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.
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