When Irish Eyes are Smiling

Sorry for not posting last night, but I'll make up for it by covering our entire Ireland trip in this post.

So we arrived to the Emerald Isle early in the morning after an always interesting RyanAir flight (got to love that people clap when the plane touches down). We checked into our hostel and then went for a walk along the river and towards city hall to get our bearings. We also had plans to go on the free tour in Dublin run by the same company as the one in Amsterdam, (Sandeman tours, or New Europe is what their called for anyone interested) so we had some time to kill before the 1pm tour.

The Luck of the Irish

As we walked down the street from city hall towards the Temple Bar area, we passed a venue called the Olympia theatre. Old charming theatre look on the outside, looked like a really cool place. Well as it turns out in the window there was two large posters advertising an upcoming show for the John Butler Trio, a band I've been listening to for the past year or so but have not seen live. Further investigation (reading the poster, of course) we realized the show was that night, April 8th, 2010. Shocked, surprised, and frantic, I went into the ticket office and asked if they had any tickets left for the show. They said they did, but they were obstructed view tickets, in other words a column was in the way of the view. Becky hesitated about that, but before she could contest I had already bought the tickets. 8 hours until show time.

Excited about our ticket purchase we grabbed a burger down the street and then made our way to our tour.

The tour was once again really awesome, our tour guide kept it interesting and the weather was really nice (unlike Amsterdam) so I didn't mind walking around the city. We heard some pretty interesting stories and saw most of the major sites in the historical parts of Dublin, and on our short visit, fitting it all in quickly is always a plus.

After the tour we walked along the River Liffey and all of the different bridges that cross it. There are some really cool foot bridges that go across the river, but the river itself, not so pretty (probably as ugly as the Tiber in Rome).

We headed to a pub to get dinner early before the show. I got some great beef stew (can always count on the Irish for a good meal I suppose) and we were on our way to the show.

Music is the best Medicine

Around the time we were entering the Olympia theatre, I seemed to have developed a nice little fever (don't tell my mom!). I've been sick as I've mentioned before, and I seem not so be at the peak of my sickness. I thoroughly enjoyed the opening band, Mama Kin, but I was feeling pretty miserable in the headcold department. Then John Butler Trio came on. About an hour into my set, right as John finished playing a solo version of his instrumental song "Ocean", my fever had broken. I'm pretty sure that song did it to me too, because it is about 15 minutes of the craziest acoustic playing you've ever heard (I have video, I'll post eventually). The band absolutely blew me away, and rocked the theater for almost 3 hours. And that "obscured view" that we had? Yeah it was a pillar about 7 rows in front of us and the only thing that it obscured was my view of the far right stage which was completely empty. Luck strikes again.

Today we did some shopping on the main streets and in the Temple Bar area. I say area because Temple bar (for Lord Temple who owned the Barr land of the River Liffey, hence the name "Temple Bar"). It's a nice neighborhood of pubs and shops, and with a big rugby match later tonight it was alive with fans wearing lots of (sometimes ridiculous) yellow and blue outfits. Lunch was a bowl of chicken soup which was really good, and a chicken panini, which was so-so.

We then went to the "most visited tourist attraction in Dublin". Any genius guesses? The answer would be the Guinness factory. This tour was much different from the Bruge brewery tour we went on. It was self guided, much larger, and not in the actual factory but more of a fake setup (much like chocolate world in Hershey Park, even though the Guinness "storehouse" as they call it was actually exactly that, the Storehouse where the beer fermented up until the 90's when they stopped using it). The information and displays they had were equally as interesting and impressive as the Bruge tour, and given the uniqueness of Guinness its no wonder the factory is one of the most visited places in Dublin.

After the factory tour we picked up our bags from the hostel (which was awesome by the way, top 2 I've stayed in, tied with the Barcelona hostel I used) and headed to the airport to catch another Ryan Air flight.

It's too bad we didn't get to stay in Ireland longer and go to another place besides Dublin, but we had an awesome time, fit as much touring in as we could, and even had a nice surprise last night with the concert.

Arrivederci Roma

Brace yourselves, this could get sappy, corny and emotional.

Today is my last full day in Rome. 88 days have come and gone, and I cannot believe that the program is over.

First I want to thank you all for taking this journey with me. It has been an incredible experience to have an audience, and I’m really glad you kept reading as I kept writing. 72 Blog posts in 88 days, and you keep coming back for more.

That said, I’m not done writing yet! I’ll continue to blog until my feet hit the ground in Newark Airport. My posts may not be daily because of lack of internet, but I promise I’ll do my best to keep on top of it.

So lets start with yesterday. Yesterday I did a bunch of running around to get ready to travel. I stopped off at St. Paul’s Outside The Walls for the last time, and had one last walk around the church I’ve been in for the past 2 months or so.

While doing laundry I brought my guitar and sat in Campo Di Fiori while it was in the machine. I have always wanted to sit on the street and perform, and see how much I could make if I just threw a hat out there with a couple coins in it. So I started playing, and a group of American high school students were standing behind me. I heard one say that I was playing for money, and I turned and told him I was just playing for fun, but that I wanted to play a song for all of them. Thinking quick, I played the “Rap medley” that my bandmate and good friend Kevin Tymon wrote, and I had the kids laughing and dancing. Then they started putting money in the hat. I played for about 5 minutes, going through all of the crazy songs that Kevin sings and adding a few of my own, all the while the kids were taking video of me on their cameras (I hope to come across myself on youtube someday). When I finished, they all clapped and then were on their way for more touring. Nate and I sized up my hat, and found that I had made over 10 Euro (and a coca cola), with just one song. Why haven’t I been doing that all semester???

Later that night one of the girls showed a slideshow of pictures from the past year in Rome, which was nice to see from start to finish where we had been.

We then all left together and went down to a restaurant called Mickey’s (short for Miscellanea). We are all big fans of the food there, and since we’re pretty loyal customers, with some girls going there every Sunday night, Mickey decided to throw an end of semester party for us. Free pasta, wine and dessert for all of us, which I believe totaled 40 people or so. It is incredible to think that 86 nights ago a large group of us were sitting at the same table, having one of our first dinners in Rome.

From there we went to Abbey Theater, where I performed again. We got a room to ourselves in the back and I played a few songs, including one Backstreet Boys song with a SMC girl Angela singing with me. We had a lot of fun, and so many people came I was asked by the people at Abbey to walk out to the bar and play an encore out there for all the people who couldn’t get in the back room. Way to inflate my ego St. Mary’s girls, and thank you so much for coming.

Today we had our banquet, a final wrap up lunch for the semester. The banquet was held at the hotel in the dining room we always eat at. Everyone got dressed up and we went down to a candle-lit 4 course meal. The food was incredible, some of the best I’ve had while being in Rome. The Staff did an excellent job with everything, and it was nice to have this sort of banquet.

Now I’m going to reflect on what Dr. Prebys, the head of the program, said when making her final speech. She asked us to sit and think, “What does Rome mean to you”. So here is my answer to that question:

Rome to me is where I’ve spent the past 3 months of my life, but a place that will be in my thoughts and heart forever. The people I’ve met, the friendships formed, the experiences throughout Rome on a daily basis, just being able to walk around the town and down to the Vatican on a daily basis, that to me is a lifelong memory, one that I will tell friends and family about for the rest of my life.

I wanted to reflect on the entire 3 months, so I’ve come up with a couple of lists. The first will be posted today, which I am going to miss about Rome. Later this week I’ll post my second one, which is everything that I’ve experienced, and my third will be a list of what I’m looking forward to when I get back to the States.

Okay, What I Will Miss about Rome:

The food…of course. The pasta, pizza, gelato, and everything in between, it has been some incredible food in Rome, and I would never get sick of this great Italian food.

The Coffee – I didn’t drink much coffee before I came to Rome. Now I drink at least 2 a day. It is going to be a hard transition back to the states, where I’ll have to find the equivalent of Italian coffee.

The Vatican- I will miss going to the Vatican on a daily basis, and even more so the ability to walk into such a spectacular church such as St. Peter’s and explore every inch of its enormity.

Speaking Italian- Yes I will miss speaking Italian. At times it is very stressful and inconvenient, and can become tiring, but when you succeed in speaking the language to get through an entire meal, or give directions even, it is the most satisfying feeling ever. Being able to blend in and be a true part of the Roman society is something I was set on doing when I came over here. I didn’t want to be looked at as a tourist for 3 months. Yes, there were times when I was a tourist, but on a daily basis I tried my best to blend in.

The Hotel Tiziano- Staying in a four star hotel in Rome is special. Living in a four star hotel in Rome is unheard of. The staff of the hotel are the best. They’re always eager to help us or just to say Ciao when we walk in and out past the desk. They cleaned our rooms and made us food, which made it feel like one big happy family.

The Girls of SMC – For a group of 65 girls from the same college to take in 4 strangers from Villanova and make us feel at home from day one, especially being one of 2 guys in the entire program, that was something I didn’t ever imagine. Since the first few minutes in the airport when we got here until the banquet tonight, they have always been friendly, helpful, and all around great people to be with for 3 months in a foreign country. I’ve made some really good friends here, and I am so happy for that.

Rome- I am going to miss Rome, in its entirety. The city has proven to be an incredible home for 3 months. After all of my traveling and experiences, I cannot see myself studying abroad anywhere else other than this city.

So thank you St. Mary’s for giving me this opportunity to be part of your program, and thank you Rome for being so open to my exploration and discovery of a great city.

I will surely be back again, hopefully sooner than later.

Summer Vacation

At 10:37am today (4:37am East Coast time), after studying for a long time, and losing an hour due to daylight savings, I finished my last exam in Rome, thus beginning, believe it or not, my summer vacation.

Yesterday when I updated, I said that there were too many days left. What I meant to say was that there are too few days left (I've fixed it in the post from yesterday, I don't like leaving tracks of my mistakes, like when I use their instead of they're, which seems to really bother some people who read the blog everyday...you know who you are).

So I have a few free days now to take in Rome as much as possible. I met up with my visitors, Jen and Alan, and we got some pizza for lunch and walked around some of the Piazzas. We then made our way back to St. Peter's Basilica. I've been in St. Peter's a lot of times these past few months, but each time I find or notice someting new and different about it. Today we had the opportunity to climb the Cupola. About halfway up you are inside the Basilica and can walk around the circumference of the dome, looking down at all of the people in the church. As we were doing this, a group of priests were processing in for mass in the main Apse. I stood for as long as I could, head against the metal caging that keeps you from falling from the balcony, and watched the procession. To be able to walk down the street any day of the week and go into St. Peters, that is something special. Out of all of the churches and monuments, museums and buildings I've seen, St. Peters is undoubtedly my favorite that I have experienced.

One of the reasons I like going into it with all of my past visitors is that I get to share my (somewhat limited) knowledge of the Basilica, and I want to share with them the same overwhelming experience I feel every time I walk through those doors. To quote Taylor Carson, a great musician I've had the pleasure of sharing a stage with, "I'm so lucky to be alive". Yes I know, I'm sure many people could be quoted as saying that, but I've been listening to his music a lot over the past three months as I travel and when I'm just walking around Rome, and find myself singing his songs out loud when the sun is shining and I take a second to stop and realize where I am and what an exciting experience this has been. (Even listening right now as I write this post)

The view from the top of the cupola was equally impressive, one of the best views of Rome I've seen. The view of St. Peter's square is incredible from up there as well.

Down the stairs (320 to the elevator) and out to Piazza del Popollo and then up to Villa Borghese, to the spanish steps and back down to my hotel. I think it was a good workout for all of us.

For dinner, It's hard to imagine I still hadn't tried Bafetto yet, so we decided to go there to try it out. Food was really good, but I've come to expect that in Rome at this point. We did a mini gelato crawl afterward, Giolitti and San Crispino. I'm not sure which Jen and Alan liked best, but I still think I'm a Giolitti fan, even after the side-by-side comparison.

Another stop at the Trevi for Jen and Alan to throw coins in, which seems to have worked the first time they both came to Rome a few years ago.

Tomorrow involves tying up a lot of loose ends, and even, dare I say it, a bit of packing to do, with Wednesday quickly approaching.

And if you're looking for some great music, please do take a look at Taylor Carson's webpage: www.taylorcarson.com

I promise, you'll like what you hear.

Internet office goodbye

This week has been full of "Lasts" for me, so why kill the streak and talk about something different?

Today was our last day of work, in the Internet office of the Holy See. Nate and I went in at 10 for work(since we didn't have Italian we got to sleep a bit!) and worked on finishing up at our computers. We mostly were backing up files, and prepping the computers for the next set of interns. It's hard to believe my work is done at the office, even though I still have some work with my St. Paul's video to finish up Stateside. Writing a note to the new interns to take our place brought back a lot of good memories from when we walked into the office the first time, and how it took us a half hour to figure out all the different passwords for the computers. They were all different, and had wacky hints from past interns to try and tell us what they were.

I took a minute to contemplate the change over the past six months or so from: "I am going to intern at the Vatican" to "I am interning at the Vatican" and now finally: "I interned at the Vatican". With each of those three statements comes to mind very distinct memories and thoughts. The first, telling everyone about my internship to come, and the mystery of it all, which at times made me nervous. Then came the present, where I was involved in the office and my project at St. Paul's, and now finally, I will talk about it in the past, as I share my experiences and stories with family and friends, and most likely some potential employers (who hopefully turn into simply "employers"). I know I will remember my experiences forever, but I'm also glad I took the chance to document them with you all on the blog.

We said our final goodbyes to everyone in the office as well. The people we work with have been great. They were always willing to try and involve us in conversation, even though we sometimes couldn't understand them, or them us. We used our Italian as best we could, and they tried out english just for us. I want to thank them for allowing us to join their office life for the past 3 months.

We stayed a little late today in the office. We got caught up writing our notes to the new interns. Or maybe it was just something in our subconscious, telling us to stay as long as we could, just a little while longer, to prolong having to walk out of our office, down down the stairs, and out the giant Green doors, looking left and seeing St. Peter's just at the end of the street, before turning right and heading across the bridge, back to our hotel.

A Home Cooked Roman Meal

Tonight, as a celebration of the end of our Italian lessons, we were invited by Carlotta to her house for a home-cooked Italian meal.

When I say for a home-cooked meal, I mean genuine, home-made everything. The food was fantastic, and gave us a great idea of what a traditional home-cooked meal is like here in Rome, considering our experience is only with eating out. The dinner included not only us four Villanova Students, but also Gloria who has been mentioned in the blog before as one of the Villanova interns from a few years ago, and also Carlotta's sister-in-law Alessandra who is our age and speaks english very well.

Carlotta made home-made bread, a variety of kinds, my favorite being the bread with olives in it which was fantastic. The Pane was our Anti-Pasti and our Primi was home-made pasta in a great tomato sauce with capers and olives. The pasta was some of the best I've had while I've been here. She also let us try some Ro Olio, which is olive oil that her family grows and sells at their house by the shore (I'll use the Jersey terminology here). Our Secondi was fresh cut prosciutto and turkey, two different kinds of fresh mozzarella, and a Zucchini quiche without any sort of crust to it. Everything was so fresh. Dessert, ciambella's (donuts) that Gloria brought from a bakery which reminded me, as always, of Miss Ob Co's down the Jersey shore, and a home-made apricot pie that Carlotta made. She also offered us chocolates and caffe to end our meal (she used the Espresso machine that she always talks about with us, which is endorsed in Italy by George Clooney, a George-Foreman'esque product if you will, but just like a Foreman it works really well) .

We sat at the table eating and talking for a good 4 hours, not even noticing it was midnight when we called for a cab. The conversation switched back and forth between English and Italian, which I thought was really cool. Sometimes mid-story those more fluent in both languages (Gloria, Alessandra, and of course Carlotta) would switch from one language to another. It was fun to have this mixed conversation, and really showed how far I've come learning Italian when I realized I understood more than I ever expected to when coming to Rome 3 months ago.

And of course, one of the highlights of the night was finally meeting Carlotta's bambino (little boy) Giorgio. He was loving all the attention, showing us how he walks and throws a ball, and even posed for a couple pictures that Gloria took of him.

I've said it a thousand times, but I can't thanks Carlotta enough for all she's done for us. We've become like family with her over the past three months, and I know whenever I come back to Rome (notice it's not if, but when) she will be the first person I call to catch up with.

A Trip Inside the Walls

As you might have noticed, my blog is formally titled "Inside the Wall" followed by what I consider a pretty catchy subtitle that explains what the blog is about ("A blog of my experiences interning at the vatican, living in Rome, traveling Europe, and whatever else happens to come my way..."). As it turns out, my office is right outside the walls of the Vatican. Through a series of events and the Internet office of the Vatican switching from being under the Pope to being under the Vatican City State, we are one the only offices outside the walls that is under the jurisdiction of the Vatican City State. I consider that a cool little fun fact.
Seeing as our office is outside the walls, it isn't often that we have the opportunity to go inside the walls. Today, I made my second trip past the Swiss guards and Vatican Police security to visit inside the walls.

Nate and I had a meeting with our Adviser for the Internship who works Inside the Walls at the Telecommunication department office. We first had a tour of the telecommunications facilities, which for a technology nerd like myself, was awesome. We saw the facilities for the phone services, internet, and television, which are all their own functioning systems, meaning they don't rely on Italian companies to operate. They are all maintained in-house (or in-vatican I guess you could say). There is even a switchboard for an information phone number to the vatican that is operated by a group of Nuns from around the world. They operate on computers now through a digital interface, but the fact that they still answer each call is pretty incredible.

After the tour we met with our Adviser and Padre Fernando, who is the head of telecommunications. He thanked us for our work at the Internet office, and presented us with certificates for our work this semester. He also gave to us a very special gift: Rosary beads from the Pope. They have Pope Benedict's coat-of-arms on them and come in a brown case that has the coat-of-arms as well. It was very nice of them to do this for us, and the opportunity to work for the Vatican was alone enough of a gift (but I'll still take the Rosary beads too).

One last trip in Italy...

So this is my final open weekend in Rome, so I will be making a final trip within Italy for it.
Traveling Italy has been incredible. If there is one country you can travel to multiple cities and never get bored, it is, from my experience, Italy. I’ve been to so many different small cities and each one has its own unique feel and culture to it. Being that Italy was and has always been very much segregated by region, they still hold their own regional cultural values and traditions in high regard. It’s definitely a pride thing for the Italians.

It seems that many people agree with the above statement. For their spring break, Becky and her friends decided to travel Italy, visiting Rome first, then going north to Florence with a couple side trips up there, and now down to Naples, with side trips to Capri and Pompei. I’ve decided to join them on their journey south.

This is my first time going south, and I have to say I’m quite excited for it. I’ve heard so many cool things about Capri and Pompei, and of course Naples has its own unique qualities.
I’ll be getting on a train tomorrow to head down to Naples, where we will stay. It’s only an hour and ten minute ride from Rome, which is nice to be able to get somewhere so quickly and not have to deal with the airport security and all of the minor hassles that come with flying.

Seeing as it is my final trip, I’ll be sure to take tons of pictures (just reminded myself to charge my camera battery, that would be pretty terrible if I didn’t), and will of course be back online Sunday night or Monday to blog about the entire thing, as I have with all my other trips.
I’ll leave you now with a gallery of pictures I call, “My days with the Pope” which are a compilation of the three different days over the past three weeks that I saw the Pope (2 Angelus’, one Audience) and also my visit to the Vatican Museum, and another visit to St. Peter’s.

St. Patty's day with the Pope

As you may have guessed from my picture I tweeted earlier today, I went to my first Papal Audience today. I’ve been to two Angelus’ in the past two weeks, but this was my first Audience for the trip. Through our intern program, we were able to get some pretty incredible seats. We sat in a reserved section on the side of the stage, two rows back from the barricade. We didn’t even have to go through security like all the others sitting in the reserved section of the Audience, but were taken past the Swiss guards around the back to our seats. You can’t help but feel privileged doing something like that, and in fact we are pretty privileged in the fact that we even get to do things like this.

The pope came out in true fashion, and drove around in his pope-mobile through the crowd in the square. This is the first audience of the year that was held outside in the square so it was a pretty cool experience. They then drove the pope up to the stage and let him out, where he commenced telling his message. In his message in English to the English speaking countries, he gave special recognition to the Irish and St. Patrick’s day:

Speaking of St. Patty’s day, we celebrated in true Irish fashion (I suppose) by going to an Irish pub here in Rome (Scholars) for dinner. The atmosphere was lively, there was an Irish band playing music all night, and the food was great. I had the full Irish Breakfast, for dinner, which included eggs, toast, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, and beans. I must say, it’s one of the biggest/best breakfasts I’ve had since being in Rome, even if it was for dinner. ( I tried to order Irish Stew first, but they didn’t have any tonight)

While we sat and ate, I heard the band play lots of Irish songs that I recognized. Instantly reminisced about home, because their the songs I hear playing throughout our house on St. Patrick’s day, coming from the 6 CD changer in the Family Room playing on Shuffle(It’s one of the only times we ever use the 6 CD changer, and sometimes we go a whole year leaving the Irish music in there, so when the next St. Patty’s day comes along, we don’t even have to switch the CD’s). That’s exactly what it felt like in Scholars tonight, and I couldn’t help but sing along and take in the music and atmosphere.

Both events today were very memorable experiences that, as this program comes to a close (how many times am I going to say that?!) I will always cherish and remember. My first audience with the pope, where he blessed my rosary beads (not personally, he blesses all items at the end) and my St. Patrick’s day in Italy.

(Pictures to come, tomorrow most likely)

St. Paul's update

We had another beautiful day here in Rome. The weather is making it harder and harder to think about leaving in 3 weeks...

So I figured I'd take today to give you a bit of an update on my project at St. Paul's! I have finished the majority of the shooting at St. Paul's. For the past week I have been going through my footage and pictures to make sure I have everything covered that I've shot so far. There are still a few different possible locations that I haven't shot yet, but I have to look at the script compared to the VR footage I already have and decide if I need any additional content for those sections.

Looking at the script is no easy task. It is written in Italian, and I have no translation of it whatsoever. Chances are somewhere down the line it will be translated so they can have the voiceover's in different languages or put subtitles, but for me, it's a lot of searching for words I understand, piecing together, and google translate.

Speaking of the script, I did what I hope is the final recording of the voice-over today with one of my co-workers in the Internet Office today. Anna was kind enough to lend her voice for the project and I think it is going to sound great.

I only have 2 weeks left, but I feel like I can get all of the shooting and recording done before I head home, and then edit together a nice piece for St. Paul's Basilica when I'm back Stateside.

So there's my quick update for the day. I'm planning on doing another Q&A again this week, so please post questions in the comments, as always, and I'll be sure to answer. Not sure if this will be the last Q&A or if there will be one final wrap-up one, but don't let any rock go un-turned.

Internal compass vs External GPS

I would like to think that over the past couple of months I have been able to get a firm grasp on navigating Rome. And in fact I would say this is true for the most visited areas around me. Want to get to one of the famous piazzas or monuments? Then I'm your guy. But as it turns out Rome has more than its fair share of side streets and small cobblestone roads. This makes finding more obscure places much more difficult.

Enter my internal compass. I think I have a pretty good internal compass. Star me off at a place, walk me down all different streets in all different directions, and more likely than not I can get us back to the starting point. Maybe I just have really good recall of a route, but generally I feel as though during the course of an experiment like this I would always be able to point in the general direction of the original starting place. This is a pretty valuable asset even when I'm not in Rome, and sometimes it is extremely valuable when I'm in a foreign city and am not as comfortable/familiar with the area.

I think I have talked about this internal compass a little bit in the past, but what I haven't talked about is my secret aid in case of emergency.

One of the really valuable things with having a "smartphone" (Thanks Tim for lending it to me!) is that I have GPS built in through Google maps on my phone. The GPS on this phone can calculate my position by using information to the cell towers the phone is contacting. Because it knows I am connected to a certain cell tower, and within range of two others, it can triangulate my position from this information, something that a phone is always doing in the background, tracking your location for better service and a stronger signal, and putting it to more use for the user. It then uses my internet signal though 3G to download the maps from google maps. The result is pretty incredible. On a normal basis I can get the GPS to locate me to within a hundred meters of where I'm standing. Sometimes it is more accurate and others it has a wider range of my location. The phone puts a pinpoint on the map as to where it thinks I am, and then places a radius around that blip based on the accuracy of the calculations at that point. This can range from 50 meters to 500 meters, which is a wide difference, especially when you're talking about narrow side streets that all intersect and run very close to each other.

It is a good emergency tool, and paired together with my internal compass it tends to be pretty efficient. I'm not one to use maps often, and using the GPS feels like cheating every once and a while, but most of the time it is justified because of the setup of Rome. Sure, streets have names here, but sometimes the names are harder to figure out than in the States. Finding a street sign is one issue, which are normally not signs but plaques built into the sides of buildings on corners. Normally one corner out of 4 at minimum will have the sign for that street. When you can find a street sign though, sometimes you'll find that a street has several names. One may be the official name, while others could be local or historical names for the street. It is normally the official name of the street on the plaque, but not always the same name that end up on maps, in tour books, or in other listings of a place, say for example a restaurant. When we were trying to find Tony's restaurant the other night, we had problems trying to figure out what the cross streets were. It turns out we were standing in a Piazza, unnamed on a map, which overrode the individual street names with labeling them on the plaques. After a combination of GPS and my internal sense of direction, we were able to find the restaurant. I feel like this is the perfect blend of external and internal instincts. The GPS couldn't help tell me where to go, because street names were all different and it only had a rough sense of where I was located, but it was able to tell me about where I was, for example how close to the river we were, and using this and my sense of direction, knowing where the restaurant should be in relation to everything else, we were able to find it in no time.

So yes, GPS systems are very useful, and being an endorser of all things technology, I find them to be vital instrument in our lives and in the future, but lets not forget or lose our sense of internal direction. A GPS can only get you so far.

Live at Abbey Theater...

Tonight I got to do something that I cherish in the U.S., but in Italy. I haven't played music on stage in about three months, probably since December when I played an acoustic show with a friend of mine Dave Eisner. Tonight I had the chance to play on stage again, and boy was it fun to shake the cobwebs off.

I'm not going to sugar coat it, my performance didn't go exactly as planned. When I say that I mean that I always have in my head the exact way I see a night going, and while that didn't necessarily happen, it wasn't all bad, I promise.

I had talked to someone via Email about playing at Abbey theater, and they let me know they were starting open mics in March. They wanted me to confirm being able to play, to make sure they had people there, so I gladly said yes. Early in my trip here I bought a guitar, a $40 classical guitar from a bookstore, right handed, so I had to take the strings off and restring it for my funky lefty playing. It's been good to me, but at the end of the day it's still a cheap, pretty much plastic, acoustic guitar. I haven't used it for much other than fooling around in my room, so when I found out I was going to play I started putting it through a rigorous practice schedule this past week.

I was told three songs, though I could have gotten away with more as the night turned out, but I prepped to play three songs. I always struggle with song selection with the band, I have so many different songs in my head I want to play and in different orders for a setlist. I overthink it sometimes, but it's better than going in unprepared.

Song selection for this one was particularly tough because I was playing a Solo act, my first time ever playing out solo. Normally when we play small shows I play with at least one other person, normally my bandmate for the past three years and great friend, Kevin Tymon. He's a great guy to play with, and I could have used him tonight to back me up through all three songs.

So three songs... First is a no brainer, I played "Fighter" which is an original I play with the band. It's one of the only songs I play guitar on/sing lead. Yes, not only was I shaking off 3 month old cobwebs, but I also rarely play guitar/sing lead at shows, that's normally up to Kevin in the band, or whoever else I'm playing with if its a duo act with me and another person. So I didn't even practice Fighter really for this show, it's stuck in my mind forever. A reflex to play almost. How about the next two songs? Well I decided to do covers, over much debate on what to play. Normally I have someone to discuss setlists with, but this time I was alone to my own opinion. I was back and forth between playing "The General" by Dispatch, and a Dave Matthews Band song, which was bound to be a crowd pleaser. Trouble was, I didn't know how to play any DMB songs fully through/sing with them, and I surely had never played one live. I settled on playing "Grey Street" if I was going to do a DMB song, and taught it to myself a couple hours before the show.

For the third song I must give credit to the above-mentioned Kevin Tymon. Back when the band was young, Kevin wrote an awesome medley of Rap songs set to a comical acoustic tune.It's been 3 years and we've played it at every show thus far. I decided to keep up the tradition, along with adding some newer songs to the end of the medley (You can download an old copy from 5pointmusic.com and click on downloads, then on the World Cafe Live Show, or if you're feeling generous, search 5point on iTunes and buy the "Rap Medley" from there). I know it gets a little old sometimes, but I absolutely love this song.

So tonight finally came, and me, as prepared as I was going to be, was ready to take the stage. I was honored first off to see so many of my classmates and friends come to the show tonight, even though I told them I would only be playing a couple of songs. There were well over twenty Saint Mary's program students there tonight, and I hope they all had as much fun as I did. The Jamie duo was also there, and I thank them for their attendance as well, putting up with my crazy antics on their trip.

The setup for the show couldn't have been more awkward. A stool, with a microphone for vocals on a mic stand. To mic the guitar, we had to place a Mic in a beer pitcher and prop it up so that it was pointed at our guitars. There were 4 of us that played tonight, and I went on second.

So here I am, with this crazy rig to play into, and I start my first song, "Fighter". Trouble was, my volumes were completely off, and I'm pretty sure you couldn't hear my guitar. Well I couldn't hear anything, which led to me struggling with playing. There is nothing worse than not being able to hear what you're playing and singing, but I'll keep the complaining to a minimum.

I got through the first song, and decided to go with the DMB song after asking the audience what they would prefer. As it turns out, ( I probably was breaking some cardinal rule of playing live music) a couple hours worth of learning a song is not sufficient for playing it live. I struggled through the first minute of the song, and when I got to the chorus completely blanked on the chord sequence, so without missing a beat I transitioned into one of the songs I know best, "The General" by Dispatch. I played the song with ease, only having to switch my singing style and volume because I still couldn't hear myself. Song over and I was just getting into a groove. The third song was a crowd pleaser though, and I'm confident I ended on a strong note. Going from song to song in the medley I could feel the crowd getting more and more into it. I really started loosening up and having some fun with it, and by the end, my last part of the song being "I got a Feeling" by the Black Eyed Peas, I think everyone was having a good time (or "night").

Overall I had an amazing time playing for everyone, and I sure hope that they enjoyed it as well. Having played my fair share of shows to empty houses, I couldn't have been happier with the crowd that showed up tonight. I took the opportunity to do something I've been wanting to do all semester: I had all of my friends and classmates sign my cheapo guitar that I bought here in Italy. It will forever be a souvenir I will cherish ( I just have to figure out how to get it home!)



(Someday when they are all rich and famous this guitar is really going to be worth a lot...)

Just another Sunday...

So I've now realized two posts in one day is pretty hard, especially when it's not part of a series on a place I visited. So I'm just going to do a brief overview of my day today, some of which was covered in the last post, some of which was not.

We woke up early to go see the Pope say the Angelus this morning. It was like a Rock Concert. The square was packed and rocking, waiting for him to come out. When he finally did, everyone went crazy. It's always good to see the Pope, who I've come to realize is a pretty small guy (looks even smaller from a window several stories up). Afterward we quickly beat the crowds into St. Peter's Basilica.

Inside we went to mass in the main Apse, which was really nice. I saw our security guard from the Villanova photography project, Manuelle, and talked to him for a bit. I was happy to find that he remembered exactly who I was, and felt like he still gave us some sort of special privilege. Even though anyone who wants to go to mass can go through the security where he was standing, when he let us through it felt like we had some sort of special privilege. Maybe it was the smile and handshake after the five minute conversation we had, but something about it was different than how he let other people who asked him to allow them through for mass felt.

Afterwards we headed to the Vatican Museum, having not done our homework we found it closed on Sundays. From here Jamie and Jaime went to the Coliseum, this weekend being free entrance for women to national monuments, and I headed back to my hotel to do some Blogging. We both took a siesta after that, I think they were pretty tired of walking, then met up for dinner. We had dinner at another first, a place known by locals as "Tony's" Though it is formally called Hosteria del Moro. The food was fantastic. We had mixed bruschetta for the table, and the portions of our meals were the largest I've seen in Rome, while the prices were right on par with what we normally spend. The desserts were excellent as well, and it was nice to be able to sit and make room after our enormous meals for dessert. Good Italian restaurants rush to get your order and your food to you, but once they do that they don't expect you to leave anytime soon. Even after asking for the check it takes twenty minutes for it to come. In the U.S. if you ask for a check, and don't get it right away, well that's normally an annoyance. Here, I enjoy the fact that I don't feel like I'm being rushed at all, and that if I wanted to order more food, or just sit for hours, I could. It's less of a structured meal than in the States.

Tomorrow it's back to work for me, and my two visitors will be doing the Vatican Museum and then just getting lost in Rome (by that I mean just strolling and exploring, not physically getting lost. They could get on basically any bus and get back to their hostel which is right by the train station, it's pretty foolproof if you ask me).

Always something new

I apologize for not having this post up last night. It seems the internet in the hotel is waging an all out war against me, and last night it won. Knowing the tech nerd I am, I will not stand for this, and I'll make sure the hotel internet doesn't keep me from posting ever again. That said, you'll be happy to know I will post two posts today to keep up with my normal quota.


So over the past few days I've been showing my guests around Rome. I've hit all the usual places, but as it turns out their visit has given me an excuse to see lots of things I haven't already done. It's weird to think that after being here for so long I haven't done everything yet, but I've learned there is still much for me to see and do, even in the area right around me.

Navonna Notte:

For dinner their first night we went to Navonna Notte. This is a local restaurant in Piazza Navonna that is really well known for their great food, fun atmosphere and cheap prices. Students go there all the time from my program, and so I figured it was about time to go. I'm very happy we did. We actually had to wait five minutes for a table, something that rarely happens in Rome, so when you come across a place you have to wait for a table at, you know it is good. The food was fantastic, and the atmosphere was lively and happy. Birthdays being celebrated, friends meeting up, mostly locals which gave it an authentic feel as if the food wasn't authentic enough. I'd place it in my top 5 favorite restaurants, and I'd say that's a pretty bold move for all the places I've raved about in the past.

Villa Bourghese:
Yesterday (Saturday) was a beautiful day, so we went up to Villa bourghese, a large and beautiful park in Rome. I hadn't been up there yet, though I believe my parents went through it when they were visiting. We rented a 3 person bike/cart vehicle, which was in fact very hard to pedal (We believe we got ripped off, some of the other carts had motors that assisted the pedaling) but it was still a lot of fun. We then walked through the park and down to the Spanish steps.


Churches:
There are over 900 churches in Rome, so it's not hard to find a new church to go into, but some of the ones we have gone into the past few days are right in my "backyard" so to speak. The church in Piazza Navonna was open on thursday (this was without the jamies) so I went in it while waiting for my friend Steve to show up with his friends for dinner. It was a beautiful church but mass was going on so I wasn't able to walk around it much.

Another church we went into is right on the main road my hotel is on, and I walk past it every day on my way to and from the Vatican, yet I had never been in it. My Aunt Nancy had gone in while she was visiting and recommended I go see it, so I finally did, and I wasn't disappointed. It was much larger than it looked from the outside and also held the body of an incorruptible, though I'm not exactly sure who it is.

When we were at the spanish steps we visited the church at the top, and this was also another different and beautiful church. The marble-work on the altar was incredible.

Castel Sant Angelo:
Now this is something I've wanted to go into for a long time. I walk past the Castle every day, which was once used as a Papal fortress but is now a museum. We went in last night around sunset, and had the most incredible view from the top of the sun setting behind Saint Peter's Basilica. The Castle itself was also really impressive, but the view was worth the price of admission (though the girls got in free, this weekend all women get into national monuments for free, lucky them).

Angelus:

Today (Sunday) we went and saw the Pope say the Angelus from his balcony. The square was packed, and when he came out it was like Bruce Springsteen had come out on stage in Giants Stadium. It is also the first time I have ever heard the Pope speak english, which was really cool. He says his message about the Sunday readings in multiple languages, and when he announces what language it is the people of that language all cheer.

St. Peter's




I've been in Saint Peter's Basilica many times, but this was the first time I attended mass in the main apse of the Church. When the Pope says mass he says it on the altar that is above St. Peter's tomb, but today mass was held in the Apse behind it, which is normally closed off to the public (Though I was in it for the photography work in St. Peter's). It was nice to sit in that space again and take it all in while mass was going on, trying to piece together the Italian words I understood in the Priests homily.

That's all for now, another post tonight is promised!

Having Visitors...

So I wrote a post about this same topic last night, but I came back from dinner to find the internet not working at all in the Hotel. Tonight I've totally re-written the post, so you can consider this the Thursday and Friday post.

Also, there may be some special guest bloggers this week, so hopefully you'll get some good stuff from them. More on that later.

So lets start with Thursday. I got to meet up with a good friend who was visiting Rome. This wasn't just any friend though, and it goes to show that being abroad actually makes it easier in some cases to see people. This friend I'm talking about is Steve Schaller. From 4th to 7th grade our dads coached in-town basketball together, and over those years Steve and I became really close friends. In seventh grade he moved away to Albany, NY, but we tried to stay in touch as much as we could. Back then he would come visit once or twice every year for a weekend, and we'd get together with old friends and talk about what was the same and what has changed. When it came time for College, Steve chose to go to his childhood favorite, Syracuse. And as it turns out Becky went there as well, and they became good friends at school. Whenever I go up to visit Becky I make sure to see Steve, and we reminisce about the good old days, particularly our dominance of recreation basketball (Steve was always a great basketball player, playing all through High School, while my basketball career along with my height, peaked at about 5th grade).

So when it turned out that Steve was coming to Rome to visit some Syracuse friends, I of course got together with him. It's an interesting thing, meeting up with a childhood friend in a completely different country. Our lives have taken us in two different directions, two different places, but when they intersect it is always a great time. Dinner with him and his friends was great, and I wish I had known he was in Rome earlier.

Now today, Friday, brings along another visitor. My Cousin Jamie, and her friend Jaime are on their spring break and decided to come to Rome. Good choice. They arrived early this morning and after getting a ride from the airport we met up to spend the day together.

I really enjoy "showing off" the city to people who come to visit. After being here for two months I am proud to know it pretty well, but am proud to be able to show them the cool places to see, and even better, the places to eat.

I'm excited for their week here, I think they are already having a great time, if even for the food alone. Just today we got some of the best gelato (San Crispinos) my favorite pizza (Forno) and went to one of my now top three favorite restaurants (Navonna Notte) which was also my first time. We walked around a lot, and by the end of the night I think I had tired them out enough for a good nights sleep, and hopefully they'll be ready for another full day tomorrow.

Over the next few weeks I will be having lots of visitors, and I'm extremely excited by it. My passion for being a "tour guide" of Rome feels similar to that of showing off Villanova to anyone who comes to visit the campus. I'm eager to show them all the wonderful food and sites I've experienced so far, so they can get some idea of my experience here. It's the reason I write the blog to begin with, to share some part of my experience with you.

Even though my time left is winding down, I know I'll be busy with everything going on, and I'm glad I have so many people who are interested in coming to experience a little bit of Rome with me. For those of you who were looking for a blog post last night and didn't see one, I apologize, and thanks for wanting so much to be a part of my experience.

Question Time!

I'm going to keep today's post short, mostly because I have a lot to do before I head out for dinner and a concert tonight (more about the concert tomorrow). So I decided I would answer some questions I've received the past couple days.

The first one pertains to my work at the Vatican. I received an email asking me with all I have going on traveling wise when could I possibly have time to work at my internship and what am I up to?

Well let me go over a Monday to Thursday workday for the past couple weeks. Wake up early for Italian tutoring at 8am with our favorite Italian tutor (how many times can I say this, she really is awesome) Carlotta, which runs until 10am. From there I jump on the number 23 bus, or take a taxi depending on my mood, to St. Paul's Outside the Walls. I meet up with Father Nerino, who is as best as I can describe it the Manager of Operations at St. Paul's Basilica. He knows everything there is to know about the Basilica, and is very passionate about it. He has been writing the scripts for the video project I am doing. Problem is, the only english he knows is Hello and Goodbye. This is a good test for my Italian, but for a lot of it we use the one person in the office that can translate for us. Once we've talked about the progress, I am sent off to photograph the Basilica. It is awesome to be able to get close to all of the different pieces of art and other interesting architecture and take literally hundreds of pictures which will be later put together with the text and voice-overs Father Nerino is writing.

I leave around 1pm, sometimes later depending on my class schedule for the given day. It's always a productive couple hours and I'm really enjoying every shoot.


Another couple of questions I had were about skiing, and seeing how I loved it so much I want to touch on them.

The mountain wasn't crowded at all. There were a decent amount of people there, but since it was so open and spread out, it wasn't like everyone was skiing on top of each-other like in Poconos (again, my only point of reference).

Something I meant to touch on in my original post was the ski lifts. The lines were not long at all, maybe 5 minutes max, and I really mean that. They were a bit different though than lifts I've seen. You walk up to a turnstile which is electronic, and there are large scanners on both sides that are like metal detectors. You can have your ski pass anywhere on you, in your coat pocket, wherever and it will pick up the signal and then let you through the turnstile. From here you move up to the lift and stand behind gates like those for roller coaster boarding platforms. When the gates open you get on a conveyor belt which moves in perfect harmony with the chairs swinging around, meaning that you get on and are moved forward and then literally just sit down when the chair reaches you. It all works in perfect succession, and was really cool. I wish I had video of this whole sequence of events, I hope you can understand what I'm describing.

As for snowboarding, it is very much alive here. Mostly the younger generations just like the US. There wasn't nearly as much of it as in the states, but it was there. Three of the people I went with snowboarded, and you could rent a snowboard just the same as skis, but the price was slightly more, like 5 euro. Not that big of a deal. There was a small park on the mountain, mostly for the snowboarders I suppose, so that culture is starting to creep in as well, though as we saw in the Olympics, we dominate the Snowboard "stunt" culture.

Well I hope that covers what you were interested in, if anyone has any other questions leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer.

Also bonus points to whoever can guess who I am going to see tonight (I really hope I didn't give this away in a past post, but I think I might have. And if I've told you specifically outside of this blog where I'm going, don't ruin the surprise for everyone! Well you can if you want to, it doesn't really matter to me I'll enjoy the show nonetheless")

Pope videos

Here's what you've all been waiting for, the videos of the pope on Ash Wednesday, where he at one point holds hands with my mom. I believe it is in the second video, when he stops in front of Matt and stands there to talk for a second, though I'm not certain, so if someone who was there could clear that up in the comments I'll post an update to this post. Pretty incredible stuff, blog post from the family coming soon (I've been promised).

Update from my Mom: You are correct. The pope held my hand in the second video when he was walking out of church. I was standing next to an Italian man (you can see the back of the man's head - dark hair) and Matt was taking the video over my head so you can't see the pope actually holding my hand but at around 25 seconds into the video when the man is talking to the pope you can see the pope's right arm stretch out and he was holding my hand at this point while listening to the man. The man handed a picture which security took from him and the pope let go of my hand and went to the other side of the aisle.

Lets talk about all of you for a change

So I've been doing a lot of talking about myself. Well actually, I've talked mostly about myself considering it is a blog about my experiences. But this wouldn't be nearly as fun and interesting if it wasn't an interaction of sorts. I'm not one to keep a private diary or journal. I do this blog to share with all of you, and I love hearing back from everyone in the comments. It is what fuels me to keep writing and bringing you stuff I think you will find interesting.

So since I know not every visitor comments every time on the blog, I began to track the visits to my website through Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a really neat google project that lets you see all sorts of information about your website, and who is visiting it. I am always curious to find out where the people visiting the blog are from, what they are looking at, how many show up each day etc... Google Analytics lets me do just that.

A month ago, about a week into the blog, I installed Google Analytics on my site. It was just a tiny piece of code in the website that tracks every visit. It is pretty impressive/scary what google can gather about each and every one of you from a small little piece of code.

I decided to write this post today, because I am celebrating my 1,000th visit to the blog. Technically right now the count is at 1,092 as I speak, but seeing as Italy has 71 visits to date, most of them probably me, my 1,000th visit came sometime yesterday. Also, I didn't have the tracking enabled the first week of the blog, so I missed counting all those visits as well, but we'll just say 1,000 for simplicity.

So 1,000 visits in about a month eh? Lets take a look at where you are from, and what you are up to on my blog!

Quick math (or Google Analyitics for that matter) says that I average 35 visits a day. The most visits in a single day came this past Monday, when I posted Paris Parts 1 and 2, which had 68 visits. A visit doesn't mean a different individual, but a count of how many times someone comes to the site. So if you type in ryan-mahoney.blogspot.com and browse a couple different posts, that counts as one visit. If you come back later in the day and check thet site again, depending on how long ago you were last on, that may also count as another visit.


I average about 20 Unique Visitors a day. That means that in any given day around 20 people make up that average of 35 visits. So almost everyone is coming back for more in the same day. This does vary greatly on different days though. Weekends that I say I am not going to be blogging tend to show less visits and visitors because people know not to check it until I am back.

What I find really cool is that I get to know my audience through these analytic reports. What do I know about you, you might ask, well I'll tell you!

I have had 150 different people visit my blog over the past month. That means that 150 different computers (probably tracked by IP address or MAC address if that means anything to you) have seen my site at one time or another. This obviously doesn't account for multiple people using the same computer to read it or who read it together.

I have had visitors from 5 different countries visit the site. The bulk of it is the US, but also Italy (of course), Spain, the UK and yesterday saw my first hit from Canada!

In the good old U.S. of A, I have had visitors from 11 different states. Here is a visual representation of them (the darker the state, the more visits from that state overall):



If that map is too small for you, or you don't know your geography, here is a list of the 11 states, with the number of visits to date:

New Jersey (608)
Pennsylvania (128)
New York (113)
Maryland (48)
California (37)
Illinois (5)
Massachusetts (2)
District of Columbia (2)
Virginia (2)
Connecticut (1)
New Hampshire (1)

So as you can see, New Jersey controls just over half the hits to the blog. Rightfully so I suppose, seeing as that is where I am from and where most of my family lives. Pennsylvania is close behind, again logical because I go to school there.

A cool little fact is that within these 11 states, 60 different cities are represented overall. 27 of which are in New Jersey.

My Hometown of Bridgewater is responsible for 110 of the visits, but is trumped by Liberty Corner in NJ, which has 247 visits. Villanova comes in at a close 3rd with 102 visits. On average, 12% of visitors every day are new visitors, meaning it is their first time on the blog.

I find this statistic to be one of the most rewarding of all: 88% of all visits are from returning users, meaning that only 12% of visitors have only visited the blog once. That must mean I am doing something right, because people keep coming back for more.

So now some nerdy statistics that I enjoy looking at. If you don't want to/don't understand the following, just skip to the next paragraph, I won't be offended. I am proud to say that the majority of my visitors use Mozilla Firefox to visit the site, not Internet Explorer. In fact, Safari comes in a close third, only 2% off of IE in 2nd. Most of you are using Windows, but 35% of visits came from Mac OS X. I even had a couple of hits through iphones, android phones, and linux. You're a tech savy bunch aren't you? Most of you are using a Cable internet connection, though some visits are even coming from a Dialup connection. I hope my pictures and long text loads okay on that connection, I'll keep you in mind dialup visitors when I post lengthy blogs and large pictures.

Okay, you can stop skipping now, the techy part is over. So now I have a bit of a challenge for you, my readers. Ready? From what I can see I have some pretty loyal readers, and for that I am very greatful. Knowing you are checking the blog day in and day out motivates me to make sure I post every day and to bring you something interesting to read about, so I try and come up with cool topics for the posts. What I would like from you, is your help in promoting this blog. I have sent out the link to most people in my email contacts list, and have posted it on facebook and the like. So if you have a minute, and know of even just one person who you feel would be interested in reading the blog, whether it be one specific post you think they would find interesting, or the entire thing, please send them the link or tell them about it. Maybe its a family member or friend who is into traveling, or someone who is interested in the Italian/Roman culture, or even someone from your church (or your entire church, dare I say it?) seeing as I am participating in an internship at the Vatican. Lets see what kind of buzz we can stir up on the internet. Maybe we can get at least one view from all 50 states? Might be a hard task to find that person in Alaska, but I think that could be a really cool goal. Maybe I'm being greedy, after all, I should be more than happy with the fact that even one person comes to the site every day, but I think if we can grow the community of readers, and get people to start commenting, and have some conversations, some interactions through the blog posts and comments (I'll start responding to comments directly both in the posts and in the comments sections) I think we could all come away with something new every day. The last thing I want is for this to become a day-by-day list of my day-to-day activities.

To all of my past and present readers, I thank you. I started talking, and you, for one reason or another, listened. I hope that you continue to check back as often as you see fit, and are getting something from all of my posts.

To any new readers who might be a result of this post, thank you for visiting. I hope that if the site has been recommended to you by someone, and you enjoy it, you will do the same and continue the cycle.

And as always, the comment section is open!

My family will be arriving very soon, they are currently in Frankfurt, waiting for their connection to leave from there to Rome, which as been delayed by 2 hours at this point. I will update twitter (on the right, as always) when they arrive.

Paris! (Part 2 of more than I thought)

This is part two of what looks like will be a 3 part series on my trip to Rome. If you didn't read part 1 yet, click on the link below!

Link to Part 1

So to recap, I figured out the metro, and got to the metro stop near our hostel/hotel we would be staying at. I turned down the street to be greeted by Becky and her entourage standing outside the hostel. Becky’s entourage, let me introduce them. All of them are interior design majors at Syracuse University, studying abroad in London with Becky. They are: Maggie, Erin, Stacey, Becca, and Lindsay. And what an awesome group of girls to travel with.
So I quickly dropped my bags at the hotel and we were on our way to sightseeing.
I keep changing back between hostel and hotel when talking about where we were staying, so let me try and explain that now.

MIJE Fourcy:



We stayed in a hotel/hostel this weekend for Paris. It was called the Hotel Fourcy, yet was described as a hostel online and other sites. So lets try and figure out which it is, shall we? It was an older building in pretty much center city Paris, which was a great location. The rooms had private bathrooms, point for hotel. The toilettes though were not in the private bathroom, but in the hallway, point hostel. We did not pay for sheets, point hotel. We were given breakfast, point hostel (In Europe in general, breakfast is served at hostels and not in hotels). There were lots of young students there, point hostel. There were also lots of older people there, where normally hostels have only under 35 allowed, so point hotel. Late checkout, point hotel. I think that puts it in favor of Hotel, which is a good thing. It was priced more like a lower hotel than a hostel as well.

Notre Dame:



Our first tourist attraction, Notre Dame. I knew the cathedral was big, but I didn’t know what else to expect. It was a pretty impressive sight. The church is really impressive from the outside and even more impressive from the inside. Maybe I’m just spoiled though, but I didn’t get that same overwhelming feeling I got when going into St. Peter’s or St. Paul’s here. Maybe I’m just getting used to incredibly large churches. Nevertheless, it was an awesome church to see.

The Louvre:



If you want to talk about an overwhelming sensation, try walking into the Louvre. There’s a reason this was featured in that google superbowl ad (yep I saw it! Online of course). It’s obviously very well known for at least two things: its glass pyramid entranceway, and the Mona Lisa. Both are cool in their own regard, the first I found to be cooler than the latter, but I think the real spectacle is the sheer size of the building. We spent about 2 or 3 hours in the Louvre, and only got to see one wing of one floor of it completely through. That is probably about a tenth of the entire museum. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, and I took my obligatory picture of it, but as most people are these days, I was underwhelmed by it. Maybe if they would let me get closer than 30 feet from it to really examine it, or took off that horrible glared glass case from around it I could appreciate it more, but I guess the experience is more about saying you saw it than anything. There were plenty of paintings that had more of an effect on me because I could get up close and see the detail and texture in the artists work.

Saint Chapelle:



Next on our list was Saint Chappelle, which is known to have some of the nicest and probably tallest stain glass windows. Bottom line is this had some awesome stain glass windows, but it was small and a bit underwhelming as well. They sell it really well in pictures, making out to be a gigantic hall filled with stain glass windows, when it’s really a relatively small place. Considering we got into the Louvre for free through some fast talking (European Union resident students get free entrance to all museums, we’re students but not EU residents, but we’re very convincing sometimes) I felt like the price of admission was a bit high for Saint Chapelle. Maybe it was because they are doing restorations on the windows, which means they have part of it covered up, which takes away from the experiences. The restorations are definitely helping though, the difference between the finished side and the unfinished side is like night and day. As much as I may complain, it really was a cool place to sit and look at the simple beauty of it all for a while.

Afterwards we got lunch, which was a sandwich in a French baguette with fries and a drink all for 5 euro. When I say French baguette, I mean an entire loaf basically. They don’t skimp on their sandwiches and bread, something I was happy to find in Paris.

(I feel like I’m forgetting a sight that we saw in-between here. To be honest, the weekend is a whirlwind of sightseeing, eating, walking, and having a good time. If I remember I’ll be sure to update. If anyone on the trip is reading this and remembers what I’m missing, please tell me? Okay thanks!)

Champs-Elysees & Arc de Triumph:



You might think we are nearing the end of our day but we were just getting started. Up the Champs-Elysees towards the Arc de Triumph. It was as much further walk than we originally anticipated. The arc looked so close! Yet it was so far away. We got there, and it was well worth the walk. This is one of those monuments you learn about every semester of French class you take, and it really is a cool monument, right in the center of it all, at the intersection of what seems to be all of the roads of Paris. We opted in to climb to the top, and the view from there was incredible. Right as we were about to go back down, the Eiffel tower lit up a golden orange. It was the first time we (or I at least) saw it lit up, and I couldn’t help but stand and stare for another 15 minutes at it and the streets surrounding us. Afterwards we walked around and found a local caffe to eat at. The French onion soup was awesome. I didn’t order it, but I stole some of Beckys and we both really enjoyed it.

River Tour:



We ended our night with a riverboat tour of Paris. The boat left at 9pm and took us on an hour ride up and down the Siene river. We got to see a lot of familiar sites from the river at night, and more that we didn’t know anything about. The highlight is definitely seeing the Eiffel tower from the river though. I can’t even tell you how many pictures I took of it from the river, always thinking that “now” I’ll have a better shot/it looks cooler from here, or maybe it’s just closer? It was a beautiful night, and was a perfect end to my first, yet very busy (jam-packed with fun?) day in Paris.

So it looks like this is going to be 3 parts. Wahoo! Tomorrow I’ll tackle our trip on Saturday and Sunday, along with some tangents I want to go off on for a while. See you then….

Also, Pictures are up from the trip. Not all (internet is crawling) but many. Check them out here: Paris Pictures

And if you haven't already... Say happy birthday to Becky in the Comments!!

Trip number two...

In a few short hours, (and I really do mean short) I will be heading to the airport for my second trip outside of Italy.

This weekend I'll be in Paris, and I'll be meeting Becky there to celebrate her 21st birthday. I'm looking forward to seeing her for the first time since I got on a plane over a month ago, and also to visit France, the country with the foreign language I took classes in for so many years of my life.

I'm just about sure this trip will completely screw up all progress I have made with Italian. Just when I am getting in the groove of Italian, I'm going to be thrown into another language I somewhat understand (I'm going to have to shake the rust off, but I'm pretty confident I'll understand a lot of it).

I am going to keep this short tonight. I have a flight at 7am, which means Airport much earlier, and a taxi even earlier than that. Unfortunately public transportation doesn't run that early in the morning, so I'm stuck with a taxi, though that means a little extra sleep. I cannot promise any posts this weekend, but I will promise an extensive post on Monday, just like my post on Barcelona.

Is it bad I typed aeroport twice before changing it to airport?

Also, isn't there that little event called the Super Bowl going on this weekend? Yeah completely didn't realize that.

Spin Cycle

Being here for a month so far, you can see how I could have run out of clothes by now. Well this week I hit that milestone, and had the pleasure of doing laundry in Rome for the first time.

This isn't exactly the first time. I did a few items in the sink in the hotel, which ended with taking over two days to dry, so I have opted in for a more practical solution. We had heard there was a laundromat around town nearby, so we ventured out to find it.

What we found is was a small hole in the wall storefront that doubled as laundromat and internet access point. Surf the web while your clothes get clean? Sounds like a sales pitch to me.

So in we went, with clothes in hand. I won't describe the process, it's the same as in America, except instead of picking warm, cold, hot, you pick the actual temperature. 30 minutes in a washer and 30 in a dryer, about 10 euro later and we were on our way back to the hotel with clean clothes. The washing machines were tiny, while the dryers were enormous. 3 or 4 loads of wash would fit in one dryer.

The bottom line is, I was able to make it a month without having to do laundry. Lets give credit to good packing for that. By that calculation I should only have to do laundry once more. Pretty good if you ask me (I know you didn't but I get to decide what you ask and what you don't ask).

I had a really good day at St. Paul's today, more on that soon, once I have something to show for my work.

Edit: We've been a little short on questions lately, anyone want to pick it up and start asking? Ask them in the comments! or shoot me an email, ramlax13(at)gmail.com (replace the (at) with @. Never post your email on a website fully, there are computer programs that search through websites for email addresses to send spam to. That's a whole other topic though...)