I also need to tell you all about my Italian Student Companion Situation! So I have briefly explained to you a few instances of my ISC's insanity. Well basically the straw that broke the camel's back was when Flavia flipped out on my roommate Katy over defrosted chicken to the point where she felt physically threatened and called the IES emergency hotline (hahah funny in hindsight). "The chicken insident occurred tuesday Feb 17 and we met with the IES coordinatiors the next day to explain our situation. Below is the list of grievances we supplied them:
List of Greivances
1. Incident with Katy’s chicken versus Flavia’s chicken
2. Planned event an online facebook group with over 100 invitations at our apartment for her birthday and cannot bring our own friends unless they “bring food, alcohol, or presents for her birthday”
3. Never asked our permission or if we would be ok with this
-Liz, Anndel, and Katy will be out of town
-Jessie will be alone with at least thirty strangers in the house
4. Friends smoking in living room one afternoon
-Didn’t know these three Italian men and none of them spoke English
5. Dinner date with her boyfriend
-Liz and Anndel had to go to Vincenzo’s house to cook dinner because we weren’t allowed to use our kitchen or living room
-Jessie and Katy ate out on their way home from school
-We had our first Italian quiz the next afternoon and couldn’t study for it at our house because they were loud and using the living room
6. Incident with Liz and water on bathroom floor (What the fuck? I just cleaned the bathroom!)
7. Incident with Anndel and bags on table
8. Incident with Anndel and laughing at her deadly allergies
9. Wakes up everyday, hungover at noon
10. Comes in at night very late (around 4-5 am), but gets very angry and confrontational if we are late and make any noise
11. Boyfriend over all the time—smokes out of living room window
12. Always on the internet and completely ignores our requests to use the internet and communicate briefly with friends and family—even leaves her computer on and connected to the internet when she leaves the house
-We all respect each other’s time as much as we can and will sign off from the internet so that others can get on
-Whines and becomes hostile (as in, What the fuck, why can’t I get on?) when she is unable to use the internet
13. She informed us that she had driven 2 other IES students in her car from the grocery store
14. Keeps the heat on all the time even though we’re all extremely hot. We have also informed her that we want to be conserving energy so that we’re not charged extra.
-We try to open the windows but she either tells us to close them or closes them herself
15. We do not feel comfortable with her alone in our apartment with our things
-We know of times that she has moved our things into or around our room, despite the fact that we’re not allowed in her room
16. Inappropriate conversation topics (i.e. past sexual experiences and drug abuse)
We basically feel as if Flavia thinks that she is allowing us to live in her apartment and use her things, not that we are all sharing an apartment and its respective duties together. She makes no attempt to acclimate to the way in which we live and go about things, but expects us to cater to all of her feelings, desires, and priorities.
Yeah so anyways when we originally had our meeting with IES they acted as if they weren't even taking us seriously and we were just whining or something, but when we returned home that afternoon Flavia was packing her things and moving out. YAY Ding Dong Flavia's gone! So we were isc-less for the weekend even though me and Anndel weren't there to bask in the glory. However we were infomed that we would receive a new isc the monday we returned :(. The good news is that our new isc Sylvia is really nice, super sweet, shy, way more mature, and well... not a psycopath! So far so good... We'll see how she works out.
P.S. I hate IES!!! It seems like they really could care less about us and their only concern is to be a disiplinarian when we are all 20-21 years old and have lived in apartments on our own before. When we were in Switzerland we got an email saying that we had to meet with IES over a noise complaint that had been reported. Basically we have old neighbors and live in a nice part of town so any noise we make is a "disturbance." We are really well behaved and the building is so old that just unlocking your door echos and clunks absurdly loud. They told us that our shoes clinking on the hallway floor was an issue!! I was like what do u want us to do?? Bring slippers out with us at night?? We're basically a scape goat and they couldn't give us one single incident of when we were loud. The landlord just said that it had been an issue. They told us that if we come home late we cant move furnature, we have to take off our shoes or somehow make them silent, and not make any noise while in out apartment because the people below us can hear... lol.... We all were like ummmm ok so basically... we can't do anything... hopefully it wont be an issue in the future.
Anywho... other than that everything is great and I'm still loving it here. I can't wait for Jon, Anda, Chris, and Doug to come visit!!
Ciao!!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Switzerland is for crazy people and I belong!!
SOOOO... This past Thursday I left for Switzerland!! There were about 17 of us going from IES and we left directly from the IES center at about 4:30PM right after our last class (Italian). We then cabbed it to Termini where we met up with the rest of the group and hopped on a high speed train to Florence. Once in Florence we took a bus to Interlaken which I believe was about an 8 hour drive. I went with some of my best friends that I have made here and some others that I got to know during the trip (Kurt, Matt, Greg, Gregg, Anndel, Andrew, Alex, Kelsey, Kellyn, Chelsea, Jaquelin, Mae, Brittany, Karly, Natalie, and Brandon). So the bus ride was pretty entertaining. We all napped a little bit. We got to watch ENGLISH movies (The Bourne Identity series) the entire way there (Ah I was so excited!!!)!! We all acted immature and goofed off. Brandon bought ipod speakers for 10 euro and blared techno music in the dead of the night, to which all of the IES kids had a dance in your seat party to. I don't think the kids from the other program liked us very much. A few of the boys thought it would be a good idea to chug wine on the bus towards the end of the trip so that was entertaining to observe as well (P.S. song of the trip "Call on me" and "Just Dance").
We stayed at a "hotel" called Funny Farm and it was the biggest hostel I have ever seen. I definitely wasn't prepared for the conditions. Chincy bunk beds, no towels, mold on the ceiling of the bathroom. We were living luxuriously. We arrived at Funny Farm at about 4am Friday morning. All of the girls with the exception of Natalie and Karly shared a room and all of the guys shared a room directly above us. All of the girls decided to go to bed because well it was four in the morning and they wanted to be able to function the next day.... but not I!! Anndel and I went down to the bar with the guys and hung out for a while and by a while I mean until the sun rose and breakfast was served..... (Breakfast was toast and jam by the way. The mean Swiss/German lady said it was a Swiss breakfast but I say it was a rip off)...
So we went to bed at about 7 am and woke up at about 10:30 and decided that it was about time to jump off some canyons. We had to wait until 2:30 so we decided to venture to this small restaurant in town where some of the boys had gotten Kabob's earlier (We called the restaurant Kabob for the entire trip). So I made the large mistake of trying to eat the entire Kabob myself which probably could have fed a small country (No one is shocked I know). The entire time we drove up the mountain to Canyon Jump I was fighting off the urge to vomit. So we get up a portion of a mountain, park the car, and hike up a trail to the jumping point. Anndel, the southerner who cant remember the last time she has seen snow, fell twice during the trek and a spontaneous snow ball fight broke out at one point. We signed a release form, paid 85 euro, and got strapped in for the fall. Anndel was so scared that she cried while being strapped in and bawled to our Swiss guide once on the platform to jump; she eventually made the jump though. I loved it!! I was petrified but have never done something so cool in you life. You are strapped in to a harness and free fall 300 feet before you start swinging between two canyon walls. After the jump the boys insisted on eating dinner at Hooter's, where I feasted on curly fries because they were the cheapest thing on the menu (7£). A diet coke was 4£. Europe is ridiculous!!!! We then went to the hostel and got ready for the Euro pop discoteca that was located in the basement of our hostel: complete ridiculousness and so much fun. Once again we stayed up way to late and got up at 8am to go skiing in the Swiss alps (130£... YIKES I'm gonna come home penniless and I don't even like skiing!!)
Ok so I don't know exactly what I was expecting because um it was the SWISS ALPS but I thought I could find a bunny trail somewhere and kind of dilly dally with all of the other beginners down a small part of a mountain.... UM NO!! Anyone who is wondering... the Alps is NOT for beginners!! We took a train all the way up this mountain because that is the main ski lift. We get off and the girls go to the "Beginner's trail." Anndel has skied once before in her life and wipes out hard 3 ft down the slope and then even harder 30 feet down the hill (Oh how I wish I had a video of it.) Seeing how terribly Anndel did made me feel like I would be okay... So Anndel quits the whole skiing thing 15 minutes after arriving. We tell her to hang out where she is and that we will be back to get her after we do a run. Soooo.... We all start going down this trail Matt and Kellyn get ahead of me and Kelsey. Kelsey wipes out and I lose her. I try to take this turn to a lift thinking that's where Matt and Kellyn went only to eat it Hard and then to realize that I am alone!!.. I turn around and continue to head down the trail. I never find anyone.. There are no other ski lifts down the ENTIRE mountain. It took me two hours to finish this trail BY MYSELF... It was insanely hard and every ten feet you could either run directly into a large forest of trees or off of a cliff... no literally (This was no Tussey mountain!!) I start crying into my ski goggles half way down the mountain and continued to do so for 20 minutes while I went so slow that 4 year- olds were wooshing by me showing considerably more skill than myself. It literally took me 2 hours!! and I went down THE ENTIRE mountain, and I'm not sure if you are aware but the alps are somewhat large. I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of the day but luckily I found Kelsey at the bottom. We took the train ride back up the mountain and began our search for Anndel whom we were were convinced was about 6 beers deep at a Swiss bar somewhere. We eventually hear Anndel screaming our names and running after us with ski gear in hand. Apparently Anndel was so convinced that were going to come back down to get her and was scared of being left that she has laid in the position where she had fallen for 3 HOURS just waiting for us to come back... She said during her time alone she had many self revelations and a few good cry sessions (HAHHA)... We then spent the rest of the day eating and drinking hot chocolate. At about 4:30 we left the mountain and returned to home sweet home at the Funny Farm. At which time we ate more Kabob, drank more beer (I learned a game called speed quarters.. so much fun girls can't wait to teach you!!), had a 6th grade war with the boys upstairs after they tried to hoist out beer off of our balcony with a hand made hook and rope concoction. At the end of the night we once again returned to the disco and danced absurdly. By the way they play a lot of American music in Europe but it's all from like 5 to 10 years ago. I distinctly remember getting my groove on to "It's getting hot in here" by Nelly
Sunday we woke up at 10:30 and packed up our things and attempted to clean our frat house of a room. We left Funny Farm at 4PM and took a bus the entire way home. We watched movies the entire way back again (Van Wilder, Knocked Up, Superbad, 21). However we were somewhat less rambunctious considering I probably got a total of 14 hours of sleep over the three nights I was there and the others had similar experiences. We arrived back in Rome at 4AM Monday morning and cabbed it back home to get 3 hours of sleep before waking up for classes :)
....SOOOO worth it!!
P.S. there was a giant 250 lb Saint Bernard named Splif and a female bartender with dreadlocks that went by the name of "Jelly" residing at Funny Farm... this is the place we stayed hahah
We stayed at a "hotel" called Funny Farm and it was the biggest hostel I have ever seen. I definitely wasn't prepared for the conditions. Chincy bunk beds, no towels, mold on the ceiling of the bathroom. We were living luxuriously. We arrived at Funny Farm at about 4am Friday morning. All of the girls with the exception of Natalie and Karly shared a room and all of the guys shared a room directly above us. All of the girls decided to go to bed because well it was four in the morning and they wanted to be able to function the next day.... but not I!! Anndel and I went down to the bar with the guys and hung out for a while and by a while I mean until the sun rose and breakfast was served..... (Breakfast was toast and jam by the way. The mean Swiss/German lady said it was a Swiss breakfast but I say it was a rip off)...
So we went to bed at about 7 am and woke up at about 10:30 and decided that it was about time to jump off some canyons. We had to wait until 2:30 so we decided to venture to this small restaurant in town where some of the boys had gotten Kabob's earlier (We called the restaurant Kabob for the entire trip). So I made the large mistake of trying to eat the entire Kabob myself which probably could have fed a small country (No one is shocked I know). The entire time we drove up the mountain to Canyon Jump I was fighting off the urge to vomit. So we get up a portion of a mountain, park the car, and hike up a trail to the jumping point. Anndel, the southerner who cant remember the last time she has seen snow, fell twice during the trek and a spontaneous snow ball fight broke out at one point. We signed a release form, paid 85 euro, and got strapped in for the fall. Anndel was so scared that she cried while being strapped in and bawled to our Swiss guide once on the platform to jump; she eventually made the jump though. I loved it!! I was petrified but have never done something so cool in you life. You are strapped in to a harness and free fall 300 feet before you start swinging between two canyon walls. After the jump the boys insisted on eating dinner at Hooter's, where I feasted on curly fries because they were the cheapest thing on the menu (7£). A diet coke was 4£. Europe is ridiculous!!!! We then went to the hostel and got ready for the Euro pop discoteca that was located in the basement of our hostel: complete ridiculousness and so much fun. Once again we stayed up way to late and got up at 8am to go skiing in the Swiss alps (130£... YIKES I'm gonna come home penniless and I don't even like skiing!!)
Ok so I don't know exactly what I was expecting because um it was the SWISS ALPS but I thought I could find a bunny trail somewhere and kind of dilly dally with all of the other beginners down a small part of a mountain.... UM NO!! Anyone who is wondering... the Alps is NOT for beginners!! We took a train all the way up this mountain because that is the main ski lift. We get off and the girls go to the "Beginner's trail." Anndel has skied once before in her life and wipes out hard 3 ft down the slope and then even harder 30 feet down the hill (Oh how I wish I had a video of it.) Seeing how terribly Anndel did made me feel like I would be okay... So Anndel quits the whole skiing thing 15 minutes after arriving. We tell her to hang out where she is and that we will be back to get her after we do a run. Soooo.... We all start going down this trail Matt and Kellyn get ahead of me and Kelsey. Kelsey wipes out and I lose her. I try to take this turn to a lift thinking that's where Matt and Kellyn went only to eat it Hard and then to realize that I am alone!!.. I turn around and continue to head down the trail. I never find anyone.. There are no other ski lifts down the ENTIRE mountain. It took me two hours to finish this trail BY MYSELF... It was insanely hard and every ten feet you could either run directly into a large forest of trees or off of a cliff... no literally (This was no Tussey mountain!!) I start crying into my ski goggles half way down the mountain and continued to do so for 20 minutes while I went so slow that 4 year- olds were wooshing by me showing considerably more skill than myself. It literally took me 2 hours!! and I went down THE ENTIRE mountain, and I'm not sure if you are aware but the alps are somewhat large. I thought I was going to be alone for the rest of the day but luckily I found Kelsey at the bottom. We took the train ride back up the mountain and began our search for Anndel whom we were were convinced was about 6 beers deep at a Swiss bar somewhere. We eventually hear Anndel screaming our names and running after us with ski gear in hand. Apparently Anndel was so convinced that were going to come back down to get her and was scared of being left that she has laid in the position where she had fallen for 3 HOURS just waiting for us to come back... She said during her time alone she had many self revelations and a few good cry sessions (HAHHA)... We then spent the rest of the day eating and drinking hot chocolate. At about 4:30 we left the mountain and returned to home sweet home at the Funny Farm. At which time we ate more Kabob, drank more beer (I learned a game called speed quarters.. so much fun girls can't wait to teach you!!), had a 6th grade war with the boys upstairs after they tried to hoist out beer off of our balcony with a hand made hook and rope concoction. At the end of the night we once again returned to the disco and danced absurdly. By the way they play a lot of American music in Europe but it's all from like 5 to 10 years ago. I distinctly remember getting my groove on to "It's getting hot in here" by Nelly
Sunday we woke up at 10:30 and packed up our things and attempted to clean our frat house of a room. We left Funny Farm at 4PM and took a bus the entire way home. We watched movies the entire way back again (Van Wilder, Knocked Up, Superbad, 21). However we were somewhat less rambunctious considering I probably got a total of 14 hours of sleep over the three nights I was there and the others had similar experiences. We arrived back in Rome at 4AM Monday morning and cabbed it back home to get 3 hours of sleep before waking up for classes :)
....SOOOO worth it!!
P.S. there was a giant 250 lb Saint Bernard named Splif and a female bartender with dreadlocks that went by the name of "Jelly" residing at Funny Farm... this is the place we stayed hahah
Monday, February 16, 2009
Gelato will make me fat
Heyyy
So it's about noon here and I just got done with my first two actual classes. I had a history class about the Jews of Rome and then a Renaissance Art History class. I really liked both of them. The professors both seem really cool and knowledgeable. I'm hoping to get out of the Jews of Rome class and get into another art history class because i need it for my major. I'm on a waiting list so we'll see.
Things are going well. We never ended up going to Spain this weekend like we hoped for. We just didn't have enough time to plan out all of the details. Instead we spent the weekend wandering around Rome. We planned to tour some important places that we have yet to see like The Vatican and the Sistine chapel, however we ended up wandering around and not finding much of anything. All of the girls were festively dressed for Valentines Day on Saturday for our excursion. My roommate Anndel was my valentine and we decided to celebrate our love by making mimosas and wandering the streets of Rome, drinking out of an orange juice box.... because we're classy. We went out Friday and Saturday. Saturday was a BUST me and Anndel got separated from the group because we were trying to meet up with some people in Testacchio and go to this club. We had no idea how to get there. So one of the girls we were originally with asked a cab driver how to get there. Long story short we took a sketchy metro to a place where we had never been before. No one could tell us where we were. We ended up deciding to take a cab to the club. Along the way we turn the corner (5 minutes and 15 euro into the cab ride) and BOOM right in front of us is the Colosseum (where we started). We did a full circle and practically ended up back at our apartment. Needless to say we called it a night right then and there and were in bed by 12:30. Saturday was fun. We went to this place that everyone calls "cheap bar" because you can get a GRANDE perino beer for 2.50£.
So I booked a trip through this site: Euroadventures. Next weekend I'm going to Switzerland!! A whole bunch of us from IES are going and we're going canyon jumping!! Watch the video on youtube it's pretty nuts. I'm really excited for the trip even though it's supposed to be 20 degrees and snowing :( I'm so glad I didn't bring any of my winter gear... I went to a flea market yesterday and bought this heinous 10£ coat that I'm sure will be completely ineffective. I also don't have snow friendly shoes but I'm thinking I'll figure it out before I go. I pray that they will have coffee in Switzerland because I'm going through withdraw!!
tata for now!!
Ciao
Liz
P.S. Flavia gave me and Anndel a hard time about missing her birthday this upcoming weekend and is having 100 people over to our apartment for a birthday party!! Ug... thats all i have to say.
So it's about noon here and I just got done with my first two actual classes. I had a history class about the Jews of Rome and then a Renaissance Art History class. I really liked both of them. The professors both seem really cool and knowledgeable. I'm hoping to get out of the Jews of Rome class and get into another art history class because i need it for my major. I'm on a waiting list so we'll see.
Things are going well. We never ended up going to Spain this weekend like we hoped for. We just didn't have enough time to plan out all of the details. Instead we spent the weekend wandering around Rome. We planned to tour some important places that we have yet to see like The Vatican and the Sistine chapel, however we ended up wandering around and not finding much of anything. All of the girls were festively dressed for Valentines Day on Saturday for our excursion. My roommate Anndel was my valentine and we decided to celebrate our love by making mimosas and wandering the streets of Rome, drinking out of an orange juice box.... because we're classy. We went out Friday and Saturday. Saturday was a BUST me and Anndel got separated from the group because we were trying to meet up with some people in Testacchio and go to this club. We had no idea how to get there. So one of the girls we were originally with asked a cab driver how to get there. Long story short we took a sketchy metro to a place where we had never been before. No one could tell us where we were. We ended up deciding to take a cab to the club. Along the way we turn the corner (5 minutes and 15 euro into the cab ride) and BOOM right in front of us is the Colosseum (where we started). We did a full circle and practically ended up back at our apartment. Needless to say we called it a night right then and there and were in bed by 12:30. Saturday was fun. We went to this place that everyone calls "cheap bar" because you can get a GRANDE perino beer for 2.50£.
So I booked a trip through this site: Euroadventures. Next weekend I'm going to Switzerland!! A whole bunch of us from IES are going and we're going canyon jumping!! Watch the video on youtube it's pretty nuts. I'm really excited for the trip even though it's supposed to be 20 degrees and snowing :( I'm so glad I didn't bring any of my winter gear... I went to a flea market yesterday and bought this heinous 10£ coat that I'm sure will be completely ineffective. I also don't have snow friendly shoes but I'm thinking I'll figure it out before I go. I pray that they will have coffee in Switzerland because I'm going through withdraw!!
tata for now!!
Ciao
Liz
P.S. Flavia gave me and Anndel a hard time about missing her birthday this upcoming weekend and is having 100 people over to our apartment for a birthday party!! Ug... thats all i have to say.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
okie dokie so what do I have to update y'all about??? yes I said y'all. I keep getting made fun of because I have picked it up from my roommates already. Anywho we went to Assisi (the home of St. Francis) and Perusia on an IES field trip this weekend. It was a pretty cool experience. We stayed in this hotel with a random roommate and ate a lot and toured these GORGEOUS churches. Perusia wasn't as entertaining but it was still neat to get to see cities outside of Rome. Anndel, Kurt, Matt, Greg, and I went out to this bar on Sunday. The guys had apparently already made friends with the manager (his name is Elvio so the boys call him Elvis) there and it was seriously probably one of the best times I've ever had... lol too many hilarious things happened
You know how I said that my Italian student companion was awesome and that I loved her? latest update: the b**** is crazy (pardon my italian)!! She is very confrontational. Shes OCD about cleanliness. She yelled at me because I got a little bit of water (yes water) on the bathroom floor after I took a shower. Anndel is deathly allergic to nuts and fish and Flavia laughed at her when she asked her to read the ingredients to her on a cookie box to make sure there weren't any nuts. She tries to tell us what to do and EVERYTHING is about her... we're all going crazy dealing with her so we'll see what comes from that.
We're thinking about going to Madrid this weekend if we can figure everything out because its a 16£ flight. We've been hanging out with Kurt and his roommates a lot so far and I've never laughed so hard as when I'm around them so at least I'm entertained most of the time.
Oh and latest adventure: I started getting all of the symptoms of bronchitis again so i had to go to the doctors today, by myself. Um yeah girl that has no sense of direction taking public transportation to a part of town shes never been when she doesn't even know how to ask for directions. It was interesting but I didn't get lost so I was fairly impressed with myself. And good news: no bronchitis just a cold. I think that's it for now. I have intensive italian at 4 and then maybe going out??
Miss you all
Ciao
Liz
You know how I said that my Italian student companion was awesome and that I loved her? latest update: the b**** is crazy (pardon my italian)!! She is very confrontational. Shes OCD about cleanliness. She yelled at me because I got a little bit of water (yes water) on the bathroom floor after I took a shower. Anndel is deathly allergic to nuts and fish and Flavia laughed at her when she asked her to read the ingredients to her on a cookie box to make sure there weren't any nuts. She tries to tell us what to do and EVERYTHING is about her... we're all going crazy dealing with her so we'll see what comes from that.
We're thinking about going to Madrid this weekend if we can figure everything out because its a 16£ flight. We've been hanging out with Kurt and his roommates a lot so far and I've never laughed so hard as when I'm around them so at least I'm entertained most of the time.
Oh and latest adventure: I started getting all of the symptoms of bronchitis again so i had to go to the doctors today, by myself. Um yeah girl that has no sense of direction taking public transportation to a part of town shes never been when she doesn't even know how to ask for directions. It was interesting but I didn't get lost so I was fairly impressed with myself. And good news: no bronchitis just a cold. I think that's it for now. I have intensive italian at 4 and then maybe going out??
Miss you all
Ciao
Liz
Thursday, February 5, 2009
I can't talk to the people where I live
So I feel retarded every time I go out in public because I don't speak Italian. Other IES students and I often resort to pointing and hoping they speak English, which they often don't. I think after three days I've got the bare minimum down. I can say thank you, please, excuse me, get away, and that's it... seriously that's it. We start intensive Italian next week so hopefully that will help.
Yesterday we took a tour of Rome. We saw everything, Trevi fountain, pantheon, Colosseum, and lots lots more. I'm going to post pictures soon. Seriously this city is indescribably beautiful... Everything here is like the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Last night My roommates, Kurt and his roommates and I went out to a bar and discoteca. I think we all had a great time. The discoteca was awesome but it cost 10£ for a beer!! Freakin Kurt was like "I'm gonna go buy us some beers throw me like a ten." So I'm thinking like ok he'll come back with some change.... No. He comes back and I'm like Kurt wheres my change and he tells me that there is no change and that the beer was 10£ lol... what the eff?? lol I'm still mad about it. Tomorrow we leave to go to Assisi and some other small town in Rome as a part of our IES orientation so I'll let you know how that goes.
I get really homesick at night and sometimes during the day especially if I'm tired, but other than that all is going well
I'll post again soon
Liz
Yesterday we took a tour of Rome. We saw everything, Trevi fountain, pantheon, Colosseum, and lots lots more. I'm going to post pictures soon. Seriously this city is indescribably beautiful... Everything here is like the prettiest thing I've ever seen. Last night My roommates, Kurt and his roommates and I went out to a bar and discoteca. I think we all had a great time. The discoteca was awesome but it cost 10£ for a beer!! Freakin Kurt was like "I'm gonna go buy us some beers throw me like a ten." So I'm thinking like ok he'll come back with some change.... No. He comes back and I'm like Kurt wheres my change and he tells me that there is no change and that the beer was 10£ lol... what the eff?? lol I'm still mad about it. Tomorrow we leave to go to Assisi and some other small town in Rome as a part of our IES orientation so I'll let you know how that goes.
I get really homesick at night and sometimes during the day especially if I'm tired, but other than that all is going well
I'll post again soon
Liz
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
adventures of traveling to Rome
Soooo... flying was pretty uneventful. I arrived at the Phily airport on time and went through security and check in pretty flawlessly aside from the fact that i had to rearrange my massive suitcase into two separate bags in the middle of the airport. My flight to Dulles was barely in the air for 25 minutes unlike my 8 1/2 hour trip to Rome which was actually made pretty bearable thanks to a friendly fellow IES student who offered me some Dramamine.
My first day at Rome was AMAZING!!! I was the first (aside from my Italian roommate, Flavia) to arrive at my apartment. I drove past the Colosseum on the way to my apartment. I cannot wait until you guys see the pictures of my apartment on facebook or wherever I get to post them eventually. It's so European. It has really high ceilings, all wood floors, very simple beds, closets that go clear to the ceiling. I have a small balcony off of my room. We have an entry way, kitchen, living room, two bathrooms, and two spacious bedrooms (other than Flavia's). Flavia said that we live in an upperclass neighborhood, and that we probably got one of the best housing assignments. However, upon arrival we did not have ANY hot water the first day. I waited til the last possible moment to take a shower and I mean it was cold! Like, ice cicles coming out of the faucet, shivering even when i got dressed after, cold.
I have four total roommates. Two (Anndel and Jessie) go to different universities in South Carolina and are friends from home. They are very cute and say "y'all" a lot. Anndel is very outgoing and giggly and Jessie is a little shyer but sweet. My other American roommate and the girl I share a room with is Katy. She is from LA and goes to the University of Michigan. She is very verbose and says what she means. Shes been pretty down because the airport lost an important piece of her luggage but she seems nice. I think my favorite roommate so far is Flavia! She is great she is 23 and speaks English very well. She's so much fun and is always laughing at me for my American ways. While Anndel and Jessie were taking a nap Flavia took me around to some shops around our neighborhood to buy some towels and such. On the way back we stopped at her parents house for lunch because it is very close to our apartment. They were so kind and cute, and insisted on feeding me lots of Italian food. They didn't speak a word of English so it was frustrating not being able to thanks them properly.
At night we went out to a pizzeria with other IES students to eat dinner (it was so good). We didn't go out afterwards because everyone was so tired but I think we will go out soon!!
Anywho, that was about the extent of my first day apart from the fact that I couldn't sleep like at all because of the time difference and am now exhausted :(
Next post to come soon!!
Ciao
Liz
My first day at Rome was AMAZING!!! I was the first (aside from my Italian roommate, Flavia) to arrive at my apartment. I drove past the Colosseum on the way to my apartment. I cannot wait until you guys see the pictures of my apartment on facebook or wherever I get to post them eventually. It's so European. It has really high ceilings, all wood floors, very simple beds, closets that go clear to the ceiling. I have a small balcony off of my room. We have an entry way, kitchen, living room, two bathrooms, and two spacious bedrooms (other than Flavia's). Flavia said that we live in an upperclass neighborhood, and that we probably got one of the best housing assignments. However, upon arrival we did not have ANY hot water the first day. I waited til the last possible moment to take a shower and I mean it was cold! Like, ice cicles coming out of the faucet, shivering even when i got dressed after, cold.
I have four total roommates. Two (Anndel and Jessie) go to different universities in South Carolina and are friends from home. They are very cute and say "y'all" a lot. Anndel is very outgoing and giggly and Jessie is a little shyer but sweet. My other American roommate and the girl I share a room with is Katy. She is from LA and goes to the University of Michigan. She is very verbose and says what she means. Shes been pretty down because the airport lost an important piece of her luggage but she seems nice. I think my favorite roommate so far is Flavia! She is great she is 23 and speaks English very well. She's so much fun and is always laughing at me for my American ways. While Anndel and Jessie were taking a nap Flavia took me around to some shops around our neighborhood to buy some towels and such. On the way back we stopped at her parents house for lunch because it is very close to our apartment. They were so kind and cute, and insisted on feeding me lots of Italian food. They didn't speak a word of English so it was frustrating not being able to thanks them properly.
At night we went out to a pizzeria with other IES students to eat dinner (it was so good). We didn't go out afterwards because everyone was so tired but I think we will go out soon!!
Anywho, that was about the extent of my first day apart from the fact that I couldn't sleep like at all because of the time difference and am now exhausted :(
Next post to come soon!!
Ciao
Liz
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