photo update

I am getting ready to leave for Paris early tomorrow morning, so I figured I'd make room on the camera for lots of pictures. Here are a few I took at the Marino Wine Festival a few weeks ago. It was a good time, as you can imagine, lots of cheap wine (it even flowed from the fountain) and delicious roast pork sandwiches.


This is a view from Marino, the town that the festival was in.


This is from a procession of people in Medieval costumes, I think they were celebrating a military victory that had something to do with Marino.

This is a shot of some of the townsfolk hanging out and checking out the crowd from their windows.

And finally, a shot of the fountain which later dispensed free wine to a somewhat rowdy crowd.

The festival was a lot of fun, there was lots of cheap street food (did I mention the pork sandwich?) and general merriment, as you would expect at a wine festival.

I will be back from Paris on Friday and will hopefully have tons more pictures and maybe some stories to tell too.

a brief hiatus

I haven't posted in a while, between being busy and poor internet connections, I have not really had a chance to update. I have been up to a lot the past week. Lindy came to visit on Tuesday and of course wanted to see everything in Rome. We went around to basically all the major sites. I finally got to the Vatican Museums and saw the Sistine Chapel, that was pretty amazing. We also went to the Colosseum, Capitoline Hill Museum and a bunch of other places. It was a lot of fun, I am so glad they came.

It was a little tiring though :) My legs are kind of sore. Now I have some midterms to take care of, but I leave for Paris in less than a week, I am really excited.

I also have a few pictures from this wine festival I went to last weekend, that was a good time. I will try to get those up too. Maybe Lindy will send me some pictures from her visit and I will put them up too.

back on track

So, this past week has been a bit hectic. This weekend my wallet was stolen, so I had to take care of canceling my cards that I stupidly was carrying around. I was ready to move on when I realized that I was carrying this important document in my wallet that says I can live in Italy that you are supposed to carry at all times. So I talked to some people at Temple and they told me I had to go to the police station and report it.

So after I finished printmaking, I got back at around 8:00 pm and went searching for the police station with a few friends. We had to ask so many people how to get there, and no one knew where it was. After an hour we finally found it. The place was on this weird side street, and it was a little scary looking, but the dudes were nice even though they didn't really speak english. My italian teacher wrote me up a little something to say and I just had to fill out a form.

So now I can move on!

more pictures

I put up more of my pictures on this facebook thing the kids these days seem to enjoy. If you click this link you can see them.

http://brynmawr.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016600&l=22c26&id=10301726

Saturday adventure

Yesterday I had planned to go to the Vatican with a friend. We walked over but the line to get in was ridiculous, so we scrapped that plan. Instead, we just walked around the city all day and I got to take a bunch of pictures. I won't put a ton here, but I'll get them up eventually.


After the Vatican rejected us, we took the short walk over to the Pantheon and went inside, not too shabby.


After that, we went over to the Campo del Fiori and got delicious falafel sandwiches. I love pizza, but man, variety is the spice of life.

With our bellies full we walked over to the Torre Argentina, these ruins that they turned into a cat shelter. Here is a little kitty that was just hanging out.


Then we went to the old Jewish ghetto, in search of pastries that were supposed to be good, but of course we arrived around 2:00 which is when stores shut down for an afternoon break.

So we walked down toward the Coliseum and walked up the Capitoline Hill and took a quick look at the Forum, you could even see the Coliseum.

Near the Capitoline Hill museum is the Victor Emmanuel memorial which a lot of Romans call "the wedding cake" since it's this kind of over-the-top huge white building. You get a nice view from the top.

Then we wrapped up our day by going over to that god-forsaken Trevi fountain that I can never find. Near there is this great gelato place, supposedly the best in Rome. The honey-cream was delicious. Here's a shot of the fountain:



I will get the rest of my pictures up somewhere soon!

my camera works!

Today was a pretty productive day, but I still have tons to do this weekend! I don't have class on Fridays, but today I had to meet my printmaking class at the Istituto Nazionale della Grafica. Our professor told us it was close to the Trevi Fountain, which is a pretty major landmark. It should be really easy to get there, but I tried to find it earlier with a friend and it took us forever to find it despite the signs on every street corner. Today I figured I'd have no trouble since I have been there plenty of times by now. I left myself plenty of time just in case, but of course I got incredibly lost! I started to panic since I was running out of time and had to ask all these police officers, nuns, and souvenir store workers how to get there. I finally found it but was 15 min late. I felt really bad, but I still saw some really awesome prints so that was good, and I don't think my professor was too upset. Afterwards, I was a little worn out so I stopped at McDonald's to get fries and a coke. This McDonald's was so intense. It was huge and had a coffee bar with pastries and everything, a gelato area, and then a long corridor leads you to the hamburger area. The fries were really delicious, I think they are higher quality than what you would find in the US.

After that mission, I went to this specialty store called Castroni and got brown rice, since that is hard to find. That store sells different "ethnic foods" other than Italian because you can't buy stuff like peanut butter in normal stores.

AND, I got a new memory card for the camera, so now it works! I am going to the Vatican tomorrow so I will take lots of cool pictures but for now here are a few from around my apartment.

This is the view from my balcony, very glamorous, I know.

This is my crappy kitchen, you have to light the burners on the stove manually.

And finally, a view of our lovely bathroom. I am still not used to the weird toilet. Also, we have a bidet. I haven't tried it but I have heard from others that they don't work.

I'll definitely be putting up more!

feeling better

On Friday I started getting sick. Inconveniently, this was the day of my drawing classes trip to the town of Tuscania. Thinking it would make me feel better, I chugged several glasses of water before a 2 hour bus ride through the hilly, bumpy countryside. That started the day very uncomfortably. The place was beautiful though so even though I wasn't feeling well I got a few good drawings done.

For the rest of the weekend I kind of just lazed around since I was sick, but I had to spend hours working on my first project for my printmaking class. It was pretty difficult, but we had our first critique yesterday and I think my print was relatively well-received.

Tomorrow for my drawing class I am going to the Coliseum. Every week we meet in a different place in Rome and just sit and draw, it is a pretty mellow class. The only bad part is that I have to get up really early.

People are starting to plan for fall break in October and I think I am going to end up visiting Paris for a few days. A lot of people are doing intense traveling every weekend, but I'm not really big on that, it takes a lot of energy! This weekend I will probably just hang out in Rome and try to see some cool sights. I haven't really done much of that yet. I might go to the Vatican again since I got turned away or check out the beach?

Now I gotta go to class...