Ti Amo Familia

It's 8:12 in the morning, and we were just told that today we are entering Vatican City. Because they are so conservative, they won't let you enter unless you are wearing long pants or skirts, and covered shoulders. ( thank goodness thats all we mormons own!) I'm actually really excited. We entered St. Peters the first day we arrived when it was night and raining, and it was so beautiful. The catholics like their churches to look very big and very weathly because it shows power and authority. Vatican has these huge columns that you have to pass through to enter and then it is very open inside. There is a fountain, and then the huge church. To the left of the church you can see where the pope lives. I was going to go to the popes "wednesday wave" but you need a ticket two weeks in advance to get in! It must be very popular.

So next Saturday I will be taking a bus out of Rome and entering the smaller city of Siena. I emailed dad the address of where I will be staying if you guys wanted to see it on google earth. I was moved out of the 5 girl apartments, and was put with a girl named Brittany. She is really nice, and is engaged. ( just my luck). We are staying 10 minutes away from the Dante Allagare school and we are staying with a single woman. It should be a lot of fun, and I can't wait. I'm just excited to start school and to get busy. I already have 5 papers due before I enter Siena, and my online professor has already emailed me. So, I'm ready to start life! I was thinking about it, and I am only going to be here for around 11 more weeks after this one. Thats not very long if you think about it, but it still feels like forever. It's really hard to be away from people I know and being around people who can understand what I am saying.

Yesterday I swam in the Ocean :) It was beautiful. Chaio!

Reliving the movie Taken.

Today was a total nightmare. Never go into downtown Rome with 4 BYU girls who are trying to meet Italian men. Total nightmare... I have never felt so much like mommy before in my life. Our professor left us to do our own thing around 12 today, so we had 10 hours to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the day. Four of us girls decided that we wanted to wander around the streets of Rome, and just get a taste of Italy. It started off great. We ate pizza at a little resteraunt and got fed bottled water and extra bread. We were told by the owner that he wanted us to eat there again haha. After that, we decided to get off at Flaminio and go see the fountains and to go do some shopping. There were 2 girls that were with me, that were obsessed with coming home with an Italian boyfriend. We stopped every 5 minutes to get a picture with a random man and to talk to him with the little Italian that we knew. ( i have only seen about 3 cute Italian men over here, and I think they were in their 40's. The old men are...... *phew* so beautiful. It's like Brad Pitt got a makeover and a face lift. They look so good). Anyways, I was ok with it at first because we made sure they looked somewhat normal. We continued to walk around the shops, and stopped off at H&M to do some shopping. They came out with bags and bags, and I made sure I didnt touch anything. I knew I would buy something if I tried anything on, so I did a good job. As we were continuing on our walk, I saw a man selling scarves and jewelry on the side of the road. They were so beautiful. I bought 2 scarves that I just could not stop looking at. That is the end of my suveniers, but it was so worth it.

One of the girls in my group worked at an internship for an Italian high end store. I think it was called Roberto Cavali? Anyways, she wanted to visit him, so we traveled up and down so many alleyways to try to find her friend. We didn't realize what time it was getting, and the streets were getting really crowded and it was getting dark. We would lose eachother every once and a while and I was getting sick to my stomach. I was not ok being in Rome after like 6 o' clock.

We decided to give up, and started taking our pictures by random places. One of the girls would talk to every boy we met. She started talking to these boys who asked us where we were sleeping that night, and I had to tell them to leave her alone and I dragged her away. I think she was mad at me. The other girl got bumped into, and I watched a man grab her purse zipper to open it. I yelled at the girl and I saved her life too. Then, we had a man in a motorcycle ask us if we wanted a ride, and the girls started to talk back. I was seriously stressed at this point, so I grabbed the blonde's arm, and I told him no. We started walking, and he was at the top of the street again asking us. I shook my hand and kept walking. Then a third time, he was at the top of the street and he had gotten off his motorcycle. I grabbed Kate's arm, and I pulled her into the street so we would have to cross. I was so scared, and I wanted out of Rome so bad. Now, I am home and everyone is ok. I am so glad I was able to listen to promptings and could figure things out.

Anyways, hopefully tomorrow is good too haha. We got to see the coluseam today and the Forum in the morning which was pretty cool. The Coluseum is HUGE! I got to see how how they lifted the animals up onto the stage, and all the decorations that were covering the building. It would have been a really pretty place. I learned that most of the slaves they used to battle eachother were Jews. AFter the gladiators would fight, they would have 2 slaves battle to the death in honor of the guy who left his life. Pretty weird huh?

Anyways, that was the end of my crazy Roman day.

Spent the Day in Old Ruins

Both of my feet hurt. I have worn out my tennis shoes, part of my new sandals, and I'm covered in black and blue bruises. I don't know how the Italians do it. It seems like the days get longer and hotter the longer we are here. We walk everywhere and are under the sun most of the day. Little or no places have good air conditioning. To give you an idea of my day, we usually leave our apartments around 7 in the morning, and don't come home and go to bed until 11:30. Most of the girls don't fall asleep until 2 tho, which is what I hear. It's hard running off of low sleep, no food and being under the hot sun. Because we are in a rented apartment, we are only served dinner, which they eat around 8:30 at night. I am cheap and won't spend money on anything, so I end up running off of an apple and a payday candy bar for an entire 13 hours of my day. It is hard, expecially walking over 8 miles every day, but I dont know what else to do. A lot of the foods here ( the good food) is really expensive. The apartments give us free dinners, but our free dinners end today, so I'm a little nervous how the rest of my week is going to go. Once I get into Sienna, my breakfasts and dinners are served to me. That will be really nice.

Today was really interesting. I learned a lot. As a group, we traveled all over the city Osio. Osio is a really old Roman port that was around I would say 47 A.D? Maybe not... Osio housed around 50,ooo people that included everything from a bakery, fast food, a theater, markets and hotels. It was amazing, and it was huge. The group I was with was only halfway through the ruins, and it took us 45 minutes to get back out. Because the coast has receded, the port is no longer used and is now an archaeological site. When we entered into the city, they still had the same stones used back in their day. Everything they made has lasted forever, even their roads! The Romans were famous for their smooth and effective roads, but to us, it was slippery and uneven. You could still see carriage wheel lines through most of the rocks and I thought that was amazing.

As we entered through the Port Gates, you would see long, carved, cement blocks that were broke open. I found out they were caskets. Back in their day, you could not be buried within Rome's walls unless you were a child, or a worker for the church. Everyone else had to buried outside the city walls, so the street was covered in tombs. ( even the slaves got burial spots).

The town is very old, but is still in great condition. You could see mosaics in perfect condition that were layed on the floors of the pools. They were mostly pictures of Neptunes wife on his Chariot. They would fill up bath houses for the people to come in and use. Romans were big into cleanliness, so everyone was allowed to enter the bath houses, and they were very cheap. We also got to enter their theater which they built themselves out of stone. Because this was a port, they had markets all around the theater so people could shop and enjoy a show. On the floor of the shops, they had mosaics to show what they sold in their shops. They also once had marble covering the entire theater, which is now just stone. They believe that the Colosseum was also covered in marble from the inside.

Once we got into the hotel rooms and the houses, it was really cool. The homes were about 3 stories high. The richer residents stayed at the bottom, and the poorer people had to stay on the roof. It was that way, because they had to carry their water everywhere, and the rich didn't want to carry their heavy buckets up the stairs. They also had a kitchen, and still had a bar which they served out of. The hotel apartments were 7 stories high and were one room. Their was a public bathroom down the road that was not split up between men and women or had doors. The...stuff left over...would just run down the sides and the slaves would carry it out. Nasty huh.

The bakeries and the dining areas were huge. It is weird to imagine people living there once. The men would wear Togas, and the women would wear like a sheet. By law a prostitute had to wear a toga, and a lot of the time, the men would battle nude. (for them it was exercise, and they didnt want to get their clothes sweaty). It was really neat to go see, mom would have loved it!

A couple of us left to go see an old Castle which was built by one of the early popes. This pope would battle and fight with the people. Inside, it was exactly what you would imagine an old castle looked like. Very dark, small cement ceilings and holes for torches. It looked a lot like....the movie King Arthur? With the boy on roller skates, who fed them hamburgers? Maybe April remembers what I'm talking about. The castle was used first as a place for the military, then housed a family, and then was used as a hospital. They had a prison cell inside that had carvings of crosses and dashes for the days. It was amazing to see. The family bedrooms were big compared to the rest of the place. They wouldn't let us take pictures, but it was cool to see.

Anyways, I am so tired. I came home traveling on a train for 45 minutes, another bus for 30 and then one more for 8 minutes. Everyone is asleep then going to H&M afterwards. I don't have money for that, so I am pretty sure I will stay home.

They Buried..Hurcules?

Today Italy's sun gave us no sympathy. It was hot from the moment we woke up (7 a.m.) to the time we headed off to our apartments. Professor Stanford, which we have nicknamed CharChar, told us we needed to wake up before 7 so we could make it to the Metro before it shut down. The Metro was very very busy and we had to keep a hold on our bags to make sure no one would take them. We get a lot of looks because we talk really fast and we all are dressed very modest. Most of the women don't wear very much at all. What is interesting is that the men dress better than the women do. They almost have more shops for the men than they do the women. No wonder we think the Italian men look so good!

Anyways, today their was a protest about the working conditions, so all the buses and most of the businesses shut down from 9 to 5, which ruined a lot of our plans :/ . Our plans were to see the Forum and the Coluseum and then come home to eat dinner and go to bed. When we arrived to the Coluseum it was bigger and a lot cooler than I expected it to be. It was huge. The stone work was amazing because it was all built on these little tiny stones. We were not allowed to go inside because the Coluseum went on strike too, so we had to change our tickets to the 15th of September instead.

We decided we would walk and go visit a famous Catholic church called Circus Maximus. The churches here are so beautiful. They have very intricate stone work with all of their priests carved in it, along with bright pictures of Christ, and murals all over the walls that are covered in bronze. There are also lighted candles everywhere and holy water for the devoted Catholics. I also got to see ( and accidently got into one) a Confession booth. It was pretty neat. This church was very large and very plain compared to the rest of the churches but to me it was prettier than all of the other ones. Back when they built it, they wanted the church to look very roomy and very tall, because the people would have very small houses. They wanted them to come to their church and think that they were "true" because they had so much money and power. Apparently it worked! I also noticed that every single catholic church has the same type of picture in it. They all have some kind of picture with Mary holding the baby Jesus. It must be something they worship alot. We also learned that a lot of the churches used to bury their priests underneath their temple grounds. So we would see all these stone works of dead people, and then learn that their bodies were underneath it. Pretty weird...nasty..but pretty cool at the same time.

One of my highlights for the day was going to see where they claim Hercules fought, and was declared a God. They made an alter for Hercules, and made him a tomb. Aparently they believe he was not a God until he died..which makes no sense. Since the Christians don't like the Pagen beliefs, they changed the tomb into a catholic tomb to bury a priest of theirs. It's sad, because I wish we would have more Pagen things here, but there is still just as much. The Catholics pretty much rule Rome. I never really realized how big of a deal it was to have a temple built in Rome, but now I realize it is going to be crazy. It's going to be one of the only other temples other than Catholic in that whole area. I wonder how that is going to go.

Since everything was shut down... we saw a Temple, and sat on steps and played games. Everyone thinks I am the quietest one here, which is easy to say because all of the girls have very loud personalities, which is really fun. We split off into groups and went home after a hot day. My suitcase finally showed up! I got to read moms very sweet leader and I love the bear! It is on our desk right now for me and Alli to share but I'm sure I will sleep with it tonight. I love my family and I miss them, I will keep updating!

Pantheon, Colosseum, and fake Prada

In response to Andrew and Willows email, I am 7 hours ahead of Utah. It is weird to train my body to get used to when I want to sleep and when I want to eat. It's interesting to notice then when I am visiting sites I'm exhausted, and then when I'm getting home, I'm more wide awake then ever. Even though I do eventually fall asleep ( thanks to my roommates "sleeping herb pills"), the city is still very loud. I don't know how to shut my window, so the street right below me always is really noisy. It's kind of comforting in a way, because it makes me feel like I am not alone.

Today we were supposed to wait up early and get ourselves to the market to buy ourselves breakfast. Because my roommates thought I was already awake, they didn't inform me it was time to go until I was woken up 10 minutes before I had to find my bus. We walked to the Metro, got our tickets stamped and went further into the city to see the famous fountains, churches and the Pantheon. (which was beautiful by the way). The first thing we got to see was a fountain of the God Neptune? I think that is right. It is huge! It is a statue of him drinking water on top of fishes that are holding him up. It was beautiful. Little did I know that Rome has fountains everywhere. They are proud of their water systems that are also something that is given freely to everyone. Anywhere on the streets you walk, you will find little mini fountains that look like fire hydrants. Water trickles out of a little hole and you can drink any water that you see. We also got to see the famous big fountain...to be honest I forgot the name, but it has the God of water looking down on the people. Apparently if you throw a coin in, you are granted the wish that you asked for. To be honest, I am cheap, so I figured i would just use my coins on the love fountain we would be going to the next day ;) . It was really hot and the streets were full, so a couple of girls and I decided to walk into an open church that was across the street. It looked simple, but as soon as we walked in, it blew my mind away. We had a monk ( i think that is what they call them here) greet us, who was trying to sell candles and pictures of the virgin mary so we could repent or ask for things to her if we would like. All over the walls of the church are pictures of the apostle Paul, Jesus Christ and Mary of course. What the catholics believe is that the priesthood was restored and practiced through Paul. That is why you see him depicted with a lot of keys. They also made sure everything was covered in bronze and bright colors to represent the saints. They had a lot of holes next to candles where you could donate to the church, and also on the side of the church you could see a alter where the last pope's heart was buried. He apparently loved the church we were in and requested that his heart be buried in the church he loved. We also got to see where you could do your confessions. It was a little purple box which a picture of christ on the side so you could see him while you confessed. It was really tempting. While I was sitting watching people enter the church, you would see them light a candle and then place it around the sand in one of the pots next to the pictures. They would also go up to Mary, cross their chest and start talking to her about everything that was going on. They beleive in God, but they worship Mary. I don't know why....

After the church experiance, we walked to see other sites. We saw a lot of Pagen statues and pillars that were destroyed and changed for the church. Once the Catholic church started to grow, they destroyed everything that was Pagen and replaced them with Saints of their own church. It was really neat. We got more Gelato after we started getting hot, and we ate at the most famous Gelato store, "Gelliti". It was delicious. I had chocolate, Mint, and Watermelon. It suprisingly tastes exactly like it sounds like. They had other tastes like Raisen Rum, Fish, Carmalized Fig and Banana, which I will be trying soon.

After sight seeing around the city, we went to the Pantheon. It was huge! It did not look real at all . The pillars were massive and the work was beautiful. They say they did no renervations on it, and because Romans mastered archetecture, it will always stay in perfect form. The marble and stone were all the same as when It was built. They had to bolt the Marble into the concrete inside to make sure it would stay. The Pantheon was used as a temple to worship their Gods, but now it is used as a church. They have statues of their Saints inside such as Agtha and Mary, and they also have the burial sites of Raphael, and the First King of Italy. You can see their tombs but no body. At the front of the church, they have huge bronze candles and a picture that is so holy, they covered it up. It is a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus, and they covered it in Metal, but only have the faces and hands uncovered. Even though they claim that that is the original painting, there are 5 other churches in Italy that claim the same thing. It is up to our own ideas to judge that ;) We walked around afterwards to do some more sight seeing, and saw lots of street performers and men who would try to sell you Prada and Gucci bags. Everytime a police man came by they would yell for their other friends to warn them and they would run down a street with their bags. We decided to walk to the Spanish Steps and it was pretty cool. Prof. Stanford never explained to us what it was, but it was pretty impressive. They had a lot of men selling Roses. One of our girls took one and thought they were free. She then told him she didnt want it anymnore, so he yelled at her in Italian and spit on the ground. She was pretty scared. After we took some group pictures, we went to get some lunch, and we found a tiny resteraunt and wine bar and had some pizza. It was very good, but expensive! I refused to spend 10 Euros on a mini pizza, so I had a bite of some one elses. At the end of everyone eating, we had to pay 66 euros for our meal! This place is pretty expensive. After lunch, we broke off, and me and two other girls went around the streets looking some more. I saw Gucci, Prada, Banburry, Armani, and lots more. I almost tried on a 3,000 Euro Jacket, but they followed us around to make sure us "cheap" Americans didn't touch anything. We started to get tired, so we decided to walk back and try to find our Metro. The professor left telling us to find our way back by 8, so we wanted to make sure we left early so we could find our way home. As we found our Metro, we ran to the train to make sure it wouldn't leave without us. The other girls got in, but it shut before I could get in. So...for like 2 minutes I was left alone in a dark subway with only me and one man. I stood by the light and held my bag and prayed until the train came back. I was scared out of my mind. The girls were nice enough to wait for me, and we were able to find our way home. It was a busy but fun day! Tomorrow we are leaving at 7 a.m. to get to the Colosseum before they have their riot. We don't know what they are protesting, but they are closing everything down for it tomorrow. Anyways, another day in Rome :)

Welcome to Italiano

I am laying on a bed too short for my legs, too stiff for my back and too sticky from the heat, but I am as happy as can be. Arriving to the country of your dreams can' t be affected by any case of jet lag. As long as I can remember, my dream has always been to go to Europe and to visit Italy. Just thinking about the fountains, the language, and living a life of pure fantasy and a high status was something I wanted to do. It had never felt like something I could ever experience, so I decided the closest I could get was rotting in an apartment in Rexburg, Idaho. Because I am a college student and nothing gets me motivated other than a party later that night or getting a good grade, I figured it wasn't worth the effort of looking up how I could go. Thank goodness my mom will go through any amount of research to help me. Two months later, I had booked a flight through Delta Airlines and I was packed and ready to go!

I entered the country of Italy at around 10:33 a. m. after 13 hours of flying across the world. Tired and delusional, the rest of the girls in my study abroad class tried our best to great each other and to get to know everyone's names. As one of the three "new-er" girls that arrived, I had to make sure I was way too possitive, and weirdly happy just to make sure that they got a good impression. I hope it worked....

Following our Art professor, Charlotte Stanford, we jumped on a bus and headed into Central Italy. Our apartment for the next 10 days is a 4 story, yellow building with roof gardens everywhere. It is beautiful. Climbing the winding stairs and entering my apartment room, its surreal. I have a large mud room, a green mini kitchen that outlooks the rest of Italy, a dining room that has a balcony to enjoy the cool weather, three bedrooms, and two full bathrooms that give you the luxury of actually pushing a button on the wall to release water to the toilet. Its more than I thought it would be like. Before we could rest our heads on our pillows, we were sent to Hotel Portol where we were able to have a three course meal for lunch. Already full from eating everything given to me that day, I forced myself to finish an entire bowl of Green Pasta, that was given to me extra by the service man. (maybe, I gave him the wrong look or something? But my bowl was overflowing). It was good and was satisfied until he brought over potatoes, salad, lamb and green olives. I was so confused, didnt we already eat? I asked the girl next to me, if they were going to finish it all, and they informed me that it was inpolite to not eat what was served to you. All of us girls finished almost our entire plates and politely responded, "Gratzi, Gratzi." About to stand up and go, we were then served Red Raspberry Gelato. It was one of the best things I have ever tasted in my life. Who cares if I was already full and would gain weight this vacation? It was worth it. Stuffed and more tired than before we were sent to our apartments to relax and take a nap before we visit St. Paul. It's going to take us a while to get used to this time zone, but I could not be happier. This is the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm going to take it!