Siena and Pisa

So, this past weekend a good friend from school came down to Rome to visit! It was so exciting to see a familiar face in this crazy (but amazing) city. She flew down on Friday and we set out for a quick-paced 5 hour tour of the monuments in Rome. It was so exhausting! I'm glad she was able to see everything, but man! By the time we got to our hostel for the night (my apartment doesn't allow me to have guests overnight) we were dead-tired, and easily went to bed well before midnight. The next morning we took a train to Siena, where we stayed Saturday night. Despite the usual--we got to the Rome train station super early and then were at the wrong gate and ended up full out sprinting to our train, then the train decided it would take its sweet time pulling out so we were 15 minutes to the station where we need to change trains (with supposedly 10 minutes to spare), and then when we finally got into Siena, we couldn't find where the hostel was, and ended up walking in both directions away from the train station before giving up and taking a 5 minutes taxi--Siena was amazing.
Our hostel was this little house run by an older woman who was so cute. She left us a little bag with our key and notes on where our room/batheroom were since she wasn't able to meet us. The shower was interesting...with just an expandable curtain standing between me and the rest of the bathroom itself--quite an experience. What made the hosel even better was that it was literally right next to one of the many "doors" into the historic part of Siena, which is where we spent out entire time. Since we had most of the day left when we got in, we immediately walked over to the historical section and started seeing the sights. We ended up getting a pass to let us into the Cathedral, Baptistery, the Oratory, an amazing Panoramic view of Siena, and the Crypts. It was so much fun! The Cathedral was stunning. Despite having just toured St. Peter's Basilica the day before, I was still astounded by the interior of the Church, and almost liked it a bit more. The next day, we decided to just walk around in the morning and hope we found something a bit new-and we did. We ended up finding the oldest fountain in Siena, and a whole other church that wasn't part of our original tour! What made the morning better, of course, was the amazing breakfast the woman who ran the hostel made us! There was so much food, we almost didn't know what to do with ourselves.


Church in Florence



At midday, we took a train over to Pisa, and AS USUAL got lost. I feel like my time in Italy can only be defined as that: being perpetually lost. But oh well. We finally found the tower, after taking the longest route there possible, and of course took some pictures. We didn't have much time in between our trains, so we headed back to the train station and headed in our separate directions. It was such a great weekend though! It was also a nice break from the reality of midterms.



Ceiling in St. Peters Basilica



Ohhh midterms. They are thankfully done now, but it was a long two weeks. I finally worked with pottery at the excavation on Tuesday! For my shift, I worked on cleaning marble and travertine fragments (which are most definitely NOT easy to clean with so many crevices and punctures) and then began working on pottery fragments, which will mostly be my task for the semester. The archaeologists, and the other people who work at the site are so friendly! Communicating, we use a mix of English and Italian, since we both a know a little of the other language, so it works out pretty well. I go back today and I'm looking forward to it. The site keeps my mind off school or travel stress or any of that, and it's fun!

Well I'm going to have to jet--after work I'm leaving for Milan to start my fall break! I'm visiting Prague, Vienna, London, and then ending in Edinburgh with another friend from school. So expect amazing stories when I get back (and probably multiple posts)!

Ciao!

The Week Italian Killed Me

Of course...sliiight exaggeration with my title here, but seriously came VERY close to being true. We have (unbelievably!) hit the halfway point in my semester in Rome (sadness...), which unfortunately also means I have two weeks of midterms. The first of which, I just finished with. Italian was...an experience. Yesterday, we had to give an oral presentation, in the form of a play based on the life of Emperor Hadrian (emporer of Rome 117-138 AD). These ranged from histerical to historical, but all in all pretty interesting. I, of course, was freaking out, because not only do I dislike public speaking in English, I really REALLY don't like it in Italian. I was the narrator for my skit, which meant I had to memorize paragraphs of Italian, but it went okay. Apparently, a bunch of the teachers in our hall could hear our skits going and were pretty enthusiastic about them (which meant they were standing at our classroom door listening...not stressful or anything...). The funny thing about midterms, especially those for Italian, is that every single person in my program here (about 150 students total) have them on the exact same day, so everyone had their oral presentation yesterday and everyone was studying like mad for their midterm today. Needless to say, the atmosphere in the building was a bit...tense.
After the oral presentations, my Italian Contemporary Politics and the Italy and the EU classes visited the Italian Senate while it was in session. It was such an amazing experience! It was a little stressful for the guys, because they had to wear a suit and tie (and apparently none of them thought to bring those..), but despite that, it was incredible. Granted, not a lot of members were present, since it was not a mandatory session (since they were really only complaining about the economy and the new budget), but what I really loved about it was that (of course) the entire thing was in Italian and I somewhat followed it! Yay!
Today's midterm was possibly okay-I've given up trying to guess on these things, but I can't change anything so I'm not too worried about it. What is overshadowing any worries I might have is the idea of seeing my good friend from school, Briana, tomorrow! She flies down from Milan in the morning and we are touring Rome and then going to Siena together for the weekend. So excited!! (Be excited too...there will be pics asap!) After the weekend, there is just a week of regular midterms and then I'm on fall break, so I'm getting really anxious for them to be over with!
This past Tuesday, my International Peace and Conflict Resolution teacher took us on an impromptu field trip to an Inter-religious peace conference, with speeches by a key leader in Obama's administration, Josh Dubois (I got to meet him...he told our small group to "drop him a line" if we are ever in DC...umm YES). It was unreal being in the same room as religious leaders from all over the world, and other delegates. Our group of maybe 15 students talked with both the American and Israeli Ambassadors to the Holy See (The Vatican), shaking hands and sharing names with them. And of course the food at the conference was, well, what you would expect it to be to feed said Ambassadors and delegates! These are the reasons I love Rome so much. I just can't get enough of this city.
In other news, I finally started my internship today! We walked down to the excavation, and my professor gave us a better rundown of what the excavation has turned up, and I could actually see what he was talking about. Officially, I start my actual "intern tasks" on Tuesday, but I got a good idea of what we will be doing for the semester, and now I'm even more anxious to start on in it! While cleaning and sorting Roman pottery may sound a bit boring, to me it seems like searching for that perfect puzzle piece, finding the one clue to link everything together, to "solve" something we didn't know existed before. Lame, maybe, but nevertheless I'm ecstatic about finally getting underway. Once I have some fabulous pictures of the site, I will post them.

No pics this week, just so much happened I had to share!
Miss you all!!

Florence and the Parentals!



Climbing the Tower next to the Duomo



I just finished a week filled with fun, family, and (finally) some relaxation! My Dad and Debbie flew in last Thursday, and after some harried moments (the traffic was HORRIFIC from the airport to their hotel, and I had to doctors appt to get to--more on that later) I was finally able to have a great, reallly rushed reunion with them. Since I had the appointment and classes to get to, I sort of...threw them into Rome, which I feel a bit bad about since they had just flown the red eye into the city to see me. That night, though, I was able to stay over with them at their hotel (so swanky!) and then we left for Florence the next morning.



View of Ponte Vecchio and Florence



Florence was amazing. I know I say that about everywhere I visit (and will continue saying that), it was. The Duomo was almost unreal in its beauty, and the view from the tower was breathtaking. We went on a Chianti Wine Tour, which was very nice, because it didn't just include the wine tasting, but also a dinner and tour around a lot of villages in the area. They were so cute, with amazing mountainous views. The next 2 days we toured around Florence, practically stumbling upon Michelangelo's Piazza, almost as high above the city as the Duomo, which was really fun. Unfortunately, I had to leave to get back to school, as I had classes Monday, so I left my parents in Florence Sunday night. I saw them again Wednesday, though, and was once again able to spend the night at their hotel, and then give them a tour around some of the monuments in Rome.

They left early Saturday morning, and while it was sad to see them go, it was so nice to see them during the week that it kind of overshadows it. But of course, now, I am forced back into the reality of midterms for the next two weeks...great.

Okay-so back to the doctors appointment. I am now officially declared "physically able" to work on an excavation, which would normally mean I would already be working on said excavation. Not so much. Unfortunately Italian bureaucracy has kept me and the other interns from getting anywhere near the site, and its getting so aggravating! It is already halfway through the semester and I have not done any work there, and I just feel like I'm missing out on an amazing opportunity. Hopefully (fingers crossed!) we will be able to start this week. Of course, that means I have less time to study for my exams, but oh well. It had to happen at some point.

Freshed-squeezed Grape juice!



This past Friday I visited Bomarzo, which is a town about an hour outside of Rome, for a grape harvest and visit to the famous Park of Monsters there, where I had to give an oral presentation on one of the statues there for my Italian class. The day was long (and SUPER early for a day we usual have off--8 am) and involved a lot of walking, but was an amazing experience. The park was so pretty, and the statues were works of art, literally...The grape harvest was really cool, we got to both harvest the grapes and then drink fresh grape juice from those same grapes! To top it off, it was a beautiful day, so you couldn't help but be happy with the day.



Outside the Uneven House



Inside the Uneven House at the Park of Monsters...
so crazy!





Hope to blog soon, ciao for now though!