7 Day Countdown

Isn't that just the most depressing news?? In seven days I'll be on my transatlantic flight to Philly. With seven days left in the Eternal City I simultaneously would love to sit back and soak it up while rushing from place to place stuffing my last week with touristy adventures. No matter what I do I'll be with friends, my time will end, and I'll be home for Christmas. (well Virginia, but that's close enough)

Wednesday I had my last field study with Pier Paolo. We were both bleary eyed from sleep and just because it was too early for him to think in English he challenged me to converse with him in Italian as we waited for the class or started walking. We saw San Pietro in Vincoli (Saint Peter in Chains) which is an old Christian basilica (redone in the Baroque like everywhere else) that houses the chains of Peter from both Jerusalem and Rome. This is also the home of Michelangelo's mausoleum for Julius II. The original design couldn't be completed before Julius II died so this was the second idea his family had M.A. finish up quickly. The captive slaves in the Louvre were part of the first design and on the list of things I would love to see in person. After San Pietro in Vincoli we had a little bit of time left so Pier Paolo took us to the mueso exhibit that has been advertised all over the city: Il Rinascimento a Roma Nel Segno di Michelangelo e Raffaello. As he predicted there were three or four awesome works but the rest were poorly chosen or copies. All the same I enjoyed the museum (for free! thank you IES) and watching Pier Paolo get excited over original sketches etc.

San Pietro in Vincoli

Moses and his horns

After class I came straight home for a nap. My sleep schedule is very wonky right now. A little structure will be good. I spent the rest of my afternoon studying for my Italian final which I took early with the 102 class to get it over with. The listening was rather difficult but I hope it all works out. Wednesday was Gatto's last day of work at Le Fate, thus Pepperoni and I had to go and visit to say our goodbyes. The restaurant was entirely empty when we arrived, they were all sitting around bored! Gabriella had gone home early because she wasn't feeling well, so we have to go back to see her! Any excuse. Gatto let us try her carrot-ginger soup which was incredible and Fabrizio made the student menu dessert Tsu!! By the time we were finishing up a group of 15 American girls arrived to everyone's displeasure and another table of six students showed up expecting special treatment. Apparently they have a friend like Kat who interns at Le Fate and she sneaks them extra wine with dinner which is not ok!! So they threw a hissyfit that they had to pay for the two extra liters of wine they ordered. Poor Fabrizio was at his wits end and Gatto was a blur running around the restaurant. The rest of my apartment and Davide had planned to join us for dessert and a drink and I was tempted to call them and tell them to turn around but it was too late. At least Kat was happy we were there to support her and she could ignore our table without us taking offense. We had a wonderful hour or so sitting there together chatting about everything under the sun and munching on Tsu or chocolate salami.

The perfect end to my night was a wonderful conversation interrupted only by my three lovely roomies in the happiest moods I've ever seen! Julie plopped down next to me on the couch and recounted the night snuggled up.

Thursday was a holiday!! Thanks for the Immaculate Conception God/Mary! No classes so we all slept in and spent the day studying, researching, or writing papers. I stopped by Bijoux and chatted with our friend and his daughter for a while trying to decide on a pair of earrings but I can't narrow it down from all the wonderful choices!! After dinner Aven, Pepperoni, Kat, Sophia, Julie, and I went to the Ice Bar again because I still had my drink ticket plus a coupon for more free drinks, so we were getting a bargain deal when we walked in. The place was EMPTY so we had to make our own fun which is easy enough to do. It was a silly night but now we've all experienced the Ice Bar and we enjoyed each others company. On the walk home someone suggested a stop at the Roman Forum so we climbed up to see the ruins lit at night. It was beautiful. It was a nice moment with friends in Rome. Then we all trooped home waking Nico up, oops!, and the boys got classicos while we made pesto pasta for a midnight snack.

Friday, it feels so strange because the weekend has already begun! Working today and shopping for the intense five course meal my apartment is making for ourselves. Julie, Gatto, and I made chicken noodle soup again!! We over did it with the pasta but that's not the worst thing in the world, we just keep adding more water. It's a great warmer upper kind of snack. I walked out to Prati briefly and will be returning this evening for the boys' small little Christmas event. Perhaps movie night tonight and early bed so I can stop this weird oversleeping cycle.

A picture of me and Syria Libra to make you smile!

Where's Hallie??

You know it's the end of the semester when I start neglecting my blog. I am so busy running around trying to spend time with my friends and squeezing school work into the cracks of time when I'm not sleeping. Dearest Mom and Dad I will be sleeping for the first 48 hours when I get home. Sorry.

I had a very boring weekend, sorry to keep you guys waiting for such a dull post, but here we go.

Friday I did research and started my Conservation paper about Ponte Sant'Angelo's angels by Bernini. That evening when Sophia, Gatto, and Ginny returned from their field study we had our own little field study. Anna, my Italian teacher, assigned each person in our class a location in Ostiense to research and present on for our oral exam. I had to research La Citta delle Altra Economia and Julie was assigned Caffe Letterario. Gatto e Sophia joined us to visit our locations that evening. First we got very lost trying to find my place, even backtracking to the club area of Testaccio where my pubcrawl was. Eventually we thought we found it but turns out we found il MACRO, the contemporary art museum which was having an opening night for a Steve McCurry exhibit. We walked in like we knew what we were doing and nobody asked questions so even though it wasn't my location we saw a fantastic photography show and possibly Steve McCurry was there? Somebody was signing books. Caffe Letterario is a book bar on Via Ostiense and our next stop. A book bar has nooks and reading corners and during the day serves as a cafe but at night is a bar like Americans like of and yes you can still sit there with a glass of wine and do your homework. I know because she did. While I never found La Citta delle Altra Economia the research I did online makes it sound really cool. It's an old mattatoio converted into a bar, restaurant, shop, and large open market for organic goods. The shop sells recycled goods like the purses made from candy wrappers. Right now they have a Christmas market so I'd love to go back but it's rather far from Ponte.

A coffee maker turned lamp

La Citta delle Altra Economia

Photo exibit

Sophia checking out the photos

Props to whoever designed this!!

La Gatta

Saturday morning I woke up planning to be so productive! Nico told me about a library that was actually open on the weekends! Something nearly unheard of in Italy. I looked it up and checked the bus routes, packed my bag and was out the door. Sadly I became horrible terribly lost somewhere in Trastevere. Not where I had planned to end up. I was going to come back home and work since my roomies were all off on academic field trips or internships. This is the point I realized Julie took my keys in the morning, leaving me with no keys and nobody to let me in the house. Sooooo I wondered around, thankfully it hadn't started raining yet, and eventually found myself at the doors of Circus Arts Cafe! I went in and found two other IES girls working on projects with the free wifi. I chatted with my favorite barista who is only half British by the way, he's also half French and is fluent in English, French, Spanish, and Italian. He served up some risotto for lunch and I was surprisingly productive! The only other highlight of Saturday was the delicious stirfry I made myself for dinner. mmmmm!

Circus Art Cafe!

Sunday I wrote my Conservation paper.... all day. It was not terribly fun. For one of my study breaks I walked the three minutes to Ponte Sant'Angelo to take photos of my subjects during the five minutes of sunshine that weekend. While fiddling with zooms and checking the quality of my pictures someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked in accented English "Excuse me, can I help you?" my instantaneous response was "Non grazie" but when I looked up it was my PT friend! He was on his way to work at Fillippo's and caught me standing like a fool in the middle of the bridge. We chatted for a moment but he was late to work. Having friendly Italians around can improve one's day dramatically!

Monday Monday, back to school. I came home after classes and did homework for most of the afternoon or chatted with my roommates about the wonderful teachers we have or have had in our lives and why we chose our majors. The usual avoiding homework kind of conversations. Since Aven's 21st birthday is Tuesday (TODAY!!) we started the celebrations with a dinner at Dar Poeta a pizzeria I've wanted to go to for a while now. The whole gang, Prati, Ponte, Kylie, Chris, and Kristen were all in attendance. We sang loudly and out of tune when they presented him with a ricotta nutella calzone for dessert. After dinner the plans were to continue celebrating until midnight, his actual birthday. I could not join, instead I went home and wrapped up my bibliography for my Conservation paper. At home Ginny and I were studiously at work at the table when Isotta, Silvio, and Roberto come clambering up the stairs for a movie night with Nico! What fun! We goofed around as they made tea from Bibliotea. Roberto put on a fashion show in Julie's shoes, Izzy's scarf, and my sunglasses while Silvio decorated our tree with pingpong balls and told me about La Citta delle Altra Economia. He's such a good teacher I hope he works for IES in the spring like he plans! This is also the night I was proven right! You can eat cereal too loudly! Take that Gatto e Julie! I'm just being a good roommate.

We all stayed up far too late that night because most everyone came back to our house after Trastevere. We're young. What else are we going to do but stay up way too late and laugh too loud?

This morning seemed early as a result of last night. I had soup for breakfast finally! A delicious idea I stole from Meg's Food Blog. It was warming and filling before Julie and I hit up St. Ivo with our Baroque class. What a fascinating design! Julie gave an incredible presentation on Bernini's Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi. I've seen this fountain before (like the first night?) but her presentation caused me to really examine it and appreciate it's skill and beauty. What a genius! Even better we went inside St. Agnes, the Pamphilj chapel directly behind it which is another breathtaking Borromini. After that we saw St. Maria delle Pace directly outside the Steeler's bar so I've seen it before. It was my last field study with Federica sadly, what a wonderful woman she is. I hope I make her proud on my exams.

St. Ivo

St. Ivo

The Nile is all covered up!

Four Rivers

Fountain

St. Agnes in Agony

St. Agnes

Pope Innocent X

Santa Maria della Pace

I presented on La Citta delle Altra Economia this evening in Italian after a quick pizza snack from Fillippo's. My PT friend was working again, they all have such weird hours/ schedules. Hopefully we'll get to see Aven tonight for his real birthday or maybe we'll go to Buccoco and visit Nico at work!