Friendsgiving

A month! Whoops! Sorry! 

So the problem with keeping a blog is that you actually have to have interesting things happening in your life, so a to make it worthy of posting, and also enough free time to actually post. In the last month, Rebeca entirely on maternity leave (she's one of the two teachers I work with) and so for two weeks I was in charge of her classes. For some reason, they aren't supposed to hire permanent substitutes until two weeks after a teacher has been gone, which means that teachers from around the school come into the class for a period at a time, some of whom don't speak English, and none of whom know what's going on in the class better than I do. Which means for two weeks, I was teacher. And boy. As exhausting as being an auxiliar can be, it is nothing compared to being a full fledged teacher. Particularly when you still have private lessons after school! I already work 11+ hours Monday Tuesday and Wednesday, but you add grading and lesson planning to that? Ahhhh! 

So now that I've had a real taste of being a real teacher, am I crazy enough to still want to pursue a carreer as such? Yes. Yes, I am. Of course, we now have a permanent substitute, so the stress and insanity of those two weeks are already beginning to fade away...

Well I do have some big news that's been brewing for a bit. Joaquín and I are moving in together! I feel I can announce it formally now because, though we've been talking about it for a while, I just told my roommate/landlord that I would be leaving soon and we (Joaquín and I) have appointments to see some apartments on Friday. I am so excited! 

We also had friendsgiving on Saturday. A bunch of us Americans, (Steve, Hannah, Julie, Michelle, and I), and Yolanda and Joaquín all went to Yolanda's house and brought delicious dishes and ate food and talked and played settlers of catan. It was really fun, and I'm glad we got to do it because I love thanksgiving, and I miss it while I'm here! 

That's really all I've got this time, but here are some pictures from friendsgiving and from various skype sessions I've had recently: 

The delcious thanksgiving meal

The whole group

Mk and Kristine spoon-skyping me (they will hate me for this)

New-roomies Dixie and Jeff after hiding under a blanket

My mom's presh new cat

That's it y'all! 

A second spring, HAlloween (and everything in between)!

I hate to make you stateside dwellers jealous, but the weather here hasn't gone below "light jacket" temperatures in several weeks. It's very abnormal for this time of year, but I am so not complaining. 

Well, sorry it's been so long since I updated! I have taken a few weeks to get acclimated to my crazy schedule again. I'm teaching at the same school with the same kids as last year, except this year one of the teachers I work with is pregnant and will be on maternity leave soon, and the other is a different teacher, but really just wonderful to work with. I have five private lessons every week, after school, so my Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are beyond exhausting, while my Thursdays, Fridays, and weekends are easy going. 

I haven't had any grand trips since I last posted, but I've done little things. Gone to a medieval market in Alcalá de Henares with Joaquín, had a picnic in the park with friends in October, and didn't even need a jacket, gone to a show with the kids about "movies through the ages," celebrated "Tapapies," a tapas fair in the lavapies neighborhood of Madrid, dressed up as Sandra Dee from Grease, with Joaquín as my Danny, carved pumpkins and watched Halloween movies, went to Madrid's "most beautiful park," El Capricho,  and on and on...

New Year, New Piso, Catching Up

Sooooo... it's been awhile, because I've been all over the place. When I stopped blogging, I was about to go to England. Well... I did! And it was wonderful. I got to see Nancy, Peter, and Rosie, all of whom I hadn't seen in more than 10 years! Old family friends, and it truly felt like not a day had passed. The journey itself was pretty uneventful, in terms of blog-worthy news. Mostly we played cards, walked or drove around the countryside, and and caught up with each other and our families. 

After I got back, I still had about a week in Madrid before traveling home for a month. I packed the rest of my stuff and moved out, staying with Joaquín and his parents for a few days before leaving. 

Then, to the states! It was really good to be home for a while. I got to see a lot of family and friends, went to Kirksville for a few days, and I loved being with my pets again. 

So here's some pictures from that month: 

(At Anton's in KC)

(At the theatre!) 

(Kristine and Keller)

(At Woody's in Kirksville) 

Since I got back, I found a new apartment! It's in a slightly more convenient and lively area of Madrid, only a little more expensive, and has a gorgeous terrace. I love it! 

Oh, and I also went to a wedding of two friends of Joaquín's. Ana  and Goyo. They are a precious couple, currently honeymooning on a safari in Kenya, and the weding was really fun. I would say the only thing that felt vastly different to me was the music (because of course they play Spanish music, and everyone knows all the words and dances, while I was very lost and confused). 

El Rio Tajo

Just before going to England for a week (today!) I thought I'd do a little post about what I've been doing since I got back from Italy a week and a half ago. Basically, nothing. I've been doing some paperwork for my legal status here, some apartment searching for next year (no success there yet, but fingers crossed) and packing up my things. 

I also sang at open mic night at Triskel's Tavern with Steve, two songs that I wrote the lyrics to (and one of those I came up with the tune for, the other Steve did), and that went pretty well. 

Then this last weekend Joaquín and I, both feeling very broke but needing some time alone away from the city, decided to go crash in Molina de Aragón. His friend Lucía lives there but wasn't using her apartment at the time, so we could stay there and save our poor wallets while still having a couple of days to ourselves. Molina de Aragón is truly a beautiful area. Lots of sunflower fields surrounding it, the Tajo river just a short drive away, and mountains, mountains, mountains. We got there Friday night and just chilled, bought groceries for the next few days, made some delicious risotto, curtosy of chef Joaquín, and watched some of the new tv show Fargo. Saturday, we went to the Puente de San Pedro over the Rio Tajo and swam and sunbathed and took pictures. 

The river is more like a little mountain creek at this part, very shallow and not too big, the water as clear as if it just fell from the sky. 

After we had been there for a while, we went to a view point and looked out at the river from high above, watching hawks dive through the air below us. 

We visited another little town in the area for some coffee, and then went back to Molina. Had burgers and walked around a little fair that was unexpectedly set up for some holiday or other. 

Sunday, we had meant to go spelunking in a nearby cave, but we were tired and I had started feeling a little sick, so we slept in and then just headed back to Madrid, stopping in Lucía's hometown to give her back her keys first and have some coffee and tea with her. 

Since the weekend, I've been resting while dealing with this cold (so tired of getting sick!) and packing some more. I can't wait to see my old friends in England this week! After that, I'll be in Madrid for a few more days, and then it's home to America for a month! 

All Roads Lead To Rome

Day 12: July 7th

We decided at some point in the days previous to stop in Bologna for a night before going back to Rome. We both were flying out on the 10th, and we'd already done most of what we wanted to do in Rome, so we figured a little detour wouldn't hurt. We got a ride from a traveling dad of two highschoolers who was SUCH a dad (really nice, concerned about making sure we got where we needed to go, etc) and he both picked us up from our apartment in Venice and dropped us off at the place in Bologna. There, we stayed with a couple in they're spare room. We really just dropped our things off before heading into the city center. The only things I wanted to do in Bologna were: go to the University of Bologna, which is the oldest university in Europe, and see this room where they dissected bodies for study, and walk the longest arcade in the world, that had 666 arches and led to St Luca's Church. 

So we did those things! From the anatomy room: 

Some wicked wooden sculptures of men without skin holding up that... thing? Did professors have thrones here? 

And the longest arcade in the world. 

Of course, by the time we got to the top, the church was closed and we couldn't reach the 666th arch. So upsetting! 

654! So close! 

We also saw the church in the main plaza, which was very strange in terms of churches because... it hadn't been finished in marble. Only the bottom half had marble, the rest was just brick. I assume this is because they ran out of money during construction? But I can't be sure. 

That night was laid back. 

Day 13: July 8th

The next morning, we met with our rides from Bologna to Rome, two Italian college students on their way to a concert of the Black Keys. We drove through some gorgeous mountains!

They dropped us off at Termini, the main train station of Rome, went to Trastevere, where we would be staying, and got some groceries and gelato before dropping our things off at the apartment. We really didn't do anything for a few hours, but that night we decided to try walking along the river to another area where there were supposed to be some cool bars. We didn't actually get that far, because on the river, there was a big summer festival with lots of restaurants, bars, shops, and live music.

It was really awesome, so we just walked around there drinking (a little too much) beer and getting kebab and watching music/the football game. I drank the first dark beer I have ever enjoyed there: a beer called Rossa that was so smooth and wonderful, and the only dark beer I've ever liked. 

Day 14: July 9th

With one day left, we decided to go to the Catacombs. The problem is, the main catacombs are apparently closed on Wednsedays. The other problem: the bus that goes to the catacombs only comes once every 40 minutes (supposedly, it was more like once an hour). Well, after walking to the bus station and seeing this awesome building grafitti...

we waited and waited for the bus, and finally made it to the San Sebastion catacombs. You can't take pictures inside, but it was really cool. We had a guided tour who told us about how the volcanic rock is easily carved until it hits air, how most of the graves had been robbed (even though they were mostly graves of poor Christians) and what the symbols on the walls meant. Most were symbols like the fish or the anchor, but one mossoleum was decorated with the swastika, which, remember, means life and death, because this was 2000 to 1500 years ago. There was also a ton of grafitti carved into the walls by ancient romans, and apparently these were all prayers. 

(This isn't in the catacombs, but just above it in the church). 

After the tour, we walked around the church, got something to eat from the cafeteria, and walked a little ways up and down the Appia Antica (old road in Latin), seeing some of the ruins there. 

That night, we decided to hang out with the girl staying in the other room of the apartment with us, a German theatre major named Julia who we really got along well with. We walked to this sculpture she had really wanted to see, a giant bamboo structure you can actually walk up in (though it was closed off for some reason).

 After that, we got a last pasta dinner. Jeff tried to order Canoli instead of Cannolini, and we all said "Voltswagon" for a few minutes, laughing about the different pronunciation between English and German. Finally, we walked along that river party again, got some gelato, and took the tram home. 

Day 15: July 10th

This isn't really even a day that counts. Jeff woke up at 4:30am to call a taxi to the airport and catch his flight at 6:55am. I walked him out, and we said goodbye. I went back to sleep until about noon, packed up my stuff, and went to the train station to go to the airport. Everything went smoothly, and Joaquín came to pick me up. 

I can't believe the trip is over! I loved Italy, particularly Florence and Venice, and I want to go back again soon! Thanks for reading! 

Venice, City of Doges.

Day Eight: July 3rd

The day really wasn't that interesting, a traveling day. We went to meet our ride at the Santa Maria Novella train station and wandered the area for a bit, stopping in a second hand shop, admiring the Santa Maria Novella plaza and church facade, and eating our sandwiches. We met up with Alessio, our ride, around 1pm and started talking to him about what all we had done in Florence, and Jeff mentioned that he had tried and failed to get to Fiesole for the view. So guess what? He took us there before we went to Venice! He was really cool. The view from Fiesole is AMAZING. Florence truly is a beautiful city, up close and far away alike. 

In Venice that evening, we brought groceries, FINALLY washed our clothes, and drank some wine over dinner. We honestly needed a break evening as in Florence we had been booking it all over the place. 

Day Nine: July 4th: INDEPENDENCE DAY! 

First day in Venice: We got up, got our tickets to the Venice Islands (um, if anyone hasn't been to Venice, apparently there are two parts to the city: the main land, and then a big island. I was not aware of this (Oblivious American Alert) and thought that it was all mainland and just had canals running into the land. Anyway, we got to the Island and immediately got lost, which really is what should happen because Venice is awesome to get lost in. No matter what, you'll always end up going back in the right direction (remember? It's an island) and sometimes even when you think you're far from your destination, you're actually right around the corner. This happens because a lot of the streets all have the same names! Or have two different names! Or just aren't on the map! We ran into this dead end street that had an awesome little shop with things we wanted to buy, but it was closed. The shop owner had put books and other little articles outside the shop and had padlocked a drop box to the door so if you wanted something, you can put money inside, but we wanted things that were inside the shop. We didn't even know where we were when we found this place, but we vowed to come back to it. 

Well anyway, eventually we made it to Saint Mark's Square.

 We listened to Rick Steve's audio guide of the Piazza, then went to the Doge's Palace. (For my internet friends: yes, there really is  place called Doge's palace. Doge is how you say Duke in Italian. It did not stop being funny the entire time).

 The palace was really beautiful, but my favorite part was the giant room with all the Doge's painted in order on the frieze, except one Doge who had attempted a coup d'état and whose name and portrait was blacked out. Clearly no one else tried that. 

We then went to the big bell tower in the square that was originally built hella long ago but collapsed in 1902, and they rebuilt it exactly the way it had been. We got to be up there when the bells rang for the half hour, which was a really cool experience.

 The view was pretty spectacular, too. 

We decided not to go into the Basilica, mostly just because we have seen a lot of churches already and hadn't heard anything too spectacular about this one. We walked around a garden near the square and then decided to find a place to relax and drink some wine for a while. If that's not the most unpatriotic Independence Day you've ever heard of, I don't know what would be. 

Day Ten: July 5th

We've been slowing down a little bit, because vacationing is tiring! We slept in and then went to the Correr museum in Saint Mark's Square. We've gotten to the point that we run past any Madonna and Childs. We've seen so many we just don't want to see any more! Jeff's favorite thing here was a painting of the battle of the fists, which is a painting of a bunch of guys just punching each other on a bridge. It's pretty funny. But I think my favorite part was the room about 18th century Venetian sunglasses.

 Venice is the area where glass blowing first really kicked off, so of course glasses became a big deal there. Apparently it was all the rage to have bright green sunglasses to protect your eyes (and what's crazy is that they actually filtered out 90% of the UV rays, something that most modern sunglasses still don't do). But I can just imagine Venice being full of men and women in old-time dress with bright green glasses and it cracks me up. 

My other favorite part also had to do with glass: the chandeliers in the museum were gorgeous. They were all really delicate glass and had lots of colorful flowers adorning them. So beautful! 

This day involved a bit of getting lost as well. We'd seen a flyer for a play at an ex-convent and wanted to try to go, so we tried to find it. Only the map said there was a through street when in reality there were walls, so we basically ended up between a giant wall and what seems like it might have been a military base or something. The searching tired us out, too, but we still had one more very important mission for Venice: a gondola ride! We found our way back to civilization and hired a gondola for forty minutes (the shortest time you can ride for, as those rides are not cheap).

 It was probably not as good as it could have been, what with that being a kind of romantic thing and Jeff and I obviously not fitting that category, but it was fun. All the gondoliers talked to each other when they passed us and it was really funny wondering what they were talking about, pondering if they ever had competitions between them. I think maybe half of Jeff and my conversations involved fake conversations we imagine fake people having with each other. 

Guess what we did then? That's right: Gelato. 

Day Eleven: July 6th, Beach Day! 

That's not an official holiday like the July 4th one, but I felt it had to be named. At this point in our journey, we really had no set plans about what to do next, so we decided we would stay another day in Venice, then go to Bologna for a day, then head back to Rome before flying out on the 10th. Since we'd already done most of what we wanted to do on the main Venice island, we decided to take the water bus to Lido island and have a beach day!

I didn't take any pictures with my camera on the island, because generally sand and expensive cameras do not mix. But going to the beach was the perfect thing to do. Lido is beautiful, and even though the beach was really crowded, it was one of the best I've been too because the water was so shallow I could stand 100 meters out. I'm not a huge fan of swimming, but I love floating and wading and standing in shallow water and this was perfect for that. We just went out to where our heads were above the waves, but still far from the crowds, and that was great. That mediterranean sun is HOT though. I got burned on my back, even with using a ton of sunscreen, but it has already turned to a tan. On our way back, we got some of the best gelato we've had yet: and cheapest too! Lido wins! 

The Hero, in Feminine Dress, is Completely Inebriated

Day Four, June 29th

We decided to take the metro/train (the stop was literally right outside of the hostel entrance, and the trains came so close to our rooms that the windows rattled) into Naples for the day. We'd been told that there wasn't much to do there, and even if there would have been normally, it was Sunday, so there REALLY wasn't anything to do. Most attractions were closed or only open until early afternoon. Well, we got into the main station and walked to the sea. We wanted to go into Castel Nuovo, but it was closed (and also did not look "new" at all). We walked along the seaside for a bit, decided to go down and join the Napoleons (I know that's not what they're called, shh) on the rocks, and swim in the mediterranean. It was so beautiful out there, but we were definitely out of place. The area really didn't have many tourists (probably because tourists went further down to a beach area). we stayed for a while, then walked further, making our way along the promenade (which in my opinion was the nicest and possibly only nice part of Naples).

There is a lot of poverty and corruption in the South of Italy, and it was all too apparent in that city. Homeless everywhere, graffiti on literally everything, and all the illegal merchants on the streets barely blinked when the police would pass by. Definitely a strange place. Well, that's really all we did that day. Not go to any attractions, just walk and lay by the seaside. We headed back to Pompeii (after waiting like half an hour for the train, it was WAY late) and ate pizza at a restaurant close to our hostel. 

Day Five, June 30th

We had a ride from Naples to Florence at 3:30pm, so we checked out of the hostel early, and, as much as we wanted to explore more of the ruins, went into Naples. We were meeting the guy at the Archeological Museum of Naples so we decided to just go to the museum (they had baggage checks) and stay there basically until it was time to go. I'm really glad we did that. The museum was awesome! We saw a bunch of statues, but the main attraction were all the relics taken from Pompeii. I saw Cave Canem, in person! Jeff and I were honestly amazed at the Roman paintings and mosaics. I think I never thought about the fact that, since their sculpture was so fantastic, their paintings would also be fantastic. But you never see Roman paintings (potentially because we didn't have any until Pompeii was excavated?) They are awesome! This one, though, is my favorite.

 The description of the painting said it was Hercules and that "The Hero, in feminine dress, is completely inebriated." I've been quoting that line this whole trip, every time I see something funny, basically. I'm sure Jeff is tired of it. 

Then, of course, we got to see the "secret room" of erotic Pompeiian art. What I didn't know is that in Roman times, apparently the male genitalia was a good luck charm. So the reason there was so much erotic art in Pompeii wasn't because the Romans were just sex crazed orgy goers: it was all for luck! They had sex scenes outside of their houses for luck, women wore penis-pendant necklaces for luck, and a lot of the every day objects they used, dinnerware, lamps, wind chimes, were all penis-themed. They even had a "fingers crossed" type of hand motion that I probably should not describe here (and that I'm not even sure how scholars know about?) that was for good luck but that alluded to the whole penis thing again. 

Anyway we finished with the museum and went across the street to have (guess what) PIZZA and wait for our ride. So our driver was Alessandro, a young Italian guy from Naples who works in a city a little north of Florence, and our fellow passengers were a French Canadian girl who had been woofing it in the hills for a week and an older Italian guy who didn't speak any English but kept trying to offer us the food he bought. We had some fun conversations on the 5 hour ride up north, and Jeff and I both were a little blown away by the scenery. We got to Florence and, after some drama trying to figure out how to get from where we were to the apartment we're staying in, (the drama being mainly that we couldn't) decided to just take a cab. Boy, was that the fastest driver I've ever experienced. We got to the apartment (we're staying in the second loft bedroom of a nice Italian couple who are lending us bikes for riding around town) and went to bed! 

Day Six, July 1st

Florence! Firenze! My god this city is gorgeous. I seriously could live here, if not for, you know, money. Nestled between the mountains and straddling a river, it is the epitome of Italy, in my opinion. The apartment we're in is pretty far up the river, so when we woke up, we biked to the supermarket to get food for the day, and then about 4km along the river to the center of the city. We stopped along the way to go through a riverside market with cheap clothes and whatnot. We got to the city center and, after sitting on a bench and eating our sandwiches, walked toward Il Duomo. This is probably the most beautiful church on the outside that I've ever seen, because it's colorful!

The stone is painted and it's beautiful and I don't understand why other churches didn't ever do this! I love it! We went inside and it was pretty cool, the ceiling to the dome painted beautifully. Went down to the crypt for a bit, then went outside again to wait in line to go up to the top of the dome. While we were waiting we started talking to this older couple, the guy had been a US diplomat in Spain and Mexico for many years and his wife was Mexican and they live in D.C. now. They were so cute. 

We went up to the cupola, all ~370~ steps, and marveled at the view. I may be crazy, but I liked this view better than the one from the Eiffel Tower of Paris.

Florence just isn't as big and is among so many mountains it seemed more inviting than the vast never ending French city. That's just me, though. One great part about climbing the cupola is that, unlike any other church dome I've been in, you got to go up on the inside and see the great painted ceiling up close. That was really awesome. 

Once done with that, we went into the Baptismal and admired the ceiling there, too.

Then, we got gelato and used some wifi, trying to plan our next leg of the journey, to Venice. I told Jeff every day we didn't have gelato, I would have to punch him. We then wandered over to Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge that has buildings across it, all of which sell jewelry. I can't understand how any of them make money, since literally all their competition is on that one bridge! We walked back to the bikes, then tried to find this garden Jeff wanted to bike through, but it turned out it was closed, so we just bought some snacks and biked back to the first park that would eventually take us home. 

Day Seven: 

Another day in Florence. though this one started very differently. First of all, Jeff wanted to biked up to a mountain village overlooking Florence to catch the sunrise. He left (I guess, I didn't hear him) at 4:30 to do it, and came back around 6:30, but apparently he had gotten lost on the way and didn't make it, so he just biked around the city for a bit and watched the sunrise that way. Finally we woke up around 9:30 and got ready to go to the Uffizi museum, to see Venus and David. Except apparently! David is in another museum in the city. Well, anyway, before we had even hardly started, we had an accident. We were coming up on an intersection and a car was coming the other way: Jeff stopped for it, but I saw that it was stopping for us so I kept going. Except I was right behind Jeff, and didn't realize until too late! I hurt my hip/pelvis and bruised my shin a little, but other than that everything was fine. It made biking and walking the rest of the day a little more painful and slow going, but I managed. 

So we got to the Uffizi museum, and did that for several hours, until we were too hungry to handle it anymore. Saw Venus

and a bunch of other paintings and sculptures, including the Boar. 

We went out and ate our sandwiches and chips and fruit we bought from the supermarket, and frightened a bunch of pigeons several times in the process. 

We walked around for a long time, just enjoying the city, although at one point we had to stop in a tie shop so Jeff could buy the most amazing tie. He's going to tell everyone about how it's his most expensive tie, bought in Florence Italy, yada yada. It really is a great tie. We then walked up to the Piazzalemichelangelo, but we had wanted to see the sunset from there and it was only about 6:30, so we went down again to get dinner and wine. Drank and snacked next to a little decorative fish pond until closer to sunset, then climbed back up again. It was definitely worth it: gorgeous view!

After the sun truly set, we walked back down, got our bikes, and went home. 

Spike on a Bike: First Three Days in Italy

Rome Day Zero: 

I'm saying this isn't day one since I got in at 11pm and all I did was take the train into the city and then a taxi to the hotel. There was a notable event, however, in that we thought Jeff had a double room at the hotel and that I'd be able to stay there: WE WERE WRONG. I got another room. All worked out. 

Rome Day one: 

WELL: It rained all morning, like, torrential downpour, scary thunder, but then it disappeared and looked as though it had never happened. However, as it was raining, I was walking from the hotel to the Colosseum, stopped at the tomb of the unknown soldier, and just generally got completely soaked.

I stayed inside the Colosseum until the worst of it was over, although it didn't help much. It was raining so hard that walls of mist hit those of us hiding under the roof. Once the rain stopped, though, it was really beautiful and the Colosseum was amazing. My favorite part, though, was a cat sitting in the shade at the Colosseum, not even knowing where it was. 

I went to the forum next, but already my feet were starting to hurt, probably because: damp socks. My favorite part of the forum were the heads of columns just sitting on the ground, and the sign that pointed out the place where legend said the earth and the underworld met. And this bird: 

Walked toward the pantheon and ran into a guy from Canada going the same way, and as we were both alone we decided to go together. The pantheon was probably my favorite site from that day. It was really gorgeous, and I have seen so many churches that follow the same design, and this was so different, I just loved it. But there were WAYYY too many people inside...

Well, considering Rome is one of the most famous tourist destinations, I suppose I can't complain when I want to join the hordes. 

Michael (the Canadian) and I had lunch across the street from the pantheon, and when I was halfway through my lasagna, a dog came up, put his front paws on my lap, and starting trying to lick my plate. It was pretty funny, mostly because the owner didn't catch up until almost a minute later and didn't really do much of anything about it besides take the dog away and leash it. Good thing I like dogs! 

We then walked to Trevi Fountain, but that was so disappointing because it's undergoing serious renovations right now so there's no water, and a plastic see-through wall surrounding the whole thing. Boo! 

Then, Michael and I parted ways, and I went to the hotel to get some info from Jeff about how to get to the place I was staying in, the couch of a lady from airbnb (we decided to book that because the hotel was way too expensive). Then I went to the phone store to see if I could figure out my phone situation, which didn't happen.. but I saw the CRAZIEST thing happen on my way there. I was waiting at a crosswalk, and this man started crossing the street with his bike during the green light. There was a constant flow of cars, and what did he do to keep them at bay? He literally held a giant spike in his hand, something that reminded me of a railroad spike, and just jabbed it toward the cars' tires. No one even honked at him. They just let him go. Well, anyway, I then took a bus down to the apartment. I was so tired! But I still had to go back to Jeff's hotel to get the rest of my stuff. Once I did that and got back, I basically just fell asleep...

Day two: 

Started out a little later because I didn't set an alarm and woke up around 9:30 when my host was leaving for school. Michael, who I had friended on facebook, was going to the Vatican that day, and we had tentatively planned to meet there, which anyone who has ever been to the Vatican would know to be just about impossible. The place is huge. I went to a cafe to get breakfast, then walked (only about ten minutes) to the Vatican! First standing in line for a while to get into Saint Peter's Basilica, which was amazing of course. I listened to Rick Steve's audio guide about it, and loved seeing on the floor the inscriptions marking where other, lesser churches ended. (The Basilica is two football fields in length and the dome is one... it's big). 

After that, I left and wandered, trying to figure out how to get to the Vatican museum, and of course, to the Sistine Chapel. It took me a bit to understand that, even though you can see the buildings from the plaza, you have to walk all the way around to get to the entrance. Oy. I finally made it, though, and walked through the museum. They know what people are there for: they have a "Sistine Chapel short track" where you can just skip the museum and go straight to the chapel, but I at least wanted to see what else they had there. It was really funny seeing things like Salvador Dali in a place like the Vatican, I just felt like they didn't really belong. The Sistine Chapel is definitely worth it. It really was just gorgeous. It was fascinating listening to the audio guide (Rick Steve's again) and hearing about everything: how the first paintings had smaller figures, but he didn't like how small they were, so everything about that was bigger and more impressive. Then seeing the wall, how his whole attitude about mercy had changed, and seeing justice instead. Then, in the corners, they had left a few patches of the frescos uncleaned, so you could see just how dark it had been before the renovations. And I KNOW: no pictures... but I'm a bad person. 

Besides, they're just bad cell phone pictures... 

After I finished the Vatican, I went back to my room and sat for a bit, then Jeff and I decided to meet for dinner in Piazza Navona. We ended up walking down to Campo di Fiori, another plaza, and eating there, then eventually just walking back up to the bus stop so I could take the bus back to the apartment. 

Day Three: 

We had a ride-share from Rome to Pompeii at noon, so we decided in the meantime to go to a Monestery Jeff had heard about that, sometime in the 1700s, an artist had decorated in a very strange room. Basically, this anonymous guy decided to dig up the bones of all the monks buried there and arrange them in several rooms with various designs. So one room was the skull room, one the pelvis bone room, etc, and throughout were bones of all types forming beautifully creepy patterns on the walls and ceilings, as well as several intact skeletons, still dressed in their monks' robes, lounging in various places. It was definitely the coolest and weirdest Monastery I've ever been to! 

We left there, took the metro to our meeting point, and drove with Settitmio and another fellow traveler, Miguel, down to Pompeii. Miguel was a Mexican student studying for a semester in Milan and traveling now that school was out. He was staying in Naples, but decided to come down to Pompeii with us so as to explore the ruins for a while before going to his hostel. We went with him, and we all got audio guides and wandered around the ruins for a while (like 2.5 hours). My favorite parts were the baths and the house of the faun.

There was a lot that was closed, and we actually only explored probably about a third of it, but I felt pretty good about what we saw. We had planned to friend Miguel on facebook but never found him, so I guess he was just our friend for a day. Finally, we had dinner in the restaurant above the train station, and crashed. I'm about two days behind now, but our wifi-having has been sporadic at best and I only just finished editing these pictures. I will try to keep posting! But know that so far, all is well and beautiful in Italia! 

Ciao!