Last week in Rome. :-(

Ciao tutti!
So this will be my last week in Rome before we leave for rogliano to live with host families for the rest of the program. Last week we switched internship groups, which is too bad because I really liked my other group. The new group is super far away and they don't really seem to have much of an agenda for us to do everyday. Thursday we just followed them while they got a lesson on ancient broken shards of pottery, not the most exciting thing in the world. oh well, tomorrow both groups are meeting together because the interns just finished culture week (where all the museum's in italy are free) so we are all celebrating with them, which should be really fun! Friday after we went and saw some baroque churches with Caravaggio stuff in them we went to the Vatican Museum! The first part of the museum is a bunch of roman statues of emperor's and mythology. It was really cool, especially since I love mythology. After that we saw Raphael's "School of Athens" which was pretty impressive, and finally the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is soooo immense and detailed. We were very very very tired by this point, which was too bad, but it was still amazing. Then Sat, it was raining but I did get some gift shopping done (get excited everyone!) but then i got a stomach ache from some salad i ate for dinner, so last night was a down night for me.
But today was amazing! It was warm and sunny so some of us walked to the Villa Borghese, which is this huge park right above the spanish steps. It was so nice and picturesque, people were doing rollerblading tricks and out with their kids. We just sat on the grass and enjoyed the warm sun while doing some homework. It was so peaceful and relaxing. Really worth the long walk. Ok well I gotta go eat some dinner. Ciao tutti!
~Alyson~
:-)

Assisi

Ciao tutti!
So last weekend we went to Assisi for friday to saturday. It was amazing! It was seriously like a storybook. Our hostel was about a 20 min hike from the city (which our professor forgot to tell us about, so all i brought was flats and sandal, which was not a good idea) but the view was absolutely amazing. We even saw a dove right next to an olive tree. It was cool, in an ironic symbolic kind of way. Its in the county of umbria, which is what you think of when you think of the green hills of italy. After we checked in at our hostel we went down and explored the town for a bit. Unfortunately it was super cold and rainy (i guess in part because of the volcano in Iceland) the town is super cute, with lots of nice shops around. We even met a guy who is friends with Rick Steves (the guy who writes those travel guides) He was funny, friendly Fabrizio was his name, and he gave us free samples of different Umbrian foods which were super good. After we got back from to the hostel, we had the most amazing dinner ever! It was a true italian 4 course meal. We started with the bread (melt in your mouth amazingness) which was the antipasti, then we had the primo piatto which is pasta. They made us lasagna, which is by far the best pasta I have had here in Italy. Nothing compares to how amazing that lasagna was. Then the secondo piatto, which was sausage and a backed potato with some backed cheese too. It was good, but not nearly as good as the lasagna. Then for dessert they had this coffee pudding thingy that was actually quite good. So after this huge meal we were all very tired and just crashed.
The next day we all got up early to go to San Francesco's Basilica . It is gorgeous with all these amazing fresco's (paintings on the walls) of San Francesco's life. and I saw his tomb too. Also outside there was a bride going inside to get married, with the most amazing dress i've ever seen. Also the groom drove up in a lamborghini, which was pretty sweet to see.
Anyways after that we shopped around for a while, then we hiked up to this castle called La Rocca Magiore. It had the most amazing views of the city and countryside ever! The castle was super cool too, there were all these amazing lookouts that we had to climb sketchy spiral stairs to go to. But there was this long scary tunnel that could have come straight out of lord of the rings or harry potter. hehe
I loved assisi, If i wanted the quite picturesque countryside I could definitely live there. I loved the art in Florence, but the actual city wise i liked Assisi waaaaay better.
Ok well I have intership super early tomorrow, so I have to sleep now.
Ciao ciao!
~Alyson~
:-)

who wants a post card!?

Ciao tutti,
So I am buying postcards to send to people, I would love to send one to you if you could give me your address! Either post it here, or email it to me aly248@uw.edu Grazie!
~Alyson~
:-)

Firenze

Ah sorry everyone that I haven't posted everything, I've been sooo busy! ok so heres a recap of my week.
last week we began our "internships" which so far have just been the grad students who work at the museum take us around the city talking to us about the different things we are seeing, one day it was ancient roman stuff, another day it was works by caravaggio, and today it was the significance of the different streets. Its hard to understand them sometimes because they are speaking very fast italian, but my comprehension skills are definitely improving (I can now understand almost all the words in the italian versions of the disney songs, i call that a win!). In class we are just watching movies (depressing neorealism movies) and reading stories (depressing stories) and learning grammar and stuff (which is kind of depressing) hahaha, but actually its kind of fun, and i am getting better because i can just focus on italian, and I have other people here to help me, which is super nice.
So on friday our teachers took us to the Vatican, where we went inside the basilica. It was overwhelming, so grand, and its the biggest basilica in the world. (there is actually an unwritten rule that it has to be the biggest) and there are actually marks in the center, citing where the other churches end making sure that st. peters is the biggest. Afterwords we went down to where they had all the tombs of all the old popes (and a swedish queen). I even secretly snagged a pic of john paul II's tomb (i quickly ran away because the security guard was coming after me hehe). but it was incredible, so massive and grand. I even rubbed the foot of the st. peters statue from the original basilica (apparently it brings good luck).
So after that my group came back and then about half of us went to the train station to go to FIRENZE (florence). we got a cheap regional train that took about 4 hours, which was nice because i got all my homework done. So we arrived around 9ish and went to find our hostel, well unfortunately when we got to where our hostel was we couldn't get in, some people had to let us in and they said they had never seen anybody on the floor of our hostel. We got up to the floor and we met some americans (one of which goes to st. marys!!!!! it was sooooo weird!!!!!!!) anyways they said they had waited 3 hours for the lady to come let them into their rooms and they hadn't seen her since. So we called the lady and finally got a hold of her, and in the end she just told us to go find another place because she didn't want to deal with us, unfortunately we had already paid the 10% deposit.
So we were quite frustrated, but the americans we met told us about a nearby hostel so we went there and they were able to get us rooms for 20euro/night. so it ended up working out and the reception people at the new hostel were really helpful and nice.
So saturday we had reserved tickets for the museo uffizi, which was great because that meant we didn't have to stand in a super long line! the Uffizi was amazing!!!!! there was so much great art, and I even saw botticelli's Birth of Venus!!!!!! and primavera too!!!!!!!!! I was so excited you have no idea! It was amazing to see the original of something i have studied for so long. super cool.
So after that we went and looked a the duomo, but it cost to go up to the top, so we didn't. but we did got to hands down the best pizzeria ever!!!!!! that pizza was by far the best pizza i have had in italy. AMAZING! it was like gustopizza or something like that.
So by this time it was about 5ish, so we walked to the edge of the city up this huge hill to the piazza Michelangelo, where there was the most breathtaking view of firenze, it was incredibile! and saturday was gorgeous, 70 degrees and sunny!!!!! (I love the sun).
unfortunately on sunday it was about 50 degrees and raining (i felt like i was back in seattle), but it wasn't too bad because our only plan for the day was to see the Academia, where michelangelo's David is. There really isn't anything else in the museum except david, but David=wow, so worth the 18 euro we paid to see it. Its one of those things you think you've seen pictures of so why see it in person, but I'm telling you the pictures don't do it justice. that thing is massive!!! i think about 4 m high! and the detail in every curve is astounding. I probably stared at it for a good 20 min. it was mindblowing. seriously.
So after that we were super tired, so we just went and took an earlier train back to rome, where we more or less crashed.
So that was my week, this weekend we are going to assisi with my program, which should be fun, i'll try to keep this more updated.
Ciao tutti!!!
~Alyson~
:-)

Buona Pasqua!

Buona Pasqua tutti!
Happy Easter everyone. (I know its a few days late)
So for easter I did go to the Vatican, unfortunately it was raining super hard! So since everyone had thier umbrellas it made it really hard to see everything, I could see the pope much better on friday. ah oh well it was still really cool. We missed the mass, but we got there for the easter blessing, which a lot of it i could actually understand, which was impressive. By the end though we were very cold and wet so we basically slept and staying inside and cooked for the rest of the day. But one of my bucket list things is checked off, Easter at the Vatican. Oh and I finally got gelato!!! (I gave up ice cream for lent) and it was soooo good!!!! Definitely worth the wait. :-)
Yesterday (Monday) is a national holiday for italy called Pasquetta (little easter), so we didn't have school or anything which was nice. One of the guys on our program CJ had some of his friend's from the other side of italy come visiting so we hung out with them most of the day. It was super fun! because we knew enough italian and they knew enough english where we could joke around with them and everything. They even ended up editing my italian summary of this movie we watched. They laughed at my italian mostly because I don't like using pronouns so I just repeat people's names alot. haha but they were very helpful. Later last night we all ended up at a Irish pub where they had BASEBALL on!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unfortunately it was the Cubbies game, the giants game was on later (like 1 am) which was too bad, since the Cubs game was kind of depressing. but oh well, they italian guys definitely didn't understand how baseball worked, and they though it was super boring, haha oh well I find soccer boring so to each his own i guess. But i did get very excited when I was able to watch base ball. (Blame my mother for my obsession with baseball) haha I am such an american when it comes to my baseball. GO GIANTS!!!!
Sorry about my baseball rant, anyways so this morning was our first day of our internships. I am one week at this market thingy and then 2 weeks at the museum and then 1 more week back at the market. But the market was more like a museum (i think) right next to Il foro di Augosto. (a forum with alot of old roman relics) today we just got a tour and lecture in italian about il foro and all the old roman pieces. it was cool, a little boring and tiring but cool. So now we still have 3 hours of class (after 3 hours of internship this morning) So i will be a very tired little monkey, but I am still having a blast.
Ci vediamo!
~Alyson~
:-)

Il Colosseo!!!

Ciao tutti!
So Friday was amazing!!! I finally got to see all those places in Rome that you learn and study about. First we went to Il forno romano, or the Roman forum. There we saw all the old roman ruins. We saw the place where Julius Caesar was burned and where they held the chariot races. The temple where they kept the most sacred Virgins. Our teacher Ruggero was a fantastic guide! He knew everything!!! apparently he has even been interviewed by local news people or something because he knows so much about rome! Couldn't have asked for a better tourguide. My little history nerd self was having a field day!!! After that we went to the Colosseum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you can't tell I was a little excited. We took a TON of pictures, but it wasn't unbearably crowded. We were able to nudge our way into some prime viewing locations. It was so cool. :-)
Oh this is to Michelle, so afterwords we came back and went to this little pasta place, and guess what kind of pasta i got? GNOCCHI!!! haha just for you!
So Last night we also saw something really cool. We went back to the Colosseum when it was all lit up and we saw the 14 Stations of the Procession of the Cross ceremony presided over by the pope!!! It was a once in a lifetime experience. All those people, with the backdrop of the colosseum at night was breathtaking. It was mostly in Italian with some latin chant-type stuff put in, but I could understand a little bit of the Italian. We couldn't stay through the whole thing because it was freezing and our knees started locking up, but I am greatly looking forward to going to the Vatican for Easter tomorrow!
It was nice having a day off, so today my friend Lauren and I went exploring around rome, we got lost but still ended up finding the Trevi fountain, which is just as cool (and just as crowded) as you expect. The best thing about getting lost in rome is that there are always new cool things to find. Well I got to go pick up some groceries because everything will be closed today and tomorrow because of easter and Italy's little easter.
Ci vediamo!
~Alyson~
:-)

"Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale" :-)

Ciao tutti!
Sono andata alla libreria, e ho comprato il libro Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale!!!
aka. I went to a book store and bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorcerer's) Stone!!!!
"Il signore e la signora Dursley, di Privet Drive numero 4, erano orgogliosi di poter affermare che erano perfettamente normale, e grazie tante. Erano le ultime persone al mondo da cui aspettarsi che avessero a che fare con cose strane o misteriose, perche' sciocchezze del genere proprio non le approvavano.......Harry Potter, il bambino chi e' sopravvissuto"
heheh I am such a Harry Potter nerd.
Anyways so its been a day or so since I last posted. yesterday we had our first day of classes. I am taking the italian language course, ital 203 which is learning grammar and all that fun stuff. Then there is another class which is a combination of literature, history, culture, and film! After class we were super tired so I came back and took a nap, before we all went to a bar and "discoteca" (dance club) for this girl in the program's birthday. It was nice because this morning we didn't have class until 1:30 so we all slept in.
oh good news!!! So as i was writing this our water heater was just fixed!!! For the last couple days we have been taking cold showers (not fun) so now we have hot water again! yay! hahah
So today in class we had an hour lecture about some roman ruin places we are going to see tomorrow (including the colosseum!) then we watched a movie called. Roma, la citta' aperta--meaning rome the open city. It was about Italy during the Nazi occupation of WWII. It was a good movie but sad and depressing.
So then we went to a libreria (book store) where i bough some pens, a notebook, and HARRY POTTER! So now I am going to go attempt to read it. Wish me luck!
Ci vediamo!
~Alyson~
:-)