Goodbye for Now

Arriverderci Rome

                My last week of Rome consisted of many bitter sweet moments. I spent my last weekend touring the ancient port city to Rome, Ostia with my history professor and my classmates. We arrived to the site and spent the day listening to Jan-isms.

                Some examples of these Jan-isms are when he asks us questions pertaining to the readings that we “had” done before class and when no one knows the answer he goes into rants saying “do you want to me to commit ritual homicide by jumping off this cliff here?” Or picking on one of my fellow peers- mostly Hannah; “Goddammit Hannah!”

                The rest of my weekend was filled with studying for my three finals that I had that week all the while trying to entertain my friend that had traveled to Rome from his program in Madrid for the weekend.

                Skipping the time spent studying I felt like the last week of Rome was one of the most bonding times of the trip. All of us in the group were waking up from the dream of being abroad and were realizing what an amazing group we have all been apart of.

                For my last abroad seminar class taught by my director, Greg, we all shared moments from both sites in which we cherish the most. Some choose to recall hilarious episodes while others chose the sentimental path. Each person shared a moment that we could all agree upon being special and woud be one of our favorite memories as well.

                Some examples are:

Caitlin, Gretchen, Katie, Danielle, and I all shared the love that we had of climbing up Mount Olympus in Greece especially the moment where I burned my socks and melted my keens after trying to dry them off/heat them up after our summit climb.

Our whole group agreed that our tour of Delphi (a city filled with tourists traps and incest) with our History Professor Robert Pitt yelling at the random tourists of the sites:

                                “Curious people aren’t they”- to a Chinese group who were taking our picture

                                “I wish that I had a gun so I could shoot him in the head” – to the loud British man

Anther favorite memory of mine was going to the soccer game with Alexandra, Amy, George and Nickos- then celebrating the win at a hookah bar afterwards.

In Rome, we all agreed that our Thanksgiving in Florence was a weekend that we will never forget. We all loved remembering things that Paulo would say or point out- which was always about nudity.

We all had different memories that we cherished and I really liked hearing them all. 

               Caitlin said a really sentimental one about how when she was at the Vatican for the Papal Audience,        she was listening to the Pope as he was speaking he switched to English from Italian and it took her a while to even notice the switch which made her sad that when she back in America she wouldn't be hearing any the Italian language as much and she was going to miss it. 

              Wade remarked that he loved walking at night in the streets of Rome with a group observing all of the Christmas lights illuminating the roads as the roamed through the Via Velenzia, Via Del Corso, and the streets by the Spanish steps and by the Piazza Navona.

              I have to say that I really loved my time that I spent with my sister in the little town of Lucca. I truly enjoyed my time that I spent walking around in the slight drizzle on the uneven cobble stones of the ancient and enclosed city. It felt like I had gone back in time to the days that the city was built. 

I spent my last free day climbing the Dome of St. Peter's. It was AWESOME! I am so glad that I did it by myself. It was right around sun set and I was able to see the sun begin to dip down on the Roman horizon.

 a look down from the top of the St. Peter's Dome

 The view of the Roman horizon

 On top of the St. Peter's

Here I am, on the top!

My last look at the Vatican.

I can't believe that my time in Rome, and my time abroad, is done. I have seen so many things and I have learned soo much in only four months. I have grown so close to the 29 other members of my group and my directors Greg and Jeanine. I have built some relationships that will keep for a lifetime.

a taste of Italy

As a group activity my director, Greg Walker, was kind enough to organize for us a wine tasting. Needless to say I was over joyed with excitement! We were able to sample and analyze four wines; white, rose, red, and sweet.

Our teacher for the wine tasting gave us three categories that we should separate our wines into: visual, aroma, and taste. For visual we should determine if it is clear, crystalline, foggy... for aroma we state any smell that comes to mind such as oranges, rosemary, earth. Lastly for taste we determine if we can sense the four main tastes: bitterness, acidity, sugar, and salt.

I want to save some of the things that I learned for when I come home and share a glass with my avid followers but I shall leave you with this overall assessment, I love wine!

Another taste of Italy that I was able to enjoy was that of Christmas coating the city! Lights, wreaths, candles are starting to adorn all the shops and street ways of the town. On the night of the Emmaculate Conception, December 8th, there was a large ceremony in the Spanish Square where Pope Benedict the 16th came to say a prayer and to commemorate the placement of the wreath on the statue of Mary in the center of the square.

Seeing the Pope again as he drove by in his Pope Mobile coming from the Spanish Square

The wreath on top of the Statue of Mary

I was blessed enough to have one of my friends, Alex Mathison, come visit me in Rome from his program in Madrid. I showed him most of the sites of Rome from the Spanish steps to the famous gelato place next to the Vatican called Old Bridge (supposedly that is where the Pope goes for his gelato)!

This week is my last week in Rome and in Europe! I will be spending most of my time observing the Vatican Museum as well as hitting the books from my apartment- hope you are all getting excited to see me as I am overfilled with excitement to see you!

Ciao for now

Soup Kitchen, Scavi Tour, the Leaning Tower, and the Circular Square (whew!)

Finally Cait and I had an opportunity to use our Eurorail passes so we decided to head on up the coast to the wonderful cities of Pisa and Lucca but not before...

Tuesday night of the past week a group of us served over 500 people ranging from young teens to crippled old men at a soup kitchen in the heart of Rome. It was humbling serving bread (panne in Italian) to people whom you couldn't even know how to hold a continuous conversation with. At times they would be asking if they could have something more but you had to use exaggerated hand gestures and talk extremely slow to understand what it was that they wanted (only a few times were we yelled at suprisingly). This was indeed an experience that I will share with me for the rest of my life.

Brigitta sporting the very fashionable apron that we were asked to wear

Earlier that day I also had another experience of a lifetime to attend a Scavi tour. Now for those of you who do not know what a Scavi tour I will briefly explain. It is the rare opportunity-in which you have to sign up for days in advance- to tour the underground of the Vatican, right under the St. Peter's Basilica! A group of us girls singed up for this tour and arrived at our scheduled time with no time to spare where after a short introduction walked the streets of Ancient Rome. Now I won't tell you all of what I was told in this paragraph because I want to save some mystery but I will tell you that I may or may not have seen the relics of the Saint Peter.....

(couldn't take any photos unfortunately)

And now onto the city of the infamous leaning tower.

Caitlin and I woke up on the Saturday morning of December the 3rd to hop on a 3 hour train ride up the coast of Italy to visit the city of Pisa and onto our final destination of the only walled city of Italy; Lucca. We actually didn't have any trouble (surprisingly) getting from Rome to Pisa to the site of the tower (I can just hear your praise!)

Here are some ridiculously touristic photos 

the tower itself

If any of you are Tebow fans you will appreciate this.. (Cait has better photos of me on her camera)

And I saved the best for last- Cait holding up the tower with just her pinky!

After seeing the tower and walking the town of Pisa...

We got back on the train to Lucca! I had booked a 4 star hotel (got a very good deal!) which was supposedly an 18 minute walk from the station. We planned on dropping our luggage off and then be off touring the ancient town.

a quick view of the walled ancient town before it started to down pour (little foreshadowing)

Little did we know that it would start pouring (didn't you just say that?)... But little did we know that the roads would all have two names, and that with the little Italian that we know we would end up walking in cicles for a good (I will admit it) 2 hours before we could find our hotel. Night had fallen and Caitlin was ready to give up and call a taxi because she was tired and wet (although she did have an umbrella). I on the other hand was stubborn and I had to find our hotel even though I was tired, wet (since I had only my sweatshirt hood to save me from the rain drops) and I had to pee really really bad!

So we are walking along this barely there sidewalk- I wish I got pictures- with cars splashing their puddles on our legs. I am trekking before Caitlin, because as I said I really had to pee, when I hear from behind me this,

"WHHHAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" 

I thought Caitlin had fallen or was hurt so I turn around expecting the worst but my eyes adjust and I see Caitlin holding her umbrella in one hand, her oh so undesirable bagels in another, and her dress tucked into legging, just soaked from a car splashing a huge puddle. The only reason that I contained my laughter at that moment is because I knew of the consequences, both from having to pee and to what Cait would do to me if I did laugh. Although now as I am typing this I can't help but chuckle.

So we made it a good ten minutes later to our hotel. Drenched, tired, a little hungry and very much relieved. 

A view of the mountains of Lucca from our Hotel window

here we are entering the walled city since our hotel was just outside of it

The next morning we slept until our hearts contempt- ate our amazing breakfast until our stomach's delight and in a slight drizzle we walked our much anticipated town of Lucca (I did indeed have my "forgotten" umbrella). I really wanted to see the infamous Piazza Amphitheatro

which we saw!

And a caroulsel of the Piazza Napoli (a site Cait wanted to see) of which she was highly tempted to ride but thank goodness to save me from embarrassment didn't.

A view of the entrance of the walled city (Aunt Sue notice my boots!)- due to it being a Sunday most places are closed so the streets were mostly empty.

We sauntered our lazy way back to our hotel, gathered our overly packed bags and made our- exactly 18 minute walk to the train station. 

Ciao for now, I must be off studying for an exam that I have on Tuesday- wish me luck!