Parto Roma in un mese: Day 81

I officially only have one month left… This is going to fly by between writing scripts, presentations, paintings, and traveling! Not to mention the short film we are going to start production on soon! There are so many things I want to do in my short time left in Europe, but I have accepted that I can’t do it all, and am incredibly grateful for the things I have been able to do and experience so far.

Observation of the Day: Please read the above paragraph.

And for those of you wondering why I chose to write the number of days I have been here in the title of each post, well, it's because I know exactly how many days I have here, thanks to my Visa application troubles. 111 days. 

Graveyards and Zombies: Day 80

I began my day with the Catacombs of St. Sebastian and ended it with the musical Carmen.

These Catacombs are the largest in Rome, still owned by the Vatican stretching about 30 acres and four levels deep, although you can only enter the second where there is now electricity. 16 Popes were buried here as well as St. Christina, who supposedly survived three different attempts on her life before she finally died, but very little remains after the Barbarians ravaged the possessions left in the graves during the 9^th century.  Besides being a little spooky, the Catacombs were very interesting to see, and I learned a lot about them. They are also located on the Apia Antica, or the Apian Way, which is the oldest road in Rome at something like 312 BC. 

 I worked on homework for the rest of the day, until it was time to go see Carmen.  I’m not complaining because our tickets were only 13 euro, but we had the worst possible seats in the whole theater and I couldn’t see half of the stage. Also, the play was in Italian (obviously), so I had no idea what was going on for just about the entire time. With that being said, it was still very entertaining! The singing was great, and the band was really quite amazing! I was very confused when the man who was murdered came back to life at the end of the play, but like I said, I didn't really understand anything that was happening...

Teatro di Roma - Argentina

Observation of the Day: I can’t imagine ever running out of things to do in Rome. It’s such a lively city so full of history and important landmarks, and really, it doesn’t take much to entertain me. There are still a few more things I really want to do while I’m here, so you’ll be reading about all my final adventures in Rome for the next month!

Gelateria del Teatro Lungotevere: Day 78

So for those of you wondering if gelato is in fact better than ice cream, I can assure you, they really don’t even compare. When you get the real, homemade stuff, oh it’s good. I was fortunate enough to look and sound like a tourist when I went into a gelateria way back when my sister was here, and was offered the opportunity to learn a little bit about how gelato is made. Bridget, Kasey, Paige, Danny and his mother who is visiting all came with me to Gelateria Del Teatro Lungotevere to watch a demonstration.

It was awesome! After a little confusion over my name NOT being Amy (no worries Carlos!), we learned a little about gelato itself, then watched Carlos make a batch of probably-the-only-flavor-I-don’t-remember-the-name-of. He mixed up the ingredients, then poured it into the machine, which then had to pasteurize it for about 6-8 minutes. It then flows into the bottom of the machine where it churns and freezes it, which probably takes about 15-20 minutes. The flavor Carlos made was a layered kind, so he had pre-made a batch of the chocolate so he could show us how to do that. It looked like a lot of fun, and the number of flavors they make is insane! He said they use all fresh ingredients, like for the sorbets; they use all fresh fruits from the markets.

The Ingredients

               

Carlos mixing the ingredients

Carlos layering the gelato and filling

               

Ta Da!

               

Other guy taking the gelato of the machine

 Then, of course, we got some gelato and enjoyed it outside in the beautiful weather Rome had given us that day. I got chocolate and mint chocolate chip… it was phenomenal! I was nervous to try it at first, because, fun fact about my childhood, I hadn’t eaten mint chocolate chip ice cream until last year since the incident of little Liza putting too much mint extract in her vanilla ice cream and getting sick. My first bite of the mint was very strong, and I was starting to regret my decision, but mixed with the chocolate it was perfectly balanced!

               

SO MANY WONDERFUL FLAVORS

Mint chocolate chip and chocolate!

Observation of the Day: I am truly going to miss the gelato here. I am fully regretting not having at least once every single day I have been here, but I have one more month to make up for that!

The "Studying" Part of my Abroad: Day 77

The weeks are going by so fast I don’t even remember what I did in them. I also don’t remember what I wrote in my blogs so I apologize if I repeat things. Yes, I know I can go back and read them again, thank you, I’m just a little bit too lazy.

My Italian class has been interesting this semester because my professor has had a few absences, some unannounced. On Monday, we were supposed to review for our Midterm, but she missed the train into Rome, so I went to an American breakfast shop called Homebaked with a few people in my class and studied instead. It helped a lot! When we took the exam on Wednesday (25 minutes late when our professor showed up), I felt very prepared!

I’m starting to get nervous about finishing a 30 page screenplay adaptation of The Adventures of the Greek Interpreter (Sherlock Holmes) by the end of the semester… I’m struggling figuring out the structure of my story to make it interesting for the screen. I have a meeting with my professor next Monday so I’m hoping he can help me answer a few questions.

On Thursday, after a successful morning of painting, we held auditions for our (yet to be named) short film! We weren’t entirely prepared so we just explained our idea and had our actors do some improv, and it actually went really well! We selected two people for the main roles and will need everyone else that auditioned for some smaller roles, so it worked out very well! Now I just need to finish the script and figure out a shooting schedule. And a shooting script. And what equipment we can use. And locations to film in. And everything else that goes into making a film. Yay, I love filmmaking!

This week has been very short, after a long Easter Weekend spent in Budapest and Vienna (details in my other post) and no class on Tuesday. Although, I went into the studio and “finished” my painting.

For Italian today, we went to an open-air market off of Via Giacinto Carini close to campus, and had to ask to try different things, and ask for the name of things. I realized today that I don’t know I have been doing with my life so far; I have been living in Italy for almost three months and have just found my true love, pecorino romano cheese. It was amazing! And I successfully asked a man to try a piece.

Posso provare un pezzo di pecorino romano, per favore.

One of my friends tried to ask the same thing at a different stand for us to try some type of Parmesan cheese, but I don’t think the woman heard correctly, so we ended up leaving with a piccolo chunk of Parmesan cheese. It was delicious, and I was not upset at all!

Observation of the Day: Although the cheese is very different here than it is in Wisconsin, I am still a Cheesehead at heart! I’m not technically from Wisconsin, but my dad is, so that’s good enough for me!

Five Days, Two Cities, One Bus: Day 72-76

Things I was not expecting for the weekend: no dinner on Thursday night, hail on Friday, and snow on Sunday and Monday. Things I was expecting: having an amazing long weekend in the beautiful cities of Budapest and Vienna.

Bridget and I had booked a trip through a tour company for students called Bus2Alps, so instead of spending a crowded Easter in Rome, we went away for the weekend. We left Rome at about 5:30PM on Thursday, and arrived in Budapest at 9:30 Friday morning. Then we shuffled everything into our hostel, ate breakfast, and went on a two hour walking tour starting on the Pest side of the river and ending on the Buda side. One thing I found really interesting was that Budapest has a population of 1.5 million people, and the next largest city in Hungary has only 200,000. 

A monument in front of an actual monument for the victims of the Holocaust because the citizens of Budapest did not feel that the monument represented how much their own people had a hand in the horror.  

I'm not really sure why this is there... but it's near the US Embassy building...

The stunning Hungarian Parliament Building

The Buda side from the Pest side

All of these shoes represent people that were told to take their shoes off and then executed so they fell in the river

St. Matthias Cathedral on the Buda side

View of the Pest side from the Buda side

From there we walked back across the river to a giant indoor market, got lunch, and did our souvenir shopping. Along the way, Bridget and I made friends with two girls who are studying in Florence for the semester. Emma happens to be from Wisconsin somewhat near where I have family, and Engy is from Egypt… so not close to anyone I know! We spent the rest of the weekend with them, which was really fun!

We went back to the hostel around 5:00 and took about a four hour nap because we were so exhausted (and some of us sick) from the night before. We didn’t feel like doing anything, but we forced ourselves to walk about five minutes away from the hostel and get food at a neat little street food nook. I got Thai, so if you’re wondering what traditional Hungarian food is like I really can’t tell you.

The next day we went to the famous Thermal Baths in the City Park and had a relaxing morning in the warm water – until my towel was stolen and I couldn’t get my 5000 fornit down payment back, which is the equivalent to 16 euro. Bridget let me share her towel, so I was just a little bitter, but besides that, fine and dry. We left the baths to get lunch at a market that was set up around and inside the Castle in the park (there were festivals going on EVERYWHERE). Before we left, we also got the same pastry I had tried in Prague, except this time I got it with cinnamon. Needless to say, it was delicious.

The Szèchenyi Thermal Baths

Hero Square in City Park

Kürtöskalàcs AKA Chinmey Cakes

The Castle in City Park

On our way inside a museum on the side of Hero Square, we stopped to see just what a huge crowd of people with pillows might be doing in the Square. Little did we know, it happened to be International Pillow Fight Day, and at 3:30, the feathers starting falling. It was really quite fun to watch, and even once we went through the exhibit and left the museum, the fight was still raging.

Awesome candid shot of a stranger 

Who's going to clean this up?

Happy International Pillow Fight Day!

(Meet Engy)

Some of the light art in the museum AKA my new phone background because it looks cool when I type my passcode in!

Once again, we went back to the hostel and took a nap (I worked on homework and didn’t actually fall asleep), and then left pretty late to find some food. First we took pictures by the giant letters that spell out Budapest, then we stopped in one of the ruin bars that Budapest is famous for just to see what it looked like (it was huge and pretty amazing and quirky), and then finally sat down and had a light dinner.

On Sunday morning, we left Budapest around 9:30 and made it to Vienna around 1:00. We stored our luggage and headed out for our walking tour with very empty stomachs. After a very informative two hour tour of the city center, found ourselves in the Weinerhaas restaurant and eating different kinds of schnitzel, a traditional wienese food. Before heading back to the hostel to get ready for the The Sound of Vienna concert later that night, we stopped at a famous shop called Demel, where we purchased the traditional winese chocolate cake with apricot filling and apple strudel. I personally didn’t like the chocolate cake because of the filling, but the strudel was amazing! The concert was actually really entertaining, with a variety of songs and dancers and opera singers for a few.

St. Stephen's Cathedral
Fun fact: the nearly vertical roof was tiled by a total of four women because supposedly the men were too scared. 

On the inside

The Hofburg Imperial Palace Square 

St. Peter's Church 

The Hofburg Imperial palace again

For our last morning of the trip before we headed back to Rome, we toured the Schönbrunn Palace and shopped around another market set up in the square. As we walked out to the beautiful gardens behind the palace, we saw some wedding photos being taken! I agree, the palace is a beautiful place to take pictures, but I was freezing in my warm coat, so I can’t even imagine those poor women in their strapless dresses! It snowed as we were leaving the palce too… yikes.

Schönbrunn Palace

You obviously can't see the detail in this picture, but both of those dresses were gorgeous!

The Gardens of the Schönbrunn Palace

The bus back wasn’t too bad. I just watched three or four movies in a row, then finished my homework, and tried to sleep a little bit! We had heard mixed reviews about Bus2Alps, but overall, I had a good experience and would recommend it to future study abroad students – just as long as you don’t do it every weekend, you spend a lot of time on a bus!

Observation of the Day:

“Out there things can happen, and frequently do,

To people as brainy and footsy as you.

And when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew.

Just go right along, you'll start happening too!”

- Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!