A Small Wanderer

Days 4-6

I'm back on my laptop this evening, so hopefully I can write a decent entry without accidently shutting off the darn computer again. This might not be as detailed an entry as the lost one would have been, but whatever.

First of all, Ily reminded me that I haven't actually "introduced" my roommates or any of the people who get mentioned in this blog, so that'll be first. I share an apartment with 3 other GW girls (all of whom get referred to as "roommates") - Dana, Amanda, and Aurora. Aurora and I share a bedroom. I hadn't met any of the three of them before coming here. Amanda and Aurora usually hang out together, along with some other friends of theirs. Dana and I have been hanging out together with various friends of ours. We all get along thus far (knock on wood), it seems to be working well.

Anyhow.

Wednesday night Dana, our friends Tommy and Mario, and I all went out for a pasta dinner. Dana and I had decided that there was something very wrong with the fact that we'd been in Italy for three days and had not yet eaten pasta, so we invited Tommy and Mario out with us for dinner. We ended up going to a cute little restaurant in Trastevere, north of AUR (Trastevere is this huge neighborhood that extends from just south of the Vatican to past where my guidebook's map of Rome stops. The main part of Trastevere, however, is just below where the Tiber bends around Tiberina Island. That's where all the restaurants and Mario's apartment, among other things, are. Our apartment is in Trastevere but is about a 45 minute walk farther south). The food was delicious, and fairly cheap. We all shared a bottle of wine and Tommy and I shared an appetizer of bruschetta. My meal - my share of the wine and appetizer along with an entree of pasta carbonara, along with tip - came to 10 euro, or about $12.50. Not bad at all. After dinner we walked across the Tiber and explored the area around Piazza Navona. We got gelato (mmmm) and walked around for a while before settling at Sloppy Sam's bar for a bit. Piazza Navona and the immediate surrounding area has a lot of bars. Sloppy Sam's is one of the few that are popular hangouts for Americans in Rome (The Drunken Ship is another). The guys had a beer and Dana and I split a mineral water (must remember to order "acqua naturale" from now on instead of "acqua", as we both now know we don't care for mineral water). We sat and talked and peoplewatched and chatted with a few other people from AUR who came by. The peoplewatching was good thanks in large part to a little old woman who was standing beside Sloppy Sam's outdoor tables and dancing to the bar's [horrible] selection of music. She was cute, in a sad sort of way. I think she was homeless (Dana commented on how we haven't seen very many homeless people at all in Rome, but they're definitely here).

After we left the bar we walked around for a little while longer before deciding to head back to our apartments. Tommy, Dana, and I parted from Mario (we were headed in the opposite direction to get home - Tommy's apartment is relatively close to ours). The walk back home was nice. By this time it was probably around 1 AM. Rome gets surprisingly quiet at night. There aren't nearly as many lights on at night as there are in most American cities, probably partly because of the low amount of electricity an apartment can use before the electricity goes out (the school recommends that you not use the water heater and the oven at the same time). It's very, very quiet out late at night. I think it's even quieter than it is back at home in South Beaver. At home you hear crickets and bats and all sorts of stuff like that at night. In DC there's always cars and sirens and all sorts of noise. Trastevere was silent, except for the occasional siren or passing car. Walking past the bakeries and pastry shops we could smell the next day's bread baking. Quite a nice night.

Yesterday was an awesome day. Dana and I might Tommy and Steve, one of his roommates, early in the afternoon. We sat in a caffeteria (coffee shop) for a little while then walked up to the school. All this week (except for today), the school has set out food for orientation, so we stopped by for a free lunch. We ate and talked to one of the business professors for a while. After that Steve left to meet his parents by the Spanish steps while Tommy, Dana, and I headed up towards the Vatican. We walked through Gianicolense Park, which has some amazing views of the city. A vendor in the park was selling slices of fresh coconut, which none of us had ever seen before. Tommy bought some, then shared with me and Dana. Fresh coconut is interesting. It has a very subtle taste - at first it seems almost tasteless, but if you hold it on your tongue for a second it has a sweet, milky taste. We weren't exactly sure how to eat it though. I think I like it.

(one of many views from Gianicolense Park)

Anyhow, from Gianicolense Park we walked to the Vatican. We walked around St. Peter's Square and admired the Vatican's Nativity display (Did you know that Pittsburgh has an exact copy of the Vatican's Creche? I think I would have been slightly more impressed with the Vatican's Creche had I not already seen the Pittsburgh one). We walked through the area of the Vatican where the tombs of many of the former Popes are, including John Paul II's tomb. I would have liked to stay by his tomb for a little while and say a prayer or something, but there was a small crowd already gathered round it, and I didn't want to disturb anyone else, plus there wasn't exactly much room to begin with. His tomb is very simple, just a slab of plain white marble, slanted to face the people walking by. I thought it seemed fittingly humble. Anyhow, we also explored the church, St. Peter's, itself. We didn't make it to the Sistene Chapel, but St. Peter's was breathtaking enough on its own. I don't even know how to begin to describe it. "Awesome", "breathtaking", "majestic", and "overwhelming" come to mind, but they don't do the place justice. Overwhelming is probably the best of the four. My mouth was hanging open the entire time I was in there. Everywhere you turn there is beautiful artwork glorifying God. The place thunders with majesty. It seems to whisper and scream at you all the same time, "Behold the Glory of God in His Majesty!" If ever there were a place where man succeeded in using his gifts to give praise to God, this would be it. The altar was probably the most beautiful I've ever seen. There's a small chapel dedicated solely to prayer - no cameras allowed - that was gorgeous. We saw La Pieta, which is more beautiful than pictures of it can convey, although for some reason I had been under the impression that it was larger than it actually is. The whole place completely overwhelms your senses. I can only imagine what mass must be like there. We didn't get to the Sistene Chapel, or the Vatican Museums, or really any part of the Vatican that required the purchase of a ticket, but we will eventually.

(St. Peter's, along with the Vatican's Creche and Christmas tree)

(St. Peter's Square)

After being significantly overwhelmed by St. Peter's, we walked across the Tiber and explored more of the area around Piazza Navona. We got gelato (mmmm) again as we were wandering around. We passed some random ruins - not completely sure what they were, but they were nice to look at. We found a piazza with some gorgeous buildings (but don't know what the buildings were, nor do I remember the name of the piazza) and a church that you got to by climbing these huge stairs. There were probably about 200 steps to get up to this place, if not more. The church was Santa Maria something or other (should be called St. Mary of the Stairs or something). We explored the inside of the church, which was gorgeous, although we may have been more impressed had we not just come from St. Peter's. The inside of the church was filled with dozens of crystal chandeliers and the floor was dotted with tombs, their marble faces nearly worn away from centuries (maybe longer?) of careless foot traffic. After we explored the church we sat at the top of the stairs and watched the sun set over the city. Gorgeous. I'm not sure any city could beat Rome for the amazing views everywhere you turn. Yesterday evening Dana and I cooked dinner and were quite proud of ourselves for it. Cod, cannellini beans, green salad and bread. I think the cannellini beans were our favorite part. Mmmm.

(random ruins. can you find the cat?)

(the sun setting over Rome)

Today wasn't nearly as exciting. Dana and I walked up to the school because she needed to fix her schedule. We talked with some of the school employees and student volunteers, waited a while in the schedule adjustment line to be told that Dana had to sign up on a waiting list, and eventually left. We had lunch in this cute little place that's now one of my favorite restaurants in Rome - part fine chocolate shop, part wine store, part pastry shop, part sandwich shop. Can you see why I loved it? We had spinach, proscuitto, fresh mozerella, and pesto paninis for lunch (oh, they were delicious). We walked back to the apartment, stopping along the way to check out a few stores. We hung out at the apartment all this afternoon, didn't really do much.

We cooked dinner again tonight. We made a rice, brocolli, and mushroom casserole. The recipe called for cheddar, but we couldn't find any cheddar at the grocery store and didn't feel like walking to a cheese and dairy store, so we picked a cheese that, even though we had no idea what it was, seemed to be of a similar texture to cheddar. When we actually open the stuff up to try it we find that it's the most horrible cheese either of us has ever tasted. Oh, it was disgusting. Horrible. Rancid. Foul. We still aren't sure what we're going to do with it. Aurora seemed less disgusted by it than Dana or I so we'll probably give it to her. We ended up using some cheese that Dana had bought to make sandwiches, the kind that comes in individual wrappers. You couldn't really taste it in the finished casserole. Baking the casserole was a victory in itself because it represented a small victory over the oven. The temperature gauge on the oven has no numbers or any labels whatsoever. The light switch is broken. There's a random broken switch that neither of us could figure out. There's another dial labelled with the numbers 1-60. We think it's a timer, but we aren't really sure. Since working the oven is complete guesswork, we're both quite proud that we cooked the casserole without scorching it. Maybe eventually we'll try baking something. Maybe eventually we'll find an oven thermometer. Who knows? Aurora joined us for dinner tonight and was thoroughly impressed with our casserole-making abilities. After dinner the three of us and Amanda went out for gelato (mmmm) to a place about 10 minutes down the block where Dana and I had gone a few nights ago. It's a gelatteria (gelato bar), bar, pastry shop, and sandwich shop all in one (I've found another favorite!). There were some people sitting around eating gelato, and others standing around having drinks and chatting. The man working the gelato counter was really friendly even though we obviously couldn't speak Italian well at all. The gelato was, as usual, delicious. I think I might go back there for lunch and try their paninis. I really want to try some of these Italian pastries I see everywhere, especially the fruit tarts. Dana thinks it's hilarious how I practically drool at the fruit tarts everywhere I see them. Eventually I'll actually buy one.

After coming back from gelato (mmmm) we didn't really do much tonight. I read for a while and played on AIM a bit. I'm working my way through the Chronicles of Narnia again. I finished the Magician's Nephew in a few hours between yesterday and today, and I think I'm about halfway through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When I read them in middle school I only got through those first two books, so I'm excited to go back and read the rest. That's another thing I really want to find here - an English bookstore, an Italian bookstore that sells books in English, or really just any bookstore. There really aren't any in the part of Trastevere where our apartment is, just magazine stands. I think there might be some in the area north of the school where we went out for pasta the night before last, I just have to find them.

That's all for tonight. Enjoy the pictures. These were all taken yesterday. Have a good night everyone!

(closer shot of the Vatican Creche with random guy)

(also from the Vatican. Turn around and you'll see...
...this.)



(cool building shot)

posted by Stacey @ 12:46 AM