"You are very Handsome"

SCHOOL
In case you did not already know, I am studying abroad at John Cabot University which is located in Trastevere, a neighborhood that is west and right next to the Tiber river. The college has two campuses, Guarini and Tiber, in addition they also offer on site classes such as art history related classes as well as photography. I am taking four business classes and they are located in the Tiber campus which is located further away. My Italian class is located in the Guarini (pictured below) campus which is closer to my residencies (which are considered the "on campus" ones). They offer other housing "off campus" which are anywhere from 15 minutes to 30. If you go out of my apartments and take a left you can reach the Vatican approximately 20 minutes (walking) north of us. The Colossseo is located across the river and takes 20 minutes (by bus and metro). I am located near the oldest part of the city. For as I discussed in my previous blog the Isola Tiberina is where it all began.

I have three Italian professors, two of which teach my business classes one who obviously teaches my Italian. They are a little hard to understand at time but seem like they will be good teachers. I have really enjoyed my Italian class and I find that because I am submerged in the culture I want to find ways to use it. I find myself doing strange thinks like mixing the limited amount of Italian words with my English. Some one will ask me a question in English and I respond "Si". Just imagine four months from now after a whole semester of basic Italian I will be able to construct sentences and hopefully understand small conversations. When you are learning Italian my professor says you have to emphasize the vowels. It made me realize that you really can't hear that we have vowels in our English words. In addition I have one professor from London and another from America. I have heard that classes are suppose to be easy but while I can see that in some respects, I do feel they will be hard and require as much effort. I don't have more than 30 people in any of my classes and they are all discussion based. We have group projects and essays that we have to write and NO multiple guess in any of my classes. My teacher all have essay topic we will write about on the final examination.

SHOPPING
Now keep in mind that I am in a big city, and just as in New York, there isn't space to have a Walmart center or shopping mall in the center of the city. You also have to consider that Rome is centuries older than any city in New York. The ruins are so precious that they will always remain untouched. All the shops and even Pubs are small and I swear sometimes can't fit more than 30 people in there comfortably. I have been to two different grocery stores since I have been here. One of which is called Despar, it is a small store located across the river about 5 minutes away. Of course everything is in Italian but they have similar brands. I can't wait until I have to buy detergent because the softeners and detergents all look the same. It is always an adventure if you are going to buy something that you don't want. By the way Despar are like mini everything markets, they contain toilet paper, dog food, laundry soup, and food all in a building the size of about Red Raider Outfitters (the one on Broadway). If you aren't from Lubbock, trust me this is SMALL. So the second grocery store we went to was quite a big larger, kind of looked like the size of a gap. It was located in the basement under a Clothing store.

I have you know that I have never seen so much Wine and Cheese in one place in my whole life. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find cheap cheese here. they have cheese that is 20 Euros for a tiny block of cheese the size of my palm! (Mind you that 20 euros is about 26 USD) There is always always an entire isle dedicated to olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette, and olives... No joke that is all they have on an entire isle. Yes those can get pricey as well. Oh and nice job America at developing ceaser salads... yeah they don't have salad dressings or croutons here. They also charge like 3ish Euros for Iceberg lettuce (which is 4 plus USD and is only 1.50 in the US). When you buy fruit, you have to stick everything you get on a scale, push the number (which is located on the sign) in order for it to tell you the price you will pay at the register. You can imagine how annoyed the lady was with me when I had pineapple bananas, kiwi, and apples all without stickers (By the way I am so sad they don't have cantaloupe here). "Stupid Americanos".

Nutella is like the best thing since butter to them, it is in sizes as small as ketchup packets and as big as a Sam's Club size condiment. In addition I know everyone has heard about Gellato, well they take Gellato shops to a new level. I went to one store called Blue Ice and there were over 50 flavors, I swear! I have not made it to the "shopping street" yet which is located I believe by the Spanish Steps. That is definitely on my to do list though. Now I made my first home cooked meal the other day and I have to say it was delicious. I made chicken with sauce and Gouda cheese (yes just like in Shes the Man) and brussel sprouts. Now I had never had brussel sprouts before because my mother says they are normally bitter and no one likes them in my family. I will have you know they are not bitter here and they are quite delicious! Now you may wonder, how do they not gain weight with all these pastas and pizza and pastries. Their Italian is nothing like ours. They don't use a lot of sauce, some pizza doesn't even have sauce, others don't have cheese. The crust is thin and crispy. The portions are smaller and they don't fry hardly anything. Bread is not complimentary, you have to pay for it. That combined with all the walking you have to do to get to anywhere leaves some skinny Italians. I have you know America is a sad society when you look how fat we are. I have you know I have not seen one overweight Italian since I have been here.

"MY ITALIAN GETS BETTER WITH WINE"
Now I am done talking about all the technical stuff. We now will move on to boys, food, and wine. So as discussed in my first blog I have met quite a few nice boys when we have been out on the town. My roommate is well on her way to having an Italian lover (she speaks Italian and he doesn't speak English). He on Tuesday night (01/18/11) took us to the Colosseo at night time which, if even possible was even more amazing! After this he decided to escort us to meet up with some friend we had made for dinner (we didn't oppose this for safety reason of course). The great thing about this group date that we were about to endure was that only one of the four boys who would be attending spoke English. They took us across town to a restaurant I can assure you I still don't know the name of. it had checkered color table cloths that reminded me of the American pizzerias that you find in New York. There was a bottle of wine already on the table (and I would like you to know that it is very common here to NOT use wine glasses). The menu was all in Italian and I had no idea where to even begin on trying to order. Finally after the boys ordered wine, sparkling water, and regular water, we asked for English menus and thankfully they had some! The conversation was the most interesting thing I have ever witnessed. It was like the boys were on a date with each other carrying on a conversation in which we would all stare with blank faces, oblivious to what was being said. Then in exchange we would have conversations that they would listen and not understand. The one boy who spoke a little bit of English told me he can not understand us when we talk so fast (which is not the first time I have been told this, to no surprise I am sure). When you order they bring your pasta first, then your vegetable and potato or meat. If you order a pizza they bring it out first. They thought it was weird when I received my pizza and I sat and waited for everyone else to get their food.They informed me it wasn't rude there to eat your food when you get it. That the pizza was not good cold and to eat up (I have you know I think that would be good no matter what). Four bottle of wine and a pizza later we all seemed to find a way to communicate without understanding. they were teaching us words by pointing at objects and we would in return teach them the English. I swear I will learn Italian before I leave here! Leaving dinner they took us on a side trip to a top of a hill that overlook all of Rome. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. It was interesting though because they continued to explain to us that Rome is a beautiful place but very corrupt. "The rich stay rich and the poor stay poor" is the motto of the city. The small shop holders pay so many taxes that they can not get rich and the rich pay no taxes at all. It give you a whole new appreciation for America. As it became later they returned us home to our residence and with a double cheek kiss and a bid goodnight. I will let you know that we are having another dinner with them on Friday.

"YOU ARE VERY HANDSOME"
Ok this is my last story before the weekend. I can assure you I will have more after the weekend. I had my wine tasting yesterday night (01/19/11) where we learned the differences in the smell, look, and taste of the good and bad wines. We had three white, cheese and crackers, three red, and then one dessert wine. After my friend and I decided that we wanted to go out for a little bit. We headed towards Campo di Fiori to see what was happening. It was filled with a mixture of JCU students and Italians. As we were walking to the club I met the crazy couple of boys from Switzerland I have ever met! They spoke English and were just cracking jokes about everything. They called me B. Spears (as most of the boys here do because that is what they associate my name with) and Jessica Simpson (because of the boots I was wearing). In the process they also managed to tell me I was very handsome. I could not hold back the urge to laugh and tried to explain to them that handsome is for men. I will also let you know they were cracking "that's what she said" comments. One of which didn't make sense so I said "she wouldn't say that" and they thought that was the greatest thing in the world and then repeated it after they said "that's what she said". Needless to say I don't think they understood the concept of the joke. Finally, I have nicknamed my roommate Barbie, because on the way to a club one night an Italian man shouted out "Ciao black Barbie!". The culture is so different here, when you order a drink the bartender responds with your changer "here bella" meaning "here beautiful". the compliments are never provocative, talking about body parts or anything. They compliment your beauty or sincerity. However, they think that within the first five minutes of speaking to you that it entitles them to a kiss, which is a clear violation of MY rule of thumb. I do love it here though. It is amazing. I will have more for you later.


--L'amore e riguarda--

And the Adventure Begins, Activities of Weekend #1

Ok first I am not a writer so please excuse me if my blogs are boring? It's fine you will grow to love it. Second, This first blog is going to be very long for I will try to describe my life in Rome to the  best of my ability. Ok here we go...

It has been an exciting couple of days. I have only been in Rome for 6 days and it feels like longer. I know that since classes started I will begin to get a weekly routine in order and then time will not be able to go by slow enough. I encountered so much since the time I stepped off the plane. I didn't know how I felt about the situation at first. I wasn't really excited yet because it didn't seem real to me. I had a small feel of butterflies in my stomach. Upon arriving it was pretty easy to navigate there were people there from John Cabot to tell us where to go and what to do. The next two days reminded me of freshman year at Tech. We had multiple seminars that were so boring you wanted to sleep through them all. The jet lag was at it's fullest and it felt as though you are a zombie who just stayed up all night studying for a final and when the exam finally came you couldn't care about anything but going to sleep. They had lots of activities to help you meet people and it was just like orientation as a freshman, everyone clicked off within the first ten minutes of being there and didn't want to branch out. I of course do as I always do and tested the waters in several groups. I finally settled on a solid group of friends, three of which are my roommates. The school provides several trips throughout the semester, wanting to make the most of the cheap rates I signed up for everything they offered. Of course I plan on having some of my own trips, first of which I want to plan for my birthday weekend.

The weekend was the first time we started to feel like we had a chance to explore. I didn't venture very far into the city for I knew I had two scheduled tours the school would provide for me on Sunday. The streets are so narrow and the drivers are crazy. The cars look like toy cars, and every street is made of big cobble stone. I don't understand how the women wear heals! I swear I would get my heal stuck or roll my ankle, but then again I am not the most coordinated person so that probably isn't saying much. Since Wednesday I had made it to Campo di Fiori which is pictured on the right. This is "the square" as I refer to it. It has a bunch of restaurants and bars and this statue in the middle. This is also the location of the Pub that I watched the Jets beat the Patriots! The beer was very good and the game was even better! J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets!!

Friday night we (the "we" I keep referring to is my group of friends) decided to venture out and find some sort of bar or club. The first place we came upon was a bar called Dee Jay which was just right down the road from our residency. It was tiny and once we made it inside I could not even walk so we decided to leave and find something else to go to. As we were walking around there was a lady handing out club promotions for a place called Mood. After circling Campo di Fiori we passed a bar called 18 18. It wasn't very packed but we were in a big group so we decided to sit for a while and have a drink. I got a screwdriver for it was the only thing that didn't have sugar in it. After about and hour or so we decided to give the club a shot so my friend Alicia, who has been our savior for this trip for she speaks Spanish and Italian, went to a local and he pointed us in the right direction. The club was so crowded and there was definitely a 1 to 3 girl to boy ratio. We got on the dance floor first, it was so crowded that you could hardly move. We ended up leaving at 5am with so much to talk about. The Italian men are so different from American boys. American boy tend to buy girls drinks and then ask them to dance in hopes that they will get lucky. The Italian boys just have this aggressive attitude that they come up behind you and start dancing with you and two minutes later expect a kiss! You try explaining that that is not an American custom and they give you this confused face as if they don't understand why.  Luckily I learn the most important club phrase which is "No baci!" haha which means no kisses. One boy told my friend that he had found the one and that he couldn't believe he went his whole life and finally found her today, the quote of the night was "If only I wasn't Buddhist" I told her she would find the only Buddhist Italian in Rome. The behavior they present is quite humorous, it is as if every girl is the only girl in the room, and the aggressive behavior is why they say the Italian women are dismissive. You have to be in order to be able to breathe from all the love they are throwing your way. One boy did ask me to a cinema the next day. I said sure gave him my number and went on my way. The next day when he called me I had a change of heart and decided to pass (my friend are shaking their heads at me because this is normal behavior for me).

Saturday night Andy, a former JCU (the name of my school John Cabot University) was giving a night tour. Andy is the same guy who is planning side trips to Prague and Dublin during St Patty's Day, also places like London, Paris and Barcelona.  (He took us to see the Pantheon which is pictured on the left.) On the way we also had several fountains. When we were in the inside I was taking pictures and an Italian man asked me and my friend Jasmine if we knew why there was a hole in the middle of the ceiling. I said no and he began explaining that in the summer exactly at 12, the sun fills the hole in the top of the building and Illuminates the whole inside. He then lead us to 

his favorites restaurant. The group we were with was 60ish kids and me and my friends decided that we really didn't want to wait that long to get some food so we started walking around the Pantheon for something to eat. we settled on a restaurant where the server seemed to be funny. we all got wine with dinner and toasted a good trip in Italy. After dinner we headed home to get ready to go out on the town again. We all decided that we wanted to go back to Mood for we felt it was a good place to hangout. We got there early (which in Rome is before 1230, everyone here doesn't go out until about 1230 and don't go home until around 5 or 6) so it wasn't very crowded. Side note: We also met some boys who were stationed in German who were in the Air Force. They joined us at the club and for all my ROTC friend one of them brought up "Chair Force" and gave me a high five because I knew what he was talking about is when he said you mean the "...... Force" I was like Chair. hahaha. Those same boys joined us on Sunday at the pub to watch the Jets game. I talked them all into cheering for the Jets! Ok back to the club, It started getting packed and we had our dancing shoes on. My friends were hungry an hour into the club so we headed across the street to see if we wanted to get some food. The girls asked a lot of questions about prices and the man got very agitated with us and started rambling in Italian. When we finally paid and went to go eat at a table we got kicked out. Then we crossed the street to go back to the club where a bunch of Italian boys asked us if we would say they were with us so they could get in. Being nice we said Si and headed inside. While dancing the best thing to do is to avoiding eye contact with any boy who I did not want to be near. Italian boy see eye contact as an invitation to come dance, dance and look down is the best policy haha. The boys from the door did end up taking pictures of us when we first got in and I danced with a boy who was very nice. His name was Stefano and he worked on the Isola Tiber (second picture), which is where Romulus and Remus first began Rome. It is now a hospital and a very prestigious place for the rich people to have their babies. I plan to have lunch with him one day in hopes that I can pick up some Italian as well as find the hidden wonders of Rome that you don't know to look for as a tourist. We again didn't begin to make our journey home until 5am. 


I will write a separate blog to describe the grocery stores, my classes slash school, and the tours I took.
--L'amore e riguarda--