Forza Roma!!

Last weekend was relatively quiet for us. We stayed in Rome while others traveled around Europe to Ireland, Paris, Scicily, Siena, etc., but it was nice to be on campus with only about 15 other people for a few days. On Thursday after class we missed dinner and quickly headed to the nearby town of Albano to get some cheap pizza. On Friday we went into Rome and walked around the Travestere region to see where Nick's brother Luke lived when we was here for a year, stopped in the church of St. Dorothy, and then went to "the best pizzaria in Rome". We're not sure yet if it actually is, but that's what some of the other Romer's claim. It was pretty yummy and Nico really liked it. He often complains about the lack of pizza in the cafeteria, so whenever we find good or cheap pizza, we always remember where to go back to get it. Then we went to the piazza outside the Pantheon which is usually hopping later on a Friday night. We went to our Art and Architecture professor's favorite gelato place and sat in the piazza and listened to the street musicians who were serenading the restaurant goers eating outside in the piazza. Saturday was really quiet. We just studied and relaxed. At Nico's refusal to play any game in the game chest, I spearheaded an effort to do a 1000 piece puzzle of the Colesseum, which got a little bit more fun for me after Theresa got back from her outing and helped. We're determined to finish it, but it may take us awhile. Then on Sunday, we got up and went to breakfast on campus, scarfed it down and hurried to catch the 10:30 bus to the metro to make 12:15 mass at St. Peter's. I'm hoping that my diligent attention at these Italian masses makes up for the fact that I have no idea what the readings are or what the priest is saying in his homily. It's really hard not to be distracted in St. Peter's though, it's so big!! Before mass, Nico and I accidentally wandered down under the floor of the church and walked past the tombs of many deceased popes, including Pope John Paul II. His tomb is the most beautifully decorated one after St. Peter's and is probably constantly being venerated. There was a whole group of people around him just when we passed by. We'll have to go back sometime and make a better visit. After mass we donned our Roma apparel and went to meet Dr. Roper at a certain metro station so he could take us to the Roma vs. Genoa soccer game. Dr. Roper is our English professor who also teaches a new elective class called Contemperary Italian Culture, which I'm auditing. As an outing for this class, and being an avid soccer fan, he wanted us to get a taste of Roman soccer culture. So, we packed onto a crowded bus and made our way down the dirty sidewalks to the olympic stadium where the 1960 Olympics were held. We quickly found some seats in the Curva (the end zone or the curve), which was lucky because seats are pretty much first come first serve. The game was really fun and it was both nice but disappointing that we ended up in the less rowdy section. It was nice because we actually got to watch the game in relative peace, but we didn't get to participate fully in the excitement of the Italian obsession. Actually, looking back, I suppose I'm more grateful for this. It's not as fun if you have to constantly deal with rowdy fans. Then we booked it out of the stadium a couple minutes early and made it back to campus for dinner where we got to hear the stories of all the people who went traveling.

This weekend should be really fun. We're planning on going to Barcelona with Nick and his girlfriend Hannah. I guess, other than that we're going, we haven't planned much, but there will be plenty to do there and the weekend will go by really fast.

School has been ok. I'm a little frustrated because I'm already already behind and have the further pressure to get ahead before Thursday so I won't have to work on anything in Spain. Flusche also sprung a quiz on the major monuments of Rome on us today, which I was not ready for. But when I say monuments, I mean hills, areas of land, walls, and roads, not even really buildings. We're kinda hoping everyone failed and she'll take pity on us, but she's probably just trying to remind us to constantly study and review.
Theresa and I plan to volunteer with Msgr. Fucinaro at a soup kitchen near the Vatican one of these Tuesdays coming up. We would help with serving dinner and taking care of those in the hospice there. I can't remember which order runs it, but it's sure to be a good experience and I can't remember the last time I did a volunteer project like that, actually I probably never have.
The girls in my suite are brainstorming going to France the weekend that the boys are on retreat in March to visit Lisieux and Orleans and maybe Chartres and Tours. We thought it would be a nice little pilgrimage to visit the famous cities of a couple great saints (St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Joan of Arc, well Joan wasn't from Orleans, but she fought there and has a museum dedicated to her there) and we may possibly stay in a convent first to save money, and second to bolster the trip as more of a religious experience. It will also be interesting to see the small towns of France that are a little outside Paris; it's easier to get a sense of what French people are really like by talking to those in small towns and to get away from the noise of the huge capital of Paris. We'll have to see how the planning works out, but right now all of us six are really excited about it.
I'm working on getting more pictures up. All of my web browsers have decided lately that they don't like facebook's uploading option, but once I get some spare time, I'll figure it all out.

I love you all! Please keep praying for our safety and our studies.

Ange

PS a video of the Roma song that they sing before every game
Theresa has the words down and we often break out into it when we're feeling particularly Roman

Photos

It's much quicker and easier to upload pictures onto facebook and I can do a bunch at a time, so I think I'll just do that since most of you have it anyway, but I'll also post the link to the albums up here so people who have better things to do, can look at the pictures even if they don't have fb.  It's been pretty busy around here with school and random meetings about nothing.  School's going well, we're just hoping the weather gets less rainy and gloomy so we can spend more time outside and in the city.  

I'll write again once something interesting happens.

Love, 

Ange

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=101633&l=3ddad&id=547735836

I hope you all didn't stop following this

Hi everyone! Sorry for the huge space between posts. I don't think we realized how busy we would be here. I don't know how we fit everything into our schedules! Last weekend we all went to the region of Italy called Campania where we visited the Naples Archaeological Museum. The majority of statues there are from Pompeii which is where we went the next day. We stayed in a hotel in Stabiae which is a little town down the bay from Naples and closer to Pompeii. On Saturday we got up nice and early and headed down to Pompeii and spent a few hours walking around the excavated city, which was so cool. It turns out that the pumice and ash that rained from the sky that day in 79 AD was perfect for preserving many of the buildings and sometimes even the wood that was left in the city. There are also some preserved frescoes and mosaics still left over. We got to run excitedly into their amphitheater and pretend to fight each other to the death, and also to see the theater where they would have gathered thousands of people to watch plays. That afternoon, they gave us the choice to go back to campus on the bus or to go off and travel by ourselves for the rest of the weekend. So, Nico went back to campus and I went with ten other people to see Sorrento and the island of Capri in the Bay of Naples. We took our three euro train to Sorrento and after some confusion and going in circles and getting lost, we found our "deluxe hostel" which we didn't expect much from for 17 euro a night. But, it was a nice treat to find out that it was nicer than many American hotels I've been in, so we took advantage of the bathtub and the hot showers, which we don't get here on campus. Hostels are usually set up like dorms so one female room will have 6 or 8 or 10 bunkbeds and one bathroom, so all 5 of us girls got to sleep in one room. We went to Mass that night in the Cathedral of Sorrento and then got some pizza and went to a fake Irish Pub with a crazy bartender. He probably wasn't really crazy, he was just overly excited that we were there I guess. Then on Sunday we took a hydrofoil to the island of Capri. The ride was windy and rainy but we loved the boat ride. It was amazing to see Vesuvius fade behind us as the island emerged in front of us, and we didn't mind the rain much. We got off of the boat and hiked up the cliff that leads to downtown Capri in the rain. It wasn't easy, but we made it too the top and saw the beautiful views. We just walked around the city all day and then caught a ferry back to Naples, walked about 40 minutes to the train station, took an almost 3 hour train back to Rome and then stopped at McDonalds at the terminal, but I refused to eat McDonalds for the equivalent of eight dollars for a meal, then took the metro to the bus and finally made it home at around 9:30. Even with all the traveling it was an amazing trip and I'm glad we went and I learned a lot about firstly, the differences between Northern Italy and Southern Italy and about how to travel well. Naples was the dirtiest city I have seen while being here and rivals any American city I've ever been to. It's full of ugly apartment complexes and the downtown is just dirty and crime-ridden. Capri and Sorrento were beautiful, but the Northern Italians still look down on all of Southern Italy and call them their equivalent of hick or redneck. And for traveling I learned it's good to have maps of the city and some idea of where you need to go once you arrive in the city you're visiting and that it's much better to travel in smaller groups. This way it's easier to plan, easier to walk around and easier to be less conspicuously American. All in all, it was really fun, we had a good group, and I would definitely reccomend Sorrento to anyone for a quiet and beautiful trip to Italy. I'll put a few pictures up below, but I think since most of you have facebook, or access to it, it might be easier to put pictures up there for eveyone to see and I'll also paste the links to the albums here so even people without facebook can see them.

Love you all!

Angela

First Post!

Well Nico set this up, but I beat him to the first post!!

Our trip here went as well as could be expected. Everything was on time and as far as I know, no one lost their luggage! We were all extremely tired and in need of a shower when we arrived but quite excited. We unloaded our stuff and settled into our rooms. We had a tour of the campus and some uninteresting meetings and then a convocation mass with our chaplain Msgr. Fucinaro, who works at the Vatican as a lawyer in Canon Law. Then we had a very nice dinner in the Mensa (which means table in Italian, but is also what we call the cafeteria) complete with wine, and went to bed. The next day we went Rome to get a short walking tour of Rome given by the professors and RAs. Each tour was different but we all saw some of the more famous landmarks in Rome like the Victor Emmanuel monument, the Pantheon, and the Forum. We also learned how to cross an Italian street, which requires a lot of faith in the driver's skill. You basically have to look for a little break in the traffic and just go for it. But there are two schools of thought on whether you should look the driver in the eye to let them know you're there or whether doing so is a sign of weakness on your part. My guide said meeting the driver's eyes helps them know you're there and it is then understood that they will stop for you or else go around you. The last stop of everyone's tour was St. Peter's. We celebrated a Latin Mass with Msgr. Fucinaro and then returned to campus. It was awesome to see some of the famous statues in St. Peter's like the Baldachino by Bernini and the Pieta by Michelangelo.
On Friday we had hours and hours of meetings to familiarize us with the student life on this campus and to go over rules etc. Then after dinner me and my roommates left for Rome and an adventure, as we had never traveled to Rome without help. We got there just fine and navigated the confusing streets to the Piazza Navona where the fountain of the four waters is located. We went to a restaurant there where we were helped by a really nice waiter who let us speak Italian to him even though he knew english. Then we made our way back in the rain and after getting lost in a little town near campus, we managed to get back with help from some patient pizzaria workers.

I won't tell you every little detail of everyday from now on, but I though it would be fun to know about the first few. It's quite rainy here and I'm sorry mom, but you were right. My shoes, will definitely not be white, and judging by how much walking we've done already, they'll be ready to retire by the time I get home. We've been having a good time with the children of the prefessors that live on campus. Today we had a tea party with Hannah who's about 6 and her little sister. They are such fun little girls and their a treat to have around. I know Nico's trying to get some videos up so you can see us in action, but they take quite a long time to load and since the internet here isn't amazing, it may take awhile.

There's much more to say, but I'll leave it for later. We're having a great time and are anxious and excited for classes to start tomorrow.

I'll post again soon,

Love,
Ange

Departure

The following videos chronicle the various stages of our journey to campus from Minnesota (at 5:00 a.m.) to Dui Santi (at 10:00 ish a.m. on the following day). There is more to come, but video takes forever to upload. Enjoy: