Mt. Vesuvius

The base of the mountain.

So I (mostly) ran to the top of Mt. Vesuvius; took about twenty minutes.

The crater.

Me and Stefano from the AUR Student Life office.

Buona Pasqua!

I just got back from Saint Peter's Basilica a couple hours ago. Why, you ask?

Because I went to the Easter Mass presided over my the Popeman himself. It actually worked out reasonably well- I left the apartment around 8:45, got to Saint Peter's around 9:15. Being pretty early, I got to pick a decent spot. I ended up getting as close as you possibly can without buying formal tickets- just behind the obelisk. I mean, I had to stand the whole time and it was really crowded, but it was totally worth it.

Soem random thoughts:
- I'm sorry, I will never not find the concept of the Popemobile to not be hilarious. It always reminds me of Eddie Izzard's routine about the Pope as a superhero. And it just looks silly- it's like a white Barbie jeep.
- I know everyone jokes about this to death, but Pope Benedict does look like a Bond villain. All he needs is a white cat in his lap.
- I didn't really care for the choir they had. The organ and horns were good, but the chorus was all boy sopranos and were uncomfortably close to being offkey. It didn't help that I was too sick to attempt to sing along.
- I absolutely adored the last portion of the service, the Urbi et Orbi address. Here is a link to the full text (translated into English) of his address.
- Then the last thing he did was to give Easter blessings in 65 different languages. They ranged from the major religions- Italian, French, German, Spanish- then all of the various European languages- Serbian, Russian, Croatian, Polish- and then some really, really uncommon languages- Hindi, Bengali, Maori, Urdu, Swahili. It really showed how multi-cultural the crowd was, too. There were dozens of flags throughout the crowd and roars of delight from native speakers when particular languages were spoken. NGL, it made me tear up a little.

Now I should be writing, like, six or seven papers, but I'm feeling lazy, especially since I have tomorrow off too.

Trip to the Vatican!

I have at least three big picture posts to do, so I wil try to cover them as quickly as I can over the next few days, because things are getting crazy here. I only have three weeks left of school, so I have a half dozen papers to write. But I will certainly find the time to wrap things up, I promise!

Okay, here are my pictures of my trip to the Vatican over spring break!

This should give you a picture of the masses of people that I had to get through to actually see the Vatican. The line moved really quickly, though, so that's a plus.

A member of the Swiss guard.

Nothing exciting to see here; I just really liked this fountain.

And here's another thing that I enjoyed:

That's right- a monk hanging out on the basilica with a laptop and 80s-style rollerblades.

I just found that entertaining, not sure why.

Another cloud picture. JUST BECAUSE.

Me, obviously.

And now for some pictures actually inside the Basilica- I didn't go see the Sistine Chapel because you have to pay money for that one.

(BTW, those letters at the top of that arch? Each one is 6 feet tall.

The main altar of the Basilica.

I absolutely adore this.

Happy Easter! I have pictures to post from both my weekends in Capri and in Nice, but I'll have to split those up into separate posts. See you soon!



 FINALLY GOT MY MONEY BACK FROM AUR. 160 euros and it is MINE, bitches. I'm gonna try and make it last longer by hiding some of it away from myself so I can pace myself.

Still no word on the whole airline thing, though. I should talk to Ethan and see if he can help me out.

I just realized I have 3 and a half weeks left in Italy, with and a half of actual classes. here;s what I need to do between now and then:

FOR NEXT WEEK
- Italian paper/presentation (I only have to write two pages of it, though, so that's not too bad.)
- Globalization paper number 4 (This shouldn't be too bad either. Just like the other three papers that I wrote.)
- Foreign Policy paper (Okay, this one scares the everloving shit out of me. This is the class that worries me the most, and the one that I need to do the best on to have a decent grade.)

FOR THE WEEK AFTER NEXT
- Psych paper (it's a *psychological autobiography*, whatever that means. Shouldn't be too bad.)
- Conference paper/presentation (also on religion and politics, Italian vs. America. Again, this counts for Foreign Policy, so I want to ace it.)
- Globalization presentation
- 21st birthday yay

FOR THE WEEK AFTER THAT
- FINALS. HOLY CRAP, FINALS. I have one in every class except Globalization and every one scares the crap out of me- well, not so much Psych and Italian, but DEFINITELY Ethics and Foreign Policy.
- Pack up, go home.

AT SOME POINT THAT HASN'T BEEN LOCKED DOWN YET
- 2 Psych journal entries

It's a new old world to me

For spring break, I had originally intended to go on a whirlwind tour of Europe with  the Bus2Alps company- which would take me through Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam and Paris. However, due to some crazy mixups *cough Northern Ireland cough* I was unable to move fast enough on that, and the trip got booked up. So instead, I decided that I would go to Florence for three days as I discussed a couple posts back.

God, I'm so glad I did that. Everything about that trip seemed like it was tailored for me.

The Duomo, outside...and inside.

Here's another picture of horses, because I love seeing horses here.

And then I found something that made me geek out a little- an Internet cafe that served cheeseburgers. And Ben and Jerry's. And played the Sgt. Pepper album all the way through.

Shows my Internet habits, sadly.

And now a view from my hostel window, showing my continuing fascination with Roman pines.

As you may or may not know, the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy was a few weeks back.

And now a few more shots from me just randomly wandering around Florence:

A kosher deli in the Jewish quarter of Florence. Some things never change.

The sentence on top of the door says "Where there is charity there is God," which is one of my favorite lines.

And a really kickass pizza. Also, I bought a book: "Far from the Madding Crowd," by Thomas Hardy.

And then we have the art- the most famous part of Florence of all!

The marble statues here are not the originals. This is actually where the original statues were originally placed, but then they were moved into museums and replaced with copies. At any rate, you can't take pictures of the original statues, so the copies will do me just fine.

This one is actually original.

And now for some more pictures of Cathedrals.

And now we're getting to the awesome part- this amazing market I stumbled across.

And now- drumroll please- I FINALLY managed to get my hands on a Carnivale mask! It's pretty boss. I love it.

I will be more diligent in re: posting pictures in the future!

On a central square in a city of the sun rose a palace

Wow, once again I continue to suck at actually posting on this blog. It's just that school's starting to eat my life. I'm actually feeling pretty good about this semester. With one or two exceptions *cough* Ethics *cough* all the feedback that I've gotten back has been positive. This week also marked my midterm exams. I had three (Italian Culture, Ethics, and Foreign Policy) and I'm cautiously optimistic about all three. (The "caution" mostly is connected to Ethics. My professor is really hard to read and is a very weird grader, so I'm not sure what exactly he wants. The fact that I feel good probably means that I either did really well or really badly. Italian felt super easy and my Foreign Policy exam was mostly straight from the readings/discussions so I felt prepared.)

Aside from that I really haven't done much since I've checked in. On top of school stuff, the weather has been really bad, killing my motivation to do anything. Also, euros are annoying.

So I'm on spring break now!!

I was originally planning to take a bus trip around the Northern Loop of Europe, but sadly money continues to make things complicated. But my break seems pretty sweet all the same. Why, you say? Well for one thing...

I'm in Florence.

I can't even tell you how excited I am to go to Florence. I've wanted to go since I was in high school- since I was sixteen, to be exact. Because it was my sixteenth birthday when I saw this:

(And yes, that is Matthew Morrison of "GLEE" fame. Back when he was AWESOME.)

So I decided to treat myself to a weekend trip to Florence. And let me tell you, all you hypothetical readers, it is amazing. This is the best weather I've had in Italy so far, and there are PARKS with BENCHES and I can read in the sun. There's a store that is almost completely Indian clothes/jewelry. I must have been the first customer they'd had in a while, the person running it was basically, PLEASE BUY ALLL THE THINGS." DAMN YOU EUROS, WHY ARE YOU NOT RUPEES.

And right now I'm in a wireless cafe down the street from my hotel. They have CHEESEBURGERS. Also, right as I came inside, the album version of Sgt. Pepper was playing. <3 <3 <3

Pictures from around Rome!

These pictures were taken one weekend when I decided to just amble around my neighborhood taking pictures.

This is my street.

I just really like this wall. Not sure why. I'm also a big fan of those flat trees you can see over the wall. They almost look like something you'd see on the African savanna.

That's my school. Again, more flat trees.

An embassy.

This is a church I stumbled upon while wandering around behind the school.

It's pretty.

And finally, here's another fun addition for anyone who read my India blog: I was startled to find that Vodaphone does quite a bit of business in Italy as well! This is an ad on the bus stop across from my apartment:

Okay, that's it for this post.