Where's the pause button?!

I’m rather alarmed to announce that this past Thursday was the 5-week mark for how long I’ve been in Europe, and I’ll be the first to admit that have absolutely no idea how 5 weeks could’ve possible passed so quickly. It feels like I spent so many months just preparing to go abroad; between deciding on a country, a school, applying, waiting for an acceptance letter, going through pre-departure orientation and paperwork, applying for my Italian visa, booking flights, choosing classes…the steps to get here seemed endless. Now I’m not only finally here in Italy but I’ve been in classes for 3 weeks, my parents arrive in 2 weeks, and I have nearly every weekend through when I leave to go home in December planned with travel or the arrival of family and friends. Throughout the many months of preparation to go abroad, the very thought of living in another country for 4 whole months seemed like an eternity. Even a couple of weeks ago, school had just started and the idea of living here in Rome until Christmas and being in class for a whole semester rather than a 10-week quarter at DU made it feel like I’d be here forever. But between my 3-day school weeks packed full of classes, homework, and soccer practice – and my weekends that are spent travelling to the far reaches of Italy – time is moving faster than ever and I seem to find myself searching for a pause button in a desperate attempt to stop time just long enough for me to reflect on the experiences I’ve had thus far.

Now that I’ve gained some sense of direction for the sprawling city of Rome and figured out where I live in relation to major landmarks, etc. I’m becoming more and more comfortable with spending my time between classes wandering the city. Without a lot of homework (at least not in relation to being a biology major at DU…) I have far more spare time than I seem to know what to do with. So during breaks between my classes I tend to stop at one of the two open-air markets to get some fruit and then off I go – I just pick a direction and start walking. I can only do this for a couple of hours because by that time it’s the siesta part of the afternoon and everything closes, but it’s forced me to learn the city better and has allowed me to discover tons of interesting sites, potential running paths, stores, markets, and of course – gelato shops. The rest of my school week, although I’m not sure I can even call it that since it’s only 3 days long, is consumed by soccer practice and spending time with friends. My friends and I have started taking turns cooking dinners for each other in our apartments, so we usually gather at someone’s place 2-3 nights per week and enjoy attempting random Italian recipes – knowing that if it doesn’t turn out we can always resort to eating gelato for dinner ☺ Soccer is still in Italian and thus incredibly disorienting, but overall it is going really well as I’ve been named one of our two starting offensive players and am looking forward to our playing in a tournament of Roman Universities in a couple of weeks.

My first couple of weekends in Rome have been…incredible. I wasn’t expecting to get to do as much travelling as I have been with school starting, but it’s been really easy to do homework during the week or on the train, etc. so each weekend I’ve been able to jet off to some party of Italy. Our first weekend, some friends and I took a day-trip to Naples, about a 2-hour train ride south of Rome and the birthplace of pizza! Let’s just say that when guidebooks suggest you do a day-trip to Naples rather than sleep there, I’d listen to them. Naples was…definitely just as dirty and seemingly just as crime-filled as all of the books make it out to be. Given that I spent the day there with 3 friends from NYC/New Jersey (they’re a little more street savvy than those of us who grew up in suburbia), I felt pretty safe ☺ Haha. Given the amount of sketchy characters roaming the streets and the trash blowing around my feet, we had an excellent day. Our first stop (this shouldn’t be a surprise to those of you who know how food-motivated I am ☺..) was a pizzeria. Not just any pizzeria, Pizzeria Michaela – made famous not only by Rick Steves but by the author of my new favorite book - Eat, Pray, Love. After navigating to the pizzeria only to find that there was a mob of hungry Italians winding down the street just waiting for enough tables to clear for them to even get into the restaurant, we knew that it was going to be some good pizza. And sure enough, we were not disappointed. They only served three types of pizza – marinara, margherita, and magherita with extra buffalo mozzarella cheese – plus beer or coke. Oh and they expect each customer to consume an entire pizza individually, a task that seemed daunting only until we tasted the pizza and realized that there was no way anyone could only eat a slice or two. After stuffing ourselves with the most amazing bubbly-cheesy-deliciousness of my life, we saw the sites of Naples including an ancient castle complete with a mote, the port, etc. The next two days we spent back in Rome with some friends from the DU Bologna program touring the Vatican and attending Rome’s end-of-summer festival called Bianca Notte (or “the white night), in which all of the city’s main sites and attractions stay open and lit-up all night.

Last weekend I went with a fairly large group of AUR students to the Cinque Terre – 5 Mediterranean hill towns along Italy’s northwest coast. We got to spend 3 full days there and it was so nice to be out of the chaos of Rome! I didn’t have to worry about being hit by cars, mopeds, or buses – and I could lay out on the rocks along the water and enjoy being able to see the stars for the first time in weeks. My friends and I found a man listed in Rick Steve’s Italy guidebook who rents out private rooms and got a pretty good deal on a studio apartment complete with a nice kitchen and bathroom for the 2 nights we were there. We stayed in the 4th northern-most town, Vernazza, and after hiking the coastal trail between all 5 of the towns on Saturday, we decided that Vernazza was our favorite. I’ve been to the Cinque Terre once before with my family and absolutely loved it then too. This time was quite different being there without parents and making my own hotel and train arrangements – but we had so much fun. Our first day there was a little on the cool side so we spent the day getting acquainted with Vernazza, eating the best seafood I’ve ever had at a restaurant perched on a cliff about 100 feet above the water, stargazing, and playing cards. As I mentioned before, Saturday we took a boat from Vernazza to the southern-most town (Riomaggiore) and hiked north through all 5 towns, stopping to look around each town, swim, etc. When Sunday rolled around and it was time to head back to Rome, I was definitely not ready to leave the tranquility and the beauty of the Cinque Terre – but that’ll just give me a reason to go back! ☺

This weekend was pretty low-key, a nice change from the hectic-nature that travelling each weekend brings. Yesterday I went on a day-trip with my study abroad program (ISA) on one of their planned excursions to the Tuscan town, Assisi. I really appreciated being able to just go hop on a bus and not do any of the planning or arrangements myself. We went on an organized tour of 4 churches that included a narrative of Saint Francis of Assisi’s life and got to explore the medieval streets during our free time. As one point I was in a shop buying some pretty cool souvenirs made out of wood from the local olive trees and actually ran into my friends from the DU-Bologna program, including a girl on my lacrosse team who I didn’t even realize was studying in Italy, who happened to be in Assisi on a 3-day trip around Tuscany with their school! It was really nice to see some familiar faces and was definitely one of those experiences that opens your eyes as to how small the world can feel, even when you’re wandering a medieval Italian town thousands of miles from home! Surprisingly the bus ride to and from Assisi was one of my favorite parts of the trip – it was really interesting to see the landscape transform from the cramped buildings and bustling traffic of Rome to the hilly/mountainous countryside dotted with rivers and vineyards.

I guess between my enjoyment of bus rides through the countryside and stargazing in the Cinque Terre, I might conclude that the chaos of Rome is more than I’m used to living in the suburbs of Minnesota or the more suburban reaches of Denver. Even today I went for a run through the larger park near my apartment and after discovering some new trails that headed out away from the city traffic noise, I got so excited to see what it looked like and to get away from the noise that I ended up running 8 miles - - something not too difficult compared to a full-length, full-field soccer game, but the longest distance I’ve run just for the heck of running in a loooong time.

This weekend has been one of ethnic experiences. My friends and I are finally getting a little tired of eating pasta and/or pizza nearly everyday and have been immensely craving other food groups. So Thursday night I went out to eat with my roommate, Elsa, at a Chinese restaurant in our neighborhood and it was SO good to have some chicken and rice that had other flavors besides marinara or pesto ☺ Then…I guess I must have been really sick of pasta…because Friday night a group of us ventured over to the Vatican to a Mexican restaurant recommended by our study abroad director and gorged ourselves on guacamole and fajitas – something I’ve been greatly missing since living in Denver where it feels like half the restaurants are Mexican food. Aaand to conclude my ethnic weekend, my friends and I ate at a Thai restaurant that all students at our school seem to rave about, and boy were they right. Not only were our meals ridiculously cheap and so delicious, but the owner loves students from AUR and gave us 5 appetizers, 2 desserts, and 4 bottles of wine (yes, 4 bottles – for 6 people) - - for FREE. I was just in awe the whole time. It was all so delicious and for some reason the wine tasted so much better knowing I wasn’t paying for it, haha. Anyway, needless to say it was a really fun night filled with teaching our Thai servers English words that they asked us about and assuring them we’d return shortly with more friends eager to eat.

Before my run this morning, Ally and I got up earrrrrly and took the bus to the Porta Portese flea market, a famous Sundays-only market in Rome. It was definitely an experience to watch the frantic Italians violently sorting through the endless rows of tables full of stuff and the vendors singing and bartering. We were pretty overwhelmed by all of it but we had a blast and I came out with a pair of shoes and two scarves for a total of 10 euros, not bad! Now I’m off to do a little homework (shocking, I know ☺) as I eagerly await our 3-day ISA excursion to Sorrento and the island Capri next weekend and the arrival of my parents in less than 2 weeks!!!! Hope all is well at home and/or if you’re reading this from your own foreign adventure!

Diana