Tera is outa the country. Again.

Well, we’re alive. Sorta. My head hurts. Today was mellow. In Italian we watched “Casomai.” Em. That movie pretty much made me decide that I never want to get married and I never want to have kids. HAHAHA. Watch this movie and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Later, after the best pesto and turkey sandwich on my life, I had printmaking and today we worked with acid! We had to etch our image into our metal plate that we prepared on Monday (which was hard) then we had to put the plate into acid so that the metal that was exposed um, hm, I’m not actually sure WHAT the acid did but it had to do with making lines on the metal that will eventually hold the ink for the print… It was a long process because we’d put it in to soak then have to sit around and wait for 20 minutes… then re-paint the metal and sit and let the paint dry… etc. etc. I entertained myself and my class by drawing cartoons of everyone. I made a class portrait and it’s not taped up on the wall… hehe.

After our usual 3-hour-siesta-the-day-after-we-drink-because-we-slept-for-3-hours-the-night-before Marilena and I started working on new plans for the evening. One of her buddies from home/SCU is studying in Barcelona and (surprise surprise) he’s here sooooo of course it was our job to take him and his friends out and show them what a good time Firenze is.

Before going out I ditched Marilena and the fam and went out to dinner with Dan. It’s crazy because eating out is something I’ve done very little of since I’ve been here. I think it’s mostly cuz of my foot… walking around at night time used to be really complicated and difficult – god it’s good to NOT be hurt anymore! The first restaurant we were going to go to seemed really cool (minus the skinned animals hanging in the window) but the guy that worked there took a look at us and was like ehhhh… sorry Americans, there’s no room for you. Meeh, whatever. Dinner was fun. Food was good. We ordered waay too much wine though and since I was still hurting and feverish from the night before I made Dan drink pretty much all of it. I’m such a good friend, ha. Thanks for everything Dan!!!

After dinner, while we were trying to figure out plans for the rest of the night, we went back to his apartment and all I have to say is that I looooovvveeee my freaking host family. He lives with the oldest people ever. Hahaha, they were nice but seriously really old. Dan’s Belgium movie was awesome, I was very impressed and after being serenaded by him and his roommate Marilena headed over and the three of us headed out for the evening to meet up with Marilena’s (already retardedly drunk) friends.

It was freezing last night. On our way to the other side of the Arno we made a stop at the Duomo where, of course, there was a little posse of about 20 SCUers hanging out on the steps. We decided the Arno was waaaay too far away and headed with everyone to Full Up. Ew. No one go to Full Up ever. Firstly, since it was 12:15ish we all got in for free (cover charge starts at 12:30). Ok… we were the ONLY people there. AND the place smelled like a bathroom AND they were spraying air freshener in the air and I could taste it… We looked around for about 5 minutes then Marilena, Dan, and I peaced out. Sad, I had heard about Full Up before coming to Firenze and I thought it was going to be pretty cool… meeh, oh well.

After witnessing a very happy reunion between Marilena and Dave (which was actually really cute and I wish I woulda taken pictures or something… haha) we went and met Amelia (who tore a huge hole in her jeans that exposed inner thigh/crotch!!! It was hilarious) at Astor. Minus the fact that 90% of the people at this club were guys, literally, this place was pretty cool. The four of us just sorta chilled and sipped drinks and played with the cars that Marilena and I got as presents in our Kindereggs that day. Somehow they got set on fire though… hmmm…

We ended up getting home around 2:30ish… no run ins with creepy brown men which was nice. We were happy to get a text this morning from Dave saying he was alive because for a while Marilena was freaking out and we were convinced that he slept under a car last night. What a ruckus.

This morning I packed, showered, and did my Italian homework in about 20 minutes and am ready to head out to Dublin for the weekend! I’m so excited! I’ve wanted to go to Ireland for a while now… more adventures to come in a few days!

cheap wine = expensive hangover

(Today's title provided by my lovely roommate... hehe)

There is something about the date “October 17th.” When I woke up this morning and my cell phone said 17-10-06 I had total déjà vu and sat there for about 20 minutes trying to figure out why this day stands out in my head THEN it hit me. I was brought back to six years ago when I was 14 years old and a freshman at Mira Costa and to all the events that took place on that day… God time has flown. It’s crazy to think of everything that I’ve been through since then and the ways in which I’ve completely changed and not changed at all.

Today was interesting. Italian class sucked as usual. It’s weird because even though we’re still not learning anything, we’re all getting really bad grades in the class. So far our grade has been based on two 1-page compositions that we’ve turned in… well, our teacher is a hardcore grader. If you’re off by a letter or an accent mark he grades you down. For my entire career as an Italian student I have gotten solid A’s on my compositions… so far at SUF I have gotten two B’s AND my grades (along with one other girl) have been the highest of the class. It is retarded. The average grade on every composition is a C… if I was a teacher and my whole class was getting a C I’d step back and think about what was going wrong: either I’m not teaching them anything OR I’m grading them way too hard. Everyone in our class is super motivated and aren’t the “C student” type. It’s very stressful because none of us are sure what to do in order to boost our grades… Marilena went in to complain about our teacher and I’m thinking about doing the same tomorrow. Ugh.

During “intervallo” I got into a big discussion with Claire and Mardee about how I was dropping my Michelangelo class and I think that I inspired the both of them to drop their art history classes too. They are both enrolled in Leonardo DaVinci and it is taught by Hatfield (the same professor that teaches my Michelangelo class). It felt good discussing everything with them because they had the same complaints about their class as I did about mine – it made me feel like i’m not just being a bad student/big wuss by dropping it. Mardee and I decided to have an Art-History-Class-Drop-Outs party tomorrow afternoon…

Seriously Syracuse is a total disappointment to everyone. I came to Italy more excited to learn about art/art history (my field of specialization) than I’ve ever been to learn about it at SCU and they’ve totally ruined it for me. I’m in Italy not taking any art history class… I mean, what? I dunno, it doesn’t make sense.

After school I went to the gym then went shopping at an Italian-version-of-Target-type-store to buy some winter clothes (even though it really hasn’t started to get cold at all yet). I’m starting to get sick of rotating the same clothes every other week sooo I figured a new shirt/sweater or two would be a nice change to the rotation.

On my way home I called Steph. Ahhh -- I miss my twin!! I felt so bad because it was, liek, 16:48 here which made it, liek, 7:48AM at home and I’m pretty sure I woke her up but she was cool and chatted with me for a while. It actually feels good to miss my friend though because I know I have something fun to look forward to when I get home. I started thinking about how things are going to be when we all get back to SCU and I’m not sure if I liked how I imagined it to be. I don’t want things to go back to the way they used to be before I left for Italy because I’m starting to think that I haven’t actually been happy (if that makes sense?). I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to wake up every morning feeling content with myself and my life and I really like it.

The events of tonite were ridiculous. Santa Clara basically took over all of Firenze. All the kids from study abroad programs in London and Barcelona are on their semester breaks right now so they all came to Firenze to visit… literally at the Duomo there were SCUers flooding from all directions. Not only were all SUF SCUers out but, liek, 30 foreign SCUers were there too! At one point Marilena counted all the SCUers and there were something like 45 of us! How cool is that?! I love love love going to a small school where everyone knows everyone! Being at SCU right now must suck cuz I seriously think all the fun people I’ve ever met at school are abroad… wait, no even better, they’re in Firenze!

After taking billions of pictures, and drinking, and hugging/reunioning we herded to Old Stove. More drinking and pictures and yummy coconut shots and having hardcore Alpha Phi/DG stare downs and schmoozing and Chris on his megaphone and group sing-a-longs to I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE. It was a huge ruckus. I loved it.

Then we all decided to go dancing (since it’s the best thing ever)!!! Since Andromeda was the closest we decided to mob ourselves over there. God I loooooove dancing (even if it IS with a random Italian guy that wouldn’t leave me alone). Marilena was on creeper patrol me at one point during the night because some huge black guy, liek, grabbed my arm and tried to get me to go with him… ummmm NO THANK YOU SIR! I did however accept an invitation to go drink champagne with some guys from Holland. They spoke English but for some reason I was in the mood to speak Italian… I think they musta thought I was a little bit psycho. HAHAHAHAHA. God. Last night was awesome.

On our walk home, Marilena and I met up with Dan so that we wouldn’t have to walk by ourselves… it WAS like 3:45ish?? I was freezing! It was scary cuz on the walk home we noticed a sketchy guy was, liek, following us but we had a good sized group and didn’t really think anything of it. The last 5ish minutes of Marilena and my walk home we had to make alone and the SECOND it was just the two of us the sketchy guy walked up to us and started talking to us… ehhhh… we were so scared that we just flat out started running. No joke, we sprinted home. I have NO clue what the dude said to us but I do know that he was following our group for a while and as soon as us two girls were alone he moved in… AAAAAHHHHHHHH.

sore from carving zinc plates

I’ve decided that from now on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday (day) are for relaxing/going to class and the rest (Thursday night through Sunday night) are for everything else fun and wonderful… well except this Wednesday night cuz word on the street is that a bunch of SCUers studying in Spain are venturing here to Firenze for a couple nights soooo OF COURSE we’re going to celebrate their arrival!

Today was nice cuz Italian this morning was cancelled and none of us knew until we got there and saw the sign on the door – god I love those “CLASS IS CANCELLED” signs; even when they’re not on the door of the class I’m going into cuz I still feel happy for all the kids that don’t have that class for the day!! Haha.

For my free time, I hung out in the SUF patio area and played around on the internet. It’s so nice to be able to use wireless when everyone else is in class because it actually goes a pretty decent speed. I got so much done! I sent a million e-mails to everyone I know, I checked up on my money situation, I AIM’d it with Kendrick, Jesse, and Kyle (who MIGHT trek up to Switzerland with us in December to go snowboarding!!), I caught up on my celebrity gossip and my favorite sports teams, I uploaded pictures, AND I made some finishing touches on all our weekend plans for the rest of our time in Europe.

Also, SCU just finished up with rush over the weekend and a bunch of Phi’s and I spent about 20 minutes facebooking all of the new Alpha Phi pledges – the only new Phi that I knew was Kelly Weber and I’m sooo excited that she’s in it with us! I can’t wait to get back to A Phi at school… is that weird? I really used to not like it very much – things change I guess.

For our one free weekend in November, Marilena and I were trying to decide whether or not we wanted to take a trip to Prague or visit a few cities in Germany. I have wanted to go to Prague for a while now (cuz I’ve been hearing about it from Pete non-stop for, liek, two years AND everyone else that’s been there says that it’s an absolutely incredible city) but I don’t think it’s going to work out because flying there from Italy is a big, expensive, pain in the ass. AND the flight times that we’ve found are all at awkward times of the day… sooooo then we started thinking about heading to Germany.

I think we’re destined to go to Germany because mid-discussion I randomly got an e-mail from my friend Chris (a Manhattan Beach-er) who said that he’s living in Germany for a while and that if we wanted to visit we could… how perfect is that?! The flights that I checked out online were literally .01 euro there and .01 euro back (Ryanair is freaking awesome) and after taxes and blah blah blah the round trip flight is only about 19 euro! Total! So… it looks like we’re headed to Hamburg! I have no clue what’s there but I’m trying to be very open minded about all the places we’re venturing to and figure that you can make anything fun if you want it to be.

Later on in printmaking we started working on zinc plates. Our class is three hours long and it took us ALL THREE HOURS to prepare the plates (that were only 4”x5”) for etching, which we didn’t even have time to start. The process is really interesting sooo I’m gonna take a few minutes to explain it:

Firstly, we each had to shave down the four edges of the zinc plate to a 45 degree angle so that when the plate is put through the press the wheel will be able to roll over it more easily. So I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to shave down thick pieces of metal before but it was serious manual labor. Our class has seven girls and one guy and the eight of us were carving for about 30 minutes… after 30 minutes we were all sweating and sore and cramped and tired! I suggested group massage time but no one took me up on my offer…

Second, we had to use a sandpaper-type-um-paper to smooth out/clean the zinc plates. This also took about 30 minutes and by the time I was done my fingers were quivering from pushing down so hard on the plate.

THIRD, we had to polish the plates and let them sit until the polish turned an opaque color (this part wasn’t THAT hard but then I found out that I didn’t polish mine right and had to do it AGAIN… ugh).

Fourth, we had to apply a contact-paper to the backside of the plate so that when we put the plate in acid, the acid would only react with the metal on the correct side. It took forever to smooth out all the little bumps…

Fifth, we had to paint the now really shiny side of the zinc with a goopy, black, oil/tar substance and let it sit to dry. Somehow I managed to get the goo all over my hands and it wouldn’t come off my skin soooo my hands have permanent black spots on them for a few days. Ugh.

By the time we finished step 5, we only had 10 minutes of class left so Kraczyna let us out early… I’m confused about the next steps we take to finish this technique but in a later journal I’ll be sure to put the full details!

Marilena and I went to the gym this afternoon. I got bit by mosquitoes again. Man! Tonight’s a mellow night… just homework and a goodnight’s sleep (since I spent MOST of last night coughing)!!! Midterms are coming up next week… yay for only having three! I’m so happy I dropped my class. It was only worth it because of the field trip to Rome. Which already happened. So I’m set. :)

Dropping Michelangelo (and so happy!)

Some good news: my foot is finally about 97% better, my cigarette burn is scabbing and pealing off, my cold is dying down, my hair is getting longer (YAY!), AND I survived Friday the 13^th I have momentum moving in the direction I want it to be going – oh wait, whoops, just kidding. The second things start heading uphill a new crappy thing comes up that I have to deal with. This time it’s school related. without anything bad happening to me!

Our grade in the Michelangelo class is based on a 30 minute presentation and the final exam. My presentation is coming up in exactly 10 days sooo I put all day today aside to work on it. I show up at the SUF library right when it opens and head to the reserves to grab the book I need. Since I’m reporting on a kinda bizarre topic (the way Michelangelo and Beethoven play a similar roll in their respective arts) I expected the SUF library to only have one or two books on it… well. They had one. And it was missing. Liek, the librarian was like, “oooh… sorry… ummmm, we’re not sure where that one is… someone prolly took it a long time ago and we haven’t gotten it replaced.” Soooo here I am ready to work with today being the only day over the next 10 days where I can dedicate adequate time to this project and Syracuse fails me.

I did every single possible internet search I could think of and even registered for a few online libraries and have come up with nothing. NOTHING. I looked at local English-speaking book stores and it wasn’t listed anywhere… Then it occurred to me… I COULD just drop the class. I have NEVER dropped a class before because I’ve never had good enough reason to.

I feel like I have a FEW good reasons right now: 1) I’ve been complaining about how stupid this class is from day 1, 2) I haven’t learned anything, 3) if I can’t do a good report in 10 days and get a bad grade then I’m screwed cuz there’s no way to make up for it later in the semester, 4) I already got my money’s worth for the class from our trip to Rome over the weekend, 5) My teacher sucks, 6) I am waaay ahead in units at SCU anyways and it really wouldn’t make a difference whether I got the units for the class or not… in 5 minutes I just typed six reasons.

My mind is pretty much made up. I e-mailed my TA and will prolly be able to meet with her tomorrow about everything and unless she has a really great solution for my project coming up, I’m done with Michelangelo (what sigh of relief!!!).

So anyways, we’ve officially been here for 41 days… I feel like I need to take a minute to get organized. Here’s my to do list:

-Midterms: tests start next week…

-Italian Paper: Something about what I want to do after college (who knows at this point?!) and it’s due tomorrow…

-Interview an Italian: yea… what? I should figure out what exactly that project is all about…

-Start and finish an entire print since I’m behind by one project…

-Organize my only free weekend in November soon before ticket prices go way up; it’s between Germany and Czech Republic…

-Wednesday some guys Marilena knows are visiting from Spain and I promised I’d go out dancing with her…

So that leaves today, tomorrow, and Tuesday evening to get everything done – HAHA. Thursday night we leave for Dublin; I guess it’s a good thing I work well under pressure?

Happy Birthday Derek!!!

My day started out at 9:00AM when I called my little brother (midnight at home) to wish him happy birthday!!! I can’t believe that he’s 19 years old… I mean, I feel like iiiii was just 19 years old recently sooo it’s crazy that he is. It was good talking to him; I think he was out with friends because I heard a lot of voices in the background. He told me that he was leaving the next day for Las Vegas with his frat and that to get there he had to ride in the back of a U-Haul with all the other pledges. God. That sounds totally disgusting to me but he was excited sooo I was excited for him.

After quick breakfast and bonding time with some SCUers (that I had never met… it’s like a reoccurring theme) we started making our way to the bus stop with the rest of our class. On our way to the bus I was PLOWED over by some guy – he stepped DIRECTLY onto my broken-but-better-but-still-hurts-sometimes foot in a really awkward way and I was sent spinning off the sidewalk into the street, almost onto my ass but thank goodness not. Um… WHOA!!

Everyone saw and was really confused about what had happened; all I knew was that I was in a lot of pain and I almost started crying but didn’t. After about 10 minutes the pain went away and my foot was fine… I just got real nervous for a few seconds that I hurt myself again; I don’t think I’d necessarily cry for the pain but I KNOW that if I’d have hurt myself again I would have been bawling at the thought of how much it would suck to move around for the rest of my time in Italy.

Our bus ride to the Vatican was quick (it was actually within walking distance of our hotel but everyone chose the lazy route). When we got there, the sight of the line waiting to get into the Sistine Chapel made me laugh for about 20 minutes. It wrapped around the entire border of the Vatican. This place we went into yesterday with only 30 people now had thousands and thousands and thousands of people wanting to jam themselves into it.

After not waiting in line but taking a secret VIP route into the museum our class was lead by an old lady out into the Vatican Gardens. These gardens aren’t really open to the public (unless you’re loaded and can afford to pay your way into them…) and we were able to enjoy them all by ourselves. Everything about the gardens was absolutely beautiful: the view of St. Peters and the rest of the Vatican, the landscaping, the statues, the various buildings, the fountains… Brittany spent a lot of time stalking Vatican kitties but only found one (and my picture of it really sucks because it’s of it’s ass as it was walking away from us… maaaan). My favorite picture, which I’m looking at right now and it’s making me laugh really hard, is a picture of the two of us posing like dragons in front of a fountain that had a big dragon statue in it; I mean, it only makes sense. OF COURSE we’d pose like dragons to match the fountain.

After listening to a presentation on St. Peter’s that I had trouble paying attention to because all the people sitting around me were totally fidgeting and doing funny/distracting things (I’m like a little kid) we made our way back down to the building in order to go check out the Vatican Museum. One thing about St. Peters tho… Michelangelo was one of the chief architects behind the structure and that makes me laugh because he had ZERO experience as an architect. I’m having trouble deciding whether I like Michelangelo’s personality or not; I’m getting the impression that he is the type of guy that thinks that he knows everything. He NEVER worked with other people (because they weren’t good enough for him) and took on projects that were bigger than anything ever done in the past… impressive but also very cocky.

To get to the Vatican Museums we took a back entrance into the Sistine Chapel (cool!) – the chapel was horrifying. There were SO MANY PEOPLE that I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the crowd… after our time there the night before with just our class, I don’t think I ever want to go back to the chapel. I know, I’m spoiled. But seriously, the crowds ruined the atmosphere.

The museums were a lot less crowded. We spent time looking at some of Raphael’s paintings and tapestries – I want to research more about Raphael… all the paintings I saw on our trip were AMAZING. He painted the way I WANT to paint. They were absolutely beautiful. Is it weird to be jealous of Raphael?!? Cuz I sorta am…

Hatfield also took us to see DiVinci’s St. Jerome (which unfortunately was a copy since the original was away on display in a show in some other part of the world), The Laocoon (which was ALSO a copy because the original was away on tour), and the Belvedere Torso… Everything was all very very impressive. Those three pieces are hugely famous. Anyone that knows anything about art can rattle off facts about any of the three – I’m not even that hardcore of an art history student and I could prolly talk about them for a good while.

The Vatican Museums were HUGE and went on and on and on but we were all pretty burnt out from our day before and after Hatfield’s shpeal we all decided to head straight back to the train station and home to Firenze. Hahaha, it’s funny to me how we all have to travel down to Rome as a group yet, to get back they basically just hand you and open ended train ticket and wish you good luck on your trip home!

Traveling after a long day is really hard… all I wanted to do was get home. I got into one of those moods where everything that came out of my mouth was very sarcastic and mean – I felt myself doing this and after a while just decided to stop talking.

There was one girl in particular that was PISSING ME OFF. It takes A LOT for someone to really get on my nerves but this girl was killing me. She thought she knew freaking everything and had the WORST sense of humor ever. She literally thought she was right about everything. My least favorite type of people are people that make other people feel like they’re really stupid – this girl spent most of her time doing that to me. By the end of the trip I was ready to wrestle her to the ground and slap her in the face… thank goodness Brittany was there to rescue me from her. The two of us spent most of our time trying to ditch her on our way home to Firenze… haha, i’m sorry but if I see her around the SUF campus anytime in the future I’m going to walk by her and pretend I have no clue who she is. I don’t care if it’s mean, I HATE people that treat me like I’m stupid. Cuz I’m not.

My walk home from the train station was long but peaceful. It was around 8ish when I finally got home and my whole fam (except my sorella/compagna di stanza Marilena) was there. It felt GREAT to be home.

Dinner was funny… it was my first dinner without Marilena (who is in Venice until Sunday with her art history class). My family cracks me up. I am not kidding when I say that they think I’m crazy. I think the blonde hair and the fact that I smile and laugh about everything that makes it seem like I’m a crazy party animal because seriously my family is convinced that of the two of us, I’m the naughty child and Marilena is the perfect child. Liek, they LITERALLY used the word perfect to describe her!!! Hahaha, I’m not jealous or upset to hear this or anything, I just think it’s funny because I’ve actually never met another person that’s MORE like me than Marilena. She and I have the same study habits, the same drinking/partying habits, the same sleeping habits, the same cleaning habits, the same freakish organizational habits, the same boy habits… I dunno what it is but somehow the fam has gotten the impression that I’m the wild one and she’s the tame one. Meeh, whatever… it’s all fun anyways!

Roma

I BARELY made it to the train station on time. Waking up was PAINFUL; not necessarily cuz I had drank the night before but prolly more due to the fact that I had only gotten a total of three hours of sleep.

I got on the train at 7:50 and it pulled out of the station at exactly 7:52. Yea. I was the LAST person in my class to get there, but hey… give me some credit, atleast I made it (one girl called when we were half way there to tell our TA that she had just woken up and that she’d meet up with us in Rome later).

Oh yea… my two-day trip to Rome was a field trip for my Michelangelo class. I was half excited and half annoyed about having to go on it. Excited because, hey! It’s Rome! I’ve always wanted to go to Rome! Annoyed because Brittany was my only friend in the class and she and I weren’t even that close. Everything turned out to be waaaay better than I could have ever possibly imagined it.

I slept the whole ride there (I was DEAD from the night before)… but the second we got there we were on our feet moving around being busy until I fell asleep that night at midnight. Okay… our day in Rome…

(10:00AM) S. Pietro in Vincoli: After taking the really smelly Roman metro (no but seriously though, it really was smelly and gross), and walking up a million stairs we arrived at our first destination to view Michelangelo’s Moses. The Moses was supposed to be only part of the tomb for Pope Julius II BUT since Mike NEVER FINISHES ANYTHING, the it is actually the main attraction of the tomb. It was a powerful powerful sculpture. I stood there looking at it for about 10 minutes waiting for it to move! Haha. After viewing the piece we congregated on the steps outside the church to hear one of my classmates’ presentations on the piece. I had a headache and was distracted by the guys that were working on the building across the street because one of the guys kept yelling, “Sono Michelangelo!” Hahaha.

(10:50AM) Campidoglio/AKA Capitoline Hill: Many many many more stairs (thank goodness I’m not on crutches anymore!) I was a little bit disappointed with Capitoline… in person it’s not as great as I thought it was going to be. All the pictures I’ve ever seen of it are from birds-eye-view and I think that seeing it like that does it more justice than actually standing in the piazza. Michelangelo was a freakin genius though. There were so many things during the presentation on Capitoline that made me think, wow, really??? Bytheway, Roman pigeons are out of control… about three times during the presentation, the girl talking almost got hit in the face by pigeons flying by. I was scared for her…

(12:20) S. Maria sopra Minerva: After walking down some dangerous Roman streets that have small, and very uneven cobblestones, AND lots very fast moving vespas and cars we arrived at S. Maria and were able to view Michelangelo’s Risen Christ. This work was said to be Michelangelo’s “biggest failure,” because of how badly the proportions are and how the apprentice that Michelangelo hired to finish it really messed up the fingers and the face… It was still a very very very moving sculpture. It’s funny because Michelangelo decided to depict Christ naked with a cross but years later the church flipped out and wouldn’t have that soooo he appears today awkwardly covered up with a brass cloth. It’s an interesting piece and if anyone is going to be in Rome and is interested in art, I recommend that you stop to check out the Risen Christ.

(12:50) Pantheon: It has nothing to do with Michelangelo but since we had to walk by it on the way to our hotel, Hatfield (our teacher) let us run in to check it out. The thing that I was most fascinated by was how freaking HUGE it is. I can’t imagine how they built that thing way back when… I feel like even buildings today can’t compare to it in size.

(1:00) Hotel Ara Pacis: After trekking about 15 minutes thru the city we arrived at our hotel… to get to the lobby we had to go up ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE stairs! There were so many freaking stairs that I counted them for everyone… by the time we got to the lobby everyone was huffing and puffing and was ready to pass out. I ended up rooming with Brittany Ok, I love love love Brittany. She’s one of the funniest people I have ever met! We first met each other waay back when before SCU at one of the SCU freshmen backyard barbeques, and have always seen each other at school and said hi and stuff but hadn’t really ever hung out until Rome. I was grateful to have her there with me because all the rest of the people were um… yea… I’ll get to them later… and a girl named Alyssa.

The three of us stopped and grabbed some panini from a bar (where I was elbowed REALLY hard by some guy and the bartender who saw gave me a little massage so that the pain would go away… haha, it’s great being a girl) on the way to our next destination at the Vatican. We had a few extra minutes and grabbed gelato and sat and relaxed in a park. Chatting was fun; Brittany and I actually have way more in common than I thought we did so it was really cool to get to know her. Alyssa randomly is best friends at college (she goes to Claremont) with one of my friends, Jamie, from high school… small small world.

(3:15) Saint Peter’s: The Vatican is awesome. The colonnade alone was really cool to see… we took a million pictures. Before going into Saint Peter’s we sat on the steps and listened to a presentation on the Michelangelo’s Pieta. I was distracted by several things during the presentation… firstly, there was a man sitting behind us and I’m pretty sure he was talking louder than I’ve ever heard anyone talk, to the guy sitting next to him. Secondly, my advil was starting to wear off and my head was starting to hurt, ugh. And thirdly, sitting next to us on the steps there was a man (liek, a tourist man, not a homeless man) with his shirt off… tanning. Um hello!!! WE’RE AT THE FREAKING VATICAN… ONE OF THE MOST HOLY PLACES IN THE WHOLE PLANET AND YOU’RE SITTING THERE WITH YOUR FAT GUT HANGING OUT TANNING! It was very inappropriate and distracting at the same time. Tourists are retarded sometimes.

After waiting in line to climb the dome of Saint Peter’s but not being able to because it was closed for the afternoon, we were given a few minutes to check out the Pieta and the rest of the cathedral. The Pieta was smaller but more beautiful than I imagined it to be. That piece is amazing to me. Mary’s face and clothing couldn’t be more angelic and perfect. I took a picture but it came out blurry… the whole no flash thing and the fact that I was using a new camera (the little one my mom gave me instead of my other since I let Marilena use it for her trip this weekend to Venice) really threw off some of my pictures. After a few minutes of admiring the Pieta, Brittany and I went to explore the rest of Saint Peter’s which was HUGE. Once again, the fact that they were able to build something THAT gigantic so long ago is a hard concept to grasp. AND every inch of the entire place was decorated… I was excited because as I walked around I recognized (and even remembered a few random facts) about a lot of the pieces in the cathedral.

Brittany and I started to get a little restless and started fooling around by taking pictures of ourselves in front of some of the statues while standing the same pose they were standing in. While I was mid pose, one of the guards came up to us and we got in big trouble. At the time I was having so much fun that I didn’t really realize that exaggerating the poses of super famous religious sculptures, in a super holy cathedral, with really retarded expressions on our faces, could be seen as really disrespectful… heh. Makes a little more sense now though. Whoopsie!

(5:00PM) Coffee break: Brittany and I bought a bunch of postcards then planted ourselves across the street from our next meeting place and ordered cappuccinos. Our waiter loved us. Liek, he told us I love you. Hahaha. When we got our cappuccinos the word “love” was written into them with chocolate – of course I took a picture. Other girls from my class came and met up with us; it was weird because I really didn’t know ANY of them. They were nice… but not really my type of people (if that makes sense)? I dunno… it was weird.

(6:15) PRIVATE VIEWING OF THE SISTINE CHAPEL: This was the moment we had all been waiting for. Since day 1 we have been learning about the Sistine Chapel since it was probably THE most incredible display of Michelangelo’s talent (well, actually talent in general) that the world has ever seen. The Vatican Museum and chapel closed at 4:00… our group of thirty was the only people in the museum when we went in. It was such an incredible experience I can hardly think of the words to describe or explain it.

Well, first of all… how we gained private access to the Sistine Chapel. Our teacher, Professor Hatfield, is world famous because of his research and various published books and articles on Michelangelo. People at the Vatican know him by name. Whenever we look at Mike piece, Hatfield can talk about it for hours and hours (and he does) because the man literally knows every detail there is to know about Michelangelo.

So there we were in the Vatican Museum which was AWESOME. Everything about that museum was beautiful; the hallways, the ceilings, the mosaics on the floors… everything. Our first stop was in the rooms painted by Rafael and we got to see the School of Athens (which was so freaking incredible)!!! Rafael knew his stuff… I love love love looking at his paintings and admire him for his work on every single one of them. Also, most of them had just been recently restored so they were in top shape.

Then after going through a huge maze of incredibly beautiful hallways… we got to the Sistine Chapel. I stood there for a good 15 minutes admiring EVERYTHING. It was amazing. I’ve seen a billion pictures but the pictures don’t do it justice. PLUS, the fact that we were in the Sistine Chapel with only 30 people made it even better… for the most part, it was dead silent and everyone was just totally impressed while they absorbed everything in front of their eyes. Even people who had seen the ceiling before said the experience we had with our class was totally different because of the way that the chapel was totally empty and still and quiet. After wandering around and taking pictures (that came out kinda bad because of the no-flash rule) we sat on the steps and listened to a girl give a presentation on the Last Judgement. We were in the chapel for a good hour and a half. HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT. I will never ever again complain about Michelangelo class because our time in the chapel made the entire semester worth it.

By the time we got back to the hotel it was about 9:00ish and we were starving. After dressing up for a night on the town Brittany, Alyssa, Thomas, Caleb, and I set out to find some place to eat. On the way to a restaurant a car ran over an empty wine bottle and the thing EXPLODED and scared the crap outa me. I was sure that people were shooting at us or something.

Dinner was fun. Random group, but fun. I tried Spaghetti Carbonera (spaghetti with eggs and bacon?) cuz supposedly it’s a Roman specialty… um, yea, it was ok I guess. I think there are better things out there though… By the time we finished dinner it was already 11:00 and we were all dead tired.

After a quick stop at the Spanish steps (to take our “Roman Holiday” pictures) and the Trevie Fountain (to throw our coins in to make a wish) we got gelato at one of the most famous Gelateria in Rome (which I can’t remember the name of right now) and turned in for the night.

I must say… for having only 3 hours of sleep the night before, I had a really great day.

yay for thursdays

This morning our Italian class had a mock “Spazio Conversazione” day. A class of Italian students studying the English language came to SUF today and we had to sit in a circle and talk to them. In Italian. For all two hours. Without an intervallo.

So our Italian class has 8 girls and we were paired with two Italian girls named… yea, I have no idea what their names were. They were 18 and 19 years old and were from… yea, I have no idea where they were from (hahaha, so maybe I have a little problem paying attention sometimes).

After seeing that we were in a circle with our Italian girls, our teacher, Alessandro, up and left. Feeling claustrophobic, we all decided to move our circle outside the classroom into the courtyard since, once again, the sun was out full blast and it was a beautiful beautiful day. We all rolled up our sleeves and pants and skirts and tried to get tan!!! After a while we all ran outa stuff to talk about… I spent most of the second hour getting to know the girls in my Italian class who are all pretty cool people.

I was excited after class cuz we were just kinda roaming around, wasting time before our next class started, and someone asked me why I was so tan. Hahahahaha, it’s fabulous having Filipino/Native American/whatever blood/skin we have in our family cuz seriously it only takes an hour with good sun in October to get noticeably tanner. :)

Later during Family and Gender (the class where my teacher MADE me say something the other day) we had a “quiz.” Um, hardly a quiz though… we could use all our notes and our text book, then after the whole class had finished, we were going to go over all the answers with the class, and then not have to turn it in, and not get a grade… um, why don’t you just call it a worksheet?!? Well, I guess the word “quiz” is much scarier and it psyched people out and made them try harder… it totally worked on me.

After time was up we started going over the quiz and she asked for volunteers to answer the first question; during the quiz I worked really hard on the first question so that I could raise my hand, answer it before she could ask for “new voices/tera”, then space out for the rest of the class – I thought it was brilliant…

“Does… anyone… want… to… begin… the… discussion… of… question… number… 1…?” So I raise my hand. She looks at me. “Yes… Tera, do… you… have… a… question?” I was liek, ehh, um, no, I um, actually know the answer (you stupid bitch). Ok I didn’t say that, but I did feel really retarded when she assumed I was raising my hand to say anything else but the answer to the question. Needless to say, I got it right. Tera Linsley is no idiot thankyouverymuch.

Went to the gym again today. I’ve always hated starting up exercising again after not doing it for a while and yesterday I thought it was because of how hard it is physically and how sore I get BUT today I realized those things hardly compare with the real reason which is: diabetes. My blood sugar control has been really great while I’ve been here. I’ve gotten myself in a really good eating/sleeping/testing/insulin routine that’s been, actually BETTER than the routine I’m in at home. HOWEVER, throwing an entirely new thing into the mix is messing everything up again.

Both days now, after the gym my blood sugars have dropped so low that, after eating something, I’ve had to completely stop what I’m doing and sit there waiting until I feel able to decently function again. I guess I just have to take a few days to adjust EVERYTHING all over again… how annoying is that?!

Today I sent out a mass e-mail to every single person I could think of in Europe with a schedule of all the trips we (as in Marilena and I) have planned for the rest of our weekends here in an attempt to persuade other people into going on them with us… the more the merrier right??? I was really excited because a lot of people actually responded and are taking us up on our offers!!! Yay for being able to go to a different country every weekend!

Also today, I bought plane tickets for our trip to Spain coming up over semester break. We decided to skip our visit to Prague and are now in Madrid for the first three days, Barcelona for the next four days (and for Halloween!!!), and then Budapest for the final three days… it works out a lot better this way. I want to try to go to Prague another weekend in November but we’re realizing now that getting there by plane from italy is either really complicated or really expensive soooo… I’m not sure what’s going on at this point.

After the gym we popped open a bottle of wine (oh yea, did I mention that yesterday at the grocery store we bought four bottles for our stash?) and were chillin in our room when Manuel barges in wanting to use Marilena’s i-pod… he sees the bottle of wine, starts laughing, then walks out. Great, yet another reason for our family to think I’m crazy and am in the process of corrupting my little, innocent, roommate (who is actually always just as guilty as I am)!!!

At dinner the Berissi had guests over; they were a younger couple and the lady was pregnant (it made me miss my sister and my niece Lucia!). I almost died when I found out what we were eating for dinner. Kike didn’t know how to say what it was in English so he kept calling the concoction, “fish.” THEN he started calling it “octopus.” THEN he started calling it “little octopus…” by then I had caught on to what they were making and was liek, no thank you… I’m going to have to pass on the SQUID tonight!!! Are they kidding?!? I’m still slightly traumatized from eating a snail last week and am in no shape (even if I DID drink half a bottle of wine before dinner) to be chowing down on squid. Me and Manuel, who eats nothing green OR fishy just like me, settled for the chicken. Heh. Maybe next time.

THEN course two comes up… eggplant. Bleh. I’ve tried eggplant before and I know people are liek obsessed with it and say it’s the best thing ever and think I’m psycho when I say I think it’s gross, but seriously… I really think it’s gross.

It was annoying at dinner because the guests found out that Marilena was Italian and spoke to her in only Italian but everytime they spoke to me, they spoke English. UUUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH – it’s starting to piss me off that people think that I’m a head with nothing but air in it. I really understand Italian very well and even though I’m a little bit slow at figuring out what words to say I still wish people’d give me a chance.

After dinner we got ready to go out and, for the first time since I’ve been here, set off WALKING to the centro! This is a huge deal for me. Since I broke my foot on day 3, the only way I’ve been able to get places at night has been by taxi which is proving to be really really expensive. With our water bottles of wine (we decided to not waste money on expensive bar/club drinks) we met Dan at Savonarola and the three of us headed to the Lion’s Fountain.

Supposedly the awards for the soccer tournament that we went to the night before were going to happen at this place sooooo tons of people were there. It was fun hanging out and drinking with everyone but when karaoke started it got waaay too loud and crowded (and annoying) so we moved onto the next desitination.

After following drunken Mark, who swore he knew where he was going (but really had no clue) and walking in a HUGE circle, we ended up at a bar/club/cool place called Angels. Gabe, who appeared out of nowhere TWICE throughout the evening (if you know Gabe it should be no surprise that he just randomly appears places because that’s how Gabe is), claimed that the bartender who worked there had the reputation as the “second best bartender in all of Florence.” Hm, second best? What exactly does that MEAN anyways?

We were so excited about our yummy drinks that we all ordered different ones then passed them around the table in order to try them all. They were all dangerously good (dangerous as in you don’t realize there is actually alcohol in it and could drink about 20 and end up completely wasted…). The bartender knew his stuff. I stood there for a good 10 minutes just watching him make drinks.

The rest of the night was kinda a blur. Around 1ish, we walked back towards Laura’s house and went to a “Mexican” restaurant. I was exhausted by then and wasn’t in the mood to order a Mexican-burrito-Italian-style. I tried a few bites and it was OOOKKKKay… Meeh, actually, it compared NOTHING to my beloved El Sombrero at home.

Tonight was fun. It’s nice hanging out with new people everywhere I go. There was some drama and fighting and yelling and stuff (which it felt really good NOT to be involved in and was actually really entertaining to watch), but everything turned out alright in the end.

By the time I was in my bed it was 3:10AM… I set my alarm for 6:00AM and fell fast asleep. Yea… 6AM; did I mention that I had a school field trip to Rome the next day and we had to meet at the train station at 7:40AM?? Oh, cuz we did.