Sconnie Update!

Yet again, I must begin a new blog post by asking forgiveness for my obscenely long absence. It's been a good month since I lasted posted, which I'm pretty sure is a new personal record. One my mother does not approve of, but thus is the story of my life. Sidenote: HI MOM! Anyways, I'm dropping by to inform anyone who is actually still reading this that I am alive, at least for the time being. Oh and I'm currently working on an epic update that includes all of the tomfoolery and shenanigans of the past month or so, so be excited. Or not. I'm excited enough for everyone.

So current life situation: FINALS WEEK. That's right. I am unnervingly close to the culmination of my three months spent abroad, and everyone knows what that means. It's time for us students to show our professors all that we have learned this semester! Joy to the world. My last day of class was Tuesday, and my first final was on Thursday. Italian Language and Literature went much better than expected, but foreign languages have a way of lulling you into a false sense of security like that. I fully enjoyed memorizing the 12 different verb tenses necessary for me to even dream of a passing grade. If anyone is ever in need of a past tense Italian verb conjugation (fun fact: it took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to spell that - hooray for brain meltage!), I'm your girl. I know about 8 of them. I can't begin to fathom why the Italians feel the need to have so many past tenses, but I know one thing for certain: I don't approve

Final #2 was this morning - Religious Studies. Luckily for me, it was only work a measly 60% of my finals grade, and I fully enjoyed spending 9 hours studying for it yesterday, only to find that most of things I focused on weren't even on the final. Grand. Here's a taste of what I learned in that class and had to memorize for the final:

"The definition of cult: the reply to the salvific work of the Father in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit, on the part of the members of the people of God, in the service of faith, hope, and love and actuated and manifested in a moral life and in sacred rite, and this sacred rite is a memory, presence, and a expectation of salvation."

And that's just scratching the surface. You're all smarter now for having read this post. No need to thank me. That's what I'm here for.

Now, all I have left standing between me and my summer vacation (you hear that, people who just started spring break?) is my Philosophy and Art History midterms on Monday. Then, as the Italians say, è basta.

So now we arrive at the here and now. The here is my hotel room, which currently looks like a small hurricane swept through it. At least three times. Possibly four. You see, my last full day as a Rome student is this Tuesday, and the ever-enjoyable process of packing one's life away is in full force in our beloved, bed-bug infested hotel room (don't even ask, I don't want to talk about it). I leave for Ireland on the 31st, and I won't return until the 8th of April. And then I come home. I changed my flight to an earlier one after travel plans for Germany and Spain fell through, but I've missed America like I've missed eating meat on Fridays this Lent. Which is a lot. Which is why I folded like a crappy poker hand and had a chicken and pesto sandwich from Pascucci's yesterday. I'm a horrible Catholic. May God have mercy on my soul.

I was about to launch into my feelings and stuff about leaving Rome, but I don't want to depress everyone and I'm thinking that I should probably get back to studying Philosophy and the Declaration of the Rights of Women. Oh the fun things that come with going to an all-girl's school.

Overcompensation

About four seconds ago I came to the sudden and shocking realization that today is the last day of February. When that managed to happen, I have no idea. I’m still stuck in a late January frame of mind. But even though I am dumbfounded that March is only a day away, at the same time I am shocked that it’s not later. It feels like the weeks have been flying by much faster than they should be. Again, I have found that time here passes in a way that manages to be equal parts swift and sluggish.

Two weeks ago, I spent five very rainy days in Northern Italy on a school-organized trip. This means that even though we only had one day of actual class on Monday, the remainder of the week would be spent either in a coach bus or taking tours of various museums, churches, palaces, and other historical sights that we have been learning about throughout the semester. Contrary to popular belief, this was not a “spring break.” I shouldn’t be complaining about this because I only have ONE MONTH of class left before SUMMER VACATION, but having to be up before 7am on what is supposed to be a “break” is, at the very least, slightly disheartening.

And yet again, I digress. All of us set off at 6am Tuesday morning for Ferrara. We arrived six hours later to dreary skies and rain. Even the city looked grey and soggy. In Ferrara we spent an unnecessarily long time viewing and talking about the Po River (equally grey and soggy), visited an old palace used for social gatherings called the Palazzo Schifanoia (the Italians really knew how to party, let me tell you), and the Cimitero Israelitico. This was a Jewish cemetery where we walked to the tomb of Georgio Bassani, one of the most famous and celebrated Italian writers of this century. We spent some time touring the historical center of the town (complete with a castle and a moat!) before the professors set us free in the hotel. My room was without a doubt the coolest hotel room I’ve ever seen, mostly because it was three stories high and had a television, something I haven’t been able to freely use since late December.



The next couple days were spent in Mantua, Ravenna, Padua, and Vicenza. There, we were able to see many pieces of art that we have studied in Art History and tour many of the same churches. Despite my perpetually sleep-deprived and rain-drenched state, this was legitimately cool. The more I see of famous art/architecture, the more I find myself staring at in incredulosity (new word courtesy of Laura H), wondering how the heck human beings were able to create it. The detail, the symmetry, the perfection, the sheer grandeur of these things simply blow my mind. The irrational conspiracy theorist in me wants to give props to the aliens for such work, but deep down I know that the real, significantly less exciting explanation is the answer to that age-old question: “What the heck did people ever do before the internet?”





Ravenna was by far my favorite city on the tour, mostly because it was the only day where we were able to enjoy prolonged sunshine and clear skies. This made our detour to the Adriatic Sea all the more enjoyable. So much so, in fact, that we ended up staying there for nearly half an hour (our program director originally gave us thirty seconds... she was serious). I have been pining away for Lake Michigan for a couple weeks now, and seeing such an incredible expanse of sea unfold before my eyes was very welcome indeed.



Our last day was spent in Bologna, where the weather was still rather grey but precipitation-free. Bologna is home to the oldest university in Europe and you can tell—the heart of the city bears all the signs of a dense student population: trendy little cafes, restaurants that serve things other than pizza and pasta, excellent shopping, and more than enough bars. The hustle and bustle of the crowds and the general layout of the city reminded me of Rome, which made me realize how much I missed it. After one last break for food and caffeine (did I mention that we had to feed ourselves for the entire trip?) we boarded the bus that had been my second home for the better part of five days and headed back home.



Last week was relatively uneventful—I had to remind myself that I had to go to classes again, some of which I hadn’t had in nearly two weeks. Slight buzzkill though it was, my school routine became much more bearable with the introduction of the station churches into my life. Lent in Rome isn’t as obvious as it is back home, where Friday fish fries are a cultural staple for the forty days of limited meat consumption and where nearly everyone you know discussed at length how miserable they are since they gave up ice cream/chocolate/soda/etc. for the next forty days. Here, you would hardly notice that it is Lent. The thought of going meatless on Friday shocks and perplexes the Italians. At one restaurant, it took us nearly fifteen minutes to explain to one waiter why we couldn’t have any of the specials because they all contained meat. His final response? “I’m pretty sure even the Pope is eating meat right now.” Nice.



Back to the station churches. The epic thing about Lent in Rome is that every morning (except Sundays) for forty days, there is a 7am mass at a different church across the city. These are some of the oldest, most fascinating and celebrated churches in Christendom. Some contain the relics of saints and apostles, some house the very tombs they were buried in, and some are built over the sites where martyrs are thought to have been killed. Quite possibly the most incredible thing ever? I think yes. So much so that the idea of consecutive days of 6am wake-up calls doesn’t make me want to weep. I was only able to go to mass three times last week due to Philosophy (go figure), but I absolutely loved it. We were able to spend time with the deacons that work with our program, who are so endearingly awkward and adorable and nice it’s ridiculous. You can tell that they care about us as actual human beings. It’s wonderful. Too bad they’re all pledged to God… anyways, perhaps the most awesome part of the whole experience is the sheer number of priests that are involved in the mass. They sis back by the altar, rows and rows of them, all dressed up in their vestments, chanting in Latin. During the liturgy of the Eucharist, they all speak along with the presiding priest, which only makes the experience all the more powerful. The entire establishment has restored my complete enjoyment of my time here, something that I have been struggling with of late. I’ve fallen in love with Rome all over again, and life is good.



And at the end of last Friday’s mass, Laura and I even ran into one of our fellow marching band friends from Notre Dame who is also studying here for the semester. Right behind her were a group of other Notre Dame students and seminarians, many of them wearing ND sweatshirts. It was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve seen in a long time. Even though I don’t get homesick, I have been going through some very large and violent SMC and ND withdrawals, so seeing them was like seeing a little bit of home in Rome. And because I hate ending compositions with rhymes, I am adding this sentence, which is actually non-value added and largely unnecessary.

(PS: This is my new most favorite place on earth:)

This is a Post Entirely About Snow

Last Monday was a truly exciting day. For the past month and a half, I have been mourning the complete lack of snow in my life. For those of you who wish to remind me that I am in Rome and shouldn't be concerned about such trivial things, I would have to say that you are very much correct; however, it is hard for a girl who grew up through multiple Wisconsin blizzards to be in a climate where the only precipitation she experiences is of the rainy variety. Non mi piace. I am not pleased.

But I digress. So there it was, fifteen minutes before my 8 am Philosophy class, and I woke up not only serenaded by We the Kings' "Check Yes Juliet," but also to what sounded like the heavy, rhythmic, and mourful fall of rain. Seeing as I dislike Monday mornings, having to be up before 9 am in any circumstance, rain, and Philosophy class, I was not thinking happy thoughts towards my current life situation. After hauling myself out of bed and quickly stumbling through my morning routine, I grabbed my umbrella (not so much to protect me from the rain as to protect me from the umbrella-wielding salesmen lurking behind every corner) and made my way downstairs. After greeting the front desk workers with a weary "buon giorno," I turned the corner and BAM. There is was. Beautiful, white, ethereal snowfall. It literally stopped me in my tracks. I may or may not have squealed a bit, which incited lots of laughter from the hotel staff. After informing them of my deep and unwavering love for snow in sleepily befuddled Italian, I all but ran out the front doors.



My 2-minute walk to class had never been so enjoyable. I had never been so pleased to have to wait 5 minutes for the stoplights to change, and then another minute or so in order to let a few bold automobiles speed through the red lights so I wouldn't get run down by a Vespa. It was snowing, and that was all I cared about. The fat white flakes (the largest I have ever seen, and trust me - that's saying a lot) were quickly covering everything in a thick blanket of snow, which was sending the Italians into a frenzy. They didn't know what to do with themselves. I saw young people try (unsuccessfully, I might add) to operate their motorinos in the slushy streets. I saw grown men in suits scoop handfuls of snow off car windshields and hurl it at each other in the middle of the street. It was semi-organized chaos, and it was glorious.

I'm going to wrap this up by informing you that last Monday was the first time it has snowed in Rome in 25 years. That's right. The Eternal City has been snowless for a quarter of a century. What a bleak existence these people lead. Well, at least as bleak of an existence as one can lead while, you know, living in Rome.

I Say Let the Distance Bring Us Together Again

CAUTION: Long blog post. Proceed at your own risk.

I have been facing pressure of the motherly variety of late, so here I am with what even I will admit is a late post. But I just wanted to let you all know that I have perfectly legitimate reasons for being slow on the update over here. It's called midterms, and after three weeks, I am finally done (by the way, whoever decided that I should have four exams over a three-week period needs to have a stern talking to). But even this long and testy week could not be outshone by the sheer brilliance that was London.

Now, as an avid and (dangerously) obsessive Harry Potter fan, London was a dream come true. Nearly every other stop on the Underground was a Harry Potter reference, and even if they weren’t, their names simply screamed British. It was all immensely enjoyable.

Laura and I arrived after an obscenely early flight, running on nothing but 2 hours of sleep and the uncontainable excitement to see our respective roommates studying in Ireland, Kelly and Kim. Unfortunately, they were stuck with a Friday class and wouldn’t be flying in until the evening. Thus, Laura and I passed the morning watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, where we were serenaded with “Thriller” and a Beatles mix by the band (think the ND Marching Band with giant fuzzy hats and guns).


After the total chaos (I’m fairly certain that half of London was in attendance) I met up with Kelsey, a friend of mine from high school who is spending the semester in London. After realizing that we had lost our map, Kelsey pointed us in the direction of Big Ben, and we were off.


Now, here’s the thing about trying to find stuff in London: it’s hard. On each corner are arrows that conveniently point you in the direction of things such as Parliament, Westminster, and Buckingham. What Laura and I quickly noticed, however, was that these only pointed you in the correct direction roughly 62% of the time. In this way, we found that it took us a few hours to find everything that we wanted to see, including the Tower of London. You would think that one would be able to see a tower in the London Skyline. I’ll save you the trouble: you can’t. Take the Underground, and even then it requires some hunting. But it’s totally worth it, despite the rather steep 17 pound entrance fee. That’s worth it to see the Crown Jewels alone—the Tower of London is housing some major blingage, let me tell you. We’re talking thousands of diamonds here, some that are a few hundred carats each. And the views of the Tower itself are rather fantastic, as well.


That evening, after a flight delay and a few hours spent eavesdropping on British men’s mysterious conversations in the rail station (“I’m freakin’ booted and suited!”), we finally located Kim and Kelly. After a loud and tearful reunion in the very busy station and a whole lot of public judgment, we made our way to South Kensington, where we were very graciously being housed by a friend. The next few hours were spent sitting up with each other, eating junk food and talking and joking and simply enjoying each other’s company after over 2 months of separation. All was right with the world again.

The next day involved a wonderful tour to Stonehenge and Bath. Due to some confusion on the Underground, we were nearly 25 minutes late for our bus, which was miraculously still waiting for us. No one was angry with us for being late, although we were teased for the rest of the day. What a fantastic country. This would have never gone down back in the States. Stonehenge is initially very cool, but after about 5 minutes you come to the slow realization that it is really just a pile of giant rocks. Kim, Kelly, Laura and I decided to spend the remaining 55 minutes taking candid pictures with the stones in the background and debating the origin of the structure (if you ask me, it was TOTALLY the aliens).


We then moved on to Bath, which is an incredibly beautiful and fascinating city. We toured the Roman baths, where I was able to listen to commentary by my favorite author, Bill Bryson. After being carded at a local bar/restaurant (first time ever!), we made our way back to London. The rest of the evening was spent looking around Piccadilly Circus and the theater district, where it took us 45 minutes to find a restaurant that wasn’t bursting at the foundations. After having a delicious but shockingly expensive meal (London’s the most expensive city in Europe for a reason) and putting up with the death threats of our slightly neurotic waitress, we dropped another 18 pounds (really London?) to go on the London Eye, the largest Ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. The view from the top was totally worth it, however.


We then made our way to King’s Cross, where we were determined to find Platform 9 ¾. It proved to be a rather challenging endeavor, especially seeing as it was between platforms 8 and 9, not 9 and 10. Get it right, London. After meeting a trio rather amusing and inebriated New Zealanders celebrating some obscure Kiwi holiday on the trip back, we made it back to West Kensington and called it a night.


Or not. Laura and I had a 3:30 am taxi reservation in order to get to the proper Underground station to meet our 4:10 am train, which would take us to the airport in time for our 6:10 am flight back to Rome (oh travel, how you own me). We said our goodbyes to Kelly and Kim after too short a reunion, and once again parted ways. That is, until Round 2 in Rome ☺

Art History

After a rough week of midterms, it seems that I've arrived at one of the things that I've been looking forward to this whole trip: my first big trip to London.

But first, a quick recap of my previous weekend in Florence. I'm no stranger to 36-hour power trips, and Florence was definitely a good choice. The city was beautiful, and far less busy than Rome. After a 5 am wake-up call and a four-hour train ride, my friends and I arrived at the Florence bus station disheveled and sleepy but ready to go. And man, did we ever go. After some confusion finding out hostel, we dumped our bags and set out for the nearest museum. First we hit up the Galleria degli Uffizi, where we "studied" for our imminent Art History midterm, took illegal pictures of "The Birth of Venus" and contemplated why art is so darn weird. We then booked it to the Accademia, where we spent most of our time being verbally assaulted/chased by museum security for taking pictures. Really? Do they really expect people to stand in the shadow of Michelangleo's "David" and not want to take a picture? I'm disappointed, Florence.


After discussing how carving a 9-foot statue out of a random piece of marble could even be possible, we moved on to the Duomo, Florence's main cathedral. After shelling out 8 Euro, we proceeded to climb to the top of the dome, something that is much more difficult than it sounds. But 463 stairs and a few wheezing rest stops later, we found ourselves presented with one of the most amazing views I've ever seen. Florence sprawled out before us in every direction, creating a panorama that was almost unbelievably beautiful.


Other highlights of the trip include AMAZING pizza at a fantastic little place called Dante's, checking out the obscenely expensive bling on the Ponte Vecchio, and spending 3 hours causing chaos at the Bobboli Gardens. Let's just say that art means different things to different people, and sometimes that means all you can really do is sit on it. Or just make fun of it.


So yea - LONDON! I'm ridiculously excited. Not only do they actually speak English there, but it's also going to be the big roomie/other half reunion: Kim and I, and Laura and Kelly. There's going to be lots of tears involved. It will be legendary. Bring on the British accents, the crappy weather, and the crappy food. I'm going to King's Cross.

Show Me the Sidestreets in Your Life

This past weekend was, in a word, incredible. As far as hastily planned trips go, my mini-vacation to Trapani, Sicily was a success on nearly every level. Laura and I managed to snag a beautiful hostel right on the coast for only 30 dollars a night, and the owner was a charming woman named Alessandra. She greeted us with Marsala wine and some local pastries (anyone who introduces herself by giving me a glass of wine and a donut instantly reaches a level of sainthood in my book) and proceeded to map out everything that there was to see in Trapani. After assuring her that there was no way that we were going to rent a car, she gave us advice on places to go to on foot. After showing us where she kept the complimentary snacks, she let us pick out our room (we were the first guests to arrive, and the only non-married couple, so we snatched the room with two beds). After proceeding to geek out for 15 minutes over the sheer awesomeness of our current situation, we collapsed into exhausted yet happy heaps onto our beds and fell asleep.


The next two and a half days were amazing. We spent most of our time in Trapani itself, navigating its winding streets and avoiding getting our feet ran over by the cars that insisted on weaving their way through the already cramped space. Our first day we walked the entire length of the old city walls, going to lookout points that offered impossibly beautiful panoramas of the city and the water. I've come to the conclusion that the color blue back home has nothing on blue in Italy (see above picture). I've never seen such a brilliant sky, or such a beautiful sea. All we could do was stand there and stare. Which, of course, incited the entire population of Trapani to so the same thing. I don't know much about the tourism industry in Sicily, but the locals stared at us like we were the first non-Italian people they had seen in months, if not ever. We would walk into restaurants and the waiters would look genuinely surprised to see us. It made for excellent service. But the best part was walking down the road lining the beach, where people would literally slow down in their cars and watch us pass. Awkward? Yes. Especially seeing as we were unshowered, unkempt, and an unimpressive pair of individuals in general. But apparently traffic-stopping fascinating. Oh well. I'll take it.


The other major highlights included sneaking into what I'm pretty sure was supposed to be an off-limits ruin of... something. But after watching a few other people check it out, Laura and I snuck through a gap in the fence and explored. It was kind of eerie because we were so far away from the sounds coming from the road, and all we could hear were the seagulls and the noise of the waves crashing into the rocks. We just wandered around and took pictures, hoping that no crazy old Italian fishermen would come after us for trespassing.




But the highlight of the trip was easily our trip to Erice, at the top of a nearby mountain. The cable car to the top wasn't running because it was winter (60 degrees and not a cloud in the sky? These people should see a Wisconsin winter.), so we took a bus to the top. I kept having nasty visions of the bus taking a mistimed turn and careening off the edge of the mountain into the sea, but we managed to make it to the top in once piece. The view was spectacular. We were fortunate enough to have a clear day, which usually only happens during the summer months. Apparently, we could see all the way to Tunisia. Epic? I think yes.


So Laura and I spent a few hours wandering around the medieval town, checking out the castle ruins, taking pictures with 600-foot drops, and befriending the local wildlife. Unfortunately, we weren't quite prepared for the sudden and violent drop in temperature, and we ended up taking refuge in the entryway of a local church. Listening to the mass being said in Italian was strangely comforting. We spent about half an hour directing latecomers to the correct door ("No, no, QUESTA porta!") until we finally made our way back through the biting cold to the bus stop. Then, we proceeded to sit in growing fear that our bus would not show up, constructing hypothetical circumstances that involved us stranded at the top of a mountain in Sicily without our hostel owner's phone number and with poorly-thought out clothing choices. Thankfully, the bus did in fact arrive, and we made fast friends with the bus driver. After arriving back in Trapani, we had a second dinner and called it a weekend. Best life decision ever.


So the moral of the story? Sicily is epic.


And because this post isn't long enough as is, here are some fun "by the numbers" for you all:

85: Amount paid in Euros for taxi fares to and from the airport
60: Amount that should have been paid for said taxi fares
10: Hours of sleep we got the first night
60: Average temperature during the weekend
A lot: distance we walked during our three days
5: Meals we had on Saturday
3: Number of those meals that were composed entirely of pastries
98%: Percentage of local teenagers that were dressed like emos
Everyone: Amount of local Sicilians that stared at us like we were the only tourists within a 60-mile radius
0: Number of other tourists within a 60-mile radius
8/9: Times that the locals understood where Minneapolis was
0/9: Times that the locals understood where Nebraska was
2: Number of times that people thought we were British
1: Number of times that people thought we were German
90: Minutes it took us to find a gelateria
2: Times we frequented said gelateria in a 6-hour time period
1: Number of pigeon turf wars we incited
8:00 pm: Time when all the stores closed during the weekend (Really?)
As big as your face: Size of the local authentic Sicilian cannoli
2,50: Amount in Euros paid for said cannoli. My life is now complete.

The Week in Review

There is absolutely nothing wrong with pre-gaming dinner with cannoli... and then going out for gelato afterwards. Italian men dig Wisconsin/Minnesota accents; that being said, Italian men need to find something better to do with their lives. Hour-long, class-wide arguments in Philosophy are the best. I miss Brett Favre. RyanAir charges way too much for booking fees. Sunny days in Rome are beautiful. There's something magical about sleeping more than 5 hours a night. Deacons are amazing, especially when they remind you of Matt Merten. Everyone needs to go to the Jewish ghetto. Time is moving way too fast here, yet in some ways not fast enough. European churches are far superior to their American counterparts. Italian elevators are terrifying. "Angels and Demons" is a much better film when you realize that you're been to 2/3 of the locations and even recognize restaurants in the background. I will never be able to eat ice cream again. Going to the pub at 8 pm on a Monday has its benefits, and those benefits are trivia night and giant plates of nachos. Always build with high-quality marble. I miss my roommates.


Oh yea... and I'm leaving for Sicily today. Enjoy your crappy weather, everyone. I'm going to the beach.