  As amazing as they smell, I always resist the temptation to buy them, so I’m pretty pumped that Pepita makes them.  Our lunch was accompanied by another episode of Walker Texas Ranger.  I chilled at home for the afternoon.

After dinner, I met up with a bunch of people and went to a bar called La Oveja Negra (Black Sheep).  It was a really cool and there were tons of native people there (as opposed to tourists).  I think the best part about the bar was the foosball.  I miss playing foosball so much!  Last year, my dorm had a foosball table, so I played with my friends almost every day.  After the bar, a few of us went to a club called Mary’s Place.  Admission was free before 1:30 am, and we made it there just in time.  I realized how much I miss American music when I was there.  I don’t really hear any music when I’m at home with Pepita, so the club is one of the only places where I could hear it.  For some reason though, I kept wondering as we were dancing, if they Spanish people around me understood the music or if they just danced.  I enjoy American music because it is in English, I don’t think I enjoy dancing to music in other languages as much.  Every so often a song would come on in Spanish, but it just wasn’t the same—not as fun to dance to.  Anyways, I’m glad I speak English for at least one reason—all the popular music around the world is American and it is in English.

10/22/10 Figueres & Girona

It was a struggle to wake up early, but I made to the University by 9 am to catch the bus for our field trip.  Our first stop was Figueres, which is north of Barcelona.  This is where the Salvador Dali Museum is.  He was born here and spent the last years of his life designing a museum here.  The bus ride to Figueres was pretty low key, lots of people were tired from going out the night before.  When we got to the Musuem, the first things you see on the outside of this building are tons of loaves of bread and on top of the building are giant eggs.  These random sculptures on the outside of the building don’t even begin to capture the strange yet creative aspects of Dali’s work.  The our group was split into two sections for a tour.  Our tour guide was fantastic and pointed out many of the complex figures worked into some of Dali’s artwork.  The most fascinating painting for me was one of a women looking off a balcony.  The painting was created using a pixel effect and one of the small pixels that made up the painting was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln.  The tour guide then told us to stretch the corners of our eyes and look at the painting again.  The whole painting of woman looking off the balcony turned into a giant portrait of Lincoln.  It was amazing.  Looking at the painting with the naked eye, you could not see Lincoln, but squinting or through a camera lens, the entire painting appeared to be a portrait of Lincoln.  This demonstrated the complexity and ingenuity of Dali’s work.  The rest of the artwork came in all shapes in forms, displaying Dali’s talents as a surrealist.

Outside of the Dali Museum

Lincoln Painting

May West

Tapestry of Dali's Melting Clocks Painting

            From Figueres we got on the bus to go to Girona, a pretty big town near the French border.  We didn’t have anything scheduled in Girona, except to each lunch.  We all ate lunch on the bus, because we couldn’t wait to get there to eat.  When we got to Girona, we basically just walked around.  Evan, who goes to Tufts and wants to become a professional cyclist, ran into a professional cyclist while we were there.  Apparently, a lot of professional cyclists live and train in Girona, one famous name who lives here is Lance Armstrong.  Anyways, Evan started talking to this cyclist, who is actually Canadian, and he recommended that we check out the wall that goes around the city.  We spent a good portion of time walking along this wall, which had great views of the city.  After a relaxing afternoon in Girona, we got back on the bus and headed back to Barcelona.

Part of the Wall

River Through Girona (note bridge)

Mary, Diana, Anushe and I

Bridge from other picture.  Designed by Eifle (the Eifle of the Eifle Tower)

            Pepita had prepared a tortilla de patatas for me, which I ate when I got home.  She was at swim lessons with her grandkids.  I went out after dinner to meet up with Emily, Sofia (who showed us around Rome), and Sofia’s friends her were also visiting from Rome.  We met at La Sagrada Familia and took them to the Palace at Montjuic.  We were hoping to show them the Fountain show, but it had stopped for the rest of the season.  It was still a pretty view at night.  From there, we went to Las Ramblas and they got some sangria and tapas.  I went home from there and Emily took them to their hostel.

10/21/10 Tibidabo and Fiestas!

I left for Clase de Literatura around 9:30, but when I got there, I found out that we had a substitute.  It turns out that our professor was still sick.  The substitute really didn’t know what to talk about, since we had finished our book Lazarillo de Tormes (a famous “picaresco” Golden Age novel).  She kind of wasted time by reading us the last chapter outloud and trying to connect the themes of the book with the ideas of Erasmus de Rotterdam.  After that class, I killed time by just talking with Diana and Emily.  Emily and I then went to the computer lab.  Guerra Civil was alright.  It is always a struggle to pay attention in that class, because our professor moves painfully slow.  As the last class of the week, it is even more difficult to pay attention.

            I rushed home to eat and actually made it home in good time… 25 minutes!  I scarfed down a plate of pasta, which is always delicious.  My second plate was French fries and fried pork.  As I ate lunch, Pepita and I watched another episode of this ridiculous show.  I’m not exactly sure what it is called, but it is a show where two people argue about something that happened to them and who’s fault it is or who is responsible.  The audience also has a chance to argue who they think is right and in the end a judge decides.  Today’s episode was focused on “balconing”.  I had never heard of this concept until I got here, but it is this new trend where teens and young kids jump from balconies at hotels and into the pool.  Apparently, it is quite popular in Spain and there have been many accidents involving the “sport”.  The two people arguing on the show were a mom who’s 17 year old son broke his leg and arm trying to jump and the hotel pool and the hotel owner.  It was absolutely ridiculous watching the two sides argue and yell at each other.  It is almost hilarious how stupid the show is (almost like a Jerry Springer type show), but I can only listen to Spaniards yell at each other for so long.

            After lunch, I packed up my things really quickly and met Miriam at the metro station.  From there, we met Daven and two of his friends who were visiting from Rome (one goes to Bowdoin) and took a train to a town that is on the mountain.  From that train, we hopped onto the funicular and at the top of the funicular we got on a bus.  The bus took us to the top of Tibidabo.  I was excited that I could get to the top of Tibidabo (the mountain that surrounds Barcelona) without having to pay any extra money.  At the top of the mountain is a giant church and an amusement park.  The amusement park is really small and not worth the money, although there was a ferris wheel that overlooked the entire city.  The view from the top of the mountain was fantastic.  I think that would be the only reason to go up there.  There is a religious legend about Tibidabo.  The people of Barcelona claim that Tibidabo is where the devil tempted Jesus with Barcelona.  I’m not really sure actually what happened, but that is why they built a church on top.  We only stayed up there until the next bus came, because it was kind of cold and windy.

From there we went to Daven’s neighborhood, Gracia, the nicest neighborhood in the city in terms of architecture and an outgoing community.  We hung out in a bar and just talked for a few hours.  Miriam got a tea and I got a café con leche (my first coffee in Spain).  After a few hours of chatting, we went to La Sagrada Familia to meet up with the rest of group and go out to eat for Miriam’s 21^st Birthday.  Larry had decided on a Japanese Buffet that he had been to before, so we all waited for him to show us how to get there.  Dinner was amazing and I ate way too much.  They had all sorts of fresh vegetables that you could pick and they would cook for you, along with different fishes, sushi, and already cooked dishes.  The dessert selection was had all different types of gelato and cake.  My favorite part was a whole table with different bowls of gummies.  I was pretty much in a sugar coma when I left.  A few other people went out after we finished our dinners, but I don’t think that I could have fit anything else in my stomach without exploding.  I headed back with Chris around 10:45.

10/19/10 No clase hoy! Otra vez…

Today I went all the way to the University, a whole half hour by metro, to find out that my literature professor was sick and wasn’t going to be able to teach.  Another day without school, since I only have that class on Tuesdays!  Lorenzo, Emily and I walked around near the University for a little bit.  I found some stamps to mail my postcards and we came across a great market.  We walked around the market looking at all the fresh meat, fish, fruits and vegetables before they had to go to a different class.  On our way back, we did find a bakery that had three donuts for 1.5 euros, so we each got one for 50 cents.  They were delicious.  From there, I took the metro home.

            When I got home, my mom wasn’t home, so I surfed the TV for something to watch.  The disappointing part about watching TV here is that all the programs that I think look interesting are in Catalan.  When Pepita got home, she had a card for me.  It was a very, very late birthday card that got sent to Bowdoin, and which I had my friend forward to me.  I was pumped to get it, and I almost let Pepita think that my birthday was in October, but then I would of felt bad, so I told her the story.  We waited for her daughter to get here and then we had lunch.  After lunch, I wanted to find some sort of jacket, since it is getting kind of cold.  I took the metro two stops towards the Diagonal and went shopping.  I also stopped in a few shoe stores, but didn’t find anything I liked.  I’ll have to continue wearing flip flops and flats.

10/17/10 Montseny!

Today I met a bunch of people at Catalunya Station.  Miriam, Evan, Alex, Emily, Lorenzo, Jack and I all went hiking on Montseny (pronounced Mount Sen).  The train ride took a little over an hour and we stopped in a random little town to get to the trail.  Miriam knew where she was going, since she had gone before with Daven.  It was chilly in the morning, but as soon as we started hiking, everyone started stripping layers.  The hike took about 2.5 hours.  A little ways from the top, there is a parking lot, so there were more people at the top than who we had seen hiking.  At the top of the mountain were the ruins of a church of some sort.  We all ate our bocadillos at the top and enjoyed the beautiful view.  The way down took about 1.5 hours.  We were trying to make it down to catch the train at 4:18 pm, but we missed it by about ten minutes.  We killed the next half hour by strolling around the town.  It looked like most of the homes in the town were vacation homes.  Most of them were shut up and there weren’t many people walking around.  It was nice to spend a day outside of the city and see what life is like in a vacation area.

            I made it home by about 8 pm.  The train took more stops on the way back than on the way there, so it was a long trip.  I enjoyed a nice dinner with Pepita and did a little reading after dinner.  I found a book called Historia de España, so I decided to start reading it just for fun.

10/16/10 Poble Español & Xocolate

            I chilled around the apartment for the first part of the morning, and then in the afternoon I met Emily at Poble Espanol.  Poble Español means Spanish town and where we went was a replica of all different types of buildings in the different areas of Spain.  All the different buildings are connected together and artisans have little shops in each building.  The shops had hand crafted goods including leather, pottery, jewelry and everything in between.  We looked around admiring all the goods and the different architectural styles of the buildings.  The weather was really nice too.  It got a little chilly, but my sweater kept me warm.

            From Poble Espanol, we walked down the main road from Plaza Espana.  We weren’t really sure where we were headed, but we ended up near the Christopher Columbus statue at the end of Las Ramblas.  We decided since it was getting colder, we would find a place to have hot chocolate.  Emily pulled out her Barcelona book which recommended a place right off Las Ramblas.  It is the oldest Xocolata shop in the city and we found it on a tiny side street.  It was so busy that there was a line to get inside.  We only had to wait a few minutes outside and then we sat down at our table.  I felt really rushed while we were there though.  In most Spanish restaurants, as soon as you have eaten, you stay there as long as you want and then you have to ask them for the bill.  At this place it was a little different since they were trying to turn over the tables as quickly as possible.  Emily got a chocolate mousse and I got a hot chocolate with whipped cream.  I headed home for dinner after that.

10/15/10 Tour of Barcelona

Friday morning the entire BCA program had a field trip with my favorite History of Spain professor.  They really could pick a more understandable professor to give a tour of the old part of Barcelona.  We walked around the old part of the city all morning and he took us to the Cathedral and a few other buildings, pointing out old Roman ruins.  The two most interesting parts of the tour were seeing a few pillars of the old Roman forum and going into the Parliament building.  There were only a few pillars still standing from the forum, but I thought it was interesting because there are buildings all around them.  The Parliament building was beautiful inside.  This was the building where they had the projection show on the building for Dia de la Merce.  Our professor kept getting mad at us for walking too slow, but honestly it is hard to bring thirty kids through narrow streets that are bustling with other people, mopeds and tourists.  I was excited when he let us leave a half hour early.  I went home for lunch and rested for the afternoon.

            

Our professor is so happy with our group...

Inside the Parliament Building

That night, Pepita was supposed to go her grandkids’ swim lessons, but she still hadn’t recovered from her cold, so she stayed home.  We had tortilla de patatas and some interesting cold pepper dish.  After dinner, I got ready to go out and met Evan, Miriam and Emily on Las Ramblas.  We sat and chatted on a bench for a while, before we went to this forest bar.  The bar had a nice atmosphere with trees and forest things inside.  Like a Rainforest Café for adults.  A few more people met up with us there, and we left before 2 to catch the last metro home. 

El Bosque

Emily, Evan and Jack waiting for the metro after going out

10/13/10 -10/14/10 Another School Week Done...

My two days of class this week.  Wednesday was long and dragged on.  I was happy that my nose was still running for Guerra Civil.  My professor just assumed that I had missed class because I was sick on Thursday.  I left it at that, even though it was only half the truth.  I swear I’m not an awful person for letting him think I am sick.  I have never missed a class a Bowdoin and Guerra Civil doesn’t cover much in one class period, so I felt kind of justified skipping.  I could have slept through History of Spain talking about Felipe II and his marriages.  European Union was kind of interesting… we learned about the difference between being integration and cooperation.  The EU is a mixture of the two systems.  Daven and I took the metro to our only Game Theory class of the week and we did three problems about simultaneous games with three agents.  I took the metro home instead of walking, because it was kind of cold outside.  Chilled in my house the rest of Wednesday night and read Lazarillo de Tormes for literature class.

            Thursday-  I had two classes.  Literature and Guerra Civil.  I found it hard to pay attention in both classes.  It is painful for me to have to hear the same thing 3 or 4 times, just reworded a little differently everytime.  I guess they try to make sure some of the students with weaker Spanish skills understand, but it just bores me.  Honestly, I did a Sudoku in literature.  There are a few different free news papers that get handed out in the city every morning.  I am not sure where they are handed out, but usually I can find one in the metro or one that someone left behind on a bench in the University buildings.  The Sudokus keep me entertained and my brain is a little more stimulated in class when I work on a Sudoku and take notes simultaneously.  After class I went home for lunch, then I met Miriam, Alex and Emily back at the University around 4:30.  We ended up just going to a café for a few hours and swapped stories about our weekends.  Miriam got to go to London to visit one of her good friends from home that happens to go to Bowdoin with me.  Her friend Tim has actually been in a few of my economics classes and we did Booz Crew together for Reunion Weekend, so I actually know him.  After dinner, I skyped my dad for a little while and then headed out for GNO (girls’ night out).  Probably about 10 girls from the program met at BCA and went to a bar for drinks.  I went home with Kelly and Dhariana afterwards.  We had to take the night bus home, since the metro closes at midnight on Thursday nights.  They always use the night bus, but it was my first time.  It stops right outside my building though, which is great! 

10/12/10 Rainy Holiday

Today was the actual holiday, but it was raining so I didn’t even leave the house.  A few people were planning to go to Montserrat, but I didn’t want to waste my money paying for the train when the mountain was going to be rainy.  My other reason for not going was because I wanted to get over my cold.  I am glad I decided not to wake up early to go, because it turns out there was a strike, so the trains to Montserrat weren’t even working.  I chilled around the house, which was kind of boring, but at least I had the internet.

10/11/10 Lunes con Xocolata

I slept in and spent the morning, putting pictures on my computer, unpacking and organizing.  The most important part of my morning was that I finally got another month of INTERNET!  My mom had her grandkids over for the day.  Technically Tuesday was the holiday, so having Monday off was different depending on where you were.  Her grandkids didn’t have school, but their mom still had to work.  Their mom came over for lunch.  I was happy to leave after lunch to meet up with Emily, because the kids have been starting to bother.  Whiny children is one thing, but whiny children speaking Catalan takes it to a whole new level.  Not to mention, I think how kids are raised in Spain is different in general.  I feel like the kids are babied way too much and that they could use a little more discipline than they get.

            Emily decided to explore Parc de la Ciutadella.  We met at the Arc de Triomf and walked down the park.  It was nice and calm compared to the hectic and chaotic feeling I got while walking around Rome.  We went to all the famous places in the park.  We went to the fountain, this pond with geese where people rent row boats, a giant mammoth statue and the Parliament building of Catalunya.  It was nice to walk around, but the weather was also kind of chilly.  After getting back from Rome, it has definitely started feeling like fall.  I was in pain throughout our whole walk because my flats, which have always been really comfortable, decided to start giving me blisters.  Maybe my feet have grown since last fall?  We met some older American guys in the park who were trying to find the Museum of Contemporary Art.  According to the map it was right next to the Parliament building, and even when we pointed them in the right direction, they still couldn’t find.  We ended up running into them again about twenty minutes later as Emily and I were on our way to a chocolate museum.

            El Museu de la Xocolata was the best part of the day.  It was a small museum, but we both got a chocolate bar with our admission ticket.  The museum had a variety of displays with pictures, chocolate sculptures, videos and hands on computer touch screens.  Barcelona is home to many famous chocolateers (spell check) and many of their sculptures were in the museum.  My favorite part of the museum was learning about all the traditional Catalan holidays and what foods they typically celebrate with—both chocolate desserts and non-chocolate desserts (postres).  Right next to the museum is a school for people making desserts.  We watched a few guys trying to make a chocolate model of La Sagrada Familia. 

            After the museum, I headed home.  As usual, I watched an episode of NCIS while Pepita cooked dinner.  If anything, I will definitely know all the crime and investigation words in Spanish by the time I get home.  I got to Skype Ben, Morgan and my Mom for the first time in about a month.  It was nice to catch up with everyone!

10/10/10 Ciao Roma!- Last Day In Italy

We woke up at the hostel and left as soon as we woke up.  We had to get our things together in the dark, because other people were still sleeping.  Emily and I decided to try and navigate the bus system back to Sofia’s dorm and we actually made it.  Not only did we get there, but we got there early, so we stopped in a little café to grab breakfast.  I got a croissant with chocolate filling and a cappuccino.  I couldn’t have left Italy without getting a cappuccino.  We watched out the windows for Sofia to walk by and we grabbed her as she walked by.

           From there we headed back into the old part of the city.  It was a peaceful Sunday morning and there wasn’t much going on.  We went back to the Pantheon and saw it in the daylight.  We were also able to go inside and look at the hole in the top.  Rumor has it that it doesn’t rain in the hole, but I’m not sure if that is physically possible.  Sofia is going to come back a different day and discover the truth.  We continued to walk through the old part of the city, picking up postcards and other souvenirs.  It was almost a redo of our Thursday night, except during the day time.  We returned to the Trevi Fountain.

 At 10 a.m. we went to the Vittorio Emmanuel II to meet Stefano.  Stefano is Gabrielle’s dad and a friend of Emily’s uncle.  We were waiting on the front steps for a while until Sofia got a call from him, telling us to cross the street and hop in the car.  In front of the monument is a giant traffic circle, so we had to cross quickly to get to him.  Ironically, just as the three of us were going to cross, a parade of old spider cars came through.  A police officer on a moped stopped all the traffic in the circle and wouldn’t let us cross.  We had to wait for the parade to end, but we finally made it.  My favorite picture was of the first three cars—red, white and green for the Italian flag. 

                       We finally hoped in the car, but it took forever to find a parking spot.  Stefano drove around for a solid half hour before we found a place to park.  From there we walked back to the monument and went inside.  There was an amazing view from the sides of it, but you can go even further up to the top and see the whole city.  Stefano generously bought us tickets to take the elevator to the top.  I took so many picture at the top, because you could see everything.  On one side of the building were the Roman ruins- the Colosseum, the Forum etc.  On the other side of the building, you could see St. Peter’s Bascillica, Villa Bourgesa and much more.  We were all surprised when Stefano said that he and his wife hadn’t discovered this look out point until last year.  He told us that he takes everyone who comes to visit up here.  It was getting to be early afternoon, so Emily and I started worrying about making it to Termini station to catch the train to the airport.  Stefano and Sofia who were totally accustomed to the laid back Italian culture weren’t really worried about the time, so they brought us to some other areas.  First we went inside a Cathedral next to Vittorio Emmanuel.  Apparently, there is some famous painting there.  I feel so ignorant saying “some famous painting”, but honestly there are too many famous works of culture and history here to even begin to remember.  Then, we walked down some steps to the building where Peter and Paul were imprisoned.  Once again, I was lacking on my Biblical history, but Emily and Sofia seemed to think it was a big deal. 

We finally made it back to the car after taking many detours.  Emily and I wanted to grab a quick lunch, but Stefano didn’t want us to eat at a touristy restaurant, so we drove around for a while, looking for something.  It was hard for him to find something, because on Sundays most places aren’t open.  We actually ended up going back to the same restaurant that we had been to with his son on Friday night.  It didn’t matter that this was a repeat visit, because this time we got pasta instead of pizza.  I got these amazing handstuffed ravioli filled with some sort of pesto spinach and had a red sauce on top.  For dessert, we finally got to try tiramisu.  I had been looking forward to eating that for the whole trip, and it was better than any tiramisu I’d ever had before.

  

            Despite our leisurely lunch, Stefano got us to the train on time, we made the flight and found our way back home.  It was nice to be back in Barcelona.  I guess flying back made me realize how comfortable I have become in the city and how nice it is to actually be able to speak the language.  Not being able to communicate in Italian was tough.  Pepita heated my dinner up when I got home, even though it was kind of late.  I slept so well that night.  I can’t imagine traveling every single weekend, because it would be so tiring.  Even having Monday and Tuesday off from classes, I needed that time just to rest and recover from my amazing Roman adventure. Ciao!

10/9/10 Orvieto, Italia

After a full day in Rome, Emily, Sofia and I decided that it might be nice to see the Italian countryside.  We bought train tickets to a town about an hour away called Orvieto.  In the morning, we left from Termini station and took the train to Orvieto.  Orvieto was a beautiful town on top of a hill.  In order to get up to the town we had to take a funicular.  The funicular ride took about 5 minutes.  For a small town an hour away from Rome, there were still plenty of tourists there.  It seemed as though the only industry in the town was tourism.  When we first got into the funicular, these three young guys (mid 20’s) jumped in front of us to get to the small window in the front of the funicular.  They immediately started taking pictures from this window.  Two of the guys had really nice cameras—with super long lenses.  Little did I know, that we would spend a majority of our day with these guys.

            At the top of the funicular ride, we stepped outside into a beautiful park on the ledge that had amazing views of the county side.  Emily, Sofia and I started to walk around the perimeter of the park taking pictures from every ledge possible.  The three guys on the funicular were also walking around the park taking pictures.  At one point, Emily, Sofia and I were on a ledge below the three guys (about 30 feet away) and they told us to stay there, so they could take our picture (in English).  We knew that they wanted to take our picture, but we pretended that we didn’t understand them and started to walk away.  Initially, we thought they were creepy.  We continued to walk around the park and take pictures.  The park was small, so obviously the guys walked in the same direction as us.  Finally, we all met up at one overlook, and the guys asked us to take a picture of them.  Emily carefully used one of the guy’s $3000+ camera to get a group shot for them.  After she took the picture, they asked if we wanted to walk to the town’s Cathedral with them.  Emily and Sofia seemed skeptical, but they seemed nice to me, so I started talking with them and told them we would walk there with them.

            As we walked through the town in search of the Cathedral, we got to know one another.  The three guys were Puya from Iran, Giovanni from Sardinia, and Felix from Germany.  They were living in Rome and getting their Masters’ in Robotics.  They were a really fun group to hang out with and had some great personalities.  Puya, the guy who had originally taken the picture of us, was taking pictures of everything in sight, while Felix and Giovanni made fun of him for it.  They said that it takes them 3 times as long to get any where with him, because he always has to stop and take pictures.  After wandering through the streets, we finally found the Cathedral.  It was a small town, so it was quite easy to find.  We walked around the outside taking pictures.  I wasn’t able to go in, because I was wearing a skirt and my knees weren’t covered.  I went to a small gift shop while everyone else went in.  They ended up coming back out after a minute, because they weren’t allowed to take pictures in the Cathedral.  Next, we decided that we wanted to do a tour of the caves in the town, but the next tour in English didn’t start until 3.  We wandered around a little more and then decided it was time to eat lunch.

            Lunch was great!  We went to this small resteraunt, but we found a table that fit all six of us.  We spent a while deciding what to order.  I eventually decided to get a basic ziti in meat sauce with white wine.  Apparently, Orvieto is known for their white wine, so I figured I should get a glass.  The bread was delicious from what I could taste.  By that time on Saturday, my cold had escalated, and I had to go to the bathroom to blow my nose every so often.  It was really frustrating, but I had to do it, because the more I cleared out my nose, the better I could taste my food.  Anyways, so we spent a long time eating and chatting, telling each other about our different countries.  We spent a while talking about stereotypes of different countries.  For example, their stereotype of the U.S. is that everyone is ignorant of the rest of the world.  They were saying that they’d seen shows where Americans were asked to find a country like Australia on the map and couldn’t.  One person they used as an example was Paris Hilton.  Everyone knows how intelligent she is, what a great representative of our country.  I think we proved to the three guys that Americans aren’t as ignorant as they expected.  It was interesting talking about our lives in the U.S. because Emily and Sofia are from rural Pennsylvania, so their depiction of life in the U.S. is a lot different than my life in the U.S.  For example, Emily’s family hunts and so she talked to them about going hunting and how using guns is no big deal.  The three guys were interested in the culture difference, because in Europe you aren’t allowed to own guns, but that culture was as new to me as it was to the three guys.  When Emily kept telling stories about life in rural Pennsylvania, I found myself frequently interjecting that not everyone in the U.S. is like that.  I didn’t want the guys to think that everyone in the U.S. owns a gun and hunts all the time.  To show how different the New England culture and Pennsylvania cultures are, Emily, Sofia and I exchanged stereotypes for one another.  Emily and Sofia told the guys that they considered New Englanders’ to be “Yankees coming from Old Money who are stuck up”, while I considered them to be “Rednecks”.  Overall, I found it interesting how different cultures are between states in the U.S. and what people think of when they of the U.S. 

            After lunch, we took a tour of the caves.  It was a quick tour but rather interesting.  The caves on the hill were built by a pre-roman civilization ( I don’t remember their name).  When the Romans invaded, they pretty much built a city on top of all the caves.  Orvieto means “ancient city”.  After the cave tour, we got some gelato.  I’m pretty sure I bought gelato everyday in Italy.  We walked around the town a little more and then headed back towards the funicular.  The train only came every few hours, so we happened to take the train back with the same three guys.  Before we all went our separate ways, we exchanged names so we could connect on Facebook.  I was really excited to the pictures that the guys had take in Orvieto—and they were amazing.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in pictures that nice.  I was sad to say good bye, because we formed such a great friendship in the short time we spent with one another, and the chances that we will see them again is slim.  I did tell them that if they ever come to the U.S. to let me know!

            When we got back to the train station, we went to Sofia’s convent.  We had left our luggage their, so we wouldn’t have to lug it around all day.  Emily and I changed into jeans, because it became really chilly, then the three of us set out to find our next hostel.  By the time we left it was about nine and we waited at the bus stop for about a half hour.  I was really frustrated with the transportation system in Rome.  Buses are the primary source of transportation, but there were no schedules for the buses.  There were also no maps at the bus stops, so you had to know in advance what stop you needed to get off at and which bus to take.  This process became even harder at night.  When we were on the bus, we knew that we had to take the 17^th stop and transfer bus lines, but it was impossible to count the 17 stops, because we didn’t stop at all of them.  We ended up asking the bus driver to stop at the stop we needed, since it was nearly impossible to see it from the bus window.  We made it to the hostel about and hour and a half later, a frustrating experience for me.  We checked in and this hostel had such a different feel from the other one.  It was in the middle of nowhere, near the Olympic Stadium and we figured out that it must have been a building to host athletes during the games.  All the rooms had at least 6 bunk beds and the bathrooms were lined with rows of sinks and showers.  Originally the three of us wanted to find a nice place to eat, but we decided it would be best if we didn’t take the bus to a different part of the city, because it was getting late.  Instead, Sofia left to get back to her convent, while Emily and I walked around the barren streets until we came across a little family restaurant.

            After a stressful evening of finding the hostel and not being able to eat until 11, this place was perfect.  We knew it was authentic, because our waiter couldn’t speak English.  We somehow managed to order and I got Pasta Carbonara.  We also decided to split some desserts at the end.  One of the desserts was cookies that you dip in a sweet red wine and another of the desserts was some sort of sweet custard dish with chocolate on top.  We were really satisfied with the meal and actually being able to find an open restaurant that late.  Rome shuts down fairly early compared to Barcelona.  We walked back a few block to the hotel and CRASHED…

PS- Pictures to come... For some reason the internet at my apartment takes forever to upload pictures, so I'll have to put them up on Monday.

10/8/10 When In Rome...

Today, we saw most of Rome.  Emily and I woke up early and the hostel had set up breakfast in the lounge area.  I had some granola and cocoa krispies.  It was nice to have cereal for once.  We met Sofia outside and took the bus downtown.  We made many stops throughout the day…

Stop 1:  Capucian Crypt:  So basically there is a group of monks that decorated a few rooms with human bones and these rooms are where they would go to reflect on death.  It was a small museum with about 5 rooms.  It was both creepy and beautiful at the same time.  They pretty much made art with human bones.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures, but this link has a picture of one of the rooms:  The last room had a quote written out on a stone in Italian “Quelloche voi slete noi eravamoi quelloche noi siamo voi sarete” that translates to “ What you are now we used to be; what we are now you will be”. 

Stop 2:  The Spanish Steps-  I’m not exactly sure why these are famous, but we went to the top of them and had a great view.  Right below them is the high end shopping street of Rome and at the top there are lots of souvenir vendors.

Stop 3:  Vatican City-  Massive crowds of people filled the roads outside the Vatican.  We waited in line to get into the museums.  We didn’t even see half the museums and we were there for at least 4 hours.  After checking out two museums, we got in line to see the Sistine Chapel.  The line went through hallway upon hallway before finally leading to the Sistine Chapel.  It was amazing how far we walked just to see it.  Each hallway that we went through had a unique style and feeling.  One hallway had floor to ceiling tapestries covering all the walls.   Another hallway had maps of the different cities of Italy during ancient times on the walls.  We went through the room of Immaculate Conception which had the Virgin Mary in all the paintings and sculptures.  We also went through the rooms painted by Raphael.  Just one of the rooms by Raphael took 3 years to complete.  I kind of wished I knew more about art history as I walked through the rooms, but there were plenty of tours that I could jump in on to get information about the artwork.  Finally we made it to the Sistine Chapel.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures in that room either.  It was a lot darker than I had imagined and the paintings seemed different than I expected.  Either way, it was amazing to actually see Michaelangelo’s work and now I can say that I have seen it in person.

Stop 4:  Vatican Post Office-  Sofia told Emily that when you go to the Vatican, they don’t stamp your passport, so the thing to do is buy a stamp to prove you have visited.  I bought a stamp and mailed a postcard. 

Stop 5: St. Peter’s Basilica- Maybe this didn’t seem like such a big deal, because I’m not Catholic, but I didn’t feel the need to wait in line to go inside.  Instead, we took a few pictures outside and then decided to get lunch.  The square that the Basilica is filled with giant screens and roped off sections for when the Pope comes out.

Stop 6: Lunch at a little restaurant.  Just had a quick bowl of pasta.

Stop 7: Monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II-  This was the biggest monument that I saw while in Rome.  It was built in 1870 when all the areas of Italy were finally united under one rule.  This is also where the grave of the unknown soldier is.

Stop 8: Roman Ruins-  We saw the ruins of an old Roman market.  It is pretty sweet how they just sit there and nothing is done with them.  Actually that isn’t true, the road that we walked down to see all the ruins was constructed by Mussolini right over the ruins.  So we had ruins on the left and right of the street and the street was set over what once were ruins.

Stop 9: The Forum- We saw the sunsetting over the Forum.

Stop 10:  The Colosseum-  We didn’t go inside, but it was amazing to see from the outside.  From here we also saw the Arch of Constantine.  Around the Colosseum, guys dress up as Roman gladiators and try to get you to take a picture with them for money.  

Stop 11: The Convent- As it got darker, we headed back to Sofia’s room.  The program she is studying with rents out the top floor of this convent, so she lives in the same building as nuns, although they never see each other.  In Sofia’s room, we had a few minutes to sit down and recharge.  I was exhausted from walking around all day and wanted nothing more than to sit for a minute. 

For dinner we went out with this guy named Gabrielle.  Emily’s uncle is friends with a family that lives in Rome, so for dinner that night we met up with Gabrielle (the son) who is our age.  We went to this place that was great!  It was nice not going to a really touristy restaurant.  We all got pizza’s and mine had mushrooms, artichokes (another thing Wikipedia recommended getting in Italy), sausage and a few other toppings.  I was really disappointed that I had lost about 25% of my taste buds that day.  Pepita’s cold started showing its signs that morning.  Anyways, so everyone has been asking me how the pizza and pasta is compared to the rest of the world, but I don’t think I can give a fair judgment because I couldn’t taste it completely.  What I could taste was delicious, but I wish I had been able to savor the flavors more.  It was great being able to talk to Gabrielle and find out all about Italy.  His parents stopped by to say hi in the middle of the meal and actually paid for us which was great!

            After dinner, Gabrielle wanted to take us to what he considered the best gelato in Italy.  The gelato place even advertises itself as the best and oldest gelato in Italy.  It took about a half hour to drive there.  Driving in Rome was absolutely insane.  No one follows the rule of the road, if they even exist.  The gelato was great, although once again my taste buds couldn’t quite taste all the flavors.  I really wish they had been fully functioning so I could say that it was the best gelato I ever had, but I can’t.  We talked to Gabrielle about everything from the Italian government to what he learns in school.  He is an economics major too.  I was really excited when I got to ask him about organized crime.  As many of you know, I am fascinated by organized crime and I was really hoping my trip to Italy would be a scene straight out of the Godfather.  Lucky and unlucky for me, the mafia is concentrated in the south of Italy.  Gabrielle told us all about the issues of the mafia and how the only mafia in Rome now is the government. 

At one point during the conversation, I jokingly said, “I want to be in the mafia”.  Gabrielle took it literally and paused for a moment to think of a response to my statement.  He first said to me, “You can’t say that.”  He continued, “Saying that is like saying, hmm, let me think.”  Pausing for a moment he figured out how to describe the power of my statement to us; he asked, “Have you read Harry Potter?”  Emily, Sofia and I all answered, “Yes” in unison.  Then he told us, “Saying that you want to be in the mafia is like saying Voldemort’s name outloud.”  We died laughing at the Harry Potter reference, but honestly it was the perfect metaphor and he got his point across clearly.  I was both impressed by how important Harry Potter has become as a cross cultural piece of literature, as well as the seriousness of the mafia in Italy.  Watching the Godfather or the Sopranos doesn’t capture the average citizen’s hatred of organized crime and what effects it has on the society.  Gabrielle felt that the only mafia still existing in Italy was the government and from our conversations, I got the feeling that he along with many other Italians are tired of the government and its abuse of power.

 Anyways, after gelato Gabrielle drove us all back and we thanked him for a fantastic night!