Siena è bellissima!

So, I have taken up residence in the city of Siena, and love posing as a local. One German tourist even endeavored to ask me for directions in poor Italian.

However, our first week here we met with almost perpetual rain. The rain was pretty. Picture being in this stunning medieval city with its winding streets and cobbled paths as a gentle drizzle descends from the sky. Yeah, it was beautiful, for about three days.

It is alleged that Italians don't believe in air conditioning, but during the week of rain I learned that they don't always ensure there buildings have adequate heat either. During my language classes I was freezing.

However, it was all worth it when you get to see something like this. I actually kifed this picture from a friend because my camera is incapacitated at the moment. However I did see this rainbow from a different vantage point with my own two eyes and I was able to see the whole arc as it curved over the city. GORGEOUS.

I feel inclined to quote a few lines from John Mayer here:

'Didn't have a camera by my side this time,

hoping I could see the world with both my eyes,

Maybe I will tell you all about it when I am in the mood to lose my way

but let me say you should have seen that...'

Classe di Cucina

I may have started cupcakes on fire before and forgotten on occassion to add the correct amount of sugar to a cookie recipe, but there have been no major mishaps in my Italian cooking classes.

I have had to choke down some mushrooms that have been necessary ingredients in our recipes, but I have made some awesome dishes (with the help of a pro chef and 21 comrades-love that communist terminology!). My favorite was the spinach ravioli. Mamma Mia! Mmmm

Sono in Italia!

I'm stealing pictures off of peoples facebook pages, but here is a picture la mia amica Hannah took. Look at how happy we are.

Perhaps you may notice that I am a little more abbronziata than I was before I left. I may fit in as a dark skinned Italian ragazza before I leave. Or maybe not, we'll see!

Indiana Jones e Il Regno del Teschio di Cristallo

So, it was a Monday night. Non c'é niente da fare. So a group of os got together to catch a few glipses of an even older Harrison Ford, and the attractively scruffy Shia LaBeouf. (Note: I was only there to witness the cinematic grandeur).

Anyway, even in Italian it had a miserable plot. This was my first experience with Indiana Jones, and I was told numerous times not to judge the whole of the Indiana Jones institution from this one film.

I don't want to give anything away, but let's I don't think I won't be eliminating any of the mystery of the plot when I tell you there are aliens. Aliens in Indiana Jones. Quite unexpected, and poorly executed.

However, despite that it was the quintessential abysmal sequel, I enjoyed watching it. Like most unnecessary and unmediated sequels it relied on special effects to compensate for the poor story line.

An old post that I forgot to publish: Ecco Pompeii!

So, my I don't quite know what picture I am uploading when I click on the icon, so it's fun to see what I am going to post, but this is a scene in Pompeii. It's amazing how intact the structures are, and crazy to contemplate that the people who walked these streets nigh 2000 years ago.

Okay, I've tried long enough to get a picture to upload on this computer, so all you get is words. Undoubtedly, my attempts describe the awesomeness of Italy will probably fall short. Therefore, I'm contemplating talking about how our shower in Siena a high-pressured spout separated from the rest of the bathroom by only a shower. There is nothing to seal the water, therefore if we are not careful we manage to send a flood of water down the hall.

Alright, I guess the whole time I was complaining, the picture was uploading! Eccola (look at it)! So, this is a scene from the top of the church that contains the tomb of St. Francis of Assisi. I am horribly disoriented as far as north, south, east and west, so I am not sure which direction I am looking in. However, the region is Lazio. Italy is so beautiful and green and I am amazed at how much countryside there is.

Assisi is a city built in the Middle Ages on this monstrous hill, so hiking the streets to the pizzerias earned you an extra slice (or so I justified my gluttony ;). I know this picture doesn't show a massive amount of the church, but it was built in 1228. I am so impressed by the capacity of people nigh 800 years ago to build such incredible edifices.

Anyway, Italia è bellissima!

So, I haven't posted a picture since I actually made it to Italy, so I moved some pictures to my jump drive, so I chose a random number and decided I would write a little schpiel about it.

Forgive my spelling of schpiel.

Anyway, my random clicking fell upon a rather somber picture, but pics take a while to load on this computer, so you get to see the plaster casts of the people who died in Pompeii when Mt. Vesuvius exploded. It really is awsome that archeologists in the 19th century were innovative enough to pour plaster over the Pompeiian citizens bodies decomposed over the millennia.

I like this snapshot because the figures were behind glass so you get the reflection of the tourists and it kind of looks like ghosts. However, that does not scare me after seeing the church of the Cappuccine monks. shiver.

Anyway, Pompeii is basically unbelievable, and these plaster images of real citizens are just the beginning. History comes freakishly alive in Pompeii. I have never been to a ghost town, but it might be similar, except hundreds to thousands of people didn't suddenly die in most ghost towns they all just moved away.

However, Pompeiian structures are evidence that people were shorter 2000 years ago. Not that I had any unpleasant encounters with doorways, but those leggy Scandanavians might.

Also, there were an odd amount of stray dogs throughout the ancient city. In my superstitious mood, I imagined they were embodiments of the Egyptian God Anubis, one of the gods of the underworld. Anyway.

More exciting blogs to follow with more pictures. I promise!

So much to convey inadequately

I know I cannot really express the crazy excitement that accompanies being in Italy, so instead I will endeavor to express my experience in anecdotes. However, nothing really funny or out of the ordinary has happened. I mean I have been in the Coloseum, been down in the Catacombs, walked the Appian way, strolled through the streets of Pompeii, and been through the ancient Roman forum. You know, niente speciale.

Well, this morning I decided to go running with some of the ragazze from the program, Caitlin, Erin and Rachel. You know, I am hoping to run St. George Marathon 2008 and all so a little training seems in order. Man it was intense. I have not run distance for a while (my pathetic excuses: winter, a cold), and the path we took was totally uphill (we were running to a local park and hoped to get a few laps in there). After finally reaching our location, I was spent. Rachel was nice enough to tone it down with me as we walked a few blocks, then we realized running was easy when it is downhill as it was the entire way back, logically. Anyway, I do not think that seeing runners on the sidewalk is uber common in Rome, and there were at least three Romans keen to tease us. They would pantomime running behind us. It was all good natured, and I wanted to say something cunning, but everything I wanted to say seemed like it would come off rudely sarcastic.

AND--I may not have a roommate in Siena. Stephanie canceled last minute on account that she got engaged, which honestly means she might not ever make it to Italy, but maybe she will find some opportunity. Anyway, it would not be fun for her if she sat in the Coloseum pining after her lover. My solution to the roommatelessness is that I host a slew of sleepovers. Because I do not think I want to spend every Sienese night alone. Not that I want someone IN my bed, just in a bed nearby.

Everything is awesome, and I do not find Rome super daunting. I really feel safe, even though I have not put RUBAMI on my purse or anything.

And pictures will come eventually, I can probably upload them on this computer, but I know the internet point computers have been shorting jump drives so I am not eager to run the risk with my camera, but you will have pictures as soon as I get to Siena.

Sono qui!

I am in Rome, la città eterna. I am in Rome. I am in Rome. I am in Rome. It is beautiful.

I am staying on the sixth floor an a hotel and have a massive balcony from which you can definitely expect to see me watching the sun rise. Today, besides braving the Italian train and metro system da sola, I enjoyed a legitimate Italian dinner in the hotel restuarant, and walked around with my one of my roommates Ashley.

A guy who I presumed was German because he kept saying <> (no quotation marks), wanted us, I think, to tell him the direction to the Vatican. I hope I pointed him in the correct vicinity. Yep, 6 hours in Rome and folks are already asking me for directions.

I know my day sounds mundane, but holy cow, I am reeling with giddiness about being in Rome!

I slightly enjoy the fact that I have to write this in an internet cafe (no wifi at the hotel) because the keyboard is authentically Italian, which means no quotatin marks or apostrophes.

Another Interesting Character

Ah, something about traveling really makes me interested in people. I think it's because I'm surrounded by so many people I don't know. I immensely enjoy the really boisterous ones who prattle on about whatever irks or delights them. I love trying to piece together their lives.

Today, as I departed from the Day's Inn, I had a very talkative shuttle driver. It was just he and I braving the roughly 10 minutes to the airport, and he had quite a bit to say. Turns out last week, he'd been assaulted with a deadly weapon and robbed at work--at the Day's Inn as a shuttle driver/security man, the Day's Inn that I had spent the night alone in, not that I had a retroactive wave of fear or anything, but I guess you should be able to tell a motel is in an area that might be a little seedy when the lobby closes at 11 PM, and you have to check in through a class screen that is reminiscent of the glass the people who give you your movie ticket sit behind.
Anyway, he talked about the assault, and how he couldn't smile all too well because he'd had stitches where a man who wanted his wallet had hit him with a magnum, and how if he was going to die, he was going to do it standing up, and that he'd gone back to work the very next day, but that if he'd had a wife or a girlfriend they probably would have made him take the two weeks off he was entitled to.

Then he told me it was s shame he lost his wallet because there was a picture of him as an attractive 22-year-old. And he went on about his singlehood, which I don't think was a roundabout attempt of flirting with a young girl he was taking to the airport, but I couldn't tell.

The note we ended on was that his boss was going to buy him some new clothes to testify at the trial of the people who had robbed and assaulted him, and that he thinks his step-brother set him up. Hearing this guy chat was much better than anything I'd been able to find on TV last night, and the motel had HBO.

I'm in Atlanta, without a copy of Gone with The Wind

I took a picture before I said arriverderci to my parents at the security checkpoint.

Then when my flight was delayed, I decided it was time for a little cupcake pick-me-up courtesy of Eliza.

Then there is the picture of my hotel room, where I am currently composing this (I didn't use the flash on my camera when I took the shot. I thought it created a more dramatic look.)

The last pic is my view from an airplane in Chicago.

To start the real flesh of what I have to say on a note of lightness, the first picture features a peculiar toilet model I encountered on my journey today.
I must say, I saw these toilets and I was confused. Was I in Italy? No. I was in Chicago. Who knew Chicago was so advanced in the realm of toilet technology.

I was a little bit baffled by this toilet contraption, and the first stall I saw it in I backed out of because I thought it had been clamped shut. However, this nifty new means of ensuring you're on a clean seat was in every stall. Fortunately, there were instructions.

I suppose it's a little creepy that I was taking pictures in a bathroom stall...but this was just too revolutionary!

Story of my life. I'm not a seasoned traveler, but I'm not horribly inexperienced for my 19 years. In fact, I've taken three trips airline trips BY MYSELF! However, turns out I am cursed. Man, or more specifically, I, was not meant to fly. Every time I've ventured across the country using some academic camp as a guise for a vacation, I've missed connections. When I was 17, coming back from Virginia I spent the night in a room designed to entertain 10-year-olds, but they did show Angels in the Outfield, a movie that I consider a childhood classic.

Anyway, I should have been kissing sweet Roman soil by now, but as the title of this entry indicates, I am not. I am chillin' in my own personal hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia.

Anyway, I woke up at the lovely hour of 5:30 to catch my 8:37 flight, that didn't depart until 11:21 causing me to miss my Alitalia connection in Chicago. I sat by an interesting man on the flight, though. He was off to Cairo on some official business with the World Bank and we talked about BYU since like all 8 of his kids went there. However, he didn't have the keenest opinion of the institution (sign I should transfer to the U?). Just as he made it through a rant about how BYU attempt to tear-down instead of build-up it was announced that the plane was delayed and we might as well disembark for an hour. He said, "We're gonna miss our connections." Then, "Sorry for being so negative." I thought he meant about the possibility of not catching the planes to our final destinations, but he'd meant about BYU. It was hard to get a word in edgewise, so I realized my misperception while he continued to ramble and would have joked with him that our delay was punishment for his criticism of Brigham Young University, but I didn't get a chance to spit it out. (He was a nice guy, though. But he did only half-listen. I asked if the noise pollution was as bad as I'd heard it was, in the NY Times (I'm so well read :)) and he went on about the Nile.

I was pretty sure I'd missed my flight from the get-go, but I checked the only terminal I declaring a flight to Rome, which happened to flash NOW BOARDING, I ran to terminal K11 to find no such flight. Then in my infinite wisdom, I waited in an American Airlines line for a rebooking, although I'd flown with Delta. However, the guy at the gate had told me to, but the whole time I was in line I was thinking, "I don't know if they can rebook me here." One hour later, it was confirmed that I should have heeded my doubt. But while I was in line, I devoured this book by Jodi Picoult I picked up in the SLC. (I actually reached the emotional climax point on the flight to Atlanta so I have these tears streaming down my face at 3500 feet).

Anyway, when I finally got in the Delta line (and Chicago O'Hare was far from a Delta Hub, Delta desks were relegated to a far corner). They sent me to Atlanta and, assuming all goes well, I'll be in Italy 8:25 AM (Italian time) Sunday. Only 24 hours late...hey isn't that Andy Standard Time?

And don't worry about me, I'm not bitter. People watching at the airport is exquisite entertainment. I heard a gaptoothed man with a thick accent complain about delays, a family of 6 in matching hot pink shirts, a couple that I presumed was honeymooning.

And now, I have my own hotel room, and you better believe I've jumped on the bed already...and I have HBO. And what would life be without a little chaos--besides pleasant? Maybe I'm getting my miniature disasters out of the way now.

One more short rant. It really unnerves me when people get all uptight about the fact that their flight is delayed for weather reasons and say huffily, "I'm never flying THEM again." No one can change the weather. I think those people look jerkish.