April and some of May

This post has been written for a good while, but I was waiting to get pictures that I was unable to get from a friends computer. It'll be nice to get back to my own computer. At the beginning of April some of Asher and Missy's friends (both of them) came to Rome for 4 days. Nate and Joy definitely made a milestone memory for me here in Rome. In a good way. The daily words included 'epic', _____ (too amazing to mention...actually I can't remember it. do you Yettons or Dani?), and 'stellar' (which quickly turned into 'awkward') and the experience was definitely all of them. They stayed with my friend Dani, who I'd met here in Roma, which I was very happy about since that meant more hangout at her place (ie. crepes, wine, tea, guitar, hula hoops, movies, etc).

My favorite day in Rome is the first day I was here. Waking up in a non-English speaking bed and breakfast, exploring the streets and sights, soaking up the views of domes, churches, piazzas, Italian women, and jackets, the Italian language...and everything else that made it great. The Thursday Nate and Joy were here made for my favorite evening in Rome, and that day is the closest viable contender with my 1st day here. I met them that morning in Campo de Fiori and showed them around. I enjoyed a brie and speck panino (my fave) while enjoying the thrift stores as we strolled down the street by my apartment to Castel Sant Angelo. St. Peter's Piazza enjoyed our company for a bit as we soaked up the sun and pictures before heading to the Gianicolo park that overlooks the city to play with Red, the Irish setter, and chat with his retired Italian owner. Trastevere offered us a music store to browse through, cappuccini to drink standing at the bar, and kebabs to eat in a quiet piazza as we rested a bit before climbing Aventine Hill. We entered the church at the top of the hill to find a boys and men's choir practicing for an event. With the sun beaming through the window and the reverberations of an epic choir, I felt like I could stay there all day. We enjoyed some Italian white-chocolate (thanks Nate!) as we waited in line to look through a keyhole. What's through the keyhole? St. Peter's of course. The plan was to finish with a sunset at Pincio Hill that also overlooks the city, but we were ready to rest so back to Dani's we went.

That night we (Nate and Joy, Dani, Cass, Virginia, Hilary, and I) went to eat near Campo de Fiori where Nate told me and Cass the girls they were going to set us up with in Nashville. I made sure to make a mental note of that since our waitress probably burned the rose I gave her to heat up my pizza. Love hurts. We returned to Dani's to find the wine and cheeses out and Charlie (the dad of Clara (the roommate of Dani)) playing his guitar, Harmony, like a champ. We stayed up into the wee hours, and yet not long enough, playing music and singing songs. Charlie played requests and some solid ones he'd written, Nate played a Griffin House song that one of Charlie's songs reminded him of (does the computer count as a musical instrument?), Joy showed off her guitar and singin 5ki11z with 'Genesis', and I dabbled with requests and randoms from Radiohead to Feist. It made me really miss my guitar. I loved it. I noticed it also helps that Joy has a stellar voice so no matter what I played sounded good. Smiles and laughs abounded the whole time they were here, and we all felt like we had been friends for a lot longer. Definitely some great days.

The main highlights of the week after involved Il Clan. No, that's not a gang or dodge ball team but a restaurant. My roomie, Keith, and I have become friends with Dika and Maysa, the two women who run this Brazilian eatery directly below our apartment. Keith and I were happy to discover, upon taking them homemade Mexican salsa, that it's a Brazilian custom to return a dish full of food when someone brings you food. It's worked out well. :)

The 2 weeks after that were really busy. Upon realizing that I'm not going to be in Roma forever I made a list of everything still left to do that I wanted to do. It was long. I realized I'd leave Europe feeling like I didn't get to do everything, but I didn't think that'd be the case with Roma. Seems tragic, but I guess it gives me more reasons to return (not that aren't enough). This was on top of: working on our Final presentation for studio (which was more battling the computers than working on the project), working with customs to get a box from my mom that was supposed to arrive before Easter, searching for a job this Summer, and planning a 3 1/2 week traveling bout after school and before home.

While I was disappointed how the overall group design ended up in studio, our final presentation went well. After lots of fees and frustrations I received the box from customs 2 days before leaving Roma. I was happy to get the medicine (4 months worth), a travel book on Rome, a travel book on Germany, and a postcard of Texas. The three cities I considered working in this Summer were Chicago, Nashville, and Rome. Sadly I had to pick one and felt strongly led to go to Chicago. I got an job working for an architecture firm there, living 3 El stops (that's train stops, not Spanish for 'the stops') away with none other than the Callinanator, and enjoying the weather, boats, concerts, pubs, pizza, etc that is Chicago. The travels after school haven't gone as planned so far, but they've still been great.

After finals I went back to Pisa and Lucca (see previous post) with Hilary, a friend from studio. After walking all day on Saturday my foot hurt to the point of almost not being able to walk due to a high school rodeo injury. It didn't really matter too much the rest of our time in Lucca, however, since we rented bikes for 2 days. We enjoyed biking around the town, on the ancient city walls that Napoleon's wife turned into a park back in the day, and through the country side of Tuscany along a river and wine fields with speckled towns on mountains as backdrops. Instead of going from there to Venice, Prague, Germany, and Paris I returned to Rome to let my foot rest. While a little frustrated I couldn't travel I did really enjoy the next 2 weeks I spent there. I was able to see Keith again and we celebrated his last day in Rome. Another great day was with my landlord that involved helping him move me to the apartment at the top of the building (that has a large terrace overlooking the street), talking about Christianity, him trying to get me to stay there all Summer to get paid to teach him guitar, drink cappuccini, and work on apartments, talks about Christianity, he loaned me his guitar (yay!), going to Villa Borghese with his wife and 3 daughters to celebrate Feste, and he showed me 2 chapels I'd never been in.

The time between then and now I didn't plan, although I tried as I continually looked at flight prices and the health of my foot. I spent every day at some point in il clan and have become good friends with Dika, Maysa, and Sergio. Sergio has been in Rome his whole life and is a regular at il clan. He's hilarious and would take me to hangout with him and his friends when not at il clan. Another unplanned friend last week was Marcella. She's Dika and Maysa's niece who has studied in the states for a while (so spoke English) and was in Rome for a week. When all 5 of us would hangout and I wanted to tell Sergio something that he wasn't understanding I would tell Marcella in English, she would tell one of her aunts in Portuguese, and they would tell Sergio in Italian. The joys of living oversees.

Last Saturday I went to Venice and enjoyed the water taxi's, churches, and small streets for a day before flying to Frankfurt, Germany. I've been staying near Kaiserslautern the past couple of days with my aunt, uncle, and cousin. They've been great hosts taking me to a few castles and enjoying the local cuisine (ie. schnitzel, bratwurst, and other edible things with 10 consonants and 2 vowels). It's been a blessing to see them, enjoy their house and company, and having them show me around the area. I will be sad to depart. ...but not too sad since I'll be heading to Prague (probably with my cousin, Gwynne).

Current reading: Just finished Ernest Hemingway's 'A Farewell to Arms' and loved it (I'll tell you all about it, Cass). Now enjoying 'Father Elijah'.
Current listenings: Thad Cockrell - pride wontgetus where we're goin, The Frames, Cabin's latest, Butterfly Boucher - A Bitter Song, The Grand Opening, R. Adams as usual, Axe Riverboy - carry on, Trent Dabbs - A Decade Fades cd, Tyler James - come off cold, don't leave, etc....

The rest of Spring Break

This is a guy in Milan. Guess
what patch was my favorite?

Day 2 - Lake Como
This day was frustrating, but still fun (which seems to be a recurring theme for me). The plan: take a train to Como, see it and possibly the neighboring town, Brunate, which is a gondola ride away, take the hour ferry up to Bellagio, take the 10 min ferry to Varenna, and then take the 1.20 hour train back to Milan to catch the train to Cinque Terre in time to sign into our hostel. Sounds like a great day, right? Unfortunately we got a late start and missed the train we wanted so we couldn't do everything. Plan B ended up being an enjoyable stroll through Como to the lighthouse at the top of Brunate, and a race back to Como's train station only to wait 2 hours in Milan since we were rushing to a train that didn't exist. Once we got to our hostel we were definitely ready to crash. The relaxed atmosphere of Como off its expansive lake was the pace I wanted for Spring Break, and the views from Brunate were what my camera wanted for Spring Break. We were both happy.

From Brunate's lighthouse.

Tim and Pablo.

Italy has two suns: Romulus and Remus.

Day 3 - Cinque Terre
This day was the best. For those who don't know, Cinque Terre refers to an area off the Mediterranean in Italy Northwest of Pisa that contains 5 small towns that are connected by trains, trails, and boats (that were not going when we were there because of the cold weather, I presume). It has kept a lot of it's original flavor because it has been dubbed a national park, which keeps large hotels away at the cost of a small entry fee. We stayed in Riomaggiore (Southeastern of the 5), and explored it a little grabbing pesto pizza for breakfast and some lunch snacks for the trail on our way out of town. La Via dell'amore connected us to the next town, Manarola, as we tried to take in the sound of the Sea crashing on the rocks at the base of the cliff below us and the views of the coastal towns that pocket parts of the procession. Manarola is a lot like Riomaggiore in layout - one larger street up the middle with smaller streets branching off it. We enjoyed a terraced park on the way out of Manarola and ended up playing with pictures more than the little playground there. We were sad we couldn't capture the huge gusts of wind and roaring of the ocean below.

Manarola.

Between towns.


Vernazza.

It was a longer walk to Corniglia which was made even longer since we explored a path down to a boat ramp at the water's level. I'm sure all of us thought we were good at guessing which waves were going to make the highest splash, but that's probably cause we pretty much guessed each one hoping they would consistently get bigger and bigger. Corniglia is the only 1 of the 5 that isn't directly off the water due to the minor detail of the huge cliff it's built atop. We did get a view of the advertised nude beach that followed the town which was lacking of both people and sand (beach apparently means 'large, uncomfortable rocks'). It was a longer walk to Vernazza, but well worth it. It surprised me as I stood over it since we didn't get any approaching views. This one is unarguably the best of all 5 complete with a piazza full of the locals boats, a castle tower, a place to watch the waves crash up by you, and, of course, more pesto pizza. After enjoying all it had to offer we took the train to Monterosso, the last from Riomaggiore, since it was getting dark. Monterosso is the only one with an actual beach of sand. Along it were a few restaurants on piers and there was a huge rock that was in the center of a stretch of sand that had lights on it to help with the high-tide pictures. I wish there was a light on the end of the beach where it hit the 150' cliff because the waves washed so high that they started to rain down on us when the wind kicked em. Not much activity in Monterosso so we returned to our submarine room in Riomaggiore after battling (and losing) the train system.

Day 4 - Pisa, Lucca
Pisa = overrated. Lucca = underrated. Oh how I tried to convince my travel team of this, but to no avail. 'We're so close, let's just stop for a quick picture'. The quick pic was enjoyable, but left us arriving in Lucca at 6pm only to find no direct train to Rome (train ticketers = liars) and no luggage storage at the station. With just enough time to carry the bags to the amphitheater piazza and back to the station I got enough of a taste to have great expectations for a return visit (possibly after school). I wish I could be there for their annual Summer music festival to see such favorites as Feist, John Legend, Ricky Martin, and more. Maybe next year.

All in all, a great Spring Break of relaxing or running. We were all glad to be back in the Rome we've come to know as home. It really did feel like home.

PS. It was really cold and really rainy the next day, Easter Sunday. "How fitting," I thought, as I puddle-hopped to St. Peter's in hopes to see the Pope's umbrella.