Felice Febbraio! It's nearing a month of my stay here.

I had only one class today (2/3) and when I got there, found out class was cancelled! That's the second time that has happened for two separate classes. Turns out my professor posted the notification online two days ago. Professors post their "messages" or class notifications on a school system called MyJCU (Lesley University uses MyLesley, so it's slightly similar). But the problem is that you have to look at it to see if there's a message. There NEEDS to be an email notification system implemented so I'm aware of the class cancellation before walking all the way over to campus!

Rant of the morning: End.

Last week on Jan. 29th, I had a drawing class in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican City! In hindsight, I should've chosen a better vantage point because it's really too much to draw looking at it straight on!

Class that day let out early because it started to rain. Again. 

But it was okay afterwards because I met up with Taylor!!!

It was a great reunion. We hugged for 5 minutes and we couldn't stop laughing in disbelief because for 4-5 months before I came here, we knew we wanted to study in Italy together and finally, there we were! We walked around and I gave him neighborhood tours, tips and such. We walked to the Pantheon (did you know you could go inside? I didn't!) and grabbed dinner together at a nice restaurant nearby.

 

On January 31st, Taylor and I met up again after his orientation activities and made dinner for Brittany who was really sick. We made pasta with wine and sauce and spinach (apparently frozen spinach only come in cube shapes!) Brittany and Taylor got along well! :)

While walking Taylor back to his apartment, we stopped at a nearby teeny bar (reminder: standing coffee bar!) and ended up staying there for over an hour because we talked with the barista/owner named Claudio and a customer named Fabio about a lot of stuff, mostly in Italian and broken English. We talked about the newspaper (only because Taylor mentioned I could read Italian better than speak it) and Claudio made me read and translate it! I barely passed the grade because there's a lot of vocabulary I didn't know. There was an article about ostriches and somehow that led to a conversation about Australia and kangaroo meat. We also talked about religion, philosophy, math (Fabio really liked number theories), and life in general. I had a cappuccino. They had Duff beer there (fictional beer from the Simpsons and apparently it's a thing!), and Claudio gave Taylor and I Duff Beer coasters!

 

February 1st, Taylor and I decided to do a real walking trip despite the drizzle. We went to see the Bocca della Verità, bought a ticket to see private houses and old architecture from the Republic and Imperial Rome on top of the Palantine Hill.

 

(Taylor has a picture of me with my hand inside the Mouth of Truth, but I'll get it on here someday)

From Palatine Hill, we could get inside the Roman Forum! I wish it was a sunny day so it was nicer to see but it was still pretty cool. :)

We stopped to find a place to eat and passed by the cat cemetery/Largo Argentina. There was an unusally large number of cats walking around on the sidewalk. Taylor stopped to pet one and I sat on a bench to watch him. Few seconds later, a cat decided to jump onto my lap and treat it as a seatwarmer. They would NOT budge! I guess they were comfortable, hahaha.

 (Taylor took this photo on his phone- didn't notice it until he posted it on Facebook!)

(Best photo in existence or best photo in existence?)

My cat Africa doesn't even sit on my lap!! I wanna adopt this cat and take them home. (Technically I could......) Maybe I can visit this cat again every once in a while. It'll be easy to identify them because they don't have a tail.

After walking a bit, we found a little restaurant in a little alleyway. This little restaurant was unique! We had lunch really late. You also had to pay downstairs at a cash register. This was similar set-up to a restaurant I went to in Pisa.

Afterwards we walked around more and saw more forums and architecture long gone. Night fell and we made one last stop: the Baths of Caracalla. But it was closed so we vowed to come back another day!

We later ate sushi for dinner at this Japanese sushi/restaurant near my street and it was WILDLY good with honest prices. They even had onigiri!

Yesterday, Sunday February 2nd, Brittany was feeling better and we decided to brave the rain and go to Porta Portese - Rome's flea market! We went there around 8:45 AM. At first it didn't seem much and I wondered, "this is Europe's biggest flea market?" But then we turned a corner, and then there was hundreds and hundreds of white tents flowing down the street and branching off on smaller streets. We got lost two times!

(Don't worry, those are BB/paintball guns)

(Not gonna lie, I nearly got these!!! I love this series)

(Antonio the creepy baby doll)

Brittany went back to the apartment to meet up with her Italian family and I met up with Taylor again. We decided to go inside the Colosseum because our ticket from the Palatine Hill was good for two-days and granted access for us into the Colosseum as well! But the rain got so ridiculous that we had to take a bus back home.

SO SICK OF THE RAAAAAAAIN. Three weeks of rain is pushing it, y'know. This isn't London or the Amazon Rainforest. You should see the Tiber River - it's overflooded and really gross looking. On the news, there are towns in the south where the river broke the surface and flooded the town(s). Here are photos I've taken over the last three days

Afterwards Taylor and I made coffee and relaxed after being cold and miserable all day. All my shoes and my pants were soaked. It was awful. So we used the rest of the evening to plan a trip! February 28th is when Brittany is going to Krakow, Poland for the weekend. I'm not going because Poland isn't on my to-do list.

So Taylor and I decided that from Feb. 27th to March 2nd, we're going to Athens, Greece! It's exciting and nerve-wracking. It took me a while to figure out the best price options but three hours later, I figured out the best round-trip flight, best hostel in the best area for the best budget price, and understand the transportation about how to get from the airport to the hostel. I'm good. (Taylor jokingly gave me an American quarter 'for my services')

This weekend I'm off to Florence! It's an excursion provided by my program and I'll be seeing major monuments and going to the famous leather markets! I'm really excited for it. :)

It's hard to believe I'm entering my third week here in Italy. Time seems to be passing by quickly even though I take things day by day. But because of that, it's probably going by so fast due to all the things I do! Since the last update, I walked probably 500 miles, ate really good home-cooked meals, learned how to do charades really well, used the "metro" - bus and tram (i didn't use it since orientation week), and traveled outside Rome for the first time!

Some home-cooked meals Brittany (my roommate, to remind y'all) and I made over the last few days:

Brittany and I also ordered delivery dinner for the first time. From an American-style grill restaurant called T-Bone Station. Really popular with students in Trastevere. We ordered online but we knew we'd encounter trouble with delivery. On the order form, one of the online order requirements is the name and number on the intercom (so the delivery person can contact us to meet them). I had to go outside the apartment to check ours and see if it works by coordinating with Brittany who leaned out our window two floors above and tell me if it did work (it did, for those wondering). Team effort!

We got burgers, of course. And fries. So good!

I have an on-site art history class that focuses on architecture, which I really enjoy. The class had to meet on a bridge off Tiber Island. It was my first time setting foot on Tiber Island since I use the other bridges (Ponte Garibaldi and Ponte Sisto). It was a really nice day so I went a bit early to sit down and relax.

Here's a video of a musician on the bridge. There are lots of musicians in Rome.

And we stopped by the Circus Maximus and I took a video to show the scale of it:

Brittany and I had talked about going to Pisa for a day trip, so we walked to Trastevere Station to get ticket information (the website wasn't working out!) We actually ended up buying tickets on the spot after an older man helped us out - he also got us to understand there's a 2-for-1 special so lucky us!  We had a very long day ahead of us soon. We were going to Pisa!!!

Friday (1/24), Brittany and I had intended to go to the zoo because for once, the weather forcecast said cloudy for the day but of course - the rain came in and I didn't have my umbrella. I used my scarf as protection. It came as we were waiting at the bus stop since the zoo was on the other side of the city I've never gone to before, near the Villa Borghese. So Brittany and I just decided to go shopping (rain went away eventually). At one point we entered a store and that store had another exit and we ended up being inside a beautiful gallery/mini-mall.

We also saw the Invisible Man:

Saturday came, and Brittany and I woke up at 5am and exited the apartment at 5:30. We walked to a newspaper stand to get bus tickets and waited in the freezing cold for the bus. It was cold, dark and the streets were empty. It wasn't even dawn yet. 

We hopped on the bus and got to Termini Stazione earlier than expected so we got breakfast (well, I got a tea and glazed/sugar donut - the donut was surprisingly very delicious and felt more healthier than Dunkins) We waited for our binario, or track platform, to be announced. And waited. And waited.

As soon it was announced, we made a bee-line for the train. We wanted to get out of the cold, because the Termini was open-air. It's not a completely enclosed building. We got on and the train moved. Thus began the 2 and a half-hour ride to Pisa. 

I barely slept the whole ride. It felt really amazing to watch Italy pass by the window. It was really nice to watch it go from night to dawn to sunrise over the mountains that surround farmlands with acres of cultivated land and farm animals and occasionally, I saw a lone figure herding a large flock of sheep. The train rode along the coast and I saw tiny towns perched along it.

I was so engrossed watching the window that the conductor had to tap my arm to get my attention for the ticket! Brittany was asleep.

And suddenly, we were here!

We bought a map for 3 euros and paid 1 euro to use the restroom (dumb). We went straight to the Tower.

And as we walked up a street, I could see the Tower looming just ahead, tilting away from behind the corner and growing bigger and bigger as we walked close.

I did the thing.

We then spent the rest of the day walking and looking at interesting buildings and eating. Pisa is actually a lot smaller than I thought it would be. We might've walked the entire "city" two or three times!

We stopped for lunch and since I was so starving, I ordered bruschetta, "french fries", and a panini sandwhich. Everything was so good and my stomach hurt from being full! 

 This is a 4-10 plane I think. I took it for dad and uncle John in case it's from WWII - not sure though!

We went off walking again and later, we stopped in a tiny cafe for a bathroom break. While I was waiting for Brittany, I was talking to a very nice man who probably was the owner or manager and he gave me complimentary fruit-filled biscuits. It was really good! And we went to pay for water but he insisted on us taking it! He and his female co-worker who was behind the counter smiled big and joined arms and said a jovial phrase (I didn't catch it but it was probably something like "it's on us!") I was blown away by their kindness. They were just closing up and we were their last 'customers'. :)

We took a break and sat on the river walls and enjoyed the sun.

 After a while, we walked around again and soon night was falling and we grabbed dinner at a restaurant that had a lot of vintage race car photos (and we had a lot of shenanigans there and couldn't stopp joking around!) Like one of the customers looked like Hagrid.

We ended up waiting for nearly an hour before we realized that the waiter doesn't bring a check to you here, you had to go to the first (main) floor and pay at the cash register! Oops!

We walked around for a while more then headed to the train station. It was very freezing when we got back to Rome and had to figure out which bus to take. There are no official timetables for buses posted anywhere, we just knew that it was either Bus H or 75 that goes down the main street off our apartment street (10 min walk). We lucked out and got onto Bus H and got home by midnight. That's 19 HOURS total I've been gone Saturday! I passed right out, and thought I'd sleep in the morning.

For  some reason, I woke up really early! So I got stuff done. Like writing this (which takes longer than you'd think!) and trying to upload my demo-reel for internship on Vimeo, but it's not going so well even now, haha. Terrible internet service strikes again!

In two weeks, I'm aiming to go to Florence - an excursion provided by my study abroad program. If I go, I'll be in Florence for the entire weekend. It should be beautiful! :)