gli ultimi giorni

Gli ultimi giorni- the last days- were so bittersweet. Mostly surreal, though. It didn't seem real! So the second my finals were over, I stepped out of the "security"-guarded doorway of the Guarini campus of JCU and didn't wave bye-bye. It was sort of raining (huge surprise..) so beneath my off-toned rainbow umbrella I slipped and sloshed through the slick, black, uneven cobblestone streets of Trastevere as the chilly rain ran down the burnt orange and brown buildings and kept everyone drinking their morning caffé indoors at Café Settimana across the narrow street from school. So instead of crossing the flooded Tevere over Ponte Garibaldi, I opted for Ponte Sisto, right across from Piazza Trilussa
Wandered through the backroads of the Jewish Ghetto, up behind a very soggy Campo de' Fiori, up Corso, through the Pantheon neighborhood.. just kind of saying bye, I guess? It felt more like a routine walk, though. Around 13,00 I went back to school so that Julianna and Mary Beth and I could go eat our way through the menú at Carlo Mento vicino a scuola. So a menu' italiano is a set four-course menu where you only get to pick between a few options for each course. Menu' typically cost between 10-15E , so for four courses......cheap. So this is what I ate: antipasto was a typical crostino with basilico and tomato. For my primo, I chose the Penne Carlo Mento, which ended up being really good. I also ended up eating about a third of Julianna's spaghetti alla carbonara (egg-cheese sauce, specialtá romana, kind of incredible when done right). My secondo was saltimbocca enveloped in pancetta [veal cutlet] and some greens, and per il dolce we all got the torta della casa, a custardy-puddingy vanilla almond tart with pinoli (pine nuts)- also really really Roman in its ingredients and flavor. So this plus vino and caffé- awesome! It didn't end there, though. Later that day I met Nathan for dinner and we went to Luzzi, my old standby FAVE. Cheap and oh so Roman, with outdoor seating even in this cold (thanks, heating lamps!)

A few days earlier I had gone to the Baths of Caracalla, which is significant because I wrote my Ancient Roma term paper on them, so I figured that I should see them at some point. They're on the south end of the city right near Circo Massimo and though they're ruins and have been stripped of all mosaics, purple/yellow Numidian/blue/green exotic marbles, some parts of it are relatively intact. So it was pretty sweet to see the structure itself.
The next day was all about exploring and wandering and just seeing what I found to say bye to. I ended up making not one, but TWO new discoveries (just in time to leave? more reason to hurry back!!!) one being a new gelateria, del Teatro, which was a little pricey but oh-so-hole in the wall with a cool selection of flavors. Pera al caramello.. tartufo..etc.. then I went to Giolitti, which after 4 months, I've realized is my Happy Place in Roma. Figures. My second discovery happened when I wandered into my favorite vintage store- usually I just look around and rummage through the packed shop-- 1970s Burberry raincoats, leather purses, dresses, shoes, belts, sunglasses, boots.. all perfectly organized but somehow there is still only room for you and the shopkeeper in the entire store. So I ended up finding the perfect pair of brown leather boots (already sort of broken in!) and knocked 20E off the starting price!

That evening was the evening of a nightwalk- MB and I stopped at each of the major tourist sites/monuments one last time. The funny part about the tourist traps is that italiani hang out there, too. They're not Mona Lisas that only tourists parade past- they're living, breathing piazze and fountains where people hang out and meet friends.

Saturday, our last day, brought shopping and lots of gelato- and the Vatican Christmas tree lighting ceremony. This year's tree is a realllllllllly tall Austrian fir donated by some diocese-equivalent in southern Austria, and after the Vaticano is done with it, it'll be made into furniture and children's toys. It's lit, now, though, and on Christmas eve they uncovered the nativity scene that sits in front of it in the middle of piazza san Pietro. That night, a group of us went to piazza san Pietro and just stared up at the starry sky (in what other city in the world do you get stars???!) and soaked in Roma. Roma nostra. What an incredible place. It begs to be returned to--- and I'm guaranteed to now:

Austria: no kangaroos

After much procrastination and no updating on it... Thanksgiving weekend was Austrian!

Jessie and I took an overnighter to Innsbruck on Wednesday, milking our loong weekend. Innsbruck is STUNNING. The Alps there have to be the 100% best I've seen so far. It's kind of funny-- I've seen the Alps 5 or 6 times this semester, yet it NEVER gets old. They are so beautiful. Stepping on the platform and seeing these bright blue, spiky white-covered peaks (especially snowy because, hi, Austria is cold and snowy) was nothing short of surreal. Ethereal beauty. Somehow the spiky peaks stretched on into the horizon and honestly, I felt like I had stepped into a Christmas card. On the way to Innsbruck we had looked out the window and seen a thick blanket of SNOW covering the ground, but breathing the icy air and seeing those gorgeous Alps made it so much more real. I fell in love with Innsbruck on first sight, which had only happened with Italia and Ukraina so far in my life. Stunning.

After a brief stint in Innsbruck, we took a train to Salzburg, which is a few hours away. That train ride was mostly filled with frantic picture-taking and extreme (probably extremely annoying) enthusiasm from my end. I can't even imagine what the commuters on the train thought of me and my huge camera snapping away from inside the train. I couldn't help it! Austria is just that gorgeous. And snowy. That was a first.

We arrived in Salzburg on Thanksgiving, settled into our hostel and decided that we were starving, so we set out to find a café or something. Instead we found an open-air market (so typical of Europe) and Jessie bought real apfelstrudel and I got this incredible bananoshoken kuchen thing.. basically a chocolate cake topped with a thick banana cream and then a layer of chocolate. Sooooooo good. Instead of going on a touristy Sound of Music tour that would have cost us 40 euros eaach, we decided to go see the Mozart house, which is the very house in which Wolfgang Amadeus composed and lived as a child and into his early adulthood. The house is really cool because it's a museum with lots of listening exhibits, so you listen to a lot of beautiful arrangements of Mozart's countless works. Very cool. Salzburg is a very charming city- the river cuts through it and it's just very picturesque and clean. Definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. While we were visiting Mirabell Palace (where Mozart played) we saw signs for a private concert happening that evening and decided to spend money on a concert we couldn't really afford or dress appropriately for. The concert was some lady in her 30s on the violin. Apparently she's first chair in the national orchestra, no big. Needless to say, Mirabell Palace is possibly the best place to experience something like a private violin concert accompanied by a pianist who wasn't so bad herself. It was awesome. Went back totally thrilled (and freeeeeezing). Earlier we had eaten Thanksgiving dinner at an Austrian restaurant-- bratwurst, sauerkraut, and potatoes...

The next day we explored more of Salzburg, climbed to a lookout point of the city (conveniently located just near the abbey where the Sound of Music nuns actually lived!!) and I photographed a stunning overlook of Salzburg and the surrounding Alps. There aren't even words. Caught a train to Vienna, which again was an incredibly scenic ride-- snow and hills and Alps and sheep and houses and more houses and fields.. overall I'd say it was a little less hilly and Alp-y than the ride from Innsbruck to Salzburg, but duh- look at a topographical map and you shall see your answer pretty easily. It's northeastern end of the Alps' range.
So we got to Vienna. This was a few action-packed days. We saw so much! Most importantly, however, we partook in the (horribly expensive but worth it) Viennese café culture. The Viennese have always been very big on sitting in a gilded, mirrored, ornate café for hours on end with their coffee and a newspaper. In fact, people have been known to write entire books in these cafés, and entire pieces of music. Just like that. No big. A lot of them are pretty historic and um, GORGEOUS, too. With the most fabulous cakes and pastries you have ever seen in your life, except for maybe those in France. The first thing we did in Vienna was walk down their main street (bundled up, whoa) and find Demel, a really really famous café/pasticceria known for their cakes. YESSSSSSSS. So we devoured this chocolate mousse layer cake, which was actually one of the richest things I've ever eaten. This mousse wasn't your typical American mousse. It was pretty dense for a mousse and you could practically taste the chocolate dust melting in your mouth through the fluffy heavy cream-- it was also relatively solid for a mousse. Very, very, very rich- and I almost didn't finish mine (anyone who knows my eating habits should be impressed). We walked around a lot, saw the Christmas lights, found the main Christkindlemarket, and just fell in love with romantic Wien.

The next morning we woke up and headed toward Haus der Musik, a music museum! It was great! I composed my own Viennese waltz and Jessie conducted a virtual orchestra in a Mozart piece, and we both listened to a ton of exhibits on the physics/science aspects of sound and music and also saw exhibits/heard works by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Haydn, Handel... just great. It kept the Mozart theme going in our weekend. Vienna was really all about cake, coffee, Mozart, music, Alps, and.........Christkindlemarkets! Onward..

Christkindlemarket. AWESOME. Think a huuuge market with tons of booths, like hundreds, all selling ornaments, scarves, mulled wine, bier steins, statuettes, jewelery, and any Christmas-related thing you could ever imagine or want. But not tacky stuff- all handmade, gorgeous, Austrian. The colors and sounds and smells just made it the kind of place that you could hang out in for days- and we kind of did. The food was quite excellent there-- lots of sausages and apple desserts, mulled wine, punsch, popcorn, candied nuts, strange Austrian pastries, chocolate-covered bananas, strawberries, cookies, etc etc etc.. anything excellent and tasty and probably terrible for you. YAY! I ended up buying a few presents and eating a lot of food there. And photographing it to death!

SUNDAY- sooooooo we were in Vienna, right? Mmm.. what else is in Vienna other than Mozart and cake and markets? Oh, right- the VIENNA BOYS CHOIR. We found out that they sing at this one mass at the Hofburg Palace on Sundays, ended up going, and experienced the wonder that is this small choir of perfect-sounding voices. Somehow I never realized that little boys' voices were so pure and gorgeous, but yea. It was really cool! And they were all so cute. We kind of explored, walked around, ate the rest of the day... and then hopped on our overnighter back to Roma... I shared my carrozza with a family of 5 from Bologna- they were really sweet and we talked for a long time about Italia and the semester and Roma and all kinds of stuff. Their kids were great- Elena, Andrea, and Gaia- and the parents so nice. It was nice not to end this trip with sketchball creepsters :)

over 100 years

That's what il Corriere della Sera (the main italian newspaper) says, anyway. It's been over 100 years since the Tevere flooded this much. One Roman woman exclaimed yesterday that she'd lived in Roma for over 60 years and had never seen anything like it! So there you go. Today they had cranes and rescue boats in the river, and unsurprisingly, gli italiani were gawking like I've never seen people gawk before. Hilarious. LOOK HOW HIGH IT IS!!! This is crazy.
This city holds such a charm- it's so disorganized and old and layered. It's chaotic and people make their own rules, but at the same time they defer to anyone wearing a uniform (be it a caribiniero or a maid) and care very much about tradition and decorum. No one would dare step out of the house in anything less than their very best clothes, and their world is about appreciating beauty-- art, ancient remains of their golden ages of the Republic and the Empire, really excellent boots, girls in their 20s, the dark brown foam that sits atop un caffé at their favorite bar (mine is Sant'Eustachio) and the pleasure that is sitting at dinner for 4-5 hours starting at 8pm with friends. Romans are 100% crazy and out of their minds, but there is something about the city, the people that inhabit it. The fact that it's a city that doesn't take itself too seriously. They would never identify themselves as italiani- they are romani, just as the people of the north are milanesi, di Milano, or fiorentini, di Firenze. So on that note of total sap/me pretending to be a travel writer, I give you a picture of the Flavian Amphitheater [Colosseo, Colosseum], because I haven't given you nearly enough yet..

so.... Roma is flooding

Like, seriously. The Tevere (Tiber) is way high, and I hear that parts of Trastevere are under water. A barco (tourism boat) totally broke away from its dock near Ponte Cavour and flowed with the rushing waters left behind by the nearly-incessant winter rainy season thanks to the Mediterranean. This barco ended up smashed against Ponte Sant'Angelo. Like so:



I'm not sure when the Tevere last flooded like this. Most likely it was a very, very long time ago-- I say this partly because of the fascination of the locals. ALL day there were hoards of italiani with their chic little high-tech telefonini (of course they had cameras in them, duh) snapping away and creating photographic evidence of this CRAZY event. It was nothing short of hilarious. I love italiani- such a strange breed, but ever so endearing. The river is flooding! The river is flooding! Text Giuseppe! Call Gaia! Tell Francesca! Che peccato, ma eccolo! Interessante, fantastico, che spettacolo! Oh, Rome..

Recently lots has been going on in light of finals and whatnot. But that stuff is boring-- the important thing is that JCU is a thing of the past (good.). But this past Sunday before finals Msgr. Wells, my theology professor//Vatican big shot (perhaps the first American pope?) took our class and the arkies (so about 60ish people, give or take) on the traditional pilgrimage 7-church walk. The list-

• San Pietro in Vaticano
• San Paolo fuori le mura
• San Giovanni in Laterano
• Santa Maria Maggiore
• Santa Croce in Gerusalemme
• San Lorenzo fuori le Mura
• Santuario della Madonna del Divino Amore

So we hit all those churches (walking) plus two more. If you are at all familiar with Roma, you'll notice that San Paolo fuori le mura-- St. Paul's outside the walls [Roman CITY walls]-- and San Pietro are very far apart from one another. We started the day at 7 am in St. Peters (the only people there, yay ND) and headed from there to Santa Maria Maggiore, then to San Paolo [pictured], then along Via Appia outside the city to San Lorenzo and Santuario della Madonna, then to San Giovanni in Laterano, then across the street to Santa Croce. Whew. 12+ miles of walking. We were on our feet from about 7 am until 4pm. It was pretty cool, though, because all that walking led to a number of really great conversations, plus the weather was wonderful (no rain !!!) and the skies that Roman blue. We stopped for lunch and to hang out somewhere on Via Appia, which is just Lazio paradise-- cyprus trees and grass and old hunks of rock everywhere. Overall a great day, one during which tons of awesome talks were talked and pictures taken. One of my faves-- I love walking, and I especially love walking around Roma, quite possibly one of the most gorgeous and colorful places in the world.

In other news: I found another GREAT gelateria today. Gelateria del Teatro on via dei Coronari, near Navona. Also, I was introduced by Nathan to the best coffee in all of Roma, quite conveniently located near the arkie studio. And the Pantheon. Definitely the best coffee I've ever had in my entire life- including that of Vienna and Ljubljana. In addition, be prepared for the Eurotrash wardrobe that is coming home with me. Trends I've noticed over the past 4 months a Roma:
1) really really REALLY tight pants on both guys and girls
2) man purses (bonus points for Louis Vuitton)
3) Dolce&Gabbana everything
4) colored tights
5) fur
6) boots of all sizes, shapes, colors, materials-- just NO stilettos ( the cobblestones limit that one)


Oh, yea- and one more interesting thing going on. CHRISTMAS STUFF. Here is the Vatican getting ready for Christmas:
A presto! Un bacio~ K

gelato

Two really excellent gelato combinations:

(1) arancia//mirtillo//yogurt [orange, blueberry, yogurt] Somehow orange and blueberry are actually a really really really amazing (yes, unexpected) combo. Excellent.

(2) gianduia//fondente//ciocc. bianco [chocolate-hazelnut, dark chocolate, white chocolate] I guess this one isn't too creative, but still- the flavors si sposano bene.


Finals are stupid.

Austrian Tour 2008

..was really fun! update soon. Coffee, cake, Mozart, and Sacher. !!!

parlami d'amore (di Roma)

Sono innamorata di Roma. Like, hardcore. I just bought the most GORGEOUS pair of flat black suede boots, knee high. I LOVE THEM. A LOT. They're GORGEOUS. Aaaaand on this rainy Friday morning in Roma, Jessie and I were boot shopping on via Candia and the shopkeeper asked us se siete spagnoli. Abbiamo risposto noo, siamo degli Stati Uniti, ma studiamo qui a Roma. To which she asked aaahh! Studiate all'Erasmus, alla Sapienza? And then asked if we were staying for the whole year. My heart literally dropped and a little sad, no, torniamo agli Stati Uniti fra una settimana... AHH. WHY.

I love Roma, I love it. I love Roma.