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!

10/7/10 El Aeropuerto

I left the house at 9 with my backpack full of everything I would need for the weekend.  I met Emily at the University to double check that we had the tickets and passports etc.  I suffered through my Literature class… I was too excited for the trip.  We left after class and took the train to the airport from Sants Estacio.  The train goes outside the city, but our metro pass still works to get there.  We got to the airport earlier than we expected, but better safe than sorry.  We ate our boccadillos, went through security and then looked in the shops for a while before camping out at the gate.  When the plane started boarding, we realized that it was going to Valencia.  The gate had changed and somehow we didn’t realize.  We made it to our new gate in a different wing.  Being late wasn’t a problem, because the flight was delayed for about a half hour.  Finally we boarded and took the flight.  As we were landing, I could see the sun setting over the Italian countryside from my window seat.

            We were nervous about navigating the city in the dark and because we didn’t speak the language.  First we had to take the Leonardi Express Train into the city.  Apparently there are two different trains, one train takes an hour to get to Termini Station in the city and the other takes a half hour.  Of course we took the longer one.  We sat across from three Italian women.  I understood about 25% of what they were saying.  Some words I could pick up because they are close to Spanish, plus Italians talk with their hands, so that made it easier to understand them.  We finally made it to Termini Station, which was huge.  It is the hub for all the trains in Rome.  We had written down directions to the hostel and our first step was to leave from the right exit of the station.  Once we did that we had to find Bus 310 and take it 6 stops to the hostel.  It took us a while to figure out the whole bus thing.  It was kind of stressful because Emily’s friend was meeting us at the hostel at 7:30 and it was already 8:30, plus I have never had to use a city bus system.  A police officer told us to buy a bus ticket at the newspaper stand.  Then we walked through tons of busses to find the 310 bus.  We finally got on and at the first stop, we were really confused.  Emily read the sign and it was the stop we were supposed to get off at, but it was the first stop instead of the sixth stop.  All of the sudden, we heard a voice say “Emily”.  Emily’s friend Sofia saw us on the bus and grabbed us to get off.  We were so happy she was there to find us.  She said that she was getting ready to leave her number with the hostel and go back to her dorm. 

            We checked into the hostel.  It was a tiny hostel with about 5 rooms.  There was also a lounge area with a computer, a few tables and a small kitchen.  For our first night, we were booked in a mixed quad.  We left our backpacks on our beds, taking everything else important with us (money, passport etc), and went to find a place to eat.  We were starving by that point and Sofia took us on the bus to the downtown area.  We walked by the Pantheon and on some side streets until we found a nice restaurant.  We ate outside, surrounded by groups of friends and families eating together.  I ordered saltimbocca alla Romana (Veal with ham, olive oil and spices) because I had read on Wikipedia that it is an Italian specialty.  Wikipedia’s recommendation was great and I savored the meal, wiping up every last drop of sauce with a piece of bread.  We walked around for a bit afterwards.  We got gelato and then ate it on the steps of the Trevi Fountain.  The fountain was smaller than I expected, but it was still really nice.  I threw in a coin over my shoulder.  We then headed back to the hostel for the night.