Goal!!!

If anyone followed my twitter feed, which can be found on the right hand side, you would know where I was today.

Today, I was able to experience my first (real) professional soccer(football) game. AS Roma vs. Siena, at the Rome Olympic Stadium. It was truly an experience.

We’ve been trying to go to a game since we got here, but getting your hands on tickets isn’t always the easiest. To get tickets you can go to certain AS Roma official stores, and buy them there. You have to bring some sort of ID with you, and your name gets put on the ticket to be verified at the gate when you enter. Some games though, the more popular ones, are for Lazio (the region Rome is in) residents only. So for the first two games we tried to buy tickets for, this was the case.

There must be a big difference in the attendance of those games versus the ones open to anyone, because the stadium, which holds about 80,000 fans, was only about half full today. When I say half full I don’t mean that there are people spread out all over the stadium. Fans are mostly packed into the two end zones, which also happen to be where the cheapest tickets are (only 15 euro for our tickets). We were in the north end zone, which is the quieter of the two, though there was nothing quiet about it. We had great seats though, 11 rows up right behind the goal. Normally people like to watch a soccer game from the side, because you get a better view and can tell depth of field. Seeing that I spent most of my soccer career standing in the 18 yard box as a goal keeper, I’ve developed a good eye for the action going on down field, so our seats didn’t bother me at all, and in fact brought back memories of playing the sport I love.

If when you think of European soccer, you think of crazy fans, you would be absolutely correct. From the minute we came near the stadium until the second we got on the bus to go home, the fans were cheering, whistling, chanting and making all sorts of other noises.

At the beginning of the game, as the AS Roma roster was announced, they all broke out in song, singing what seems to be Rome’s anthem. After this they began to yell and taunt the small group of Siena fans in the section next to us. There were maybe 50 Siena fans at the game. They were surrounded by 20 police officers. As if that wasn’t enough, in-between the sections was a glass partition, complete with heavy-duty dead bolted door between the two sections. It was much like a hockey rink, except instead of keeping fans and players separated, it was keeping fans and fans separated. In the opposite end zone, about a dozen large flags were waved the entire game. There were also flares set off and all sorts of noisemakers. Our end zone had plenty of flags waving as well.

The game was tied at 1 to 1 until the 87th minute when an AS Roma substitute put in the second goal. The fans went crazy. I’ve never seen so much hugging, jumping, cheering and celebrating for a regular season game. It’s as if they had won the world cup. It was an impressive goal, and coming so late in the game was pretty awesome to see, but you could see in the fans a true passion and love for their team and for the sport. When the game ended, they all sang another Rome tribute song, and we were off to find our bus back to the hotel.

I’m ready to go back to my next game. I’ve already got my AS Roma hat and scarf, and hopefully the next game we go to will be a bit warmer, though the energy of the crowd today was enough to keep me warm for all 90 minutes.

Oh so you want to know about the level of play? It was fast, strong, skilled and really some of the most well executed soccer I’ve seen. It’s great to watch athletes who can perform at the highest level of competition. It makes soccer that much more enjoyable when a player can use his head(literally) and place the ball exactly where he wants it.

What's the weather?

I’ve been in Rome for 4 weeks now, and the weather has been far from pleasant the entire trip. I’d say 20 days out of those 4 weeks it has rained, even if only for a short amount of time. Have I talked about the weather yet? I don’t think I have, but I apologize if I have touched upon this subject before, I’m beginning to get my ideas for topics confused with my actual topics I’ve used.

The rain is a bit unpredictable. It will be beautiful out in the morning, blue skies with minimal clouds, and by the time I leave the Vatican office it is raining pretty steadily. Two hours later it will be beautiful out again.

I now live strictly by these guidelines: If it is raining out currently, bring an umbrella; If it is not raining but you think it looks like it will, bring an umbrella; And lastly, if it is not raining, and looks like a beautiful day with no chance of rain, bring an umbrella.

Earlier in my trip I wasn’t adhering to these guidelines and found out the hard way. One of our first weekends here we went to the Coliseum for a tour. Remember all those pictures? Yep, no rain while touring the Coliseum. Afterwards some of us decided to go to Via Del Corso to walk around and maybe go into some stores. Coming out of one of the stores we were faced with torrential downpours. We ran to a café and tried to wait it out. It didn’t stop. Between 4 or 5 of us we had 2 umbrellas, and we dared to make the trip back home after being stuck in the café and surrounding stores for a couple hours. Needless to say I was soaking wet, head to toe.

Another funny thing about rain here is that the second a single drop of rain falls to the ground, the umbrella guys are all over the streets. The umbrella guys are immigrants who sell umbrellas. They stand on one particular part of a street and every person that passes who doesn’t have an umbrella they try to get to buy one. There is an umbrella guy just about every 20 feet, and though they see you refused to buy one from the last 10 salesmen, they will try and push an umbrella on you nonetheless. On a day similar to the one I mentioned above, Nate and I got caught in some rain, and when faced with one of these umbrella guys we decided to buy some umbrellas. He wanted 6 euro for the bigger umbrellas he had. We got him down to 8 euro for 2, so 4 each. Let me warn you, for anyone coming to Rome, these umbrellas are of the lowest quality possible. Nate’s is not completely broken and useless, and mine, though still working, feels flimsy and has had rust on one of the arms since the 2^nd time I used it. So do yourself a favor and buy a real umbrella from a real store.

Through all the rain we have had a few beautiful days here. Days where I was able to walk around in a long sleeve shirt and enjoy the sites. I’ve heard this is their wet season, so we’ll tough it out and hope for better weather in the next two months.

I’ve got some exciting plans for tomorrow, so be sure to check back tomorrow for a post all about that. I think I’ll keep it a secret for now, just to keep you all interested. Lets hope for good weather tomorrow, it would be very beneficial for the plans.

zoom zoom...

I've wanted to talk about the transportation in Rome for a while, and seeing as I've had a few questions about it lately, I'm going to do just that.

I'm going to leave public transportation for another post, because I want to do a bit more research (aka using it more) before I do that post. Even though I haven't used the transportation I'm going to talk about, meaning private modes of transportation, I think I've learned enough to write a solid post.

Private transportation consists of cars and mopeds/scooters/motorcycles. Lets talk about each because they are both equally interesting.

Cars first? A car in Rome is not a car in the United States. Cars in Rome are all what we label "smart cars". Many of them actually are the Smart brand, but they're all the same premise: a very compact car that gets great gas mileage and can be parked just about anywhere. These things can be parked parallel, sideways, backwards, probably even upside-down and they fit into just about any space available. The reason they are so common is because of this ease of parking. Most cars are parked on the side of the streets here in Rome. Since many of the roads are narrow cobblestone side streets, using these tiny cars makes it possible to park on pretty much any street.

The next mode of transportation, and probably Rome's favorite, is the scooter/moped. They are all over, and by all over I mean there are I'd say 5-10 scooters for every car on the road. We have 2 wheeled motorcycles in the US, so what's the big deal? The big deal is how the people drive these things. They are some of the most impatient drivers I have ever seen. When a scooter pulls up to a light, they weave their way to the front of the pack, so to right in front of light. So at every light there is a group of scooters at the front, ready to jump ahead of the cars they just cut off. When the light changes, they take off in a frenzy of high pitched acceleration. As they catch up to the next pack of cars on the road, they weave right through them as well. They will do whatever it takes to keep moving. If it means driving on the wrong side of the road, even on a busy road like the one in front of our hotel, they will do it. Red lights for scooters seem to only be a suggestion, as I have seen more than a few scooters not even hesitate at a red light. The light wasn't just turning red, it had been red for 30 seconds, and the scooters showed no sign of stopping.

I was asked about the price of a gallon of gas in Rome. When I read the question it really stumped me. I realized I had not seen a gas station in my entire time in Rome. Living in the center of the historical part of Rome, there seems to be no gas stations. This is probably because the cars and mopeds get such great gas mileage (or kilomerage? maybe?). So I went searching for a gas station and made an interesting find. First off, gas stations here are are not like gas stations in the States. They are not large structures with multiple pumps, convenience stores attached, but are instead 1 or 2 small pumps on the side of the road. Second, the measurement for buying gas is per liter, considering they don't use the gallon. There are roughly 4 liters in a gallon, and a liter of gas here is from 1 euro to 1.20 euro. Quick conversion makes that about 4 euros a gallon. So you must be feeling pretty good about gas prices? Well consider that these small cars get somewhere between 35 and 55 miles per gallon. The scooters? They average about 70 miles per gallon. Gas Guzzling SUV's are unheard of here. They just aren't practical for the city, though they're not practical for any city including US ones, yet I still see plenty of GMC SUV's in New York and Philly every time. These cars are also much less expensive than cars in the US. Maybe it's their size, or that they aren't being shipped overseas, or a bit of both. Mopeds are even cheaper, a couple thousand euro will get you a shiny new moped.

Time to get to work...

St. Paul Outside-the-Walls... Get used to it, because I'll be talking a lot about it for the next few weeks. My official assignment for my internship will be to help create a video that combines the virtual reality tour footage with additional footage I will take, both photo and video, and mesh it with voice overs about the specific topics. Take for example a specific statue in the courtyard of the Church. As the virtual reality footage pans and centers on the church, the viewer will be introduced by audio to the statue, and given facts about it or a brief history. Basically whatever is interesting about a particular part of the church. This will be accompanied by still images or video I produce to compliment the audio and engage the viewer with the material.

This is the plan at least. I have a meeting tomorrow morning with Villanova Professors and those in charge of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls to go over the logistics of this project, so I'll keep you updated as to when I get started. Until then, enjoy the virtual tour and info on St. Paul Outside-The-Walls:

http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/index_en.html

Welcome to the big show...

Every day a couple thousand people I would suppose walk through St. Peter’s Basilica. Most, if not all of them equipped with still cameras, video cameras, cell phones with cameras, or some other type of visual recording device. They walk around the enormous building snapping photos of every square inch they can see. So what makes a group of students and professors from Villanova University, armed with a bunch of cameras, so special? Two things:

First off, there’s a difference between what the public sees and what we get to see. Anyone walking around St. Peters can see the main altar, look into the apse, walk through some of the small chapels on the sides, and walk down the side of the main corridor. Some areas are blocked off for different reasons, leaving you to take pictures with your zoom lenses and hoping they can get in close enough. With permits in hand, these barricades were not much of an obstacle for us. We were allowed into any part of the Basilica we wanted, except for one chapel that is used for perpetual adoration. Taking cameras in there would disturb the adoration, therefore rendering it non-perpetual I suppose. We were able to enter roped-off areas like the center of the main hall and other closed side corridors. We were also able to go into a chapel closed off to the public, and only used when the Pope says mass with the cardinals. To walk around that chapel was an experience in itself. As people looked on from the iron gate entrance (as close as the public can get to see it), we walked around inside inspecting everything from the ceiling to the wooden benches the cardinals sit in when attending mass there. We were able to get into these different places with the help of a Vatican Security officer.

A little known fact (or at least I didn’t know it), is that while the Swiss Guards protect Vatican City, they do not actually go inside any Vatican buildings or directly protect the pope. The protection of his Holiness is actually a job for the Vatican Security department. There are a handful of select officers who directly protect the pope. Manuelle, our Vatican security officer/escort for the day, is one of these select few. You must be elected by a Cardinal to be considered for the job, which is surely no easy task. Manuelle began serving when he turned 18, which was two years ago. He sees the pope every day and when the Pope is out in public he is with him (Jackie remembers seeing him next to the pope at the Papal Audience). He is not yet old enough, and has not been on the job long enough to travel with the Pope outside of Rome, but after working for ten years he will be able to travel with him. Manuelle had to learn English and Spanish for the job, and it will be his job for the rest of his life if he chooses. He was really awesome guy with a ton of information, who was really helpful the entire day with getting everything done.

The second reason we’re different from the public besides getting into areas no one else has access to is that we show up with a custom computerized rig that records 360 degree panoramic images. You’ve already heard about the rig, and I have some better footage of it in action, but you are going to have to wait to see the pictures and video because I have to check about the legality of posting them online (Some of it has been posted now, like above).

Setting up the rig in the middle of a basilica open to the public was very entertaining to say the least. People are allowed into the Basilica in waves, so with each wave brought tourists curious to see what we were doing. As the rig did it’s thing, it was fun to watch the people try and figure out what was going on. Moving people out of the way when the camera was pointed in their direction though was not as easy as in St. Mary Major. Luckily the security officers at the Basilica were happy to help us out in this regard.

My favorite part was probably standing in the Apse of the Basilica, just us, with it completely lit up(normally they have all the lights turned down or off). To watch the camera capture every inch of it was incredible and I cannot wait to see it all stitched together.

We took 360-degree panoramas from about a dozen spots today, which was a whirlwind of work, but one of the best projects I’ve ever been a part of.

Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/StPeterSBasilicaVirtualRealityShoot?feat=directlink

Video coming soon (once my internet starts going faster than a crawl).

Virtual Reality day 1

Today was a very cool day. This week the Villanova Professors are here visiting us and most importantly working on the virtual reality tours for the Vatican. Today we had the opportunity to help do some of the VR for St. Mary Major. 5 different VR tours in fact.

If you haven't seen what the VR tours look like, go look at them on the Vatican site (click basilicas on the bottom left hand corner of the main page).

The virtual reality tours are created through a series of photographs being stitched together to create the 360 degree panorama. This means taking somewhere between 60 to 250 pictures, depending on the place being created, and linking them all together so they look like you are actually there.

This is all done by a computer/robotic rig that when set up properly, takes pictures at consistent intervals so they can be stitched together easily, and so that no corner goes missed when photographing it. Cue drum roll for a short (little shaky) video of the rig:




See that? It rotates around on its own to get the pictures taken (It was taking pictures of the ceiling in that clip, which are awesome).

So while the rig is busy taking pictures (5 minutes for the small rig which takes 63 pictures, 20 minutes or so for the big rig that takes 240 pictures) our job is to make sure no one steps directly in front of the camera, which would block part of the church. The camera rotates, so it makes it tricky seeing as how one minute its facing towards the altar, and the next it's facing towards the back of the church, so we move people around accordingly, using our broken Italian to shuffle them aside.

The Church is normally dark during visiting hours, but for this special occasion they turned all the lights on in the church for us. Every single one. It was incredible to see it lit up, the gold detail in the ceiling and artwork glimmering. I have some pictures of it, and you can compare between my last visit to the church and this time.

Tomorrow is Saint Peters. It will be my first time there and I am extremely excited. You can expect a longer blog post about the Virtual Reality tours tomorrow, I'll label this one as a teaser.

Hola Barcelona!

As promised, I will now flood your screen with text and pictures about my weekend in Barcelona to make up for the fact that I was not able to blog for 3 days while there. I hope you will all accept this as an even trade-off, and if you do not, well then too bad for you, because I plan to type until my fingers hurt. If you aren't up for a marathon of reading, skip to topics that you find interesting, I will bold all the different topics and sections.


The Beginning:




Barcelona, Barcelona, where to start. How about a 7am flight out of Rome, which means waking up at 4am to get a taxi to the airport to go through security. To make this easy I will now introduce the 3 other people with whom I traveled: Nathan, my roommate and the one other guy from Villanova on this trip, Meghann, a St. Mary's student who is roommates with Joey (one of the girls from Villanova) and Alex, another St. Mary's student who also rooms with Joey and Meghann. Blog readers, meet Nathan, Alex and Meghann; You three, welcome to the blog. There were also about a dozen other St. Mary's Rome program girls who traveled to Barcelona, but we did not travel or stay with them the entire time so introductions would take up an entire page.

Airport security went without a hitch, except that I was pulled yet again for a random explosives swab down of my bag. I guess I travel with too much electronic equipment and they must not like that. Once through, I had a donut which looked and tasted just like a donut from Miss Ob Co's donuts down at the Jersey shore, which was awesome (for those of you farmiliar with the donuts I speak of, I know you are jealous I had one in January, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, just ignore this but know I had a really good donut). Enough about donuts, we boarded the flight and had a nice 90 minute flight to Barcelona. We flew into Girona, a small airport an hour or so outside Barcelona, which means we had to take a bus to Barcelona from there. Once inside Barcelona, we took the subway to our hostel.

So lets recap, taxi to airport, airplane to Girona, Bus to barcelona, subway to Badalona (where the hostel is), and all this before noon.

The Metro:
My first topic for this post: the Barcelona metro system: In a nutshell, the metro system is easy to use and understand, quick, efficient, simple yet very comprehensive, and on top of that very clean. There are several lines that run through Barcelona, labeled L1-L8(the major lines, though there are others). They are all color coded. Reading the metro map is incredibly simple, and there are plenty of connections so that you can switch lines to get to where you need to go. Trains during normal hours come every 5 minutes, at the most, and sometimes come every 3 minutes. At each station there are displays that count down until the next train. These timers are extremely precise, when the clock hits 15 seconds the train is pulling into the station, and by zero it is leaving. The trains themselves have electronic maps that show all the stations, which shows the direction you are going and which stops are coming up, with the connections listed below them. As you move it blinks on the next station, and announces its name. The trains are very clean, something that really surprised me.

This leads me to my next topic, our hostel, which was a 10 - 15 minute metro ride from the center of barcelona.

Hostel:
This was my first experience with a hostel, and for our group I was given the task of booking it. So naturally I was nervous about getting it right. When I booked it, I didn't really know it was outside of Barcelona, in a town called Badalona, but that turned out to be a great selling point for us once we realized the potential. Being in Badalona made the hostel cheaper, and actually much nicer. We booked a 4 bed private room, with our own bathroom. This is a rarity in hostels, which normally have 6-20 people in a barrack-like room, with a shared bathroom. We were able to book a private room with a bathroom for less than those who stayed in the center of Barcelona in a typical hostel.

The Barcelona Dream Hostel in Badalona was where we stayed. The room was very nice and clean, and the hostel was awesome. They had several common rooms with tv, computers, internet, board games, and even a common guitar for people to play. They had an outside patio with couches and hammocks to hang out in which was very cool. There was also a full kitchen for us to use, which we made lunch in after going to the grocery store (nothing special, ham sandwiches).

The Beach:



After our lunch, we headed down to the beach which was 5 minutes away from the hostel. It was very warm outside and I was able to wear just a t shirt and jeans to the beach. The water however was extremely cold(no brainer), but I was able to put my feet in for a few minutes. The sand was more like pebbles, which was very interesting. It wasn't as messy as normal sand, and you could brush it off easily. We soon noticed that there was a lot of sea glass mixed in. Alex and Meghann didn't know what it was, them being from Michigan and Chicago respectively, so we soon found ourselves digging through the sand. I came back with a good little collection of sea glass, mostly very tiny pieces but fun nonetheless. We spent a couple hours at the beach which was nice to relax after all the traveling.

Park Güell:




By 2pm we were off to Barcelona to see what we could find. We headed to the Park Guell, a large park in the center of town which was designed by Antoni Gaudi, a famous architect. To get there, we had to climb a huge hill from the metro stop. So big in fact that they have escalators running up the center of it. We chose to be adventerous and climb the stairs. The park offers great views of the city and hosts lots of artwork from Gaudi. We made our way up the trails enjoying the scenery and view. There is a square about halfway up that hosts vendors and musicians, so we stopped there for a bit and then continued climbing. When we reached what seemed to be the end of the trails, we saw that the top of the hill (felt more like a mountain) had no trail leading to it. So we made our own path and hiked up the rest of the way to discover the best view of Barcelona, an unobstructed 360 degree view of the entire city. We then made our way down, saw more of the park, and walked the streets once at the bottom to find a metro station back to the hostel.

Food:



I am going to cover all of our food experiences in one section, just to make it easier to talk about. Barcelona has a large Catalan influence, which is a region of Spain with its own dialect and culture. The food uses seafood heavily, but not your typical fish. Squid, anchovies, shrimp, and shellfish are the common seafoods here. The first meal I had was an omlette sandwich. Not typical Catalan food, but the Italians don't eat eggs so I saw this as an opportunity to get some eggs. It was very good.

Tapas, meaning appetizers or snacks, are also big here. Many of them are made with the seafood common to the area. Nathan and I tried some crab-ball tapas, basically crab meat fried, with the claw as the handle to eat it with. Definitely right up my alley. We also had paella, ours being a mix of chicken and seafood. I liked it, but after a while the pretty much raw squid and anchovies taste started getting to me.

On Saturday morning we arrived at a metro station to an unlikely surprise, a Dunkin Donuts. Though it was not called Dunkin Donuts, but Dunkin Coffee instead. I guess coffee sells better than donuts. I got a coffee and two donuts, which hit the spot for breakfast. The coffee though was not brewed like an American dunkin donuts, but was instead expresso with enough milk to make it "coffee".

Churros, I had several while in Barcelona. I've always loved churros, but these were by far the best I've had. Besides being good by themselves, they are often filled with chocolate, a perfect combination. They were a great energy boost while walking all around the city.

Saturday:





Saturday was our major sightseeing day since we had the entire day to explore. Our first stop was Sangrada Familia, the famous Gaudi(again) church which is unfnished. It is enormous and the architectural work on it is incredibly detailed. Next we went to la Ramblas, which is the main stretch in Barcelona, full of shops, stores and restaurants. We walked down it for several hours stopping in different stores and eventually made our way to another church, Santa Maria del Pi. The church was beautiful inside, but had some very interesting features, such as an outside courtyard with geese and roosters.

From there we went to the Picaso museum, which I found much more interesting than I originally anticipated. We quickly jumped back on the Metro to head to the magic fountains which have light/music/water shows every half hour from 7pm to 8:30pm, only to find out when we got there that they are shut down until February. We then found a carnival down the street, got some churros and then headed to a restaurant to get dinner.

Sunday:



Sunday brought more walking up stairs, which seemed to be a central theme the entire weekend. We saw the Olympic stadium and park that surrounds it. The art museum is also located there, so we walked around inside the building which is in itself pretty spectacular. We then headed back to the bus station to get a 4pm bus for our 7:30 flight back to Rome. A very busy weekend indeed.

Last Thoughts:

Smoking:
People in Europe in general smoke a lot. People in Barcelona smoke like chimneys. This is probably my biggest if not only complaint about Barcelona. It is not only that they smoke a lot, but smoking inside is still permitted. When you walk into a restaurant you enter a haze of cigarette smoke. Whether it be 8pm for dinner or 9am for breakfast, people are smoking non-stop. I'm not sure what it is about the culture that they haven't realized it's killing them, but I would be interested to see the statistics of lung cancer compared to the rest of the world for that area.

Pickpockets:
Luckily we were able to avoid Pickpockets this weekend. We've been told by many that pick pockets in Barcelona are the worst. At one point though we did find that one of the compartments of Nate's backpack had been unzipped, but we're unsure if it had just been open the entire time or was opened by a pickpocket because there was nothing in it to begin with.

The Language Barrier (Again):
Just as I was getting comfortable used to hearing only Italian and speaking some, I am thrust into yet another foreign language. I do not know spanish, at all, but fortunately Nate had some Spanish background and I believe Meghann has a little too (correct me if I'm wrong!). So to some extent we were able to communicate simple ideas through Nate, except for the fact that most of the people in Barcelona do not speak regular Spanish but the Catalan dialect, which in some cases is extremely different (from what I could tell by looking at signs that had both Spanish and Catalan on them). This and that when I tried to order something or ask a question I asked it in Italian for the first two days before giving up trying to communicate at all. When we arrived back in Rome I thanked the taxi driver with "Gracias", clearly not Italian.

What's next?

This week the Villanova Professors are here to do some presentations, meetings, and oh yeah, to run the project of photographing St. Mary Major (tomorrow) and St. Peter's Basilica (wednesday and thursday). Even Father Peter, the President of the University has made the trip to present the Vatican Museum with the finished virtual reality tour of the Sistine Chapel. Exciting stuff. That also means probably no traveling this weekend, at least not out of Italy, but maybe a day trip somewhere?

The first weekend in February will see me going to Paris. ah Paris, where I'll further get more confused in the foreign language side of my brain as I struggle to remember 7 years of French all while not confusing it with my (at that point) 5 weeks of Italian.

Also, see all the pictures with this link, and of course leave your comments below for me!

http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/Barcelona?feat=directlink

Pardon the Interruption...

If you are sitting at your computer this weekend hitting refresh and wondering why there are new posts, it may be because I will be taking the weekend off. It's not out of laziness I promise you, unless you count a weekend trip to Barcelona to be lazy. We'll be flying out at 7am tomorrow, so tonight's sleep is more of a nap than anything. This will be our first weekend trip, and our first trip out of the country. I'm unsure of my availability to the internet, so I don't want to make any promises about posts these next 3 days, but I promise that when I get back there will be one long post about the trip and a barrage of pictures to go with it(Do you think 3 memory cards is enough?).

I would continue to type, but seeing as my flight leaves in 7 hours, I'm going to get some rest. Thank you all for your questions on the Q&A post, I have not forgotten my promise and will be sure to answer them all when I get back!

Some wires

A while ago I posted a long blog post about being "unwired". One of the major points of that blog was the lack of a cell phone. Well, I caved, and now have an Italian cell phone number.

(I do warn you that this may be a very techy post, so bear with me if it's not your thing and I'll try and explain it clearly)

For the first two weeks I was attempting to buy the skype phone offered by the mobile carrier 3(tre). What I found though is that the service provider 3 is not very good in Italy. I'm a tech junkie. When I go to get a new piece of technology I do my research. I had been researching cell phones abroad for months before I left. So when I went into the 3 store, I knew what I wanted and that they offered it. The salesperson disagreed with me. I was told even though it is advertised all over their website that I could not only not purchase the skypephone, but I could not get a pay as you go plan from them at all unless I signed a 24 month contract. After a frustrating argument, with the sales person speaking broken english and myself speaking very, very broken Italian, I left empty handed only to walk a block down to the TIM store, where I purchased a SIM card (I already had the phone from a friend, thanks Tim!(not TIM the cell company, Tim the person, confusing I know))

For all the non-techy readers, cell phone contracts work a little differently in Europe than in the States. You do not normally sign your freedom away to a service provider for 2 years. You instead buy a phone(cheaper than in the U.S I may add), and then buy a SIM card from one of the providers here. A SIM card is universal and can go into any phone. It is assigned your number so any phone you put your card in automatically gets connected with your number and service provider. Pretty cool huh? Well it gets better: As I mentioned, contracts don't really exist. Instead you pay-as-you-go. You put 10 euro or however much on your phone. You have an agreement with your service provider that you will pay x amount of money per minute for all calls you make. In my case, this is 10 cents a minute for every call I make. Notice how I said every call you make, because receiving calls is totally free. When you run out, you put more money on your account, either online or buying a prepaid recharge card from any "tobacco store" (tabacchi in Italian, basically a convenience store).

Now lets compare this to the American system of cell contracts. We will ignore exchange rates because for natives of the respective countries that's not important, and I'm going to refer to all currencies as dollars or $. Right now Verizon Wireless' cheapest individual plan is $40 for 450 minutes per month. That includes no text messaging, just 450 minutes of using your cell phone's main function, talking (I know hard to believe that's what they were made for, right?). I'm sure that includes free nights and weekends, but to me that doesn't really factor in, what matters is the ability to call someone at any time.

Take that same $40 and apply it to my rate. That's 400 minutes if you pay 10 cents a minute. Very similar isn't it. In fact, Verizon might even look more appealing at first glance. I think not. Those 400 minutes I have from the $40 I placed on my account, they don't disappear at the end of the month. I'm not restricted per month. Okay, so AT&T has rollover minutes don't they? So if you only use 200 minutes one month you get to keep the extra 200 minutes (we've all seen the commercials, "those minutes are still good!") Yes you get those minutes, but you are still paying $40 again that 2nd month for another 400 minutes. Now why do you need another 400 minutes if you just rolled over 200? See what I'm getting at?

$40 dollars prepaid. It lasts for as long as I need it. If I use 400 minutes a month, poof they're gone when I've used them all. If I only need 200 minutes a month, well then look at that I really only paid $20 a month. Busy month? Lots of gossip? Simply put more money into your account, for the same rate you've been paying all along. Verizon charges 45 cents per every minute you go over your monthly allowance. I might be beating a dead horse but lets do a little math. 600 minutes in a month? If you're using my prepaid service that will cost you $60. Verizon's 450 minute contract? $40 for the first 450 minutes, + $0.45 x 150 = $107.50. In other words, for less than it costs to pay for those 150 extra minutes, you could have 600 minutes on prepaid. Not to mention you don't pay for any calls received! (Sticking with the math theme: Free incoming calls > Free nights and weekends)

Phone break? Not happy with the one you have? Just want to upgrade? Sure, pick which one you want, buy it, and put your SIM card in, none of this waiting 2 years to get a new phone.

Anyone feel ripped off by their U.S. cell contract? I sure do. I'm not going to even get into the whole data/internet on phones argument, this post is already borderline rant, but for those interested one line of stats:

On ANY phone: Verizon: $15 per month for 25mb of data over the entire month, TIM: $10 a month for 50mb of data a day (You see where the rant would come in?)

The phones are better, the plans and pricing is better, and the coverage from what I've seen is the same if not better. All those ready to switch to the European system raise your hand...

Lets answer some questions!

So I'm making this my first of many "interactive" posts. By that I mean I would really like to take some questions from the comment sections of my posts and answer them. I have been waiting for a good day to do this, and seeing as my 6 year old cousin has just posed some questions she would like answered, I figured it would be a perfect day to finally dedicate a post to this.

So to answer your questions Carly...

Q: What Kind of Instruments do they Play in Italy:
A: Great question, and it's right up my alley. One of the fun things about Rome I have found is the street performers throughout the area. Public performances in piazza's (squares) seem to be legal, even if they get pretty loud. Musicians play sorts of stringed and wind instruments, such as violins, saxophones, trumpets, and my favorite, guitars. Some even plug into speakers, their music filling up the surrounding streets. I am trying to get my hands on a guitar so I can try this out for a day, go sit in a piazza and see how much I can make off of tips (could be an interesting blog post). I haven't seen any unique instruments so far, but I'll keep my eye out for any good ones.

Q: Do you understand the Language?
A: This is where my Italian tutor comes in. Carlotta has been great in helping us all learn pretty quickly how to manage around the city with Italian. After only 5 days of 3 hour classes I feel much more confident with the language. Understanding it tends to be much easier than speaking it. Some words are familiar to the English translation, others to a word in French I somehow remember, and even more are somewhat recognizable in the context of who it is that is talking, and where I am. If I go into the cafe and try and order a sandwich, and the person behind the counter asks whether I want it for here or to go, I can understand what they are asking and answer them. If I have to ask for directions though, it is a bit harder to have an actual conversation with someone, and to initiate the conversation. Both my understanding and ability to speak Italian has gotten much better every day, and I've come a long way from trying to order regular tap water on the airplane on the way over here (I was given seltzer water twice out of three tries). Hopefully in a couple weeks I'll be able to hold a real conversation in Italian!

If you have any questions that you'd like to be answered, post them in the comments of this post and I'll be sure to answer them. If they are short answers, I'll just edit this post and add them on, if it's something I think would make for a good post then I may hold off and use it for another full post like this one.

Thanks for the questions Carly!

A virtual tour to come

Sunday was an optional tour for the program, but seeing the Basilica of St. Mary Major was definitely on my list of things to do. If some of you aren't aware, part of the program Villanova has with the Vatican is to create these awesome 360 degree virtual tours of some of the most spectacular Churches in Rome.

Currently the virtual tour of St. Paul Outside-The-Walls is up on the Vatican's website (I'll link at the bottom), and St. Mary Major is another that has been captured by the Villanova crews over the past semesters to be put online.

Knowing this, I was eager to see it in person, and I'm glad I went along for the tour. It really is an incredible Basilica, so as what seems to be an easy way for me to keep these blog posts short, I'll leave you with some pictures I took, but look forward to the virtual tour soon, because it's sure to out-do my pictures.

Saint Paul Outside The Walls Link (click on Virtual Tour): http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/index_en.html

Just like the Movies

Tonight, after watching a great Villanova basketball game, a few of us decided to watch a movie we felt might be interesting to see while studying in Rome. Angels and Demons starring Tom Hanks, takes place, obviously, in Rome. We knew there was an Angels and Demons tour you can take for a hefty price to see all the places the film was shot in, but little did we know we had already seen so much.

I have to admit, this is the first time I have seen the film, and I found it very entertaining and exciting. Maybe that's because we were having more fun naming the places in the movie and trying to figure out what would show up next, but regardless, a good film.

The Pantheon, one of the first major landmarks in the film, is no more than 3 minutes from my hotel. The coffee shop we stopped at today is shown in one of the first angles of the scene. We were quick to notice that the corner portrayed as the one Tom Hanks parks his car, and the actual corner where the car was parked, are two different corners. Exactly diagonal from each other if it means anything to anyone.

The Piazza Navona, the place where I witnessed the balloons being flown the other night (reference to my Jan 16th post) and the famous 4 rivers fountain are also in the film.

The Church in Piazza Popolo, St. Marie of People, a church I toured yesterday and took pictures of (the creepy skeleton picture) was another major scene.

I'm not sure what the point of me telling you all this is. It's probably just the excitement of seeing all of it in person and then realizing that I've been there when watching the movie. But anyway, the Movie was great, tour today of St. Mary Major was also incredible, and pictures for that will be up tomorrow.

Week 2 at the Vatican starts tomorrow.

It's a beautiful day

Finally a truly beautiful day in Rome. I'm glad to see that the rain held off for 3 days and we had blue skies and warm weather for our tours today. The Pantheon, Jewish Ghetto, and a couple of other places in-between, which made for some cool pictures. So here they are:



Link for Gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/ToursOfPantheonPiazzasJewishGhetto

balloons

A bunch of us were out enjoying the beautiful weather tonight, walking through the Piazza Navona, gelato in hand, when we saw a group of people in the center of the piazza. They had 4 or 5 of these miniature hot air balloons, which looked like plastic bags with a large votive in them, and were setting them off one by one. Every time one launched successfully they all cheered and clapped, then set up the next balloon. Watching the balloons was a spectacle. They would just barely make it above a crowd of people, and would then quickly start to rise in the air. They all followed the same path, leaving a trail of lights over the piazza. It seemed like they would get miles away within minutes of being let go, their light still visible high in the sky. It was hard to take my eyes off of the lights, hoping to watch them travel on until they were no longer visible. A feeling of realizing where I was at that moment, being in Rome, working at the Vatican, hanging out with some really awesome people, all hit me at that moment.
These next three months are a fleeting moment. They will pass me by as quickly as the balloon takes to get out of sight. It just made me realize I have to take it all in and take notice of every little detail until it is gone.

By the way, if anyone knows of any significance of the balloons, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. For those who don't know how to comment, right below this post it will say "comments". Click on that, then type your comment and either sign into one of the existing types of accounts, or if you don't have one click Anonymous and just make sure to leave your name in the comment!

Tours this weekend, lets hope for good weather.

out of the loop

On Tuesday a 7.0 earthquake shook Haiti. The aftershocks rattled the country multiple times at around a 5.0 scale, which could very well be considered devastating earth quakes by themselves. The shockwave of the tragedy though, took until today to reach me.

It's not that Italy wasn't aware of what had happened. It's just that reading an Italian newspaper isn't exactly something I'm capable of doing every morning, given the previously mentioned language barrier, and the busy schedule. It was not until this morning that I heard anything about the earthquake, and it makes me realize how out of the loop I am.

Studying abroad is meant to pluck you from your comfort zone and put you into a different worldview. Unfortunately given the circumstances it also disconnects you in some ways from the rest of the world. With no TV and minimal internet accessible to me, I have found myself drifting further and further away from keeping up with the news.

I have a feeling that when I get back in 3 months I will have missed 3 months of pop culture and world news, and will be out of touch with global politics and events.

So instead of writing anymore, I am going to take the next half hour or so to read the front page articles on the New York Times Website, and if you haven't been up on your current events lately, I suggest you do the same with me.

http://www.nytimes.com

Paying by the pound(or Kilogram in this case)

I wanted to touch upon a cool little difference between ordering pizza in the U.S and ordering it here. I'm not going to go into the differences/which is better because that is basically an unfair fight, but I'm going to talk about instead how you buy pizza.

In the states you go out with your friends for a 'slice'. And that's exactly what you order, a slice (or 2 or 3) of pizza. You are charged naturally, by the slice. You can also buy a whole pizza and save by buying in bulk. But why am I telling you something you already know? Here's the part you may not know(and my whole reason for this post).In Italy buying pizza is a bit different. Prices are by the kilogram. 9-14 euro per kilogram is about average around here, depending on where and what type of pizza it is. I know I said I wasn't going to talk about the differences but a pizza here is not round. It has squared off corners, straight edges and is made on long trays. Ordering a slice then, isn't the normal pie slice you're used to. It is a rectangular block of pizza. So how big is a slice? That's up to you actually. Once you order the person behind the counter will ask how big, pointing a knife down at an average size, and it's your job to tell him either smaller or bigger until you have the amount you want. So if each slice is a different size, how do you pay for it? That's where the kilogram prices come in again. Pizza goes on a scale, weight and price are calculated, and it is thrown back in the oven to heat. Average price for a normal slice is 2-3 euro, and you get a nice piece of pizza.

It does seem to make sense doing it this way now that I think of it. When you go to the grocery store and buy deli meat, or other specialty foods, you pay per pound. So why not get exactly how much pizza you want and pay for just that much? All this pizza talk is making me hungry, if only pizza places around here were open as late as they are back home...

Inside the wall, days 1 and 2

I posted my blog last night completely forgetting that I had not even touched upon the fact that I had started my internship at the Vatican.

This first week is what I would call Italian boot-camp. 3 hours of Italian tutoring from 8am to 11am every morning, with our awesome Italian tutor, Carlotta. Going into this I was afraid I wouldn't do well learning another language. My experiences with french classes did not exactly end on a high note, so I had this premonition that learning a language couldn't be fun. I was wrong. Carlotta is engaging and fun. She is able to not only teach us the basics but help us effectively understand the language that we are surrounded by. It's as she called it, "survival Italian", and so far it has been extremely effective. After two days, though I haven't even learned how to speak much Italian, my comprehension and confidence when listening to a native Italian speaker speak Italian to me has significantly gone up. Going into the phone store today to get an Italian phone, I found myself eager to listen in on the representative talking in Italian (though he was speaking in English to me). Carlotta has proven to me that I can understand Italian even though I don't know how to speak it yet, and that is more than half the battle.

The internship part of the experience has been short due to the extended Italian tutoring for the first week, but it has been awesome nonetheless. I've gotten settled into my office and am beginning to learn what I will be doing for the rest of the semester. Being so close to the Vatican and knowing that what I work on will be seen by one of the largest populations of people is motivating me to go above and beyond the jobs assigned to me.

When I start working on specific projects I will be sure to keep you all updated. I hope to have some video up soon of experiences in Rome or of working in the Vatican.

Just Around the Corner

You never know what you're going to find just around the corner here in Rome. That's something I've come to accept this past week or so. It's been just over a week since I got here and I've seen a lot, and sure feel like I know where I'm going when I walk around the city.

A few of us went for a walk tonight to get out and explore yet again. Maybe we all have K.I.A instincts (Know it All) like myself, but we've been stubborn not to use a map to find where we are headed. That or we head out with no real bearing and just pick a road to see where it takes us.

The Spanish Steps had been until tonight eluding us, and seeing as their a gigantic set of steps, we felt they couldn't be that hard to miss. We started off going in a general direction we believed them to be in, past the Pantheon to Via del Corso. All the way up Via Del Corso and then to the right, (so we thought). What we found was instead a large piazza with fountains and statues (Piazza del Popolo), with a hill behind it which had an amazing view it all. From there we went back down a main street that ran adjacent to Via del Corso. And what do you know, the Spanish steps were at the end of that road. Up the steps, just in time to see a 10 minute display of fireworks (all green).

Feeling adventurous, we continued from the top of the steps down the mainstreet, up a large hill and then down a side street to another Piazza (Piazza del Quirinale) heading down the hill as we knew we needed to go down in elevation to get to anywhere familiar. Out of pretty much sheer luck we happened to stumble upon the Trevi fountain.

All in all about 5km, an hour and a half with stopping. It definitely wasn't the most direct route to any of our points of interest, but we found it ourselves, and I guess that's what counts.


Our route mapped out on google maps (try streetview out by dragging the little man above the zoom bar to any one of our stops!):

http://bit.ly/7jmV3R

My Life in Euros

There’s a big deal made about exchange rates all the time, and rightfully so. The Euro to American Dollar rate is 1.44 right now, which is much better than it was a year ago, but is by no means good. So just by flying from Newark to Rome, My bank account was basically cut by 30 percent.

It only took me about 3 days to get used to using the Euro. By that I mean getting used to the frequent use of coins. The European Union has perfected the use of the euro and 2 euro coins, something that the United States tried to do a few years back with the dollar coin, but failed miserably. The easiest, most convenient and effective way to pay for anything under 5 euros is using coins, which brings me to my next point.

The Euro is cheaper to live on. We’ll disregard the currency exchange rates for now and take the euro for a euro. A sandwich at a local caffe is on average 2-3 euro. A cone of gelato is no more than 2 euro on average. A slice of pizza, priced by the kilogram, 2-3 euro (we’re talking a good slice, maybe even 2 by American standards). A nice sit down meal with homemade pastas, 10 euro. So why is it that the same sandwich would cost me 6 or 7 dollars in the US? Why is an ice cream cone 4 dollars? And above all, how is it that the ingredients are fresher and better yet I’m paying less?

If someone has an answer, leave it in the comments below, because I’d really like to hear.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has commented and left some awesome messages. It makes writing this every day a lot more fun knowing people are reading it. So if you haven’t already, feel free to comment or ask questions on any of the topics, or post about something you think or would like to hear about and I’ll see what I can do.

First day of work at the Vatican tomorrow… 3 hours of Italian tutoring!

Living 'unwired'

This should be no surprise to anyone, and given that I'm keeping a daily blog of my experience here, it should be even more obvious that I am an avid user of the internet. My life at College has been one of connectedness: Emails, Text messages, cell phone calls, Skye and AIM, not to mention constantly checking the web. At all times at school I have with me my cell phone and a way to get my email/internet, whether that be my ipod touch or my laptop. I cannot even tell you how many times a day I check my email not to mention when I'm sitting at my computer and it is just up in the background waiting for a new message to come in. I average enough text messages to fill a short novel every month, with plenty of call minutes used in-between. I keep my calendars, tasks, contacts, and just about everything else for day to day life on the 'cloud' that is the internet.

Coming to Europe is like kicking the habit.

Since I've been here I have used the Internet for exactly 24 hours. I know that because I am required to buy Internet in 24 hour increments of usage from the hotel, and my first 24 ran out just before I started writing this post. 24 hours mind you is not much at all for me. Just enough to check my emails, update the blog, talk to some people on skype, and read my favorite website, Gizmodo. This also includes a couple times I forgot to logout of the internet system here and lost a couple precious hours due to my negligence.

Speaking of Gizmodo, they are covering CES this past week, an event for all things electronics and techy, and normally I follow it online pretty closely. I normally check gizmodo about 15 times a day, but I found myself today catching up on 4 days worth of old news and articles in my favorite world of technology.

I have still not purchased a cell phone, and am almost enjoying holding out getting one. It's nice sometimes to not be so constantly connected. For the first three days my mind kept playing tricks on me, making me habitually reach for my front left pocket, thinking that my cell phone was vibrating and that I needed to answer a text or a call. To check the time I now have to look at my wrist instead of reaching into my pocket, and let me tell you, reading an analog clock has felt almost foreign (as it should I guess). No longer am I walking around with headphones constantly around my neck or on my ears, all at the same time checking twitter feeds or facebook from my ipod while I'm walking to and from class.

My life for so long has strongly incorporated technology to a point where I'm constantly 'wired'. Villanova's #1 most wired campus award back in 2006 was a selling point to me. You could say being connected is my caffeine that gets me through the day, so the next three months has me involuntarily (and in some cases voluntarily) scaling back on my intake. So far I haven't seen any withdrawl symptoms, but we'll see what comes of it over the next three months. I'll just have to switch to another sort of caffeine, Cappuccino anyone?

Colosseum and Roman Forum

Today was our first of many St.Mary's sponsored tours in Rome/Italy. Our day began bright and early at 9am (earliest I've been up so far, waking up for my internship will be a rude awakening) and headed to the Roman forum. Conveniently some of the teachers for the St. Mary's program come along as our tour guides, so no need to wait in any lines. We spent about 3 hours in the forum, and I could have easily filled another couple hours had it not been for a much needed lunch break back at the Hotel, then onto the Colosseum. It was a lot of walking, and a good amount of rain mixed in all day, but I managed to get off some pictures. I'll keep this post short and let you enjoy the visual art (Can I call it that?)

http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/RomanForumAndColosseum?authkey=Gv1sRgCO-K7dL265-GrgE&feat=directlink

The Language Barrier and Blending In

What I have found most difficult about being in a foreign country, if not the only thing I have found difficult while here, is the language barrier. Yes, many, if not most, Italians understand english, and a majority of that population can speak it to some extent as well. But this doesn't mean using only english works in Rome...

Take ordering at Pascucci's (the cafe we get to eat lunch at every day though our program) for example. They are used to English speaking customers, and have been serving St. Mary's students for years. Yet none of staff understand or speak english. Ordering the first time was a mystery, I mumbled something in what I considered Italian, they questioned me, and I just agreed, si si, and whatever I had agreed to was what I was getting for lunch that day (fortunately I got something close to what I wanted to order). From then on I began to push myself to use Italian and understand what I was ordering. Their menu has italian and english on it, so picking isn't hard, but communicating after the initial ordering can be tricky. I can now confidently order a ham sandwich (toast al prosciutto) successfully. Other restaurants cater more towards an english speaking crowd, which makes it nice to eat there. Other times though, you would much rather blend in with the locals, which leads me to my next topic.

Blending in...we all think we can blend in, but truth be told we stick out like a sore thumb in a foreign country. Maybe its the camera around my neck, or my red headed roommate, or something else I don't even pick up on, but whenever we pass a restaurant or touristy place with a person standing outside trying to get us to come in, they are quick to speak to us in english, not italian. I have only successfully blended into the Italian society once since I have been here. I was walking the Via del Corso taking pictures the other day, and I stopped in a sports clothing store to look at soccer jerseys. An employee of the store came up to me with a friendly, "ciao" and cleverly I responded with a "ciao" as well. Normally Italians can tell when a person isn't an Italian speaker just by how they speak Italian. Many times I have greeted someone in Italian only for them to respond to me in english, a real let down when trying to learn Italian and blend in. For some reason this time though, I was able, through some sort of master disguise (a long coat, scarf and hat) convince the sales clerk I was Italian. Big mistake. Instantaneously she went into a quick spurt of Italian, leaving me speechless and staring at her blankly. The question was simple, it is what every sales person asks a customer after they greet them, "can I help you find something?" I stood there silent for a long amount of time, only being able to stutter "English?" after being caught in the embarrassing moment. She too seemed embarrassed, and quickly asked in perfect english, "can I help you find something?" I quickly responded I was just looking and found myself gravitating towards the door, both shocked and confused at what had just happened. It is a story though I share with all of my fellow American students though, because few of us have been able to pull off being mistaken for an Italian.

Via del Corso

Had a day off today, and since it was so nice out I decided to go for a little walk down the Via del Corso, the Time Square of Rome, give or take. The streets were packed with people off for the holiday, but I still managed to get some good shots, hopefully while not sticking out as too much of an American. Check them out: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/ViaDelCorso?feat=directlink

Christmas done right?

Arriving in Rome a couple days ago, it became pretty apparent that they are still very much in the Christmas season. The first sign of this came while boarding the plane in Newark. As I sat down in my seat, I heard coming through the speakers, what sounded like one of Kenny G's Christmas albums. For about a half hour in between announcements and interruptions the Christmas music continued. I thought to myself that they must have forgotten to switch the CD's in the music system onboard.

Arriving in Rome I realized the Christmas music on the plane was no slip up. Rome, or Italy I suppose for that matter, is still celebrating Christmas. Christmas lights are still up everywhere, which brings me to one of my first points. Americans decorate all wrong. I began noticing that sidestreets and shops were all decorated for christmas, very simply. Across streets there are strands of lights hanging from one side to the other, which blink, more like twinkle (shown in the photo from my last post).

Above shops and restaurants, a single strand of lights, or some greenery with lights in it. Nothing overdone, fancy, its simple and it works (I've watched too many design shows with Becky it seems). No blow up snowman, no extravagant light displays. If a tree is lit, it's done right. Every branch and level of the tree is equally lit, and it looks like someone actually put in time to do it right.

Walking through the streets at night, the street musicians are still playing Christmas songs. The Christmas sales are taking place now, the first week in January. Christmas decorations not only come down on the Feast of the Epiphany in Churches, but throughout the streets of Rome as well, which marks the end of the Christmas season in the Church.

Okay so this may have not been incredibly thought provoking as I had promised, but I'll leave you with this: After having experienced both the American and Italian "Christmas Season" myself I'm torn in my answer to the question "Which one feels right?" The American way because I've grown up with it? or the Italian way, a refreshing reminder that a little Chirstmas spirit can exist after December 25th.

First Two Days

So It's been just over 40 hours or so since I landed in Rome, and I'm just about acclimated to the city and to the time change. Being up for over 30 hours or so took its toll on me by the end of the night, but was well worth staying up. I got to the hotel around 1pm rome time, and we were assigned our rooms. I am in a small double room with the computer science major, Nathan, from villanova. The room is small but considering I don't plan on being here much other than sleeping, very manageable. We had a meeting at 4:30 at the "classroom building" which is on the road literally across the street. From there all four of us Villanova students went to the campo de fiori, a square which was originally known for being a flower market(fiori in italian) but is now full with restaurants and other shops. We chose a small restaurant in the square for dinner, which had some pretty good pasta.

Day two brought about a lot of sleep(15 hours) and some exploring. Woke up in time for lunch at the hotel, where I had, contrary to popular belief of this existing in Italy, Spaghetti and meatballs. the catch is that they were served separate, the pasta on one plate and the meatballs were served with peas in their own broth type sauce on another plate, but regardless I consider it spaghetti and meatballs. Food was excellent, I could get used to this being my meal plan at villanova. Afterward I went exploring for cell phones, but couldn't find the carrier I was looking for so returned empty handed to get ready to go to class, only to find out that my only class for the day had been canceled. Off to the pantheon which is down the same road the classroom building is on, the first real italian tourist attraction I've seen while being here. We got to see mass going on inside, and when it ended we were able to go inside, all lit up. From there to the Trevi fountain, where I threw my coin in, over my left shoulder, which as legend has it will guarantee you will return to Rome someday.

Dinner tonight was at a place called Mickeys, another big college student spot. Prosciutto sandwich, cheap and one of the best sandwiches I've had.

You can check out some pictures I took today, and for the rest of the trip here: http://picasaweb.google.com/ramlax13/Rome#

Or just look at the slideshow to the right!


That's all for now! Tomorrow, a more meaningful/thought provoking post, other than a summary of my day. Buona sera!

And it begins...

Standing in line to board my flight from Newark to Rome. I tried to call from a payphone to tell my family I had successfully made it through security with all of my electronics, cameras and overweight carry on baggage ( don't tell) and it turns out payphones are no longer operational in the gate 40-47 area of Newark airport. While everyone was on their laptops, iPhones and blackberrs I stood trying several payphones. The reason for this being I refused to pay 4 dollars for one hour of Internet service... But when the payphones didn't work I gave in, so I am able to post this! currently I am trying to get used to hearing all Italian being spoken around me. It seems my flight Is full of Italian natives visiting the US for the holidays, like the guys we met in the terminal who had gone to time square to see the ball drop. Their English was impressive, they asked us to slow down talking, but understood and responded pretty easily it seemed. I can only hope I can pick the language up fast enough. Line is starting to move, that's all for now!