rome alone

the end is near. last thursday was the last day of our program, and i had to say goodbye to all the amazing people i've met the past four months. sadly, some of my favorites i barely met until this week. in the middle of the night in between thursday and friday we were all lying on the steps of the pantheon reflecting and reminiscing about all of the life changing experiences and blah blah blah we've been having this whole time. a group of americans about our age leaned over and said "is this your last night in rome? it's our first night in rome." there was a period of pensive silence and slight eyebrow raises on our parts when they said "what is this place?" in unison our entire group responded "the pantheon." the said "do you know anything about it?" we said no and then proceeded to list off random facts about it for ten minutes. turns out we've learned more than any of us thought. it was a very surreal feeling, and i wish that night and that last week could have lasted forever.

well everyone went home early friday morning, so i am now alone in a hotel in mounti tiburtini (i.e. bumblefuck) and lauren left early this morning. hence my name for this chapter in my trip/life—rome alone. everyone seems to be very worried that i will somehow spontaneously combust from living alone for several days. (and by everyone, i mean mom and dad.) in reality, i feel fine and confident. i've been journeying on night busses alone since the second week i got here, and my italian is good enough to not have to rely on any other nearby english speakers. i've basically just been rome-ing (ha) the city eating, shopping, listening to music, etc. for a while now, and i will continue for the last few days. a couple days ago lauren and i rented bikes in piazza del popolo, rode through villa borghese, and accidentally snuck into the zoo. i have at times been mocked for the amount of zoos i have been to, so i thought i'd go full out and add rome to my list. 

i miss everyone at home, but right now i can't shake the feeling of wishing my roman friends were still here and that i could bring them all home with me. some of the best relationships of my life have to be reduced to facebooking and i.m.ing and it's just not as real. but i'm still having a fabulous time, and i'm so glad i stayed.

back in roma

this weekend in lieu of capri i decided to stay in rome and enjoy my home base for a little while before i go back to reality and michael's. on thursday i did something scarier than skydiving—bike-riding! now you may be thinking, "hey hallie, you don't know how to ride a bike. your mom tried to teach you this summer by holding onto the back of your seat but you can't go on hills or near people or cars and you still fall down all the time and need a helmet." well, you were right. but instead of italian class the fabulous gitti promised us a nice, pleasant, slow ride through villa borghese. this sounded like something i might be able to handle, so i reluctantly agreed. we met in piazza del popolo, one of my favorite piazzas, and surprise! instead of riding into the giant park adjacent to it, we followed gitti through traffic for 15 minutes and joined the romans in their crazy, reckless driving. terrifying. i almost hit about ten cars because i have a hard time stopping, and almost got hit by ten cars because i have a hard time going. soon we were on the other side of the bridge and on a nice bike path that followed the river. much more my pace. we visited the ponte malvio where the bridge is covered in locks with initials engraved on them by love-struck teenagers who throw the keys into the tiber and then have an awkward, permanent memento for when they break up. of course our class partook in this tradition, engraving something along the lines of "italian 150 gitti forever" on a lock and throwing the key into the depths (or rather shallows) below. we continued our journey by carrying our bikes up some stairs and onto a path with giant signs that had an X over a picture of a person on a bike...i figured if any trouble arose i could just say i didn't understand the sign because i don't speak italian. we rode for an hour (real time) into the southern suburbs of rome. the landscapes we were passing were country club, trailer park, country club, trailer park, and on and on. we finally took a break at one of the country clubs where the owner leant us some clubs and balls for free and we golfed at the driving range. it was super fun, and really kind of weird. i took pictures to remind myself that it happened, because it seemed like something i could dismiss as a dream in later years. on our sore asses we rode for another hour back into the city and this time hit rush hour, which was actually much easier because by then i was a regular lance armstrong. all and all, this was an amazing day, and thanks to the wonderful support of my classmates, and the ruthless mocking and teasing from ethan who rode the entire journey with no hands, i can now ride a bike, even up and down hills!

on friday i took a day trip to cosa, argentario, and the giardino dei tarocchi. it was an early wake-up call, but very worth it. cosa was very beautiful, but pretty boring. it was basically just some ruins on top of a hill (blah) but then we went to the beach for a little while which was very fun and relaxing, and i took a much needed nap after some much needed ice cream in the sand. afterwards we bused it up to the giardino, which is this amazing olive grove with modern art installations. it was kind of similar to gaudi's park guell in barcelona, both very interactive and happy. you can walk on everything and climb everything and sit and lay on all of the benches and sculptures, which is a refreshing change from all the untouchable berninis. it's really hard to explain this place. i suggest you google image it. here's the name again for you to copy and paste. Giardino dei Tarocchi. after returning to rome i had an unbelievable dinner at tom's cooked by him, ethan, and roomie scott. fried eggplant, asparagus and mushroom risotto, and spaghetti amatriciana. one of my best meals here, so props boys. we then went to a club in trastevere which i'm pretty sure was a gay bar. whatever. good drinks, good dancing, and good night. 

saturday i slept until 2. it was awesome.

whoops

so, i was just lounging around on the balcony enjoying the beautiful weather that has just graced me with its presence when i realized, oh yeah, i have a blog, and i haven't written on it for more than a month. if you happen to be anxiously checking for new posts daily, then i apologize, although i assume this hiatus has gone unnoticed since no one has mentioned anything. thanks guys. anyways, i'm going to recap my recent travels for myself, since my proofreading seems to be the only action this blog gets. 

amsterdam:

the first thing i heard upon my arrival to the airport was a girl say in complete seriousness, "ohmygod, we're in the dam. truesies!!" this was a sour start to a sweet weekend. by the time we got back to rachael and marin's empty apartment that they were loaning us it was a million o'clock, so we decided to go to sleep and start fresh the next morning. (when i say "we" in amsterdam, i mean lauren, handlerpants, and myself.) our first stop in the morning even before breakfast was (overt your eyes if you're old) greenhouse, the best "coffee shop" in all of the dam. truesies. highlights of this lovely breakfast joint (pun intended) include the fish tank floor, the countless pictures of 50 cent and woody harrelson's frequent visits, and roy, the scandinavian skinny bald man sitting across from us who joined me in enjoying two back-to-back chocolate milkshakes before noon. (i had four the first day. i don't even wanna count the whole weekend.) the rest of the day consisted of wandering around and stumbling into more coffee shops, one of which was playing "The Hills" in dutch, so obviously since this place was meant specifically for us we were forced to stay awhile and have some chocolate milkshakes. the whole weekend was pretty much this same pattern of walking, sitting, and chocolate milkshakes, with some prostitutes, pancakes, and anne frank houses thrown in. while we may not have done much, it didn't really matter. amsterdam is just one of those places where you can feel the culture soaking into your skin. the people were so different there. i love rome to death but there are always so many people looking at me and judging me and after a while it gets exhausting. but this was different. everyone is just doing their own thing, but if you cross paths with someone they are so excited to meet you and talk to you or help you with directions. everyone rides bikes with little babies in baskets at the front, and multicolored boats grace the canals that flow through the city. i thought that things would be seedy here, and that it would just be a mess of fucked up people buying prostitutes, but it wasn't. it was the most quaint, beautiful place i've ever been to, and i've been fantasizing lately about someday living there, raising a family, and riding a bicycle with a baby in it, (if i ever master the difficult skill of bike riding without mom holding onto the back of my seat). despite my growing love for so many european cities, amsterdam was the only other place besides rome that i could see myself studying abroad in and being happy. a month later and i still miss that chill and inviting attitude that everyone i met shared. then again, they could have all just been high...

siena:

one of the perks of this semi-crappy program that i'm on is that they take you on two free vacations. the first was the first 3 days of my trip traveling around umbria, and the second was to a destination of our choice. i choice siena, along with my friends from the program. siena is a tiny village in tuscany famous for it's unbelievable hillside views, horse races, and wine. most of my time there was spent wining (not whining), but not in an alcoholic kind of way. i went to an unbelievable wine tasting at a vineyard outside of the city where after two sips i realized that the reason i didn't like red wine was because i've been drinking crappy red wine. i now prefer it times a thousand to white. it is so full of flavor and life. i got a couple of bottles that were made in the basement to send home and drink on special occasions. (i.e. my 21st birthday and graduation.) each bottle was 12.50 euro which seemed a lot for wine in italy, considering we rarely break the 3 euro mark. then i learned that a bottle at a restaurant in the states would be upwards of $250. so, yay! the only good deal in all of italy! there was not a lot to see in the village of siena, (we literally had one hour of touring) but the town square is covered by a constant golden glow, and so it was really lovely to simply wine and dine all day. both nights we went to a fantastic little pub where i got to practice my italian out on the local boys. saturday night of this trip was the first time i realized how much i've learned. with a few glasses of fabulous siena wine that lead to a little boost in confidence, it got significantly easier to speak italian. instead of holding back and getting nervous that i would butcher such a romantic language, i let the conversation flow as easily as the liquor, and wound up speaking italian for a few hours straight without a word of english. anyone in gitti's italian class up for pre-gaming before our final? 

cinque terra:

the following weekend lauren and i hijacked the florence girls (rachel, becca, and becca's friends—oh and adam who is not a girl) and going to cinque terra for the day. it was quite possibly the most beautiful place i have ever been to. the city is actually 5 tiny towns set on 5 hills that stretch along the northern coast of italy. the only thing to do there is hike, so we did. the hike was 5 hours long, but i did it without passing out or complaining for more than a few minutes! rachel did it in flip flops! we were shocked and proudened (that should be a word) by our master endurance. (lauren and adam did it too but we knew that they could from the start so it was less exciting.) becca and co were lazy and laid on the beach. highlight of the hike: a lemonade stand where we drank lemonade from lemons literally picked off of the tree in the stand. we also ate the peels which for some reason you can eat there and they taste like those lemon shaped gel candies you eat at passover. (or all year round for me.) 

corfu:

after only 36 hours of traveling by train, bus, cruise, and bus again, i arrived in corfu with lauren, becca, and all of becca's friends. corfu is a beautiful island off the coast of greece with absolutely nothing to do but lie on the beach all day. now i loved corfu and thought it was spectacularly gorgeous, but this trip was really not my style. it was a schlep and a half to get there and back, and both schleps (and their halves) were filled with drunken, screaming, naked people throwing up and making out. woo, spring break! despite this, we managed to have a great time. becca and i turned the toga party upside down by not wearing togas (we weren't making a statement, we were just lazy and wanted to dance without our sheets falling down). since we felt we needed some special costume, we somehow ended up wearing my underwear as headbands. (i'm not sure how this deal was arranged, but it was embarrassingly done dead sober.) anyways, we looked amazing and danced like people snorting adderall. (pictures of out "moves" can be seen via facebook.) lying on the beach and dancing were pretty much the only things we did in corfu. oh, and we ate a lot of toblerones. 

anywho, it's good to be back after so much time spent away from rome. i missed this city and i never get sick of walking around it having nothing to do. this weekend, maybe capri? ok, i'm out.