A Roma, Con Amor

Things that happen when I travel:

• My inability to sleep in a moving vehicle makes me really tired
• Being really tired makes me get lost much easier
• It rains

So after basically pulling an all-nighter in the chilly Madrid airport, then getting on my flight, then getting on a bus to the city center, I arrived in Rome. I eventually managed to find the meeting point my cousin Maggie had told me about, Castel Santangelo.

At this point, the weather was switching between pouring rain, and raining sideways. Thank you Rome. So Maggie called and gave me the combo to her school, so I could at least sit inside. At this point I happened to meet Spencer, Maggie's friend who was going to meet both Maggie and I (after Maggie had found me, theoretically) for pizza. But for some reason, Maggie had managed to get lost in Rome, so I just went to get pizza with Spencer, and Maggie met us there!

Also, this pizza was about the greatest thing I'd ever eaten. Partially because the Spanish do pizza wrong–it's like a loaf of bread with some sauce and some cheese and it just tastes strange. The Italians do pizza right. And I was starving. And it had spicy sausage, and good cheese aaaaand it was just the best.

Anyway, Maggie had class, so I went to find the hostel–and got lost in the pouring rain again. Oops. But I got some decent photos of the "wedding cake" as it's called–the giant monstrosity of the Piazza Venezia which is apparently not built on solid ground and has structural problems all the time. Apparently all the Italians hate it.

After a lot of series of unfortunate events, I finally found the hostel, and took a nap until Maggie was done with class. And then we went sightseeing! Unfortunately, it gets dark super early in Rome–something to do with which edge of the time zone they're on–so all my photos are nighttime ones. They're still pretty though!

So we made it to the Coliseum, walked past the Wedding Cake again, and ended up by Maggie's favorite church.

In Spain, churches are pretty, but they have nothing on Italian churches. There is so much color in there. Spanish churches, from what I've seen, have mostly sculpture, and it's usually in either gold or whatever stone the church is made of. This church was just covered with giant paintings, made by a much more skilled artist than I've ever seen in Salamanca, that's for sure.

We also decided to get gelato–which was absolutely delicious, especially when covered with a shell of chocolate. Can't go wrong there!

Right by Maggie's favorite gelato place is the Piazza Navona, which has a fountain from one of my favorite books, Angels & Demons. It was designed by Bernini, as is every landmark in the book, and is called Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers). Basically, it's the fountain where the main character is almost drowned at the end of the book.

Next, we made it to the Pantheon–the architectural wonder which they apparently couldn't reproduce for hundreds of years because the art of making a dome with a perfectly circular opening was lost for a while. Those genius Romans…

And obviously, we had to make it to the Trevi Fountain–I threw in a penny for me, a euro María had given me, and a nickel María had found for Megan. I feel like that's asking a lot from the fountain though–we'll see how it works out!

We went to dinner that night at a little hole in the wall restaurant with a student menu. We got bruschetta, and then pasta with red sauce–so good! And strudel for dessert. I think it's a good thing I didn't end up going to Italy for study abroad–I would just eat all day long if I was around this all the time!

The next day, we started by exploring and ran across St. John's Cathedral.

Marked with an obelisk (apparently they had a bunch of these just laying around) so you can find the church easier!

We ate some pizza for a very early lunch (it was about 11 AM but we hadn't eaten breakfast, so why not eat pizza?), then set off for the other side of town–which included the Coliseum by day, a very pretty park, and then running into the shopping district. And a Mercedes christmas tree.

At this point, we went on what I am now going to call the Great Belt Hunt of Rome, because it took us roughly a thousand years to find me a replacement belt (I'd left my usual one in Spain, and my pants wouldn't stay up) at a decent price! Luckily, we had success, and could finally go get some dinner. Spencer & Maggie took me to anaperativo, the Italian version of tapas. This one was buffet-style, so they just keep bringing out new plates when one of them is empty, and you can just keep going back for more, even when you only buy one drink. They served a lot of pasta (shocker), except it was cold, which was kind of strange. But it all made for a pretty decent meal!

Saturday was our Vatican day. It began with more rain. And it was not raining when we left the hotel, so I didn't bring my umbrella. Poor life choice.

In any case, we finally made it to the Vatican, soaking wet, but at least there wasn't a line!

We looked at a lot of art (Maggie and I told a lot of jokes about how our parents aren't huge fans of art museums…), but it was really really good art. We saw a sculpture made by the same guy who did the Chicago bean–obviously a photo-worthy occasion.

Rafael's last work

My favorite part was the rooms Rafael painted, because there's a lot of stories behind all the paintings. And luckily, I had free tour guides who knew all these stories! Unfortunately, the photo I took of my favorite painting, School of Athens, turned out like this:

Which is pretty unfortunate. But at least it'll remind me that it was my favorite? 

Also, I broke the Sistine Chapel photo rule… But how could you not when it looks like this?

Sadly, St. Peter's was closed for the night, so we weren't able to tour all of the Vatican. Instead, we went to the grocery store for ingredients, and made spaghetti carbonara for dinner! Which I have no photos of. But it was delicious, I promise! I tried to be helpful, but I pretty much was just in charge of cracking eggs. In any case, we had a really great dinner for about 10 euro all together. Win.

Saturday night was also a night when the museums around Rome were open for free, and included free concerts. Maggie's program was taking them around to the museums, so I tagged along and got to meet all the other cool IES kids. Who were so impressed that Maggie showed me around Rome without getting lost, I'm thinking the fact that Maggie was lost when I showed up in Rome really wasn't that odd of an event. (She was still an awesome free tour guide though!!)

I got yelled at for leaning against an ancient monument while listening to the first concert… in my defense it was made of stone! We also went into Castel Santangelo and got to see the view of Rome from above, and I miraculously got a pretty great photo of St. Peter's from the top. Even in the rain!

Sunday, Maggie and I finally made it to St. Peter's. It is a very large place. It's hard to tell, because the scale is justso massive, but walking from the front door to the altar takes a lot longer than your average cathedral. Like, twice as long in some cases.

And the altar is six stories tall. SIX.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get very close to the actual Bernini altar at the front of the church, because they had it roped off for mass, but it looked super amazing.

We also managed to hit all vertical levels of the church, after accidentally stumbling across the crypt (there was an open door, of course we went to see what was in there!), and then deciding to climb the 551 stairs to the top of the cupola.

So after St. Peter's taught me how out of shape I am, we went back to Maggie's home stay to pick up my stuff, and went to look at even more churches. Mostly, we wanted to go see another Bernini sculpture from Angels & Demons, The Ecstasy of St. Teresa in Santa Maria Vittoria.

After we found the church and ooh'd and ahh'd, I finally headed back to the bus station. Minor loss of the day: standing in that bus line for an epic amount of time because they only had one person working the desk. Minor win: finding stick deodorant in the supermarket when I went to get a sandwich after buying my ticket. I still haven't stick deodorant in Spain, so I'm a little overexcited about this. I still maintain the stuff they sell in Spain doesn't work.

Anyway, one flight, a few new friends, a hotel in the middle of nowhere, a train, two metro rides, and a bus ride later, I am finally back in Salamanca, where it isfreezing but at least it's not raining!

So happy I made it to Roma though, it's totally worth being able to see a Shelton and catch up about our crazy family!! (We love you all!) Plus, the food was just beyond fantastic...

Lisboa!

The thing about going to a city when it rains all weekend is that it's much more difficult to get an idea of what the city is really like. You're not quite into exploring because, face it, you're going to be soaked at the end of it, like it or not. But we did get to see a decent amount of Lisboa while we were getting soaked. Downtown Lisboa is a combination of tall business-age buildings as well as older, more traditional and colorful buildings that remind me of the decor in Córdoba.

After dropping our things at the hotel in downtown Lisboa, we were bussed off to a giant plaza where the old royal palace used to stand. Unfortunately, as Portugal is basically the California of the Iberian Peninsula, there was a giant earthquake some years ago, which destroyed about 90% of the structures in the city. Rather than rebuild the city how it once was, the reigning monarch took this as an opportunity to re-do the layout of Lisboa into a more urban one. So the rubble was taken out of the plaza, and it's now a center of commerce which includes a wine-tasting room on one end and the Museo de Cerveza(Museum of Beer) on the other. Oh, Lisboa. But there's a large arch/gate where the palace used to stand, as a smaller tribute to the old palace. In front of this is a trolley stop–they have cable cars just like in San Francisco. The similarities just keep coming.

Unfortunately though, we opted to walk up the giant hill to our next destination, rather than find a way to cram roughly 60 students onto foreign public transportation. Maybe a better plan, but it definitely showed me that I really need to get back into working out…

Anyway, at the top of this giant hill was the Castillo de San Jorge. This was basically a giant compound of large buildings and things we could explore for a while, and get some photos of the amazing views. I believe this was once a defensive structure of some kind, given that it was at the highest point in the city and included very large stone walls.

After we were done climbing all over the castle, they set us loose for dinner. My friends and I managed to find this very typical Portuguese restaurant in a neighborhood called Barrio Alto, known for their restaurants. We lucked out, and had some of the best seafood we'd ever tried. I opted for salmon (always a safer option for me), but my friend got the regional delicacy–bacalao (codfish), which really wasnot bad at all. And my salmon was die-and-go-to-heaven good. We also tried vino verde (green wine), something else Portugal is known for. Finally, the restaurant had a singing show during the dinner, in a very traditional Portuguese style called fado. 

The next day we woke bright & early to go to Monasterio de los Jerónimos, a very famous monastery in the city, as well as the Torre de Belém.

The monastery was kind of cool because it had some fun details. For the most part, it was your standard catholic church–pillars, stone, altar, stained glass, cross-shaped layout… et cetera (The magic of the cathedral may be wearing off on me, which is actually really sad…).

But there were a handful of tombs in there. Some of them were for deceased kings and queens, but had stone elephants supporting the stone caskets, as opposed to the usual lions or just square bases. Apparently the elephant supports are one-of-a-kind in the world, but I didn't get a picture of them (sorry team!).

There was also a tomb of a famous writer as well as a famous explorer upon entry to the church. The explorer's tomb was decorated with the engraving of a ship, for obvious reasons.

Also, there were a few design details that were added to the church that I found interesting. A lot of the detailing on columns or arches consisted of a cable/rope design, borrowed from ships, as exploration was a big deal during the time the church was being constructed. Also, the "veins" on the support columns spread out when they hit the roof, partially because that helps distribute the weight of the stone in the roof, but also to make them look like palm trees. When you lack palm trees in your own country (those hadn't come over the ocean yet), make them out of stone!

Next, we wandered in the pouring rain to the edge of the river, to see the Torre de Belém. Belém essentially translates to "Bethlehem", and is the name of a suburb of Lisboa. This tower is part of an olden-days defensive system, and once had a partner across the river, so ships would have to move through this pinch-point on the river before they could reach the port of Lisboa.

Also, from the tower you can see another San Francisco imitation–the fake Golden Gate bridge. It was built by the same steel company that contributed to San Francisco, and is the same color. And like San Francisco, if the weather decides to literally rain on your parade, you will not get any good photos of it. So here's a photo I stole from my friend's Facebook, since it apparently didn't rain when she went a week ago. (Thanks Lauren!)

The rest of the day after these tours was free time. My friends and I went to a sushi place where I a) actually ate sushi and b) ACTUALLY LIKED IT. Which is new, in case you haven't been around my picky eating habits lately. I have a feeling part of it is that we were on the coast, and therefore I assume seafood will generally always be better than it is in Colorado (landlocked state problems). But we had a great meal where we just stuffed ourselves, because it was an all-you-can-eat deal. Why would any college student not take advantage?? The only thing was that this was the first time I've actually experienced a language barrier problem–we had an issue with our order, and our waiter didn't speak English or Spanish. I'm assuming here, but I think most of the waiters and waitresses were Asian natives who had immigrated to Portugal. Basically, picture an employee whose second language is English (in the USA), trying to speak Spanish or French to a customer. It was almost a big mess, but the table next to us saw our problem and offered their translation services since they spoke a little English–thank goodness!

We also took a taxi to Starbucks. Because we don't have overpriced, over commercialized coffee shops in Salamanca. And it was right by a plaza of town where we could do some souvenir shopping and explore the city a little bit, even in the rain.

Mmmmm Starbucks

Lisboa in the rain

Sunday, we woke up bright and early again to get back on the bus. We made two stops at some little towns on our way home, the first of which was in a town called Óbidos. The main attraction of Óbidos is that it has a giant wall–which of course we climbed. If there is a tower to be climbed and my friends Adrianna & Mila are in the group, we will absolutely be climbing it!

Óbidos

Town cemetery from above

We also got to experience something called gingja, which is an itty bitty amount of cherry liquor inside a chocolate cup. It was like a chocolate-covered cherry, but about six times better and not so overly sugary! 

Batalha has Convento de Santa María da Vitória, a church built as a tribute to Santa María after the Portuguese won an important battle against the Spanish army. Once again–stone, columns, etc. Architecture was pretty standard.

However, there were a few extras. One was a white-marble room for more graves of Portuguese monarchs (these were from around the time of Ferdinand & Isabel in Spain I believe, while the elephant-supported tombs in Lisboa are from a dynasty a few hundred years earlier).

The other was a monastery garden which houses the Portuguese Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This tomb is not as grandiose as the USA Tomb, but it is a little more interesting when it comes to design. The headstone is more detailed with carvings of saints, and is capped by a lamp which is kept lit with olive oil. The changing of the guard, however, is much simpler than the USA's version.

Oh, and we found a fountain with fishes in it. These fishes are troopers, because that water was cold too!

And that, my friends is my trip to Lisboa! We passed the rest of the bus time with some movies that were put on the movie screens, and some riddles from an app I downloaded after we got very bored on the way to Lisboa.

So here's a riddle, in case you're bored.

With thieves I consortWith the vilest, in short.I'm quite at ease in depravityYet all divines use meAnd savants can't lose me,For I am the center of gravity

Maybe I'll just start adding riddles to my blog posts.

Thanksgiving!

So here's the scoop on how I passed my foreign Thansgiving. My program (ISA) knows that all of their 80 American students are probably a little homesick, so they prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for us. We dressed up, they made turkey, we had a lovely time. The food wasn't exactly like home, but they tried really hard. For example, mashed potatoes were not really mashed… it was more like a puree. Zero lumps sir. But hey, they were potatoes! And watching both our fellow students and our ISA directors figuring out how to carve a turkey was pretty funny at times. No one lost a finger, that's why I can say it was funny. But if I couldn't be with my family, being with my Fall 3 family was a pretty decent alternative! Here's a photo of most of the people I've spent my last couple months hanging out with!!

(PS–7 of these people are from Colorado, and 5 of them go to DU. That's why when I tell people I'm from Denver, they usually respond, "Oh, another one!")

This Year I'm Thankful...

(Warning: Cheesiness abound in this post)

This Year I'm Thankful...

My mommy and daddy love me enough to let me run away to Europe for a semester.

I have the type of friends who send me silly cat photos and
travel budget postcards because they miss me too.

My boyfriend is the kind of guy to help me with my fantasy football lineup
even though I haven’t been there to watch a single game with him this season.

My brother is a super smart engineering nerd and seems to be kicking butt at it.

My host mom is an awesome cook & my host brother corrects my Spanish.

I got to visit two different continents in the last month
(but also thankful I don’t live in the Sahara...).

I have new friends I made an ocean away from home
but will hopefully keep when I go back.

But mostly, I am thankful I am taking a picture of this outside one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen in one of the most amazing cities I will probably ever live in. And I am so thankful to everyone who helped me even the littlest bit to get here! So, that is to say pretty much everyone who reads this. Thank you to everyone! Even though I don’t get a “real” Thanksgiving here, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking of you all and how happy and lucky I am to have every single one of you!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Social Struggle Bus

So here's the way my day went. I woke up, ate breakfast, then got back under the covers to read Bossypants on my iPod. When María knocked on my door to tell me she was leaving, we had a conversation about me being back in bed, in which I decided it was easier to let her think I was napping than to explain I was reading a novel on a 3-inch touchscreen.

Anyway, I finally got productive and went to class, came back fro lunch, and looked up hostels in Rome & Madrid & Salamanca for future voyages & visits (more on that later).

At 6, I had to go to a rescheduled musicology class, which began a series of events that put me into a slightly unnecessary fight-or-flight-or-panic mode.

1. I didn't know which classroom we were meeting in. I made it to the right floor, then stood around like an idiot until I ran into some other kids who were like, "It's room 24, right?" I have no idea. I'm following you guys.
2. I was having a harder-than-normal time picking up the pre-class chatter. Usually, I get an idea of the conversation (even if it's not a good enough idea to participate in the conversation), but not today.
3. Several of my classmates had photocopies of papers I'd never seen before, leading me to believe I'd once again missed the memo on something I had to get printed to prepare for class.

At this point, my homesick, frustrated, stressed brain went int panic mode, and decided my desire to avoid yet another class where I felt lost, unprepared and alone was so strong, it was time to bail. (Mom & Dad, I know that's not what you want to hear, but sometimes at the age of 20, you have to bail on things for stupid reasons. No one died or got arrested. Or skipped class in the end.)

I almost got away with it, except I decided to take the front stairs instead of the back ones. And as I started up the stairs, I saw one of my almost-friend classmates coming down them (We bonded two days ago over the fact that we can both pop our knuckles loudly and the fact that my ability to pop my thumb out totally freaks him out. I'm not sure if our professor didn't hear us laughing or just ignored it because I was finally doing something other than sitting there like a terrified deer in the headlights). This put me into panic mode again.So there I am, taking the stairs 2 at a time with my head down, but halfway up I hear, "Hey man, where you going?" in a Spanish accent. Now tell me, is there any possible way you could ignore that and just keep going? The answer is no, because it was just too awesome to hear out of nowhere from a native Spanish-speaker.

So my knuckle-cracking friend, two other friends from class, and I had a weird bilingual conversation on the stairs where I gave them my silly panic-mode reasons and they basically shut them down.

"I don't have the copies"
"But the printer is downstairs…"
"Well, yeah. I'm already late."
"So are we."
"I don't have the copies!"
"You can look at ours! Come on!"

And that was that. Class was not the torturous disaster I was apparently expecting (Panic-Mode Corinne is beyond overly pessimistic). I wasn't prepared. I was definitely lost part of the time, but no more than usual. But I survived. And I swear my life had one of those movie moments, one that belongs in a new-kid-in-school movie where the tortured protagonist finally has a table to sit at during lunch.

Cheesiness aside, turns out going to class was a good plan. Because I finally actually participated in class too! Mostly because we were talking about the silly way of calculating when Easter or the festival of Corpus Cristi was… or something… and my professor brought up the American presidential elections. Because (in case you didn't know) those are held the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November. So it can't be November 1. So I got to explain that to the class, and show them I'm not a complete moron, I just don't know how to answer music questions.

So I'm not sure if anyone but myself finds this interesting (I hope you at least enjoyed that my friend knows enough English to feel comfortable saying, "Hey man, where you going??" because I found it to be hilarious), but this is the highlight of my week so far. Although I am going to Karaoke tonight. And we have a Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. And I go to Lisboa on Friday. So there are more interesting posts coming. I just really felt like writing about my social struggles and why they sucked a little less at the end of today!