Ottobre...un mese rapidamente!

Hi friends!! Soo…Despite that it’s been over a month (whoops) since I’ve updated you all on my adventures, I can assure you I’ve been telling myself I’d sit down and blog for quite a few weeks now – so at least you can all have peace of mind at the fact that despite my insanely hectic life, I still kept blogging in mind? Haha. Anyway, needless to say (the title of my last entry had it right!) time is flying by over here and I’ve been a tad bit on the busy side for quite a few weeks now. In fact, this is the first weekend I haven’t been travelling and/or entertaining family and friends visiting Rome since September - yes that means I’ve been travelling or entertaining for the last 6 weeks straight…crazy! I didn't know that such an unstable lifestyle could start to feel so normal, I guess us humans are better at adapting than we think :)

Where to begin…well right after I last blogged, my study abroad program (ISA) took us south of Rome to the seaside town Sorrento, the island Capri, and to Pompeii for a 3-day weekend excursion (I posted pictures of the trip online – see the link on the left column!). Let’s just say I knew it would be a good weekend when the bus trip alone provided enough spectacular scenery to keep me smiling for days. Getting out of Rome for 72 hours of bonding time with our program leaders and fellow students was much needed and based off the fact that the bus ride back was probably 5 times louder than going there – I think it’s safe to say that we definitely returned to Rome as a much more tight-knit group. The trip itself was a blast. Sorrento was like a more populated and even more scenic version of the Cinque Terre (think 300 ft. rock cliffs topped will palm trees meets turquoise water…not bad). While the weather wasn’t the greatest (and actually left me with a really fun illness for the next week or so) we spent all day everyday taking it all in as we shopped the free samples at the Limoncello (a dessert liqueur famous in Southern Italy) shops lining the streets of Sorrento, took a ferry for the day to the island Capri, rode a chair-lift to the top of Mount Solaro, toured the ruins of Pompeii (with a tour guide that seemed more focused on telling us about the ancient whore houses than anything else? Haha), and filled the local Karaoke bar each night with our group of 40 Americans (I think the Italians were in awe of our knowledge of the lyrics to any Brittany Spears or Backstreet Boys song they threw at us). Needless to say, it was a pretty phenomenal trip ☺

The next weekend I stayed in Rome eagerly awaiting the arrival of my parents that Saturday morning! While they were only in Rome for a day or so before heading up to Tuscany for a weeklong Rick Steve’s tour of Florence, it was a much appreciated day of daughter-parent bonding as I excitedly showed them what my life in Rome is like (well, when they weren’t sleeping to recover from that oh-so-fun jet lag ☺). I can honestly say that when I met them at the train station that morning, I was beyond ecstatic. It’s not that I haven’t been away from home for this long before, but living in another country and attempting to embrace another culture makes you really, really grateful for tastes of home ☺ And I'm especially grateful and still amazed at the fact that they could come visit me while I live in another country and see everything that I tell them about my life here for themselves! It was REALLY cool to see their reactions and perspectives to my life here since they know me so well but could sort of come in and make their outsider observations about how much I've adapted to life here, how much Italian I really am capable of speaking or more importantly understanding, etc. - It left me realizing just how much I have changed, or not so much changed as grown, during my time here as well as feeling very, very loved :)

My parents spent the week in Florence and in the meantime I had visitors of my own. Two of my best friends from DU – Faven and Kendra – both of whom are studying in Vienna, Austria, came to visit me for the weekend (which worked out perfectly since ALL of my roommates were travelling for the weekend). Of course not only did the first Roman transportation strike of the fall have to occur the day Faven and Kendra were attempting to get from the train station to my apartment, but it poured rain all day as we walked with a group of about 15 DU kids either studying in or visiting Rome across the city attempting to see the sights in the absence of all forms of public transportation. Despite all of the factors that could have made it a completely miserable day, it was spectacular – finally reuniting and catching up on the last 3 months of our lives kept Faven, Kendra, and I more than content all day. The next day we got up early to head to the train station - - only to find that our bus would break down in the middle of the street and we’d end up barely catching our train to meet my parents in the Tuscan town Orvieto, after running down the streets of Rome in desperate (yet somehow successful) attempts to find another bus line that I wasn’t sure actually existed to the station…but once again, my luck continued (knock on wood) and we made it to the train station with a solid 8 minutes to find our train ☺ So off we went to Orvieto where we spent the day with my parents being fed delicious food (a major benefit of parents ☺)and exploring a beautiful and seemingly undiscovered Italian town perched on the cliffs of a hill and surrounded by rolling hills that were green enough to make us think we’d somehow travelled all the way to Ireland. After a long day exploring we made it back to Rome, checked my parents into their hotel, and somehow managed to meet up with our DU friends at a bar in the city center and still wake up early the next morning to meet up with my well-rested parents to head to Vatican City and tour St. Peter’s Basilica. Faven and Kendra left that evening, leaving me suddenly missing my DU friends and all the feelings of the normalcy of life in Denver that seeing them brought back -- a small taste of home that I was so grateful for but at the same time felt like it was torn away too quickly. (Although I've recently felt as though I've been sort of slapped in the face at the fact that I'll be home in a month!! So I guess reuniting with everyone in Denver isn't as far away as I'd been feeling :)

I spent that week balancing going to class and spending time with my parents who were touring Rome for the week before jetting off with them to the Amalfi Coast for a long weekend before I came back to school to take midterms and they headed back home. Spending the weekend with them was so nice. Not only was the weather ridiculously warm for late October (or at least what I know as late October weather..), but I got to be fed well all weekend as we enjoyed the beach scenery and touring the towns south of Sorrento. Unfortunately Monday had to come and I was sad to see them go home while I had to take midterms, but I only had 3 days to wait before Lucy came to visit for my fall break! (I know right, I guess you could say we’re a pretty tight-knit family ☺)

Soo after a rough 3 days of actually studying (something I don’t do too much of here…) I was SO excited to see Lucy arrive in Rome! Even if she did arrive on the main day of the Italian riots about the newly implemented education laws (which were not received well by the general public during a time of a struggling Italian economy..) - - riots big enough to shut down all buses to the train station (where I was supposed to be meeting Lucy) as well as the tram line…leaving me standing in the middle of Viale Trastevere begging a group of Italian police officers for help getting to the train station – and sure enough they directed me to our neighborhood’s local train station where I could catch a train to the station where Lucy was waiting…a process that got me to her only like an hour late?! Whoops. Anyway, we spent the evening happily reuniting during some much needed sisterly bonding time before she passed out early from jet lag and I ran off to my soccer game against our rivals – John Cabot University – the other American school in Rome – which we not only won 3-1 but I scored our second goal! The next morning (Halloween!) I got up to (only a little bit frantically) finish packing before we left for the train station en route for a very fun, and very, very memorable adventure to Croatia for the week…☺
(Croatia + my 21st Birthday = to be continued in their own blog entry…)