My father does not understand the purpose of a blog-off. I then had to re-explain this in more manly terms. "Dad, this isn't just a blog off, this is war." I am not giving up without a fight, Michelle. Despite my gallant efforts, I'm stuck with blogging on my phone again for the night, so excuse the auto-corrects.
After a little bit of shopping, yes this does mean that I actually left the condo for a few short hours, I was just too exhausted to hold my head up any more, so I went back to bed. What can I say? It's genetic. The Abele's are known for their extremely determined sleeping schedules. So what if I had already slept for 12 hours? Not a big deal, I'll sneak in an hour and a half nap before dinner. So talented.
Past that, I am now halfway through the first season of Mad Men. I've been told by oodles of people that this is the show for me, and they may just be right. I'm still getting into it, but I think by the end of this season I'll be desperate to get my hands on another copy. So for those of you around with season 2, I'll likely show up on your doorstep-do not panic.
And that about sums it up for me today. Leave the cabin tomorrow and head for home, where more packing awaits and I'm stuck making CDs and playlists for my adventure up north again. God I love Iowa.
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shopping. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Wake up! We're going to Pisa!
And thus begins my blog about tilted towers, and how to go see them. Are you ready for this? One thing I do promise is that it will not take as long to read this post as it did to get to experience. Or to even arrive in Pisa.
As I said before I had thought that getting to Pisa was going to be the biggest problem of my day. Why? Oh yeah, because I thought that we were going to have to wake up at 4:30am to get to the train station in time for a 6:30am train. Here's how that played out.
I went to bed (after extensive half lucid research) around 1am and set my alarm for 4:15am. That makes it approximately 3 hours of sleep with the full intention of getting everyone else up and getting to Pisa. But just to make sure, I decided that before I intentionally jumped on Kate's bed shouting, "Kaaaate!!!! Get up!!!! We're going to Pisa!!!!!!!" (Note, we had made jokes earlier about this and pronouncing it "piz-uh". We're hilarious.), I would wake Erica up and make sure that we really wanted to take a 4 hour train ride starting at 6:30am. If that sounds rough, then maybe you aren't cut out for this kind of adventurous life style.
So my alarm goes off, I roll out of bed, go wake up Erica, and we had about a 15 minute discussion (whilest looking up train times) as to whether we actually got up and got to the train station if we could even buy the tickets. I voted, that if there was less than a 5% risk of getting stuck at the train station until the ticket office opened (this means just sitting around wishing we could go back to sleep) that we should do it. I mean, it'd be really fun to wake Kate up at 4:30am. But if there was more of a 49% chance that we would get stuck that I was going back to bed. After extensive research (again, only about 15 minutes of that) we found that there was actually a 10:30am train to Pisa. Of course, that meant that we would get there around 2:30pm, but it also meant 4 more hours of sleep. Erica then suggested that we just wake Kate up anyway, and 'live our day backwards'. This meant (as I gathered) that we do homework before the train because we were going to sacrifice our evening that we had originally intended on being in Rome. Not buying that I would be very productive at 4:30am, we instead opted to go back to bed, catch the 10:30 train, and lose the joy of waking Kate up before dawn. The sacrifices we make.
4 hours later....
Wake up again, this time with the REAL intention of going to Pisa. Make some coffee, grab some gear, pack for two 4-hour train rides, and walk over to the Trastevere train station. This is a much more reasonable time to be awake, fact. Catch the train (with only minutes to spare, damn we're good) and then proceed to wander the cabins looking for 3 seats together. The trick is to not sit next to anyone who looks mildly creepy or who may smell bad. But for the first couple of stops, this proved very difficult. We ended up splitting for a few minutes, Erica by her lonesome, and Kate and I by a man whose dog was unhappily cowering underneath the seat next to him. Poor pooch. Although Rebecca Black's refrain was obnoxiously running through our heads, Erica finally found 3 seats together, and we moved. Thus begins our 4 hours of semi-journaling, doing homework, reading, and jamming to our tunes. Oh, and looking at Italian countryside and the glimpses of the Mediterranean from the window.
So the first order of business was to find somewhere to eat, after all, traveling for 4 hours especially over lunch is a famishing experience. So we wandered around for a bit, searching for somewhere that wasn't on siesta. Finally we stumbled across a little out door diner and probably finished off the last of the tortellini before we began our walk across town to find that one building... What's that called again? Oh yeah, I remember, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It sure does lean alright. And the funnier part is watching all of the people stand randomly on the lawn that you're not supposed to stand on with their hands in the air. It looks like a series of people that are just desperate for a high five. In fact, it would be absolutely hilarious to try and stage a picture with someone else without knowing it that you would be high fiving them instead of propping up the tower. Hilarious? Yes.
So we did the full tourist thing. Pushed down the tower, propped up the tower, got chased off the lawn by the police-everything. Then we looked through all of the shops lining the street and made scarf purchases (always worth it). Decided enough was enough and got some gelato. Looked around and then decided that if we were indeed going to travel the 4 hours back starting at nearly 8pm, that we should probably get some dinner, regardless of how late we had lunch or the fact that we just ate gelato. So we stumble upon a sushi place and begin discussion as to whether or not to eat sushi. But we continued this discussion as we walked across the street to an Italian Cafe.
Enter: Vittorio. He is an interesting individual who came up to persuade us that his restaurant was better than the sushi place across the street. Picture this: Sicily, 1945... uh, just kidding.... Uh, curly long blonde hair-but that's not the natural color. Naturally he would be a brunette darker than my color. Pulled back in a bun. Wearing extensive mesh-knit chains and has his ear pierced. His bracelets match the necklaces, but he's wearing a white collard shirt under his hoodie. His nearly perfect English with his British accent eventually wore us down so that we finally caved and got a table. He then proceeded to learn our names and how long we were in Pisa. Chat, chat chat. He eventually managed to persuade Kate to get the 'bomb' (which he had to write down on the placemat for dramatic effect) which was not an explosive device, but rather a very specialized Italian burger with a fried egg on it. We ordered, but unlike all of the other waiters in Italy, he was determined to keep coming back to check on us.
Checking up on us turned into hitting on fast. At this point I would like to point out the time similarites: This all was happening between the hours of 6 and 7pm on a Saturday. Do you happen to remember what was happening one week ago from that time? I'll give you a hint: 'face up'. So I'll keep you updated on other strange 6-7pm occurrences on Saturdays. He picked Erica and proceeded to pull out all the stops. And that means magic tricks. What? Magic tricks? Yup. All the stops.
Note to those optimistic boys out there who are thinking, 'Hey, I could do magic tricks!' Word to the wise--make sure they're good. But not Vittorio! He was attempting to do a magic trick with his business card. How? Because he had his contact information on one side, and his picture on the other. This is not a good plan of attack. The short version is that after extensive talking and flirting, he flips over the card to our 'surprise' his picture. Eventually he came back again this time with cards. Woof. Long story short, if the card that Erica picked had a blue back, she got to keep the piece of paper that she wrote her "contact" information on, if it was red, he got to. The good news is that basically the only real part was her first name. The bad news is that he got to keep it anyway. So by the end of the meal (which couldn't come fast enough) we were MORE than ready to sit on a train for 4 hours.
Run run run. See a pretty suit in a store window--had to go investigate. Found a prettier suit inside. Got weak in the knees looking at the pattern, completely blacked out at the price tag. So for my first-born, I could have purchased a stunning one-button, blue stitching on black fabric skirt suit. Too bad I don't have a first born up for sale. Kate and Erica dragged my limp body from the store with apologies to the clerk and we ran to the train station.
On to the train, sitting for 4 hours, this time with ample seating. Covering up (it was a little chilly) with the scarves we had purchased, and I read some of my book (I'm actually read for fun! The last time I think I had time to read for fun between the months of September and April, I think I was 12). And after that we walked home to our wonderful cheesecake. It was so good. And now it's gone. So good.
And a totally successful trip. I'll try to post some pictures soon.
As I said before I had thought that getting to Pisa was going to be the biggest problem of my day. Why? Oh yeah, because I thought that we were going to have to wake up at 4:30am to get to the train station in time for a 6:30am train. Here's how that played out.
I went to bed (after extensive half lucid research) around 1am and set my alarm for 4:15am. That makes it approximately 3 hours of sleep with the full intention of getting everyone else up and getting to Pisa. But just to make sure, I decided that before I intentionally jumped on Kate's bed shouting, "Kaaaate!!!! Get up!!!! We're going to Pisa!!!!!!!" (Note, we had made jokes earlier about this and pronouncing it "piz-uh". We're hilarious.), I would wake Erica up and make sure that we really wanted to take a 4 hour train ride starting at 6:30am. If that sounds rough, then maybe you aren't cut out for this kind of adventurous life style.
So my alarm goes off, I roll out of bed, go wake up Erica, and we had about a 15 minute discussion (whilest looking up train times) as to whether we actually got up and got to the train station if we could even buy the tickets. I voted, that if there was less than a 5% risk of getting stuck at the train station until the ticket office opened (this means just sitting around wishing we could go back to sleep) that we should do it. I mean, it'd be really fun to wake Kate up at 4:30am. But if there was more of a 49% chance that we would get stuck that I was going back to bed. After extensive research (again, only about 15 minutes of that) we found that there was actually a 10:30am train to Pisa. Of course, that meant that we would get there around 2:30pm, but it also meant 4 more hours of sleep. Erica then suggested that we just wake Kate up anyway, and 'live our day backwards'. This meant (as I gathered) that we do homework before the train because we were going to sacrifice our evening that we had originally intended on being in Rome. Not buying that I would be very productive at 4:30am, we instead opted to go back to bed, catch the 10:30 train, and lose the joy of waking Kate up before dawn. The sacrifices we make.
4 hours later....
Wake up again, this time with the REAL intention of going to Pisa. Make some coffee, grab some gear, pack for two 4-hour train rides, and walk over to the Trastevere train station. This is a much more reasonable time to be awake, fact. Catch the train (with only minutes to spare, damn we're good) and then proceed to wander the cabins looking for 3 seats together. The trick is to not sit next to anyone who looks mildly creepy or who may smell bad. But for the first couple of stops, this proved very difficult. We ended up splitting for a few minutes, Erica by her lonesome, and Kate and I by a man whose dog was unhappily cowering underneath the seat next to him. Poor pooch. Although Rebecca Black's refrain was obnoxiously running through our heads, Erica finally found 3 seats together, and we moved. Thus begins our 4 hours of semi-journaling, doing homework, reading, and jamming to our tunes. Oh, and looking at Italian countryside and the glimpses of the Mediterranean from the window.
So the first order of business was to find somewhere to eat, after all, traveling for 4 hours especially over lunch is a famishing experience. So we wandered around for a bit, searching for somewhere that wasn't on siesta. Finally we stumbled across a little out door diner and probably finished off the last of the tortellini before we began our walk across town to find that one building... What's that called again? Oh yeah, I remember, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It sure does lean alright. And the funnier part is watching all of the people stand randomly on the lawn that you're not supposed to stand on with their hands in the air. It looks like a series of people that are just desperate for a high five. In fact, it would be absolutely hilarious to try and stage a picture with someone else without knowing it that you would be high fiving them instead of propping up the tower. Hilarious? Yes.
So we did the full tourist thing. Pushed down the tower, propped up the tower, got chased off the lawn by the police-everything. Then we looked through all of the shops lining the street and made scarf purchases (always worth it). Decided enough was enough and got some gelato. Looked around and then decided that if we were indeed going to travel the 4 hours back starting at nearly 8pm, that we should probably get some dinner, regardless of how late we had lunch or the fact that we just ate gelato. So we stumble upon a sushi place and begin discussion as to whether or not to eat sushi. But we continued this discussion as we walked across the street to an Italian Cafe.
Enter: Vittorio. He is an interesting individual who came up to persuade us that his restaurant was better than the sushi place across the street. Picture this: Sicily, 1945... uh, just kidding.... Uh, curly long blonde hair-but that's not the natural color. Naturally he would be a brunette darker than my color. Pulled back in a bun. Wearing extensive mesh-knit chains and has his ear pierced. His bracelets match the necklaces, but he's wearing a white collard shirt under his hoodie. His nearly perfect English with his British accent eventually wore us down so that we finally caved and got a table. He then proceeded to learn our names and how long we were in Pisa. Chat, chat chat. He eventually managed to persuade Kate to get the 'bomb' (which he had to write down on the placemat for dramatic effect) which was not an explosive device, but rather a very specialized Italian burger with a fried egg on it. We ordered, but unlike all of the other waiters in Italy, he was determined to keep coming back to check on us.
Checking up on us turned into hitting on fast. At this point I would like to point out the time similarites: This all was happening between the hours of 6 and 7pm on a Saturday. Do you happen to remember what was happening one week ago from that time? I'll give you a hint: 'face up'. So I'll keep you updated on other strange 6-7pm occurrences on Saturdays. He picked Erica and proceeded to pull out all the stops. And that means magic tricks. What? Magic tricks? Yup. All the stops.
Note to those optimistic boys out there who are thinking, 'Hey, I could do magic tricks!' Word to the wise--make sure they're good. But not Vittorio! He was attempting to do a magic trick with his business card. How? Because he had his contact information on one side, and his picture on the other. This is not a good plan of attack. The short version is that after extensive talking and flirting, he flips over the card to our 'surprise' his picture. Eventually he came back again this time with cards. Woof. Long story short, if the card that Erica picked had a blue back, she got to keep the piece of paper that she wrote her "contact" information on, if it was red, he got to. The good news is that basically the only real part was her first name. The bad news is that he got to keep it anyway. So by the end of the meal (which couldn't come fast enough) we were MORE than ready to sit on a train for 4 hours.
Run run run. See a pretty suit in a store window--had to go investigate. Found a prettier suit inside. Got weak in the knees looking at the pattern, completely blacked out at the price tag. So for my first-born, I could have purchased a stunning one-button, blue stitching on black fabric skirt suit. Too bad I don't have a first born up for sale. Kate and Erica dragged my limp body from the store with apologies to the clerk and we ran to the train station.
On to the train, sitting for 4 hours, this time with ample seating. Covering up (it was a little chilly) with the scarves we had purchased, and I read some of my book (I'm actually read for fun! The last time I think I had time to read for fun between the months of September and April, I think I was 12). And after that we walked home to our wonderful cheesecake. It was so good. And now it's gone. So good.
And a totally successful trip. I'll try to post some pictures soon.
Sunday, September 18, 2011
All the lonely people looking-back-at-me-from-18th-century-gilded-frames-Florence (part 2)
[to be read by Michael Caine]
Chapter 2
The Second Day
The next morning we woke up leisurely, but in good time to actually make another whirlwind adventure of Firenze. (ok, you can stop with the Michael Caine voice any time now... that was just supposed to be for the title...) This all happens after we had laughed ourselves to sleep the night before and now were (quoting Kate here) "Ready to rise and greet the day!" (Yeah, I know there was too much enthusiasm in that sentence for anyone before noon.) But we managed to get packed up and out walking toward breakfast by 10.
Some espresso, croissants (cornetti) (<-- look at me learning multiple languages), and orange juice, we walked around for a little bit taking pictures, attempting to find a working ATM, and to make the first leather purchase of the day (looking hott, Molly). Then we waited in line for the Uffizi Gallery. Not only did this take an extensive amount of time, but we played a lot of "he's the one, but" games. Once in the gallery, I basically stood there with my mouth wide open and fanny pack and audio headset equipped tourists bustled around my statuesque form.
I'm talking hole-y Shiitake mushrooms. There are billions if not trillions of dollars worth of art in this museum. I think that if you collected all of the money made from selling the entirety of the Uffizi collection, you could pay off the US national debt. I don't know if that's actually true, but I'd be impressed. Hell, I'm already impressed. No need for those kinds of joking terms. So I grabbed a map and began my tour de force of the Uffizi. For me, this means something like my nearly 3 hour stay didn't even scratch the surface of what I wanted to look at. I spent a long time doing some journaling homework for my Italian High Renaissance class (Why has no one come up with fun nicknames for these classes? I'm tired of typing this out every single time!) and that involved spending about an hour in front of one painting sketching and writing. But there were something like 17,000 other paintings that were completely neglected! I feel terrible. So many paintings that just deserve a good long look instead of the guided tour required 5 minute stop. Just a string of half-attentive tourists shuffling in and out without a reluctant, passionate look back. It just makes you want to cry.
Anywayzies. I know not all of you will be as enthralled by the overwhelming presence of art as I was, but they eventually dragged me kicking and screaming out of the museum so that we could figure out what leather purchases we each needed to make before leaving the leather capital of the world. This involved a walk across the Ponte Vecchio (I promise that I'll post some pictures tomorrow, it's getting late and this is getting long for me to do it now) and around some of the side streets.
Leather leather leather everywhere. Kate and Erica both bought beautiful purses/bags/begs (depending on your accent of choice) and Molly and I are jacket buddies. And I'm just going to say, Cadi K is going to pee her pants when she sees my new leather jacket. Sending my love from Italy. It started at over 700 euros, and after much talk and trying on several other jackets, we worked it all down to 270 euros. Deal? Yes. Deal. It's a beautiful red and hand stitched. I'll post pictures of this acquisition as soon as I have a good reason to wear it... like it's cooler than 80 degrees. So hopefully soon!
With our leather purchases in hand, we picked up our bags at the hostel and made our exhausted way back to the train station. This began our adventure back home. Train (lots of laughs and delusional commentary), waiting at Termini for the train to Trastevere, missing the announcement that said that the train would be at a different platform, attempting to find a bus, giving up and taking a taxi. The taxi ride always means someone in the backseat is terrified that we're eventually going to squish a moped or confused tourist. Luckily for us, we managed to not kill anyone on that Mariocart track back home.
Home at last. And realizing that we don't have much food except for a frozen french fry/hotdog pizza. Yum?
Maybe for the next adventure.
Chapter 2
The Second Day
The next morning we woke up leisurely, but in good time to actually make another whirlwind adventure of Firenze. (ok, you can stop with the Michael Caine voice any time now... that was just supposed to be for the title...) This all happens after we had laughed ourselves to sleep the night before and now were (quoting Kate here) "Ready to rise and greet the day!" (Yeah, I know there was too much enthusiasm in that sentence for anyone before noon.) But we managed to get packed up and out walking toward breakfast by 10.
Some espresso, croissants (cornetti) (<-- look at me learning multiple languages), and orange juice, we walked around for a little bit taking pictures, attempting to find a working ATM, and to make the first leather purchase of the day (looking hott, Molly). Then we waited in line for the Uffizi Gallery. Not only did this take an extensive amount of time, but we played a lot of "he's the one, but" games. Once in the gallery, I basically stood there with my mouth wide open and fanny pack and audio headset equipped tourists bustled around my statuesque form.
I'm talking hole-y Shiitake mushrooms. There are billions if not trillions of dollars worth of art in this museum. I think that if you collected all of the money made from selling the entirety of the Uffizi collection, you could pay off the US national debt. I don't know if that's actually true, but I'd be impressed. Hell, I'm already impressed. No need for those kinds of joking terms. So I grabbed a map and began my tour de force of the Uffizi. For me, this means something like my nearly 3 hour stay didn't even scratch the surface of what I wanted to look at. I spent a long time doing some journaling homework for my Italian High Renaissance class (Why has no one come up with fun nicknames for these classes? I'm tired of typing this out every single time!) and that involved spending about an hour in front of one painting sketching and writing. But there were something like 17,000 other paintings that were completely neglected! I feel terrible. So many paintings that just deserve a good long look instead of the guided tour required 5 minute stop. Just a string of half-attentive tourists shuffling in and out without a reluctant, passionate look back. It just makes you want to cry.
Anywayzies. I know not all of you will be as enthralled by the overwhelming presence of art as I was, but they eventually dragged me kicking and screaming out of the museum so that we could figure out what leather purchases we each needed to make before leaving the leather capital of the world. This involved a walk across the Ponte Vecchio (I promise that I'll post some pictures tomorrow, it's getting late and this is getting long for me to do it now) and around some of the side streets.
Leather leather leather everywhere. Kate and Erica both bought beautiful purses/bags/begs (depending on your accent of choice) and Molly and I are jacket buddies. And I'm just going to say, Cadi K is going to pee her pants when she sees my new leather jacket. Sending my love from Italy. It started at over 700 euros, and after much talk and trying on several other jackets, we worked it all down to 270 euros. Deal? Yes. Deal. It's a beautiful red and hand stitched. I'll post pictures of this acquisition as soon as I have a good reason to wear it... like it's cooler than 80 degrees. So hopefully soon!
With our leather purchases in hand, we picked up our bags at the hostel and made our exhausted way back to the train station. This began our adventure back home. Train (lots of laughs and delusional commentary), waiting at Termini for the train to Trastevere, missing the announcement that said that the train would be at a different platform, attempting to find a bus, giving up and taking a taxi. The taxi ride always means someone in the backseat is terrified that we're eventually going to squish a moped or confused tourist. Luckily for us, we managed to not kill anyone on that Mariocart track back home.
Home at last. And realizing that we don't have much food except for a frozen french fry/hotdog pizza. Yum?
Maybe for the next adventure.
Friday, September 9, 2011
How Dare You Play That Song!
40 pages of Italian high Renaissance reading later, I am dying for a decent light, or a super nifty piece of technology that allows me to zoom in on details and appreciate the actual colors. But alas, the rest of this might have to wait until morning.
Speaking of morning (what a snazzy transition), Erica and I had an early one today. We decided that because we were both in photography classes, we would take a trip up a hill to catch dawn shining on the city of Rome. So 5:15 comes, and I manage to roll myself out of bed, grab breakfast, and putz around facebook until Erica needed to "rise and greet the day" (that's a Kate phrase, incase you didn't recognize it). So by 6 am we were strolling out the door, cameras in hand, and rubbing sleep from our eyes. Honestly, the last time I think I was up that early was at a speech tournament.... NFA? Anyone? Of course there, we hadn't actually gone to bed, considering we were driving.... details. But we managed to hike all the way up the hill, noticed some of the early morning life of Rome (buses and trams still running and fairly full, vendors getting newspapers, taxis looking at us strangely-the usual). This was actually the hill crowned by the Tempietto and San Pietro in Montorio. Both of the places were things my Italian High Renaissance class visited on Wednesday. And although the view of Rome is relatively extensive, there are these things called 'trees' that have a strange tendency to get in the way. Secondarily, there are similar things called 'shrubs' that we short people have issues seeing over as well. And no, I do not want a shrubbery. NI! Moving on. So we took what pictures we could, walked back to the apartment and promptly went back to sleep.
Zs-ville.
Now for those of you who know me well enough to realize how much I enjoy sleeping will not be shocked to know that we got home at 7, and I slept soundly until 11. The trouble is that I could have slept until about 2 or 3pm without another thought. But alas, I felt some sort of remorse that the rest of my roommates were most assuredly awake by this time. So I dragged my poor sleepy body out of bed for the second time today to investigate what the crew was up to.
By this point, plans were being tossed around discussing an afternoon of shopping. Shopping? But Kelsey always ends up finding the funny things to look at and try one. And today was no different. I did end up trying on a lovely antiqued gold blazer-but Kate said I looked like Elvis. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I thought it was lovely. We wandered around Rome, me pointing at beautiful things like feathered dresses, and reflective pants, but Erica and Kate didn't like them. For shame. We also managed to eat Chinese food on this little extravaganza. If you would like a culture shock, please consider the following: Chinese food, in Italy, listening to an accordion player play "La vie en Rose" and "Yesterday" (yes, the Beatles version)(side note, he also played 'That's Amore' which cheapened the entire situation. Really dude? You're going to be 'That' guy, playing 'That' song? Boo. Hiss.), and speaking in English. Enjoy every aspect of that would you? It was beautiful.
We shopped for a while, looking here, looking there. Found that magical grapefruit gelato again, saw the Disney store (This one is for Phil-miss you!!!)
Eventually, we made our way over to the GAP store in Rome. If this isn't on your "to do list" in Rome, you're just not Kate, and otherwise you are perfectly normal. For being a new store there were many confusing aspects, like the return policy. Now I won't go into all of the nitty-gritty details and just suffice to say that while in the Gap, I managed to read the following books while waiting for this little fiasco to go down: The Allure of Women in Hollywood, the Allure of Men in Hollywood (which was significantly worse than the female version, I recognized maybe 4 people in that entire 250 page book), The Fashion of Dogs (not enough real dogs in sweaters pictures. Disappointment), Rebel Style, American Style (this was was an interesting one), and the T-Shirt book. Consider me well read.
We then made it all the way home, only recognizing this guy I met in my Philosophy class on the tram (awkward encounter: 1), and eventually ate dinner. And that, is a wrap.
Speaking of morning (what a snazzy transition), Erica and I had an early one today. We decided that because we were both in photography classes, we would take a trip up a hill to catch dawn shining on the city of Rome. So 5:15 comes, and I manage to roll myself out of bed, grab breakfast, and putz around facebook until Erica needed to "rise and greet the day" (that's a Kate phrase, incase you didn't recognize it). So by 6 am we were strolling out the door, cameras in hand, and rubbing sleep from our eyes. Honestly, the last time I think I was up that early was at a speech tournament.... NFA? Anyone? Of course there, we hadn't actually gone to bed, considering we were driving.... details. But we managed to hike all the way up the hill, noticed some of the early morning life of Rome (buses and trams still running and fairly full, vendors getting newspapers, taxis looking at us strangely-the usual). This was actually the hill crowned by the Tempietto and San Pietro in Montorio. Both of the places were things my Italian High Renaissance class visited on Wednesday. And although the view of Rome is relatively extensive, there are these things called 'trees' that have a strange tendency to get in the way. Secondarily, there are similar things called 'shrubs' that we short people have issues seeing over as well. And no, I do not want a shrubbery. NI! Moving on. So we took what pictures we could, walked back to the apartment and promptly went back to sleep.
Zs-ville.
Now for those of you who know me well enough to realize how much I enjoy sleeping will not be shocked to know that we got home at 7, and I slept soundly until 11. The trouble is that I could have slept until about 2 or 3pm without another thought. But alas, I felt some sort of remorse that the rest of my roommates were most assuredly awake by this time. So I dragged my poor sleepy body out of bed for the second time today to investigate what the crew was up to.
By this point, plans were being tossed around discussing an afternoon of shopping. Shopping? But Kelsey always ends up finding the funny things to look at and try one. And today was no different. I did end up trying on a lovely antiqued gold blazer-but Kate said I looked like Elvis. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much. I thought it was lovely. We wandered around Rome, me pointing at beautiful things like feathered dresses, and reflective pants, but Erica and Kate didn't like them. For shame. We also managed to eat Chinese food on this little extravaganza. If you would like a culture shock, please consider the following: Chinese food, in Italy, listening to an accordion player play "La vie en Rose" and "Yesterday" (yes, the Beatles version)(side note, he also played 'That's Amore' which cheapened the entire situation. Really dude? You're going to be 'That' guy, playing 'That' song? Boo. Hiss.), and speaking in English. Enjoy every aspect of that would you? It was beautiful.
We shopped for a while, looking here, looking there. Found that magical grapefruit gelato again, saw the Disney store (This one is for Phil-miss you!!!)
We then made it all the way home, only recognizing this guy I met in my Philosophy class on the tram (awkward encounter: 1), and eventually ate dinner. And that, is a wrap.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
This Is a Really Old Rock Wall--watch your step
TODAY- (that's in an official announcement voice) we had an exciting adventurer to Ostia Antica! Now I know you're excited. As it was described to me initially, it's like the flooded version of Pompeii. So rather than everything being preserved in volcanic ash, it was preserved under water when the Tiber flooded years ago (and that's a lot of years if you couldn't tell by the inflection). Moving on, basically they have uncovered a bunch of this ancient city that's about an hour outside of Rome down the Tiber toward the Mediterranean Sea. It was initially used as a defensive city for Rome before she reached the height of power at which point it switched to a port city that basically fed Rome. Naturally, it's then a really sweet place to find all kinds of neat-o artifacts and discover the ways of life from 240(ish) BCE to well past the 3rd century. So lots of old things. And that's awesome.
Let's play a little game called-Describe stuff. The cobble stones were very very smooth, but were incredibly uneven in places, this naturally made it some what challenging to walk without tripping. The consequence of not tripping of course is then missing the 2,000+ year old architecture. Unga Bunga. Our dear guide-we shall describe him as a Billy-goat ninja (and this is because he was not only agile over these precarious rocks, but he was a ninja with lightening fast speed too!) was both informative and as a plus an art history professor. Mine? Perhaps... we shall see. But he was nice enough, and I thought I learned a lot, so that's a plus. We walked around for 2 hours, checking out the baths, the other baths, the temples, the other temples, pointed to the first known Synagogue in Europe (that's pretty sweet), mosaics, ancient toilets, some more stone stuff, some frescos--you get the picture. Mostly delightful with the exception of the heat thing, that was a little sticky.
After we survived that feeling much more enlightened, and very dehydrated, we loaded back up on the bus (PS, driving a coach bus in Rome must be the single most terrifying job in the city. Not a joke. You could just crush dozens of the little baby Smart cars and not even know!) and went for another 30ish minute drive to this farm called Borgo di Tragliata. The subtitles to that go something like "the most beautiful place you will ever eat a 5 course meal". It was literally the best kind of get-me-another-plate-of-that-would-you-please place you would ever want to eat. But the trouble is that even if you LOVE (and I do mean the kind of love-you want to marry it) you can't possibly fill up on that alone because you know the next course is going to also be spectacular. A very peculiar dilemma. So here's the menu-the good and the better of it: White and tomato pizza, red chicory ham and mozzarella tart (THE BEST), cous-cous with vegetables, spaghetti pasta amatriciana style, chicken with peppers served with roasted potatoes, and finished off with apple cake. Can we talk about how delicious that entire thing was? And the company was pretty damn good too. We laughed, we talked, we thought the potatoes tasted like cookies, and had just a jolly time. Then as kind of a lets-work-off-all-of-those-calories-time we walked up to the castle on sight, and saw the gardens and the pigs near by. Hannah, we took pictures just for you. Then back on the bus, for a short nap on the way back to Rome.
Then, because Kate apparently thought that everywhere was as cold as MN=false. So we had to go shopping where we found some clothing, and I found a black belt (not the ass kicking kind, I always have that kind) to replace the one I left in Belton. That was then considered pretty successful-along with the addition of the gelato we found on the way. Came home, made dinner, talked, laughed (are you seeing a trend here?) and now it's group blog time, and then to bed. Beautiful.
Let's play a little game called-Describe stuff. The cobble stones were very very smooth, but were incredibly uneven in places, this naturally made it some what challenging to walk without tripping. The consequence of not tripping of course is then missing the 2,000+ year old architecture. Unga Bunga. Our dear guide-we shall describe him as a Billy-goat ninja (and this is because he was not only agile over these precarious rocks, but he was a ninja with lightening fast speed too!) was both informative and as a plus an art history professor. Mine? Perhaps... we shall see. But he was nice enough, and I thought I learned a lot, so that's a plus. We walked around for 2 hours, checking out the baths, the other baths, the temples, the other temples, pointed to the first known Synagogue in Europe (that's pretty sweet), mosaics, ancient toilets, some more stone stuff, some frescos--you get the picture. Mostly delightful with the exception of the heat thing, that was a little sticky.
After we survived that feeling much more enlightened, and very dehydrated, we loaded back up on the bus (PS, driving a coach bus in Rome must be the single most terrifying job in the city. Not a joke. You could just crush dozens of the little baby Smart cars and not even know!) and went for another 30ish minute drive to this farm called Borgo di Tragliata. The subtitles to that go something like "the most beautiful place you will ever eat a 5 course meal". It was literally the best kind of get-me-another-plate-of-that-would-you-please place you would ever want to eat. But the trouble is that even if you LOVE (and I do mean the kind of love-you want to marry it) you can't possibly fill up on that alone because you know the next course is going to also be spectacular. A very peculiar dilemma. So here's the menu-the good and the better of it: White and tomato pizza, red chicory ham and mozzarella tart (THE BEST), cous-cous with vegetables, spaghetti pasta amatriciana style, chicken with peppers served with roasted potatoes, and finished off with apple cake. Can we talk about how delicious that entire thing was? And the company was pretty damn good too. We laughed, we talked, we thought the potatoes tasted like cookies, and had just a jolly time. Then as kind of a lets-work-off-all-of-those-calories-time we walked up to the castle on sight, and saw the gardens and the pigs near by. Hannah, we took pictures just for you. Then back on the bus, for a short nap on the way back to Rome.
Then, because Kate apparently thought that everywhere was as cold as MN=false. So we had to go shopping where we found some clothing, and I found a black belt (not the ass kicking kind, I always have that kind) to replace the one I left in Belton. That was then considered pretty successful-along with the addition of the gelato we found on the way. Came home, made dinner, talked, laughed (are you seeing a trend here?) and now it's group blog time, and then to bed. Beautiful.
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