Jan to Rachel: I didn't think you could run!

So I realize I haven’t written much about school so I understand why some may think that I don’t actually go to class or do anything worthy of academic credit, but loh, this weekend was another “working weekend” as we went to Ostia Antica for our History class.  So I gave y’all the low down on Paolo the Art History prof, so here’s the skinny on the History prof, Jan (yahwn). 

He’s tall.  He’s Belgian.  He walks REALLY fast.  He speaks innumerable languages.  He will sacrifice you to the gods of ancient Rome if you are 1) a sissy, 2) a slowpoke, 3) sassy, 4) irritate him for ANY reason.  In his words, “the streets of Rome run red with the blood of my students.”  Oh, and he’s also a robot, doesn’t think and doesn’t care.  All from his mouth. 

Don’t get the idea that he’s some kind of student-whipping psycho, he’s just one of those profs that takes extreme pleasure in scaring the shit out of you.  But if you’re on his good side (like, say, if you’re a history major) then he’ll give you a nickname and call it good.  Mine’s Raqu-ell-ay. 

He’s a prof during the school year, but works at the dig site for an ancient Roman villa in the summers as an archaeologist, so it was a treat to get to go to Ostia with him. 

Ostia Antica is kind of like Pompeii without the lava.  Lots of really well preserved homes and shops and baths, pretty much the whole city is intact.  We chased Jan around looking at everything and getting quizzed.  At one point we ended up in field of wild fennel and mint where there was this thorny vine a tripped on and got a thorn stuck in the top of my toe.  We got to go up onto the THIRD FLOOR of an ancient apartment building too! 

It was a perfect day for this trip too.  Sunny and in the 80s with a breeze.  Take that Minnesota!  Just kidding, I hear it was hot there too.

We ran ourselves ragged for about 6 hours with no break for lunch and then Jan had to get home to watch his 5 year old son and 3 year old daughter who is, and I quote, “a pain in the ass.”   Since I’ve been through the Jan ringer, I was anticipating that we wouldn’t stop for lunch, so I packed some food in my Sparky Bag and was eating my little lunch at the train station.  I went to open my yogurt and what happens?  I spill half the cup all over my skirt.  And it was the good yogurt too that tastes like Honey Walnut cream cheese from Panera.  Oh well, I needed to wash it any way. 

Since we left on the train at 8:30 in the morning, we got back to our apartments before 3 and had just enough time to do some homework and shower before Classy Night began :)

Rennys!

So last week one of our school-sponsored activities was a Renaissance Dinner with dancers and WILD BOAR.  Legit wild boar to eat.  It was pretty darn good to, kind of beef stew tasting.  AP, you would have liked it.  We all got fancy looking to eat in our desks from IKEA that have severely slanted tables. 

The best part of the night was the dancing though.  There were some professional Ren dancers that preformed for us in the main lobby.  Their leader lady was suuuuuper cranky.  Definitely had one of those “I used to be a prima ballerina and even though I run this 2-bit dance company now, you need to treat me like a queen” attitudes going on.  Plus she had blue hair.  I don’t know quite what to think about that. 

After they cleared out, everyone stood awkwardly around the dance floor clearly wanting to dance, but too afraid to be the first ones out there.  Then Mark asked Andrea if any of the dancers spoke English to which Andrea responds “Come with me” and dragged him over to the dancers and told one of them that Mark wanted to dance with her.  So then we all crowded in on the dance floor to stare at Mark dancing with this Italian dancer who spoke no English like they were at the 8^th grade dance.  Hands on the shoulders, just moving from side to side. 

After that we all got the courage up to go dance and did our best to fake Renaissance dance which just turned into us running around in a circle and yelling “Ohpah!”  Apparently our Renaissance happened in Greece. 

There is another group of students form Californian and Colorado at our school, but they were lame and left right after dinner (after they showed up late, really??) so the staff said that we were definitely more fun and made the event for them.  Good work team. 

Firenze!

We left bright and early for our big weekend away in Florence. Our train left at 9:30ish.  It was a fast train which means that we got there in under 2 hours and had our own little table.  It was nice to ride in such comfort without having to pay through the nose like in Cinque Terre.  We got there just before 11 and went straight to the hotel (Hotel California :) to drop off our stuff before heading out to our first museum – the Bargello gallery.  That was the first sign that this was going to be a boom-boom-boom fast, action-packed trip.

The Bargello is the best museum in the world for Renaissance sculpture.  The first room we went into had no less than 6 Michelangelo’s.  Cool right?  We spent a couple of hours wandering around taking tons of notes, this was a working weekend after all.  We worked well into the afternoon and I’m still not adjusted to the late lunch Italians are fond of.  Afterward, we went looking for lunch only to find it was raining out.  So we ducked into the first little place we found with 5 euro pizza and a bathroom.  We ordered ourselves a nice big lunch and talked our way through the afternoon.  By that time, we could check into our hotel.

We had little rooms with little, tiny twin beds.  But none of us cared because we were ready for a nap.  The thing about European hotels is that in order to get the lights on in your room, you have to put the key card in this little slot next to the door.  It took everyone a while to figure that out, but some people got creative and took the opportunity to wait till their roommate got in the shower the pull the card and leave them stranded in the dark.  I, however, kept it classy and restrained myself from doing this.  

That afternoon/evening we got a walking tour of Florence led by our crazy Art History prof Paolo.  Let's just say he's not one to keep his personal opinions under wraps and gives us some of the most frank (and sometimes a little crude) advice for life.  Example: to Elaine (or director)  "and is he your legal husband?"  "yes, at least I think so (laughs)"  "eew, I'm sorry for you.  I don't advise husbands, only lovers."  Not add a the most stereotypical accent to your voice, read that and envision a man dressed in an I LOVE ME shirt.  that was my weekend.  

Florence is a real good walking city.  Entire streets are blocked off from cars so you can just wander around without fear of getting hit.  The streets are really narrow and just stop randomly so it's easy to get lost, but that's part of the fun right?

That night was our group dinner in the hotel.  On the way down we all agreed that it’s real nice to get fed.  Bread and pasta and potatoes and meat….yummmmy!  Plus we got gelato for desert.  After dinner we went up on the terrace of the hotel and sat around this big table playing Never Have I Ever and drinking boxed wine.  My new, but persistent, cough made me turn in earlier than the rest, but even though the beds are infant sizes, they were super comfy.

In the morning we were split up into two smaller groups and the end-of-the-alphabet-ers went to the Accademia in the morning.  We went in a wandered around the intro room for a little bit before turning down this hallway to see, drum roll please, the David!  He was standing at the end in this little dome with all these windows.  And the heavens opened up and the angels sang a joyous hallelujah! 

A bunch of the other girls and I stood in the around him gawking for seriously 45 minutes.  We did have an assignment to do people, don’t think we’re creepers.  Actually we being a little creepy, he’s really pretty ;)

The rest of the museum was filled with Early Renaissance art.  Not my fave and after seeing 200 crucified Jesuses spewing blood, I was ready to leave.  But this place would not let you leave.  It was a labyrinth of epic proportions to get out of there.  Winding through tiny little rooms and hallway and, of course, the gift shop.  

Afterwards, the people that were left went to wander around the leather markets and do some other shopping.  I was on a mission for some certain Christmas presents (I'll give you a clue, Mom and Dad, they're not purple or a triangle), but shopping in Florence was a lot different than at home.  First of all, all of the market vendor people will haggle you and try every trick in the book to get you to look at their stuff.  They also overprice things a lot and then you’re expected the barter with them.  Even after how many years of garage sailing with the grandparents, I don’t have the gift of price negotiation so this whole experience was a little uncomfortable for me.  But Mark on our trip managed to get a 480euro leather jacket down to 95, but he didn't buy it, he just wanted to see how low the guy would go.  

After some time shopping we decided to get lunch and sat in front of a church eating sandwiches and swatting at the disgusting pigeons that walked really close to us.  I HATE BIRDS.  They’re dirty and molted and gross and they fly at you.  Not ok.  I actually, hate to admit it, screamed and cowered when one particularly icky one flew by my face in the piazza by the duomo.  Now I'm that girl that's afraid of birds.  Let the mocking begin.

Later we went to the Uffizzi gallery aka the holy grail of Renaissance painting.  We saw everything from Boticelli’s Spring and the Birth of Venus to the Long Necked Madonna.  This museum visit, however, was not so enjoyable.  We were all exhausted and the museum was hot and crowded and we couldn’t hear Paolo. 

Paolo’s a pretty entertaining guy, but even with all of his side comments and interesting wardrobe choices, we were getting super annoyed.  There were some other weird people who decided to join our group and take up all the good listening spots.  Plus they creepily would look over our shoulders at our notes and generally be a pain in the butt. 

After the Uffizzi, we went back to the hotel and got ready for dinner at Paolo’s favorite restaurant.  He told us it was a 15 minute walk from our hotel, but 35 minutes later, we still weren’t there.  Plus when we got there, they didn’t have enough room for us because our reservation was made for 20, not 36, people.  I got this really good spicy pizza with hot sauce and peppers and spicy sausage.  We slowly made our way back to the hotel, taking a pit stop to ride the carousel, and by then it was past midnight and we all crashed. 

The next morning we went on a short tour of the Medici Chapels and then were let loose in the city for 4 hours before our train left.  And what did we do?  Shopping!  More and more shopping!  I ended up getting a black purse to replace the one I currently have that's held together by a twist tie.  We were on a mission to get boots for a few girls, so that’s what we did with the afternoon. 

We started to head to the train station a good hour before we had to be there, but it still took us longer than expected to get to the train station.  But Sienna did get some good lookin’ boots along the way.  Even after a long train ride back, it still takes us longer than I’d like to get back to our apartment.  By that time I was getting sleepy, but then the roommates were on skype and talking to them was more important than the shower I was in desperate need of taking.  They caught me up on all the happenings of Johnnie-Tommie Homecoming and I’m not gonna lie, having the Johnnies loose makes it easier to be away.  Then after a skype session with the parents, I showered quick, tried to clean my feet, and when to bed.  Thank the Lord baby Jesus that Elaine cancelled class for the next morning because I don't think we would have made it our the door in time.  

I'm king of the world!

So through school we get to go on sweet adventures for free, like the gelato crawl.  This week was climbing to the top of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. 

The Vatican has some pretty strick dress codes.  Basically don't be a ho and conver you shoulders and knees.  But some people didn't quite understand this.  I'm talking to you, girl with the Daisy Duke booty shorts.  No wonder you couldn't get in with our a makeshift sarong. 

There are two options for getting to the top, 720 stairs or and elevator and 300 stairs.  We opted for the lift.  But since our chaperone dude bought all our tickets, we didn't have individual one and crabby Italian man wouldn't let us up until Andrea (Ahn-drey-ah) came and persuaded him that we weren't trying to rip off the Vatican and we all did pay for tickets. 

We packed into the elevator and got our on the roof of the basilica.  Such a beautiful view even from there.  We started our climb.  The staircases are really narrow and barely big enough for me to fit through.  I can't imagine what it was like for a couple of the guys on my trip that are linebacker-sized.  When you get closer to the top, the halways slant becasue you're actually in the dome (it's built with two shells, one inside the other). 

When we got out on the top it was amazing.  You literally had a 360 degree, arial view of the city.  I forgot how big Rome is, but it reaches all the way to the mountains.  We went up at around 6ish so the sunset was just beginning when we were up there and that made the view even better.  It was packed though!  So many people trying to get close to the edge and look out.  I was pretty nervous that my precious camera was going to fall over the edge as I was taking some shots so I had that thing wrapped, double wrapped, and triple wraped around my wrist. 

We had to come down becasue the dome closes at night, but even being on the roof of the basilica was amazing. 

We ended the night with a "Girls Night" with our director's daughter, eating stuffed peppers and playing some highly entertaining games of MASH.  I forgot how fun that is :)  Mental note roommies, MASH will be a recurring phenomena when I come back. 

Grapes and Graves and Geeks, Oh My!

So this weekend a whole bunch of people we planning on jetting off to other Italian locales, but  I looked at my calendar and saw that this weekend was essentially our last free weekend in Rome and I thought to myself, “Rachel, you’re study abroad in Rome, don’t you think you should spend some time IN ROME?”  Why yes self, I should.  So this weekend I stay pretty near the city and checked some stuff odd my Rick Steves list of must sees. 

On Friday, a couple of people piggybacked on another trip through school to a vineyard about an hour outside Rome.  We got there and hike through the field and then stopped at a row of vines and the owner handed us some sheers and said we could snip away. 

Here’s the professional grape harvesting technique: You have to hold on to the bottom of the bunch and then snip the stem.  This ensures that the grapes don’t fall on the ground and get lost or gross. 

A professional grape-picker will harvest about 24 extra big milk crates in an 8 hour shift.  The 25 of us got about 20 done in an hour.  I thought that was impressive, but we we’re still working under speed. 

After the harvesting bit, we learned about how wine was made and saw all the equipment.  I learned that the production difference between red and white wine was that red wine grapes are crushed with the skins on and the white wine grapes aren’t.  That’ll earn you $200 on Jeopardy. 

After that, we headed down to the restaurant that this guy sells his wine to for lunch.  It was sooooo fancy!  We’re talking 50euros a head fancy.  And here were 25 sweaty, stinky, dirty, and underdressed Americans walking in.  Needless to say, they stuck us in the basement.  Some may say that it was because there were so many of us, but I know the truth. 

They served us lots of really good bread.  I ate 6 pieces.  Our appetizer was this modified Caprese salad with the best pesto I have ever tasted and this spicy cheese spread and seasoned tomatoes.  It was delish.  Then they served us Veal with this pureed vegetable cake that tasted like squash, bust was completely green, so I was very confused.  And since we had spent the entire morning harvesting wine, they served us some of that too.  And not just a taste that you’re supposed to spit out, but 4 big glasses.  By the end of that meal, everyone was feeling a little tipsy.  Side note: this meal began at 1:30 and we finished at 4.  That’s Italian time for ya!

We we’re all so stuffed that we went to this little medieval village about 20 minutes away and walked the meal off.  Then we piled back into the bus and headed home.  Now, I was sitting next to my director’s 11 year old daughter.  I’m feeling a little loopy from the wine and we’re driving over uneven cobblestone so I’m getting car-sick.  I spent the majority of the ride back focusing on maintaining my composure until my stomach settled and the wine wore off all the while trying to keep up on our conversation about Glee and classic rock.  

The next day, my roommate Molly, Michele and I decided to go to the Catacombs of St. Sebastino and have a tour.  Since our usual Mama Duck was in Venice this weekend, I took the charge and found directions (all of which worked!) and we hopped a bus to get to the very outer limits of the city where the catacombs are.  It took us a good hour and a half to get there.  Our history professor Jan (pronounced “Yawn”, he’s a very tall, angry Belgian who walks faster than the Flash) would have been so proud that we knew that the burial grounds had to be located outside of the city walls (Paestum if we’re getting fancy) for sanitation reasons as well as that there wasn’t enough space within the city. 

We bought our tickets for the English tour and scoped out the museum, gift shop, and chapel before our guide rounded us up. 

I was geeking out.  Hard core geeking out.  Combine my love of historic things with my love of spooky things and you get a giddy out of control Rachel that was half way between a 4-year old after an espresso and my roommates when watching The Orphan.  Plus our guide looked a little like a vampire and spoke with a accent that I convinced myself was Transylvanian. 

But actually the catacombs are holy ground.  They were respected even when Christianity was illegal in Rome.  Apparently the 40-somehtings in our group missed that memo.  Us 3 20-somethings were the most respectful people there.  The other (all couples) were getting way too handsy for a holy space.  And really lady, a mini dress? A grey leopard-print mini dress? Not to go all Stacy London on you, but come on. 

After we left the catacombs, we had to ride around on the bus for another hour and a half (the story of my life) and then Molly and I wanted to find the sculpture St. Theresa in Ecstasy, so we went in search of that. 

I brought Angels and Demons on the trip because it’s set in Rome and I thought it would be fun to read in Rome.  It was.  Dan Brown sucked me in and I finished that book in less than a week.  Then Molly stole it and finished in under 10 days.  So now we are on a quest to find all of the markers on the path of Illumination.  We checked off the 4 Rivers fountain during our first week here and the West Wind plate and the Vatican on Monday, so all we had left were the markers for Fire and Earth. 

It was pretty darn sweet.  I can totally see why it was a little to risqué for the church (they had it moved to Santa Maria della Vitoria because they were so uncomfortable with it).  But it was cool to see none the less. 

After that we wandered home, but stopped at a little bakery that had a whole bunch of cookies.  Apparently I’ve been getting a little homesick because I started crying in the bakery because it smelt like Christmas cookies.  So Mom, you’ll be getting an email about the cookies I just want to eat and the one I want to help make. 

Even though I didn’t do anything particularly exhausting, I fell asleep at 9pm, while reading, with all the lights on.  And I missed my roommates going on a late night gelato run.  I must be half lemur. 

Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole!

So Europe is another culture.  Shocking, I know.  But I hadn’t fully comprehended that this would apply to sports.  That means no Twins all soccer, or futbol.  In order to fully immerse ourselves, and have a real good time, a bunch of us decided to get tickets to the AS Roma futbol game vs. Bologna last Sunday. 

Now, I was raised on baseball and curling.  I have some knowledge of futbol thanks to being coerced into watching the World Cup this summer (just kidding Ev), but other than knowing some lingo, I’m out of the loop.  But the people here live and breathe futbol.  They are hardcore!  They have jerseys that cost 100euro (mine cost 10), know half a dozen fight songs and all of the information about every player down to what kind of cereal he eats in the morning.  I was quite out of my league to say the least. 

One thing about futbol tickets is that the seat assignments are more of a suggestion and if you actually want to sit in your assigned seat, you better be at the game at least 2 hours ahead of time.  We tried, but considering that it took us almost 2 hours to get to the stadium, that didn’t really happen.  We were lucky enough to find a row of seats that hadn’t been taken yet (probably because there were some very scary looking Italian men on either side) and persuaded them that we were actually cheering for Roma and weren’t some filthy Americans trying to infiltrate their sport.  Problem was that there were still too many butts for the number of chairs, but everyone stands during the game so we just squished in. 

The game started right on time.  None of this “it’s says they’ll start at 3, but really it’s more like 3:15” business.  And AS Roma scored at minute 7.  Then all hell broke loose. 

Now, we’re standing on top of the chairs which are like rollercoaster seats, preformed plastic with little backs.  As soon as the ball went in the net the guys in front of us start thrashing around like fish in the bottom of a boat.  It was 10 times worse than the most epic mosh-pit I’ve ever been in.  There are limbs flying everywhere and I’m hanging on for dear life to anything that looks stable.  The girl next to me gets thrown backwards by some dude and ends up in the row behind us.  She about took me with her, but the guy behind me grabbed my arm and held me up.  All this went down within about 15 seconds and continued for a good 3 minutes.  I ducked for cover, feet firmly planted on the concrete. 

Unfortunately the rest of the game was a little boring, right up until the last 15 minutes when Bologna scored twice to tie.  It was just to be there.  One dude would start singing some song and all of a sudden there would be 300 people singing with him.  Pretty cool.  There were a lot of flags too that people had brought in.  It was also fun just to people watch.  We were in the hardcore fan section, but there were people ranging from us American college kids to a couple of grandparents jumping and screaming right along with the rest of us.  One more thing about Italian culture, security id very light and it is possible to sneak lots of things into a futbol stadium, like pot for instance.  There were no less than 4 people lighting up within a row of us.  One can only hold her breath for so long and all of us were felling a little dizzy from the secondhand smoke.   

If we thought the treck to get there was rough, the one to get home was even worse.  Almost 3 hours from start to finish ending with a marathon bus ride with a whole bunch of wet (it started to rain), smelly, soccer fans on a packed bus.  We were all so hungry, tired, and gross afterward that all we wanted to do was shower and stuff our faces.  This was the version of me my parents got to Skype with :)

The Motherland

So this weekend was our first programmed excursion to Subiaco, the CSB|SJU/Benedictine motherland.  Friday was spend running around town and doing homework so it was nice to just hop on a bus and leave for the day.  We met at school at 8:30 and hopped on the most massive coach bus I have ever seen.  This thing was literally the size of a double decker bus, but there was only one level.  Huge I tell you.  And apparently, side note, all of the busses in Rome cost the same and are all giant-sized.  Not the yellow school busses I‘m used to for field trips.  But anyway, we made the drive to Subiaco which was only supposed to take 1 hour, but the driver didn’t speak English so it was really hard for Elaine, our director, to give him the directions so we got lost.  Let me rephrase, we got lost on tiny, twisty, roads built for medieval modes of transportation.  And we’re trecking up the side of a mountain in a bus built for Andre the giant.  We end up having to back up (in the bus) and take different turns 3 times in our quest to get to this monastery, but we finally made it to the top.  From there it was a good 5 minute walk up a path with an incline of at least 35 degrees before we actually got to the site itself. 

Now, on a historical note, Subiaco is important to us Benedictine kids because it’s where St. Benedict went when he left Rome (because it was falling) and lived in a cave for 3 years before leaving his cave of wonders to found 12 monasteries in the area.  The monastery that’s there now is pretty much the original.  There hasn’t been a whole lot of modernization or even preservation done to it.  And the building itself is built directly into the cliff face and uses some of the cliff walls to for structural support. 

In this tiny little building there are 2 churches that are on top of the actual cave where St. Ben lived.  The frescos on the ceiling and walls are incredible.  Most are from the 12^th through the 15^th centuries (to put this in perspective that’s at least 300 years older than America) and in impeccable condition for their age.  They aren’t even roped off!  There is some pretty humorous graffiti on them, though.  Including an inscription made by a Pope.  And all the floors are made from marble taken from Nero’s villa that used to stand in the area.  So cool.  I’m history geekin’ out. 

During our few hours at Subiaco, we talked with Father Luigi who was fascinated, as were we, by the difference in lifestyle between himself and the monks of St. John’s.  The work of the monks of St. Ben’s is hospitality.  There calling is to welcome people to the top of this mount and share the history of the place.  Some keep bees, garden, farm, or something like that.  Fr. Luigi was just floored to hear that the OSBs of SJU pretty much all have Ph.D.s, teach rigorous class schedules, have the internet, and walk around in plain clothes (that’s another thing, the ecclesiastics in Italy still dress as if it’s pre-Vatican II). 

We got the full tour by an SJU grad serving with the Benedictine Volunteer Corps and then headed down the mountain for lunch at the sister monastery, St. Scholastica.  THIS LUNCH WAS AMAZING.  Enough said.  But truly we had a bruschetta appetizer followed by incredibly pasta with pesto and tomato sauce and then potatoes and honey glazed pork and dessert.  Yummmmm.  It was so good to eat good meat and potatoes.  That’s one thing about Rome, meat is quite expensive so I haven’t been eating much of it in my apartment. After we had all digested a little, we toured the monastery at St. Scholastic and then hopped the bus back to Rome.  We were all in massive food comas so no one really talked on the way back and I passed out hard core and my legs fell asleep.  And with my contacts out of whack and no feeling in my bottom limbs, I stumble back to my apartment and promptly fell asleep.  So much for life in the eternal city.