GOING SOUTH

after two days a week for three weeks italian is finally over. for the amount of time i learned quite a lot. enough to squeak by for three months. not much is happening school wise, this seems to be an underlining theme for the semester. ha. this weekend (september 29th to– october 2nd) is our southern field trip. we're going to naples, sorrento, pompei, and the almalfi coast. after the 30th i'm going to go with some friends to the almalfi coast. they've found a hostel and rented a five and six person(s) room. it should be an expierence, ten girls and james. after i get back from the southern field trip i was looking into going to germany. i found some cheap tickets that would fly us to dusseldorf on the 13th of october. we would then be in germany until the 16th. well, that's all i have for know.

RANDOMNESS

over the last two days i've been doing really tourist things. my art history class visited the paletine hill, the coliseum, and i made it to st. peter's basilica. all were breath taking and i'm glad i revisited them. the pieta was beautiful it still gave me goosebumps looking at that statue. this is a little off track but if you're ever in taking pictures turn your flash off, seriously your picture will turn out horrible and it's really annoying to everyone around you (in st. peter's a group of americans were talking rather loud and taking pictures with their flashes). the days are finally starting to pick up and that's a good thing. also i'm not sleeping until noon anymore (ha...sorry bad joke, i never slept til noon mom).





RANDOMNESS:
i've notice that people in rome walk around in the middle of the day shopping not working. another thing people HATE giving change. simona my italian professora says give crap right back, or just don't pay and walk away. also i'm getting tired of romans throwing things at me. just because they have a social disease when it come to talking to girls doesn't mean i do!!!

AS ROMA vs INTER

after going to my last italian class alec, frank, zak, zach, nick, and myself had a bite to eat and were out the door heading to the stadio olympico to watch AS ROMA vs INTER match. we finally found the tram that would take us as far as the river. this saved us about a 50 minute walk. after getting to the stadio we bought some scarves. mine looks a lot like a harry potter scarf. anyway we found out that the game started at 8:30 pm. it was 5:00 pm when we found this out. none of us had checked our tickets for the match time. as we were walking a way from the stadium some old woman started to swear at me in italian and made racial slurs, while pointing at me just to let me know that she was talking to me. everyone was very confussed. after that experience we went to a café and some of the guys bought some beer and we sat in a park close by and talked until game time. after everyone had killed their drinks we found some seats in the general area of our own seats. people normally don't care about assigned seatting here, it's basically first come, first serve. although this time a guy wanted his seat and kicked zak out of his seat. so we moved closer. the game was amazing. we saw so many stars playing it wasn't even funny. the fans were going nuts and i heard that there were about 66,000 fans at the game. inter pulled out the victory with an amazing goal by herman crespo. the inter fans came out in force, there was definetly some bad blood between the roma and inter fans. at the end of the game when the inter fans started teasing the roma fans, some roma fans broke threw the plexiglass barriers. nothing happened though. so in short the game was amazing and that old italian woman...yeah.

NOTTE BIANCO: school and stuff

i'm sorry that i haven't posted anything in quite a while. not much has happened since my last post. last weekend rome had a city wide celebration notte bianco (white night). it was crazy people on the streets until six in the morning. all the museums were open all night a long with all the shops. my roommates and steph, elisa, and jennifer walked around campo d'fiore and sat around the cat sanctuary eatting gelato.







school is finally getting into a routine. i've started sketching and researching tiber island for my corporate identity class, i've also learned the art of making pamphlet, hard and soft cover stitched books. i don't know what to think about my art history professor. he really doesn't seem very motivated about teaching. he looks like he rolled out of bed and has a massive five o'clock shadow. my italian is class is INSANE. my professora is pregnant and very moody, but nice. so my overall opinion of this semester is it costs a lot and i don't know i'm going to learn. there is never a dull moment in the apartment. i've made friends with the locals at the pizzeria around the corner. i might have talked about this already, anyway i buy these sticky rice balls that are mixed with tomato sauce, and motzerella in the middle. they're called suppli and they are the best thing in the entire world. i'm already getting tired of eating pasta, and i'm not a big pork fan. the only real good hot meal i've had in about three weeks is the breaded chicken, pasta, and salad that katie made for us. other than that i eat turkey on horrible bread with Parmesan. wednesday september 20th, 2006 i'm going to the AS ROMA vs INTER MILAN match at the stadio olympico.

AS ROMA vs LIVORNO

today i went to the opening match between AS ROMA and LIVORNO. i woke up around eight and tried to find the easiest way to the stadium. that was a task in and of itself. then i had to try to contact everyone that was going to the match (which was about 20 people). after that alec and i went to del corso and found cheap roma t-shirts. around 3:00 pm we finally had everyone rounded up and walked the three miles it would take to reach the stadio olympico. after the three mile marathon walk we got to the stadium and found our gate. after get frisked and our tickets scanned we made to our seats. for 15 euro seats they were amazing. we were at most 70 yards from the pitch. it seems that you can sit where ever you want in the stadium (at least on the visitors end). the people in our section were a little sketchy. they came looking normal, but then suddenly changed into their game attire. this consisted of hats and scarves that shielded their faces from the authorities. across the pitch in the home section the roma fans were waving their huge flags and started chants. then around 5 minutes before kick-off the livorno fans started to arrive (about five). this started the roma fans to go absolutely crazy. they ran to the Plexiglas barrier and started pounding and yelling at them. all of a sudden about 300 more livorno fans appeared in the away section. the roma and livorno fans started yelling at each other and then a barrage of bottles full of spit, urine, feces flew over the barrier both ways. reid and i were hit by a cell phone and a large bike lock land right in front of the girls, they moved seats after that. all of a sudden a livorno fan hit a security guard and the police in riot gear came rushing in and started hitting the livorno fans. this happened within the first 15 minutes of the game. the first half of the game was really slow until de rossi latch on to a ball cleared after a corner and blasted it into the net. the next goal came from a beautiful cross by totti and someone put a head on it which the keeper couldn't handle, and manchini poked in the bottom left corner. roma then got a third chance after awarded a PK, totti beat the keeper but shanked it way to the left. the came ended 2-0. what a way to start off the season.

Birthday and more

i haven't updated my blog in a while, because I've been trying to figure out my schedule that they give to us day by day. not really much has happened lately. although on my birthday (September 5th) i got a ticket to watch AS ROMA's opening game against Livorno. it's at the stadio olympico this saturday. that night i went out with the girls and tony. i will not do that again anytime soon. my class schedule is not planned very well. although italian will be done in three weeks.

CLASS SCHEDULE:

Monday: IT (4:30-6:30)
Tuesday: 484 (10:30-12) 481 (3:30-5:00)
Wednesday: 470 (10:30-12) 484 (2:30-3:30) IT (3:30-5:30)
Thursday: ART H (3:30-6:30)
Friday: 470 (9-12)

i'm finally being able to walk around and not get lost. although i do not suggest walking in the ghetto alone in the dark though.

DAY 5: first day of class

i woke up today and went to another orientation. after that i paid for text books and a key deposit. after dropping more money and not getting a recipt, i went and had lunch with katie, hana, and leah at buono. the man at the counter again asked me, "chinese, hong kong, no korean." then he told me how he does a lot of martial arts. i haven't done martial art since i was five. anyway i had a piece of basil pizza, which was fantastic. after that i walked across the river to tresevre which had a larger supermarcato. after getting nothing but drinks we walked back to my apartment and sat around until 4:30 p.m. then we went to italian and met our pregent instructor simona betrello (sp). when italian ended around 6:30 tony, reid, and i went and picked up our ikea stuff from the girls apartment since brenton was lazy and brought only his stuff back. on the walk back i stopped at the pizzaria on the corner on del arco ciambella (our street), and got some more pizza (patato this time). after that we saw a sign advertising the roma/juventus friendly match. so the apartment went down to the irish pub and watched the match. since they could find the match until halftime they gave everyone free jager shots. when the match ended 1-0 roma, we walked back home and puttered around the apartment until we got tired and fell a sleep.

DAY FOUR: TRIP TO IKEA

i woke up today around noon, ate a bowl of cereal and went to ikea with tony, reid, brenton, his fiance laurel, and kristen (laurel's roommate). we took a taxi to ikea where i bought a non-crappy pillow, and a badass comforter, (i'll try to post a picture of it), a rug, etc. we then got outside and tony asked laurel how are we going to get back. she didn't know. we then tried to call taxi sevices with the help from ikea personel, but to no avail. we then heard of a bus stop across the highway that would take us to a metro station that would get us closer (that's where ikea is located by the highway). we crossed the highway with our bags of ikea stuff only to find out that the bus stop is not there, and where ever this mystery bus stop was it was a 50 minute walk. we never found this bus stop. at the gas station across the highway we all got water and i bought a map so we might have a chance to get back home. we then crossed the highway again and went back to ikea where some stayed outside and others tried calling phone numbers on an emergancy card given to us on orientation day. all the numbers on the card are COMPLETE crap. no one would answer the phone. so with daylight disappearing we decided to walk the 15 miles back home. we started out walking on the shoulder of the highway until we finally reach a residential neighborhood that was a little sketchy. we walked more than two-thirds of the way back before we finally could flag the first taxi we saw. the cab driver could only take 5 of the 6 of us so tony, reid, and i decided to walk the rest of the way. the cab driver pointed to the other side of the road where there was supposed to be a cab caller. yeah it didn't work. so we found a pizzaria right next to it and ate our first meal of the day. we finally flagged down a cab and got home. good thing we didn't try to walk it. it would have taken us another 3 hours. so the moral of the story is don't go to ikea which is 15 miles out of the centeral part of rome on a sunday with no map, a bad emerency phone card, and no way to get home. otherwise you'll be walking home.

2nd & 3rd DAY

DAY TWO: after walking up late (around noon) i ate a bowl of frosted flakes and was on my way with tony and reid. scottie, reid, and i went to the ATM machine near the pantheon. there we took some pictures and they got some money. scott and reid became fasinated with the most haggard door in the entire world and took a million pictures of how the light was interically playing with the door. people would stop look at them, then look at this haggard door but couldn't figure it out. two waitors were watching them from a door, then finally one of them came over and asked why they were taking pictures of such a crappy door. considering that the panethon was across the plaza. after they explained it to them he laughed and walked back to his shop. i really didn't do much that day. around six angel and katelin stopped by with niki, renita, and amy. we then went to piazza nuovo. there we found a bar that catered to americans. the special was with every pint you purchased you would get a free shot. the only reason i went into this place was because they had the uefa cup on. after sitting there for a while i went and got some gelato (cafe and chacolat). it was so much i could barely finish it. scott, alec, and i then walked around piazza nuovo watching a magic show and fire throwers (both were bad). after we got back to the bar renita had got the phone number to our hot waitress (ha). after that we started to head back to the apartment and stopped at the pantheon where a movie was being filmed. after we got back to the apartment and everthing started to slow down, the rest of the guys came back. this is when we found out that zak got his new camera/video recorder stolen. he was pissed. more drinking occured until about four in the morning. i went to be around two.

DAY THREE: i got up around seven this morning for our orientation/walking tour. the rest of the house started sturring around 8:30, we ate breakfast and headed out the door. after getting speeches we had a little break and went on the longest tour of our OWN neighborhoods. after that everyone went to bed and nick and i went back to the trevi fountain, and bought a official roma flag for the living room. after that i took a nap. the guys went and saw tv on the radio, and i went to the spanish steps with jennifer, elisa, stephanie, lindsey, brittney, and andrea. after that i went to bed.

1st full day in rome

today started off well. i woke up around 7 a.m. and updated this blog, before heading to the supermarcato with alec. the supermarcato is located across from the pantheon. it was a little chilly out this morning, but i hear that it won't last. we got back and tony arrives at the appartment and we go to the collegio ramano so i can get a pair of keys that actually work (the night before i came home and wanted to try my keys only to find out that i had two outside door keys so i couldn't get into the apartment). after getting the keys we met up with angel and katelin at the collegio. we then went to the studio were we checked to see if alec and frank's luggage had arrived. it hadn't so they are on day three of the same clothing. by the time we had returned everyone else had arrived (zak, zach, trevor, and nick). we all went back to the supermarcato and bought some groceries. everyone seemed to end up with similar items milk, cereal, pasta with sauce, and wine. after returning to the apartment tony, katelin, angel, reid, and i set off to find as roma tickets. we found a shop that sells them but they don't actually sell them until days before the game. after we found the shop we went looking for cellphones and ended up back at the studio where niki and adrianna were at the computers. niki was waiting for her baggage and adrianna was on the floor sleeping. after talking with them we looked for cellphones to no avail. by this time we were pretty hungery and ate at a shop called buono. in the shop i was asked if i was chinese. i answered no, he then asked if was from hong kong. i answered i was american, but i knew he wanted to know my nationality. so i told him i was korean. he then proceeded to speak to me in korean, i ignored him. i ate two slices of pizza, tony had some pasteries, and angel and katelin had sandwiches that were a little burnt. actually there sandwiches were black (bwahahaha). after lunch we decided to go to angel and katelin's. we walked past capitoline hill the colosium, and then into the forum. after our little adventure we made it to their apartment which i think was on the sixth floor. they gave us a tour of their place and then we went on the roof. i almost died walking up and back down. after spazzing out on the roof we walked to amanda's apartment. as we were walking to her place through a park (we were trying to find a short cut) on the ground were dirty needles and dog crap. when we arrived at amanda's we took a short tour and were on our way. later that night we had people over and they drank wine. lots of wine. we then went out for gelato and ate it on the steps of the panetheon. reid then tried to do handstands in front of the pantheon. he got an applause from the crowd. we then returned to the apartment where we got the soccer ball where tony, reid, scottie, and i went out into the streets and attempted to juggle the ball. a woman open her window and started to yell so we moved to an open square. after that we went to bed.