his swagger can be more swaggery

day 10: monday
- woke up at 7:30 and had to walk to class because the public transit workers were on strike
- found a couple naples guidebooks and restaurant recommendations at the ACCENT center
- went to lunch with brandon's parents, caryn, dylan, kari, david, joe and, of course, brandon. we were trying to find one of the recommended restaurants, but we could not find it at all. we ended up wandering through the campo de'fiori (which we are supposed to avoid at night, apparently) and they had this huge market with tons of different foods, as well as the usual flee market-type merchandise... i'm really excited to go back; it is held daily!
- stopped at a pizza restaurant. unsurprisingly, caryn was ecstatic to discover that our adventure took us through the jewish ghetto, particularly after our quest for a meal took us along their main street three times! there was a ton of shops and restaurants down there; i would like to go back, particularly since it's right across from the richard zinman park which is right by the tram stop!
- walked back to the apartment for siesta and homework. i spent hours and hours blogging and uploading pictures from the last 5 days (and talking to victoria and greg), as usual, so i didn't actually start my reading until after 7:47
- made dinner for caryn and i after finishing plutarch's coriolanus
- went down to the boys' room to discuss our upcoming trip to naples. we decided on a hostel and train times and discovered that i can get a discount into pompeii! i'm really excited to go to a different part of italy this weekend.
- retired to our room and finally got down to business to defeat livy; finished book 3 and skyped greg until bed at 2:30

practically perfect in every way

day 7: friday
- got up at 7:30 and took the tram to class
- came straight home after class and had sammiches with caryn
- showered and packed for my trip to alicante :)
- walked from largo argentina to termini... the walk took me past the vittoriano down via nazionale. i'd never been on that side of town before and i would love to take an afternoon wandering down past all the shops and cafes and exploring the massive ruined basilica and gorgeous piazza at the end
- train from termini to pisa centrale; read coriolanus, napped
- walked from pisa centrale to pisa international airport which is adorable on the outside - the entire building is covered in ivy and there is a little clock tower. i was impressed
- plane to alicante was delayed by about an hour so i arrived a little before midnight. on the bright side, i finished 3 acts of coriolanus and had a nap and only had to wait for greg for about 5 minutes. #winning
- cab to our hostel in the center of alicante and wandered down to the water to get our bearings in the city before bed.


day 8: saturday
- lazy morning; we didn't actually get up until after noon
- wandered down to the beach, greg went swimming and we walked in the surf as far down the beach as we could go before turning back for brunch at a beach side cafe.
- walked up the hill to the enormous fort that overlooks the city and took some pretty sweet pictures. even though the weather was very similar to rome, it felt much more mediterranean. all the buildings had flat roofs and were made out of colored cement, the fort was sand colored and all the vegetation was scrubby and predominantly brown (aside from some gorgeous flowers), there was a bunch of cactii, and, of course, we were overlooking the mediterranean sea!
- wandered back through town to the hostel, getting spanish gelato (!!!) on the way and discovering a whole bunch of little plazas with fountains and things. at first i wasn't sure how much i liked the city, but the longer we were there the more i fell in love with it
- hung out in the common area of the hostel reading act 4 of coriolanus while greg facebooked
- walked back down to the beach and this time we both went swimming... the water was the perfect temperature and i realized i haven't gone in an ocean/sea in so so long, it was really nice

lemon sorbet + champagne is amazing

- split a baguette, cheese, and a bottle of wine on the hostel terrace in the dusk. the terrace is covered with really bright spray paint graffiti-esque pictures and it kind of protruded out from the roof. there was just a bunch of pillows to sit on and these low-lying tables... the food was delicious; it was absolutely perfect
- wandered down to the main square to celebrate barcelona's victory over manchester united. even though we weren't in barcelona, it was still crazy: young people, old people, parents and their kids, were all out there wearing their jerseys, chanting and singing. it was really cool to witness
- went back to the hostel and went to bed relatively early. the combination of my sunburn and the wine made me really sleepy


day 9: sunday
- woke up at 6:20 and headed down to the beach to watch the sun rise over the mediterranean and take advantage of another opportunity to wander through the surf
- went back to bed until 11 and checked out of the hostel at 11:30... i wish we could have stayed there longer, it had a really good atmosphere and i would have loved to partake in more of their group activities
- i had a delicious crepe with asparagus and mushrooms for brunch at a cafe down the street... the waitresses didn't speak english so greg got to whip out his high school spanish skillz
- wandered around alicante for a couple hours before retiring to a bench in the middle of the promenade down the main street to watch the pigeons and debate the merits of the dogs that belonged to random passers by.
- one last spanish gelato - i have decided strawberry and lemon is my favorite flavor combo, perhaps raspberry and lemon would top it but i've yet to have the opportunity to try that out
- rode the bus from alicante to the airport
- went through security (after spending 15 minutes trying to figure out where to get greg's visa checked... silly foreigner) and explored the airport shops together until it was time for my flight to board
- said goodbye to greg, flew to bologna and finished coriolanus
- my cabbie from bologna airport to bologna centrale was so nice and would have been cute except for his ridiculous fauxhawk, oh well. i had to get mcdonalds at the station (the horror!) since i only had about 20 minutes before my train
- train from bologna centrale to termini; i read 50 pages of book 3 of livy - so productive!
- walked back to largo argentina from termini (via nazionale is even more awesome in the dark) and finally got back to our apartment around midnight. it's good to be back in this beautiful city, wandering the familiar streets and hanging out in my apartment again. the weekend was impossibly wonderful, i didn't want it to end, but it is good to be home
- showered, went through all my pictures and skyped greg (who was still stuck in the alicante airport :/) for 4 hours until falling asleep in front of ainsley

maybe i'm dreaming

architecture of the vittoriano with colloseum behind

 day 6: thursday
- woke up at 7:30 and headed off to class with caryn... as usual, the trams were ridiculously crowded so we had to miss one before we could get on and were a couple minutes late for class, oh well
- hung out with Tobin Craig and the boys for about half an hour after class
- went to the Irish pub just off piazza dell'orologio with caryn, kari, david, brandon, joe, and dylan. it felt kind of lame to go to an english place in the middle of rome, but i'm getting sick of pasta and it was so wonderful to eat my first proper english meal in a year and a half! it made me so happy :) we also got super girly drinks, which was fun: caryn got a mud slide, kari got a cosmo, i got a prickly pear
- headed down to the typewriter/wedding cake (it's actually a monument to the first king of unified italy, called the vittoriano) the crazy thing about it is that it serves absolutely no purpose, it's just an enormous white monument... like, bigger than the white house. it reminds me of the ancient roman temples. our guide on wednesday taught us that Roman temples were built to honor the gods, but no one was allowed to enter them. Similarly, while there are parts of the vittoriano that hold all the flags of italy and it is possible to go to the top by an elevator, you can't actually get inside the majority of the massive white monument. it's crazy to imagine what the city would have been like full of similar temples
- traveled up to top of the vittoriano to look across the rooftops of rome... we had to get out our maps to orient ourselves. the two horse statues that sit on top of the vittoriano were even more impressive up close - they are huge!
- wandered back down towards the forum and took lots of people pictures with our group. the goal was to make it all the way down to the colloseum, but it was getting towards rain o'clock and the clouds were looking rather ominous so we headed back and decided to leave that to another week

- grocery shopping and a reading siesta with caryn. after 30 pages of livy i stopped to make dinner for us, then i cleaned the stove (mama elli was out in full force). after another 30 pages of livy, it was time to go out!
- caryn, kari, david, dylan, brad, amanda, and i all wandered down our street to a series of cobbled piazzas by the river. there was people everywhere hanging out outside of all the different bars and cafes. in one of the bigger piazzas, there was a street performer whose antics were strangely funny. a few of us got "take away" drinks from a bar and wandered around soaking up the atmosphere, it was possibly the most perfect moment of the trip thus far. then we got gelato :)
- as soon as we got home i fell into bed and went to sleep, bracing myself for another early morning for class!

got a bottle of [wine] in my handbag

the roman forum is so cool!

day 5: wednesday
- woke up at 9, got ready and headed out to the capitoline museum looking marvelously touristical in our short shorts, tshirts and walking shoes... it was going to be a long day, so we didn't care!
- tour of the capitoline museum... it was pretty cool, but the tour felt rushed; i wish we would have had a chance to wander around ourselves and see all the art at our own pace
- half hour break for lunch: caryn, brandon, david, joe, kari, dylan and i got a sandwich (and something to drink, of course) from this little cafe and ate overlooking the forum
- tour of the collosseum and forum... again, i would have liked to have time to explore on our own, especially at the forum. it's probably my favorite landmark in rome and i really would have loved to be able to explore. i remember being blown away by the scale of the architecture when we were here in 2003, i wanted to feel that again
- tram back to the apartments because it was raining and SIESTA TIME. i took my first nap in italy, i was so exhausted from the day i didn't even make it all the way into my bed and just slept horizontally across it in front of ainsley
- dinner in the boys' room with dylan, david, brandon, joe and caryn
- failed attempt to go see a movie, which resulted in a gelato trip and bringing a few bottles of wine back to the boys' room, frittering the night away, and not reading for class
- skyped with greg and finally figured out all the details for alicante :)

why's the wine gone?!

day 4: tuesday
- woke up at 7:30 to get ready for our first class with tobin!
- took the tram downtown (it was so crowded, silly commuters) and walked the rest of the way for class at 9
- class for 3 hours was not as bad as i expected. tobin craig did an impressively good job of keeping our attention and i actually took decent notes (the 15 minute break helped too)... i also finally had time to blog about last night
- tricked out scrambled eggs (with ham and cheese!) for lunch with caryn, with a glass of vino of course
- walked to stazione roma trastevere, the train station that is right in our neighborhood, and bought tickets for the weekend (roma-pisa and bologna-roma). i was really excited to discover that the station is so close since termini is all the way across town... this way i only have to make the trek out there when i'm actually traveling! i also cannot wait to see more parts of italy, even if i'm only passing through
- siesta, all afternoon... so hard ALL THE TIME. aka  i went through all my pictures, stole everyone else's, caught up on all my blog reading, checked my bank account, and did everything except read more livy for class thursday
- caryn woke up around 7:45, i made dinner: tortellini and sauce, nomnomnom. (of course she picked out all the veggies)
- skyped with greg while caryn skyped jordan, finished the wine, and read some livy before bed
today was such a chill day, it was so nice to just recover from yesterday, soak things in, and brace myself for tomorrow. it feels more like i live here today. each night i get closer and closer to sleeping through the night, which helps me to feel more at home. it's also kind of nice to just do normal things for once... none of this running around trying to see everything ever that was erected by someone in the course of roman history. not only does that make it really obvious that we are tourists, but it's tiring on the mind, body, and soul. today we just... lived... and it was nice. tomorrow we are doing the capitolone museums, and the ancient city (colloseum, forum, etc) so it will be a long, busy, and tiring day. obviously, eating good food at home, drinking a bottle of wine, and doing our reading is the perfect way to prepare... we have three weeks to soak up this city, i'm ok with taking it easy for an afternoon. i have already done so many different things and seen so many incredible sites, i can't imagine what else we are going to discover! ciao ciao, buonosera :)

tutti di roma e' lì

day 3: monday
- woke up at 8:30, had honey balls cereal for breakfast, got ready, and took our first tram to class... we discovered that our walk to class is full of beautiful buildings & piazzas; the tram stops right next to caryn's favorite KITTY RUINS.
- orientation with ACCENT. what we learned can be boiled down to this: if anyone speaking italian is being nice to you they are either a) pickpocketing you b) going to follow you home c) scamming you d) about to traffick you... we also learned that the building we have class in was originally built to be the bank for the vatican and our piazza is used all the time in movies (including kari's favorite, roman holiday with audrey hepburn)!
- phone shopping with caryn, brandon, joe, david, amanda and brad, so now we have cell phones!
- grocery shopping with caryn, joe, brandon and david, so now we actually have food! caryn and i made delicious sandwiches for lunch and then took a siesta for approximately 2.5 seconds
- wandered back down to the classroom, taking lots of photos of all the buildings on our walk
- crash course in italian for 2 hours, which was helpful but we were all too tired for anything to stick. luckily we did learn the most import phrase in italian: "vorrei un cono da due euro di lampone i di menthe" (i want a 2 euro cone of raspberry and mint) our teacher, mario, was super awesome and as our final test he took us out onto the street just off the piazza where we have class and showed us a delicious gelato shop and had us practice ordering.
- went on a massive adventure/tour of rome with caryn, brandon, joe, and kari. we went to piazza navona, the pantheon, trevi fountain, the spanish steps, and the villa borghese... finally, after about 7.5 years, my trevi fountain coin toss/wish came true, i was back! i feel kind of skeptical about testing the power of the fountain, but i threw another coin in behind me, just in case. we were pretty tired after this massive excursion took over 2 hours, so we were starving
- split 2 pizzas between brandon, joe, caryn and i in the basement of a really long and narrow restaurant, listening to the most awkward mood music possible.
- walked back to fermata argentina (our tram stop) via trevi fountain all lit up cause it was about 10... there was so many people there! this time they were mostly people dressed up to go out, carrying wine, and enjoying the atmosphere of the surrounding pubs/cafés. we also walked by the vittoriano, which is basically just an enormous monument to a king of rome, it was beautiful to see all the white stonework lit up at night... there is also a museum and piazza designed by michelangelo near there which we will visit on wednesday with tobin, so excited.
- finally, we took the 8 tram home showered/washed our feet (so sore!) and went to bed... it was such a busy day!

wrapped up in a blanket, red wine buzz kickin' in

day 2: market day, sunday
- woke up at 4:30am from the jetlag and listened to the sounds of the market getting set up until about 7
- woke up again to the alarm at 10, got ready and ate breakfast with caryn... learned italian words off our cereal box. (cat = micio, dog = cagnolino, rabit = coniglietto, swan = cigne, indian = indiano, man = omino)
- went down to the market with kari and caryn, it was way bigger than we were expecting... we never found the end! we managed to find me a purse as well as 5 scarves for caryn and i, a necklace for caryn, and 2 magnets for our apartment next year. it was incredible the variety of stuff you could buy: rusty powertools to pearl necklaces to shoes to antique furniture, all crammed next to each other in no apparent order. after 2 hours we were exhausted
- made scrambled eggs (the only food we have, other than cereal) with caryn and showed greg around our apt via skype
- wandered down our street all the way to the tiber in search of a grocery store that was open, to no avail. fortunately, caryn and i got a bunch of cool pictures and more gelato so it wasn't a total loss
- siesta for the rest of the afternoon during our first italian thunderstorm: doing the dishes, uploading pictures to facebook, skyping, napping, "reading for class" (but really doing anything but)... and i finally booked my hostel in spain!
- meeting with tobin craig to go over some house-keeping and touch base
- dinner with david, caryn, joe, dylan and kari at a cafe we found down the street closer to the river. i had my first calzone and it was absolutely to die for.

the view behind me

i'm sitting on our balcony, preparing to do my reading for class, because it is at least 10 degrees cooler out here... the shower in our apartment is bizarre and i just managed to create quite an impressive pool on the floor and soak all my clothes, ah well, i can still chalk it up to culture shock... or jet lag. hopefully i'll sleep much better tonight. i forced myself to be active and outside in the sun as much as possible and ate meals at regular intervals - all the tried and true cures. it's just so frustrating that, despite the lovely red wine buzz i have from dinner, i still feel wide awake. perhaps a couple hours of reading will solve that for me, we have a long day of italy orientation tomorrow with ACCENT (a couple days late if you ask me!) then caryn and i need to figure out our phones, possibly the trains, and we absolutely need to find an open grocery store! our current diet of eggs and cereal is going to get old very quickly. it will be a busy day indeed... then classes start , but i'm ignoring that for now.

not so usual

normally i will count the days in a more logical manner, however day 1 actually spans may 20 and 21 since i haven't actually slept yet and it's too confusing to separate the time zones... so bear with me

day 1: travel

- packed carry on bags, cleaned all the shambles in my room, drove to the airport avec les parents

- texted/skyped krista and greg all the way up to boarding and flew to heathrow

- watched country strong, tangled, black swan and due date on the plane 
(note to self: black swan did freak me out as much as i thought it would, and due date was terrible)

- enjoyed my sandwich and sausage roll out in the london sunshine for about an hour around 8am english time before resigning myself to reading livy's book I in terminal 4 for a few hours. of course delta was super efficient and i was out in the departure area by 7:51 with almost 4 hours to kill before boarding my 12:20 flight... oh joy

- flew to rome

- took a cab to the ACCENT center, checked in successfully... took another cab to the apartments, checked in successfully there and finally got to settle in, shower and see caryn!

- dinner and drinks and gelato with our sophomore group (caryn, me, mike, kari, brandon, joe, david, amanda, brad)... somehow we managed to completely mess up the dinner bill, i guess that's what happens when you put a bunch of us madison people together in a foreign city...

i'm so happy to finally be here! it still hasn't quite hit me that i am in rome, living in an apartment, for the next three weeks. i feel completely disoriented so i know i will want to be spending the next few days finding my way around the city, not reading for class! ah well, it's only livy. our apartments are quite a bit further southwest of all the main attractions of the city (including our classrooms) so i'm sure i will be figuring out the buses and trams very quickly. it's so weird to hear the sounds of the city through our little balcony window. tomorrow there is a huge market held just outside, i can't wait to start our adventures for the day there! unfortunately my purse broke as soon as i got to rome so i'll need to be on the lookout for a new one (my first souvenir!) quite soon. i can't believe i've only been here for about 6 hours... it seems like forever, but i'm definitely still in shock... can this all really be happening? only time will tell i guess...
à bientôt! (yes i know that's the wrong language, it's a constant struggle)

same old thing, same situation

twelve days from now, this will be my summer travels blog... i'm just so excited i couldn't wait another day to set it up. i conceptualized this blog as daily list of everything i do. it's worked out well in the past and i know i'll be too busy to get too creative... so we'll see how this goes.
i can't wait to go back to rome. it blows my mind that nearly 8 years ago i threw my coin into the trevi fountain and, as the myth suggests, here i am... about to return. life is pretty magical, if you ask me.
and then of course there's florence. and venice and pisa and milan and wherever else we decide to go... and england. and provence. it's going to be quite the summer, so stay tuned.