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!