Tchau Portugal, Hello London!

Many thanks to Acacio and Maria and Stephanie for such a WONDERFUL time in Portugal!! Because of no internet there, I'm sorry I wasn't able to blog much... or anything... but pictures to come! Pictures from Mauna's camera, because of no camera battery charging for me.

I have now spent my first 24 hours in London and have learned the following [pics to come when I get Mauna's camera, again]:

1) Newbury is NOWHERE near Central London.

2) A Holiday Inn Express hotel room at 2:30am on Sunday night after 2.5 hours of flight, 1.5 hours of lines/border control, and 45 minutes of super expensive taxi fair = a heaven I have never before known. Especially with a terrible case of the Turkish/Portuguese sniffles.

3) RyanAir is cheap but cute and efficient! Sorry to the French Canadian lady next to me for my sniffling, sneezing, and coughing! I tried to cough the other way, I really did!

4) WE SURVIVED THE UNDERGROUND! DURING RUSHOUR! HOORAY! I was very proud of myself, even though we got a teensy bit lost. :D

5) So apparently London Bridge is now actually just a bridge... but with a very nice riverside are to walk around.

6) Tate Modern art museum is free of charge! Who knew?

7) We visited Shakespeare's Globe Theater. It was worth the trip entire for me.

8) Now off to some room service and SLEEP!!! Less than 2 days until Seattle. I'm so excited! Y'all ready for me again?

9) Miss you!

Ciao, Istanbul :')

We leave in less than ten hours for Portugal! Wonderful last dinner, last day, last time with the entire program. We're gonna have TONS of reunions that's for sure -- maybe even in August!

Love you guys. :) Many extreme thanks to Lisa, Resat, and Kathie. EXTREME thanks.

Here's a pic I stole from Kate BL:

Apologies for Lame Posting!

Here is my contribution to the Program's Daily Diary. Each student was assigned a day of the program, and asked to document it for all of our nostalgic benefit! The entire Daily Diary can be found here if you'd care to check out why I've been so bad at posting this last week (there are many flattering pictures of me too...). It was so busy! I am so tired!

Istanbul has been going hard, and is filled to the brim with food. It is good here, but I am utterly exhausted.

#) Miss you!


Last Monday in Rome, 7/12/2010


We awoke early, as most days in Rome, met at the portone (after a frantic cornetto, bowl of Chocoballs, or a simple cappuccino), and began to walk.

Here we are meeting. Everyone looks tired. Roman apparently enjoyed an orange (arancia!). Lisa told us wise words.

Here is a picture of Bennett waiting to begin our trek. Ha ha, Bennett I caught you on film!

We walked to the Vatican - again! Except this time we took the route of pilgrims, very sleepy and very hot pilgrims. The pilgrimage took us down some winding, peach-tinged streets; fairly characteristic of Rome, but still gorgeous to me. :) I forget the topic of conversations but I imagine they consisted of something like this:

"Zzz."
"Zzz?"
"Daniel, how late did you stay up working on your presentation?"
"I love Rome."
"I wish I had more cappuccino."
"Rebecca, haven't you had seven cappuccinos today already?"
"Das hell bier!"
"Look everyone, a Madonelle!!" (There were many madonelles on the walk-- often they were used to mark the way of pilgrimages -- tune in to MY blog too see a soon-to-come essay detailing the histories of madonelles and their importance in Rome today!)









The point of the pilgrimage was made apparently as we rounded the bend near Castel San Angelo, and took in the entire view. My tiny little point-and-shoot can't exactly capture the grandness of the view, but here are my attempts:


Maggie ruined some really great action photos of more walking by sticking her hand in front of my camera. :( I will not include them here. Despite this, we soon made it to the piazza!

Carmen gave a fantastic presentation on St. Peter's piazza. She had us walk around to specific focal points, in which the perspective kept you from seeing the second rows of columns. I also learned it is hard to get a good picture of people speaking -- sorry Carmen. :( Lisa told us a great story about when she heard the new Pope elect announcement-- it's pretty hard to imagine the piazza so filled, or even for all the bells in Rome to be ringing.

We next headed into St. Peter's Basilica itself! Lisa avoided arrest, we got to go through the super sweet back-entrance fast line, and we eventually made it all through skirt check. Can you see our sweet earpieces in the photo??


Into the basilica -- flash was allowed, as the paintings had all been replaced with mosaic copies to avoid further water damage from the nearby Tiber (you pesky river you).






To say the least, this is a big church. They had markers on the ground for all the lengths of the other so-called "big" churches in the world. Daniel gave a fantastic presentation on it. He got to use the microphone, and we all got to enjoy his powerful presentation voice.



We wandered about, Lisa told stories about the saints, and we were all impressed with the amount of important dead people who were chillin' there. I hope you took pictures, because my point'n'shoot didn't do so well in the dark.

We sadly left and optimistically began a sojourn to Castel San Angelo -- but it was closed on Mondays. :( No view for us. Instead, as a happy alternative, we walked back!

We walked.









And walked.









And walked some more.









In Piazza Farnese, we saw the pigeon lady again. Eww.

As hungry pilgrims returned from our journey, we split and ate lunch. The guys ate Forno sandwiches in a self-proclaimed manly silence:


Then some Rome Center time and project work before actual project presentation.

Novel group went first for Kathie's class -- YEAAH GUYS! Good job!





At this point, I believe it was about 4:30 (Honors kids: going over the presentation time limit since 6th grade!), and everyone was pretty darn hungry, so dinner plans burst into action. I believe the guys made purple chicken (versus green or blue??) and Trastevere girls cooked some delish dinners for themselves as well. I went on a journey for madonelle pictures (which you can see, coming soon, to THIS BLOG) in Trastevere, before joining my own lovely roommates for meat sauce pasta!

And then, in classic Honors kid style, we all had a library party in preparation for tomorrow's presentations. Now now, this was no ordinary library party! This one had library monitors, AC, and a sweet visit from the professors! Honors Rome knows how to kick it on a Monday night!

I documented as best I could:

Erik as library monitor.



Everyone is enjoying the library (Daniel and Zinnia especially).


Good work guys!! Happy Monday!

Safe in Istanbul!

I made it to Istanbul and am completely, utterly, and extensively exhausted! Will sleep now, do work later... just ate the best meal of my life. For serious.


For serious.

#) Miss you!

Last Day in Roma

... but Istanbul tomorrow!!!! Sorry for the lack of posts -- soon I will post you some examples of what I've been working on the last few days (lots of powerpoints...)

[I'll post pictures when I have more time, and am not running off to see monuments for the last time!!! mi despiacha!]

1) Which are all finished! All four of my presentations went pretty well this week -- in case you wonder what I'm actually studying (maybe you don't), my topics were Islamic medical influence on western medicine, a novel about immigrants to Italy, a group presentation about the Pamphili family (SUCH A SOAP OPERA!), and a ten minute individual presentation on madonelle (Roman street shrines to the Virgin Mary). Lots of late nights at the Rome Center's air conditioned library...

2) It's my last day in Rome. I am very sad, and frantically eating as much as I can, as well

3) Really sweet last roommate dinner! Maggie made pasta, Kate made caprese (mozzarella, tomato, and pesto!), Yuting brought DELICOIUS PIE from Forno, and I made a tomato, buffalo mozzarella and vinegar salad that only I ate... I LOVE YOU ROOMIES!!

4) Buona fortuna to Mamma Mia and Daddy Dia on their trip back to Shoreline! Fly safe!

5) Liz, if you read this in time, do you still like balsamic vinegar...? D:

6) Am off to possibly buy birkenstocks, write postcards (yikes, do i have anyone's address???), see the Spanish steps, get coffee, see my favorite church Santa Maria in Trastevere, coffee, see the Pantheon and some French church, pack, last all group dinner (at the "best restaurant in Rome"? according to Prof Lisa?), see the Trevi fountain, maybe Pantheon again, sleep, see sunrise, and then on the bus to the airport at 8:15a tomorrow morning. Don't worry, I wrote that all down on paper so I can remember where I'm going in my sleepy haze. ;)

7) Miss you!

So apparently you have to "study" on study abroads...

Which is what I did a lot of the past few days. :( It doesn't feel so good wasting even a minute of my time here not out and about, but with all three of my projects due next week, I suppose I had to put in some time at the Rome Center Library!

That didn't keep me from avoiding ALL adventures however:

1) The 20 euro opera we went to was apparently 20 euro because it was more of a "community theater" production than actual opera! Which actually, I think, made the whole thing way more enjoyable. The stage was set up in the courtyard of (what we figured was) a school, and you could see the actors peeking down through the curtains to catch their cue. At just over 2 hours, it was the shortest opera one of our party members had ever seen! The extent of my memory: they sang very loud, and the chorus upstaged the main actors hardcore. Quite enjoyable. :)

2) We visited a mosque on Wednesday morning! It was gorgeous, and the scarf skills that Kate had taught us came in handy. :) When you enter the mosque, you take off your shoes and can walk barefoot or in socks. So, strangely enough, the mosque smelled of new carpet/carpet cleaner!

2.5) We got lost on the trains because our station was under construction. Adventure time!

3) Pretty churches all Wednesday afternoon -- yay Santa Maria! They had graffiti from the first Christian tombs (catacombs) -- it looks like something I would be able to scratch out on a tomb!

4) DELICIOUS chicken, pasta, and caprese dinner with Kate, Maggie, and honorary roommates Brandon, Bennett, and Erik! Yum yum! Then watched the Spain vs. Germany game till late, and enjoyed tiramisu, yelling Brazilian football fans, and soccer.

5) Thursday = class, zzz, class, zzz, work, nom nom, work, gelato!!!, work, zzz. It was very hot, but I set up a sweet squishy chair next to the breezy window in the Rome Center's student lounge. Very productive!

6) Today, we enjoyed some more paintings and old architecture at the Palazzo Barberini (GIANT STAIRCASE!). On the way there, we came across the Trevi Fountain -- it was gorgeous!! On the way back we tried the best coffee in Rome. 8D It actually wasn't the best, but very artisan so I liked it by default. ;)

7) Got attacked by pigeons while Bennett tried to present on Galileo. I screamed and shuddered a lot in Mom's honor. :(

8) Miss you!

FIRENZE (My Actual Birthday!)

Y'all ready for this blog post? I think it is my longest ever!

1) So it was my birthday. Now I'm twenty. Wow.

2) On Saturday (bday morning!) I was up at 6:30 AM(!dad aren't you proud?!) to shower! I was clean and READY for Florence! Frantically packed my backpack (i had my laptop, journal, course readings, passport, tooth brush, etc...unfortunately forgot many clothes...) and we raced out the door to the bus (which I was very proud we caught correctly, and quickly) and arrived at the Roma Termini (that's Rome's train station). It was a surreal experience -- so many people, trains, noises, shops, food, magazines, ticket stalls I was overwhelmed and big eyed. Of course, that may have just been a side effect of no cappuccino yet, but I like to think it was the impressiveness of humanity, etc, etc. Our cheap cheap train was the furthest possible from the entrance, and we awkwardly got on, only half sure it was headed to Florence...?

3) But it was thank goodness! I fell asleep near immediately, so missed much of the slow slow train ride. Apparently the reason the cheap train is so cheap because they make you pay less when the train stops for hours at a time at tiny podunk train stations on the way to Tuscany. Go figure.

2) My slow train partners were Emilio, Erik, Yuting, and Kate! We were all super tired and cranky, especially when I woke up from my cramped 4.5 hour nap to the worst caffeine headache ever (August is gonna be awesome without cheap cappuccino...). This feeling was made better from the hilariously bad restaurant service (because we stupidly and desperately hungrily ate at what translates to the "Paradise of Pizza." Emilio said that it was paradise for pizza because no one wants to eat the pizza there...) Kate/Yuting had the tiniest hotel room!! It was on the 8th floor (or something) and we all barely fit when we visited!

3) All I remember from the next hour or so is: Bigchurchwoot... Foundthepeoplewhotookthefasttrainwoot.. Ohlookacafewoot. OH WOW COFFEE THANK GOD. Everything becomes clearer after that.

4) So, in our inexperienced and naive new-at-traveling fashion, we rented a penthouse apartment for one night instead of a hotel room. :D Whoops! Guess I'll read the Orbitz.com description better next time! I will skip over the Type-A stress and panic when the nice people at the apartment offices told us they indeed booked *apartments* and *not* hotels -- and instead move on to the incredible TERRACE and an incredible marble BATHROOM and KITCHEN and incredible TONS OF ROOM. So incredible. (David was very logical and thought we had gotten what we paid for, but it was still INCREDIBLE!)

5) After running around our PENTHOUSE APARTMENT we much-less-crankily adventured out to the city! It was the most incredible view I've ever seen - a setting sun over the river, as we stood on Ponte Vecchio (a famous bridge that had room to build buildings so they did). There was a musician in the background, and just as the sun disappeared into the purple clouds he sang "Let It Be." I missed you very much Mommy!

6) After the sun set we continued on our walking adventure, and everyone for some reason had very angsty and deep talks with each other. It was actually really refreshing (and somehow appropriate for my 20th birthday?) until we had to walk less angstily back and I was tired... We took a break on this concrete piazza that was still warm from the sun.

7) That is, I was tired until I had GELATO for my birthday dinner!!! Nutella swirl and stracciacella (which is a fancy name for vanilla with chocolate chips)! :)

8) We chilled on our terrace ALLLLLL night (overnight apartmenters = Zinnia, Sydney, Mauna, David, Erik, Emilio . At my birthday midnight Mauna and I watched Florentines (read: American tourists) walk down below while we listened to Coldplay. <3 onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Ebs3JQJRRSzXQ2bnMhvXrih2ud05L903HcxK-T1Cvap8IjG7k2XSgwfGwy8N48FRIbfKbtHL5PePHHm5Dh0jZu8AxXriPdErrnF1q_G-mkzE27Js-rhn9skonVtWWNOpDs5GvDuuyt_z/s1600/terrace.jpg">

10) Up at 7:00a with David to meet Yuting and Kate for the Ufizi gallery! WE SAW BOTTICELLI and buttloads of sculptures! But what I enjoyed the most was a visiting exhibit of Carvaggio paintings -- his focus on light and psychological emotion/expression is my favs. What I enjoyed the second most was the cafe at the end of the museum where I got cappuccino...thank god...

11) After some breakfast gelato (coffee flavored!) Yuting and I randomly decided to check out a tall, kind of interesting looking tower, and ended up staying two hours running around the best museum I'd seen! It was called Palazzo Vecchio, and was set up how (what appears to be a famous Florentine family) actually lived in. Perhaps half of the goodness was the surprise of the place, but we saw some of the greatest art. :) A ridonkulous Lion, random holes in the walls that were good for cute picture taking, ancient toilets (!!), and the first gorgeous landscape view of Florence!! (David and Kate chilled on the Ufizi steps, and bonded over being sleepy.) :)

12) NOTE: We did not see Michelangelo's David. We instead looked at the lifesized replica outside Palazzo Vecchio... which was pretty much the same to me...(plus 10 euros and three hours wait cheaper). ;)

13) Indian food for lunch with everybody! Kate bought me a birthday Ciao Bella shirt! :D (I LOVE HER SO MUCH!) For all y'all who don't speak Italian-creep-lingo: "Ciao bella" means "hello beautiful" -- all the creepy street vendors say it as girls walk by, and I've (less creepily) taken to saying it too! Now it is my catchphrase! No one thinks it's as creepy though! I swear! Really! I think!

13.5) Paid 3 euro for what we thought would be this giant cool church to see! But instead they just let us awkwardly see this great fresco mural about St. Peter that was set up in the corner... Still pretty great, but my favorite part of that adventure was the hot walk there, and little oasis of trees and grass it had in the middle of the building. :)

14) So there is a famous cathedral in Firenze, It was really ornate and really tall (and we could see it from our TERRACE!). I think it had an actual cathedralic name, but everyone called it the Duomo...? So we did too..? Aaand after 414 steps (and a lot of water breaks) we climbed its bell tower. OH YEEEAH! One of those, you know, breathtaking and once in a lifetime moments. ;) Of course the breathtaking moment was made lots better by all the "your momma" and "that's what she said" jokes Erik and Emilio were loudly cracking....thanks guys...). I saved my camera batteries for that view! Check it!

15) Down the stairs and met up with the rest of the overnighters. Went to Trattoria Zaza before we had to catch the train -- it was the sweetest restaurant with the best character and the BEST food! The plates had animal skin patterns! I had DELICIOUS bread tomato soup, and they had FREE BREAD with oil and vinegar! Sydney and Mauna stole the leftover bread for the train...

16) Four and a half hour train ride back. The sun set. There was another incredible purple sunset view as we rode the train across the Tuscan countryside. I wrote in my journal (thanks sister!). Made both David AND Kate cry with laughter. (BAM! and Dramatic Squirrrel!!) ;) Got off the train and (rather stressedly) caught the last bus back to our neighborhood.

17) Best thing about Florence trip? At the end of it, we got to return to Rome. <3

18) Theeeen I slept for 11 hours. Got up SUPER exhausted but made it to the Rome center to blog, email, and enjoy my beautiful Facebook birthday messages! Thanks everyone! Enjoyed a Fourth of July celebration at Kathie and Resat's (GORGEOUS) Rome Center apartment, then out to gelato with everyone!

19) Today visited the old Jewish Ghetto. Hard to imagine 7,000 people living within such a tiny space for so long -- heard terrible stories of the German Occupation. Enjoyed Resat's class (took Mom and Liz's strategy for the class readings... hehe...) and am now waiting for his evening lecture, some crepes for dinner, and an opera tonight! Ciao bella!

20) Miss you!

My Birthday!

All right, y'all ready for some serious blogging? This'll be the last Friday/birthday blog, and then I'll tell you about Florence! (I know you're anxiously waiting.)

[Also, unfortunately I don't have many pictures from the past few days -- a combo of forgetfulness, battery, and "no cameras allowed." Most are stolen from other people -- thanks guys/Facebook! Once I collect more I'll post them.]

1) So because we would be off to Firenze ("Florence" in Italiano) for the actual July 3rd, my amazingly generous program-mates decided we would spend Friday Jul 2 celebrating my birthday too!! :D So amazing! I spent pretty much NO money on food, and because there are so many lovely people on my trip, probably gained 5 birthday pounds from gifts of food! Free cafe freddo latte (iced coffee with milk, way better than S-bucks, sorry sista!), free nutella-pie pastry, free carbonara for dinner (that's spaghetti with egg and ham!!), free tiramisu, free strawberry smoothie, free home-made gelato (I tried ginger and kiwi)... the list goes on. Thank you all so much for my beautiful birthday pounds! :)

2) Speaking academically, for my "birthday" we had Amara Lakhous, the author of one of our course readings (a sweet, cultural mystery novel called "Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vitorrio") come speak to us. He speaks ("only") Italian and Arabic, so via a Rome Center translator, he spoke to us about immigration, his experience as a writer, majoring in anthropology and philosophy, and culture clash in Italy. Unfortunately, slow translation + Friday morning exhaustion = sleepy Molly, but I asked a few questions and he even signed my copy of the book! it says:"A Molly -- A-scribble Lakhous" :)

3) We also visited the Villa Borghese, a glorious combination of complex art, gorgeous palace, green/tree laden parkland, and THE LONGEST/HOTTEST WALK EVER TO GET THERE. Totally worth it though (despite the dehydration). We got more sweet earpieces, and Lisa fearlessly led us through the Villa. My impressions: apparently, newly commissioned sculptures and paintings seemed to be the social events of the time (I guess that's what they did before Netflix?); a lot of women get attacked in mythological stories... this leads to rather traumatic sculptures; Carvaggio is the bombest painter. THEN WE TOOK THE LONGEST/HOTTEST WALK EVER BACK -- stopped on the Spanish steps to see!

4) That free carbonara/tiramisu/smoothie came from a wonderful birthday dinner with roommates (plus honorary roommate Bryan! ) We finally tried actual food at Magnolia Cafe, where we get the cheapest juice on the menu so we can watch the World Cup games. Thanks to Kate and Yuting, we all learned how to sing happy birthday in Chinese! Jew-nee shung-rrr kwai-luh!!

5) There was a bit of panicking over hotels for Florence also. More on that later. :)

6) Then Gelato del Teatro! Then they sang happy birthday! Then we all stayed up really late together, and I snuck a couple of hours sleep before the train to Firenze! Y'all ready for that blog post?

7) Miss you!