Sick

I hate colds. And I hate that our apartment has no heat. We get heat in 2 days, but unfortunately, I have already gotten a cold due to the fact our apartment is about 45 degrees. It's horrible especially for whatever reason (most likely because our room is the further from the kitchen and bathroom - the only 2 rooms that produce heat) Julie's and my room is the coldest in the apartment. We wear sweatpants and sweatshirts to bed while under our sheets, comforter, down comforter and my extra blanket. We have entertained the idea of pushing our beds together in order to use each other as space heaters for the other. It's that bad. Its also gotten to the point where no one wants to shower since the bathroom is also very cold. We do, but its like pulling teeth. Last night I really couldn't do much of anything since every 5 seconds I would have to blow my nose and if I didn't I would sneeze and my eyes would start to water so I watched the movie Tears of the Sun. Julie joined me towards the beginning of it. The movie was decent, but since my eyes were watering and my voice is lower and throat is scratchy, I was able to fake being so sad from the movie. It worked a couple of times with Jeanette and Erica; Julie didn't feel so bad for me after I got her a couple of times. So, in the next couple of days if you can't get in contact with me, I'm most likely busy doing one of these things: sneezing, blowing my nose, looking like I've been crying, sleeping, or drinking lots of water.

Fall Break: The British Isles

Fall Break was a very interesting process to plan for. Lots of kids are going with their parents either all over Europe or having a nice quiet vacation in the surrounding Tuscan and Umbrian countrysides. Being rather on the late side of planning for most things, I was very late in planning what I was going to do for my fall break. One roommate Julie was going to Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands and invited me to go with her. Unfortunately ticket prices were through the roof to travel with them so I had to opt out. Another roommate of mine, Jeanette, is backpacking across Sicily which sounded like fun, but my third roommate, Erica, had no plans either. So about four days before fall break started, we decided on a tentative itinerary of Ireland, Scotland and another country. At first it was going to be Spain, then the Netherlands, and finally Greece. They were all hard to get to from where we were going to stay in Edinburgh, Scotland, so we decided on going to London. Erica has never been there and we’re already going to be on the same island. So we bought plane tickets to Dublin and then to Edinburgh, but we hadn’t booked a flight back to Rome. We now do have a flight back home – out of London. Our plan was to rent a car and drive from Edinburgh to Salisbury to see Stonehenge before we have to go back to school. Unfortunately all the affordable car rentals are for ages 23 and up while the most expensive ones allow 21 yr olds to drive. Train tickets and plane tickets in the UK are god-awful expensive. In Italy to go from one end to the other is about 40 euro. From Edinburgh, Scotland, to London, England is about 150 POUNDS! So we’re now looking for bus tickets down to London. But that’s all background. Now to the real adventure!

Our plane from Rome to Dublin left this morning at 9:55am, but the only way to make it was to leave yesterday so we’d be able to get to the airport with enough time to check-in and go through security and passport control. We had two options: get a hostel in Rome for the night or take a late train out of Perugia, sleep for about 5 hours in a train station, get to the airport and save hostel money. Being two thrifty college kids, we decided to take the later train out of Perugia. So around 10pm last night we finished packing our stuff and started walking down to the train station (apparently walking takes about the same amount of time as taking the bus and we saved a euro). The walk down was a bit shady since it was 10:45pm on a Friday and we were given very crude directions to the station (just keep walking down and you’ll see it). We finally made it without any problem to find out that the ticket machines weren’t working, but somehow we got a ticket to the layover station, Terni. So onto the train we got. It was so cold outside. I’m wearing a tank top, long john shirt, sweatshirt and a coat with 2 layers of pants on as well as gloves and a hat. We get to Terni and look for a nice place to spend the night. A man gets up from one the long benches in the main waiting room (it’s about 1am by now and our next train leaves at 5:39am). Right as we sit down Erica notices a girl she knows from class who is also doing the same thing we’re doing (sleeping at train station to catch her plane). It’s freezing cold. We are all shivering. Someone between consciousness and sleep I notice she’s gotten up and when she returns she mentions that the sottopassiggio is a lot warmer, and that there is also a chapel down there. So we grab all our things and head down to the little chapel. We each grabbed a pew (about 2 feet too short for me) and tried to sleep. But it was still frigid down there. I tried to use my towel as a blanket, but it was too thin and basically did nothing. At 5:20am we all woke up and grabbed some HOT cappuccino cioccolato from one of the vending machines. It was so nice to hold something warm in my hands. Still shivering we wait for the train to arrive, get to Roma Termini (the big train station), transfer to Ciampino and then get a bus to the airport. The airport takes hardly any time to get through at all. We’re checked in and waiting at the gate within fifteen minutes. Throughout these transfers we’re still trying to get warm as well as catch some sleep. So the plane ride is highly uninteresting besides RyanAir gives you no leg room and the stewardesses come around at least six times trying to get you to buy a soda or chip bag on the plane since they are not complementary. But we arrived in Dublin!!! It was so green outside and not as cold as Perugia. The Dublin airport was under construction so it took some time to walk through it all especially since they put all the cheap airlines out in the boonies of the airport. None of that mattered though when we got to baggage claim and our bags were there!!! We grabbed out bags, I got a smoothie to eat/drink, and then we headed to information to find out which bus to take to the hostel downtown for the night. The plan was to get to the hostel, drop our stuff, take a nap, eat something, look around a little bit, get on the internet to finalize our plans for the trip, and then go to bed very early. So we get to the hostel with little trouble (we had help from a nice lady sitting next to us on the bus) only to find out that we’re staying in that hostel tomorrow night. Erica had forgotten that we were staying at a different place near the airport tonight. We need to find the bus to get back to the airport which takes forever because it’s not on the main street with the rest of the bus stops; it’s on a side street and down quite a ways. We are wicked tired due to not sleeping for 36 hours by now as well as schlepping our bags across Dublin and back again. Back to the airport we go to get directions to the hotel Erica knows she made reservations for. On the way to the airport four boys dropped a stink bomb in the bus and ran off. Luckily for me, I couldn’t smell it but everyone around me had their sweaters and coats over their mouths and noses. The hotel has Wi-Fi which is all we care about now to figure out our days in Ireland and the bus from Edinburgh to London. But when we get to the hotel they don’t have our reservations, we paid an exorbitant fee (we were too tired to try and even find another hotel especially since we’re near nothing), and the Wi-Fi is not free whatsoever. At this point we’re hating life and just want to sleep. Unfortunately our heat is not working so well in the room, the people above us are having a trampoline party, and there’s this little Asian boy running up and down the hallway. Oh, earlier we also got ripped off on power adapters. We just got back from having decent cheeseburgers (the first in months…we also had fish and chips today! We’re not eating pasta while we’re away and we’ve vowed to eat lots of meat) and watching the semi-final world cup rugby match between South Africa and England. South Africa won. We are tired and delirious and still have no idea what time we can get to the hostel tomorrow because it’s not written anywhere and the hostel people were mean to us today. This trip will get better when we drink some real Guinness and buy some Ireland shirts. Maybe those giant Leprechaun hats too.

10/21: First ‘real day’ in Ireland. Since we were super angry with our hotel we took very long baths AND showers to run out their hot water and kept all our lights on this morning. I don’t think it did much since we slept in late this morning. It was glorious - Sleeping in a bed, with sheets and 2 comforters in a room that was not exposed to outside air unless we chose for it to be. While getting ready for the day we watched this made-for-tv-movie called The Secret of Moon Castle. If you ever happen to see it on television it is definitely not worth anyone’s time, but everyone was speaking with Irish accents and it was early in the morning and I was easily amused. We also ate a very expensive breakfast at the hotel. 7 euro for cereal, a banana and juice? I thought that was a bit ridiculous myself. So we bit the bullet and paid and ate and packed our stuff to move to the hostel which we had tried to get into the day before. No problems with that since we already knew where we were headed. We checked in and got to our room. It was filled with bugs. Lots and lots of fly-like things. Erica and I tried to shoo them out; we’re praying that they were in the room because the window was open. But after dumping our stuff in steel lockers with large brass locks we started to really explore the city. First stop was Trinity College and the Book of Kells. Honestly, I don’t ever remember hearing about it except when my mom told me I had to see it while we were in Dublin. So we went and it was quite amazing. James, if you are reading this, I think I won the oldest book competition. And Parents, do we have a picture of St. John somewhere in our house? After the Book of Kells we started walking to the Guinness Storehouse. We took a loopy way around the city to get to Guinness in order to see Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and I’m sure something else that I have a picture of but can’t remember right now. After loads of walking we finally made it to the Guinness StoreHouse. The tour was quite interesting – learning about Arthur Guinness and his hops and pure water from the Wicklow Mountains. The tour ends on top of the StoreHouse in a circular glass panoramic bar that gives out complimentary Guinness pints. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast around 11ish, so after our pints, we quickly tried to find some food for the tipsy and hungry Erica. Rick’s Burgers in the Temple Bar area did the trick, plus we are on a red meat frenzy since its expensive and not the same in Italy. So we’ve eaten many hamburgers since in the Isles. Rick’s was the end of the night for us, so we headed back to the hostel. A little after we got into bed (we stayed in a 5 person co-ed hostel room) we acquired a roommate – a late 40s year old man. I did not witness any of these events since I was cranky and pretended to be asleep. Erica on the other hand woke up when he was getting ready for bed and noticed he was no longer wearing pants. Early in the morning she woke up again and now the man was also not wearing a shirt. But he left very soon after that, and we saw no more of this man.

10/22: Erica and I decided that today we did not want to be in a city or be in a tour group out to the country so we planned our own tour to Wicklow, a small picaresque Irish village. Wicklow had a medieval castle and lots of pretty countryside. We got a train ticket that morning and trained out there. Across and facing us on the train was a couple that was very intrigued with their picture phone – for about 2 hours they look pictures of everything and giggled (the people were in their late 40s maybe). We hopped off the train at Wicklow Station. The station was deserted and we were in the middle of some suburbs. We walked and walked, hoping in the right direction, to the village center. We found the tourist information center, but it was closed for lunch so we decided to grab some lunch as well at Ernie’s Bar. It had decent food. Erica refused to look at the Guinness on tap. After lunch we walked back to the information shop and got directions to the castle and Wicklow Point, a nice place. So we followed her direct ions to the tee and found some ruins and took some pretty pictures there. We continued our hike to the castle when we realized that in the directions the tourist lady wrote for us we had already passed the castle and were on our way to Wicklow Point. At that moment it dawned on us that the ruins were actually the castle. That confused us and still confuses us because we have a brochure for Wicklow Castle, and the picture is of a medieval castle. But we continued on to the Point where we had to walk through this red gate and up and up past lots of goat and cow pastures. But it was gorgeous – being out of cities with no one else around except the goats and cows. We found this tower but were not allowed to go near it since it was private property. So we obeyed the law and stayed outside the gate surrounding the tower. We then took a long hike back to the train station only to find out that the next train left in 2 hours. Our feet were killing us but we were starving so we hiked back into town, got dinner, hiked back, waited and waited for the train, and got back to the hostel in Dublin. Luckily we did not have another roommate that night since we had to wake up at 3:30am the next morning to catch our flight.

10/23: Erica and I woke up way too early this morning. We planned on getting out of our bunk beds at 3:30am, but we didn’t until around 4:00am. Well, Erica got up earlier, but I am a much worse morning person than she is and refused to get up until I absolutely had to. We walked to the bus station that was going to take us to the airport which we are happy we got there 20 minutes early. The bus was supposed to leave at 4:30am so we got there around 4:10am. The bus arrived within 3 minutes, packed up, and drove off. At 4:22 we were miles down the road. The airport was not that exciting. We grabbed breakfast there, and I had 2 caffe lattes which were delicious (I also was not tired for the rest of the day). RyanAir was a bit sketchy with its landing since we hit the ground roughly and then stopped abruptly. But that’s why it’s so cheap. We got a bus to Edinburgh after grabbing some money from the ATM. The exchange rate is horrible in Great Britain; its quite sad. We took a bus into Edinburgh center and immediately noticed how much prettier Edinburgh was than Dublin. After much fretting and phones not working we met up with Caitlin outside this train station. She walked us to her dorm where we were crashing for the night and then had to go to class. Not having internet in our rooms, I was very excited and played around on it all morning. Erica fell asleep and took a very nice long nap. When she woke up we started to explore the city. We listened to 2 different street performers. One group was three guys: 2 playing African bongo drums and the other with the bagpipes. I really liked that one. The second group was 3 Braveheart guys playing drums and bagpipes. Around this time Caitlin was out of class so we picked her up and went to the grocery store to buy stuff to make some Mexican food since we were all craving it. It ended up being delicious – while we watched half of Hot Fuzz. Caitlin’s friend Emma came over and then we all went this pub and ended up playing their Pub Quiz. We didn’t do so well since we were battling UKers and since the quiz was many UK history and pop culture. But Caitlin did come in 2^nd place in the dance-off and win us party poppers. After the game we had to get back to Caitlin’s room to go to bed. It was a very long but very fun day.

10/24: We all woke up late when Erica’s friend Colby called her to meet up in a coffee shop. So we got dressed and went to Black Medicine Coffee Shop were we spent 2 hours just talking. Colby went back to his dorm while Caitlin showed us around Edinburg University. A couple hours later Erica and I dropped Caitlin off at her dorm and then went to meet up with Colby and hike this hill called Arthur’s Seat. I’m not complaining but I’ve noticed that every trip I go on involved some sort of hike. It wasn’t as cold as we thought it was going to be though and we were overdressed for the weather. The way down was much easier. For my knees since they’re a tad off right now, I found it was easier to sort of gallop down the mountain. Erica joined me, but right as we were stopping she turned and fell right on her rear. We finished the hike, Erica said bye to Colby, and headed back to Caitlin to pick her up and go out to dinner. I was planning on trying the haggis, but by the time I was ready to order I just wanted a burger or something; I was not in the mood to try something new and intestine-like. But before we could order or even sit down, we had to produce IDs for some reason. Of course I had forgotten mine so we all had to go to Caitlin’s so I could get my ID. The food was worth it though. And they never even looked at our IDs which I thought was a little strange since it was such a big deal that we have them. After dinner Erica and I packed our stuff, Caitlin walked us to the bus station and we caught a night bus to London.

10/25: We got into London 30 minutes ahead of schedule (at 6:30am). Luckily, the bus wasn’t that full so we weren’t packed in. People didn’t talk on it and there were no babies. When we got to London we were both really disgusting so we took showers in the train station. Surprisingly it looked much cleaner and nicer than the shower in the hostel in Dublin. We found a place to store our bags for the day, put the essentials in our backpacks, and started walking around. We were close to Buckingham Palace so we took a look at it. There were lots of people dressed up in fancy velvet dresses all around us and when we got to the Palace there was a line of cars waiting to get in. I asked a police officer about it, and he told me the Queen was presenting awards to people who had done community service. I thought that was sort of cool. From there we walked around the park directly across the street as well as Hyde Park. There were lots of swans and dogs and squirrels running around; we had fun playing with the geese. After playing with the animals we started on our way to the British Museum which holds the Rosetta Stone and lots of other stolen things from all over the world. The British pillaged from everywhere! One of my friends Robbie met us at the British Museum so we had a nice catch-up on our lives while looking at huge chunks taken off the Parthenon in Athens. I think he asked four different people if what we were looking at was fake since it just seemed unrealistic that people would be able to chisel out these massive blocks of stone and transport them back to Britain unharmed. And that they’re still in Britain and haven’t been returned to their native land. Robbie showed us around a little bit more of London – like Leicester Square and Trafalgar Square which was hosting a protest to the 2008 Olympics being held in Beijing with all the atrocities that are happening/have happened there. It was time for Robbie to get back to his college for dinner, and Erica and I had to get to Oxford where we found free housing with 2 of my very good friends, Vanessa and James. We got a train and arrived in Oxford around 10pm. I was starving so we went to this kabob place and I downed a half pounder burger. It was delicious. Probably not even close to the best hamburger I have had, but at that point I was famished. After ‘dinner’ James and Vanessa took us to this very famous/hard to find tavern in downtown Oxford, Turf Tavern. We’re sitting down inside and I see this guy I worked with a couple summers ago. He’s from Israeli and I knew he was going to be traveling around Europe, but I had no idea we were going to be at the same place at the same time. So I got up and went outside and sort of yelled at him as he was walking by. He didn’t hear me so I was resigned to just send him an email about it the next day. I went back inside and explained the story to my friends. Vanessa is sitting right next to the window. All of a sudden the guy comes back. Vanessa sees him and starts banging on the window. She gets his attention, and then both she and James are pointing frantically to me. That’s when I noticed that his face was just a little bit different, and it wasn’t my friend Alon at all but some random person. He’s stopped so I go back outside and apologize and explain myself. He also apologized because he thought he was supposed to know who I was and had forgotten. We parted ways, and I went back inside where the rest of the conversation circulated around Alon’s name and how strange it must have seemed to other people for this girl to come running out of a tavern and yell, “ALONE!” Or if I had asked the guy if he was alone or said that his appearance implied he was alone.

10/26: We stayed with Vanessa last night at her college, Pembroke; she put us up on her floor which was not as uncomfortable as I was expecting it to be. But she had class and crew and choir practice starting at noon so we would mainly be hanging out with James all day. The four of us (Me, Erica, James, and Vanessa) met up for a full English breakfast in a covered market downtown. It was delicious. Lots of baked beans, ham, eggs, toast, and a chocolate milkshake for my drink. Father, you should be proud! Vanessa had to get to class after breakfast so James took us on a tour of Oxford. Our first stop was this bookshop. I forget its name, but it was amazing. Its massive and all in a basement. I got caught up in this corner for about an hour. Basically, I was in love. We all tore ourselves away from the store and started hiking around the town. It was beautiful, sort of a damp and dreary day, but it was still beautiful. I love the way Oxford University is set up with all the individual colleges with one or two entrances only to get into them. After looking around the town James took us through Christ Church Meadows – just a very pretty meadow with cows and where the crew boathouses are located on this little canal. Again, we found some swans and played with them for awhile. James got hissed at by a white goose for trying to feed it. Tired and hungry we took a pit stop at a local sandwich shop for refreshments and then went to have a look at James’ college, Lady Margaret H. The gardens there are also gorgeous. We ate dinner in their dining hall which is not the dining hall pictured in the Harry Potters, but it looks very similar to it. The Harry Potter dining hall is at Christ Church College. After dinner Vanessa was finally down with her stuff so we met up with her. Erica was tired so we all walked to Vanessa’s college, and then James, Vanessa, and I headed out back to Turf’s Tavern where some of James’ friends were meeting us. I had a great time. I met such nice people: Liz, Ji, and Scott. Well, I didn’t really met Scott until later in the evening. We’ll get to that. But at Turf’s I just talking to Ji and Liz and Vanessa. Vanessa and James decide that I need to go to Chequers because that’s another very nice pub in town. So we rush over there because it closes at 11pm and it’s around 10:30pm. So we rush over there. The boys all get a drink and want their picture taken. At that same time I decide I want something to drink so I’m rummaging through my purse to get some money. James is in a better position at the bar to order for me. So right after Ji and Scott ask for a picture, I hand James some money and ask him to buy me a drink. For the 2 seconds that Scott didn’t see I had handed James some money, he thought I was a horrible person. In exchange for a picture, I wanted James to buy me a drink. So for the rest of that night he kept apologizing and replaying the story for us. But the long and short of it was that it was a very fun night, and it was sad to say goodbye to both James and Vanessa since they are at Oxford for the year.

10/27: We had to get up ridiculously early this morning. It was no fun. But somehow we woke up 10 minutes late so we missed the original train we needed to get to the airport so we started the day with having to improvise. We arrived in London Paddington Station about 40 minutes behind schedule and rushed to the Tube. But the stops we needed were under repair and we had to ask at least 3 different people for directions, and the last guy totally changed our end destination from London Victoria Station to the Liverpool Street Station where we could pick up a direct train to London Stansted. That ended up working perfectly and we arrived to the airport very early. We had time to get some food and take our time. I hadn’t had time to eat breakfast so I got a salmon sandwich and an apple cake. But I was out of pounds. So I paid with a credit card. Right as the lady was putting my card through the machine I realized I still had a 20 pound note. Knowing that I would not be back to London in quite some time I had to spend it. I’ve barely bought anything for myself this semester minus food so I went on a little splurge and got 2 books. I spend the remaining money checking my email on the airport computers. We made it to the plane fine and had a good flight. We bused from Ciampino to Roma Termini where I met my parents for dinner at the train station. Erica went ahead to Perugia to get back home. The food at the train station was not good, but we had more time to talk. I got on my train back to Perugia where I’m going to be very late getting back now since the first train was delayed by 20 minutes and I think I’ve missed my connection and somehow I have to get a bus to Perugia. I’ve never done this before, and I’m on my own so it’s time for a little Kate adventure!

Well, I had my little 'Kate adventure'. I got to the my connection train station, Foligno, 23 minutes after my connection had left. The train that I missed also happened to be the last train to the station for the night. I had decided I was just going to suck it up and call a taxi to drive me the 30 minutes home to Perugia. Fortunately, there were lots of people who needed the same train I did to get to Assisi, Spello, and Perugia. So, the train station had this guy seperating people into what cities they had to go to and put them into taxis. I was in a taxi with 4 other people: 3 going to Assisi and one to Spello. I was the last stop and got to hang out with the taxi driver for like 20 minutes by myself as he drove me home. He dropped me off at the train station from which I normally take a bus to Piazza Italia and walk the rest of the way home. However, the last bus to Piazza Italia had left about 20 minutes before I got there. Some other Umbra students had just gotten off a train and were waiting for the same bus so we started talking and this very short and drunk man came over and told us that the next (and last) bus for the night would drop us off at the Stanieri which is sort of close to where we live in the center of the city. So we thanked him and got on the bus. He followed and tried to listen to our conversation, but being drunk and not fully understanding I have no idea what he understood or not. But I got home after 12:30. It was so nice to get into my bed. No more floors or buses or bus station!!

And they said the British Isles were going to be cold...

Fall Break was a very interesting process to plan for. Lots of kids are going with their parents either all over Europe or having a nice quiet vacation in the surrounding Tuscan and Umbrian countrysides. Being rather on the late side of planning for most things, I was very late in planning what I was going to do for my fall break. One roommate Julie was going to Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands and invited me to go with her. Unfortunately ticket prices were through the roof to travel with them so I had to opt out. Another roommate of mine, Jeanette, is backpacking across Sicily which sounded like fun, but my third roommate, Erica, had no plans either. So about four days before fall break started, we decided on a tentative itinerary of Ireland, Scotland and another country. At first it was going to be Spain, then the Netherlands, and finally Greece. They were all hard to get to from where we were going to stay in Edinburgh, Scotland, so we decided on going to London. Erica has never been there and we’re already going to be on the same island. So we bought plane tickets to Dublin and then to Edinburgh, but we hadn’t booked a flight back to Rome. We now do have a flight back home – out of London. Our plan was to rent a car and drive from Edinburgh to Salisbury to see Stonehenge before we have to go back to school. Unfortunately all the affordable car rentals are for ages 23 and up while the most expensive ones allow 21 yr olds to drive. Train tickets and plane tickets in the UK are god-awful expensive. In Italy to go from one end to the other is about 40 euro. From Edinburgh, Scotland, to London, England is about 150 POUNDS! So we’re now looking for bus tickets down to London. But that’s all background. Now to the real adventure!

Our plane from Rome to Dublin left this morning at 9:55am, but the only way to make it was to leave yesterday so we’d be able to get to the airport with enough time to check-in and go through security and passport control. We had two options: get a hostel in Rome for the night or take a late train out of Perugia, sleep for about 5 hours in a train station, get to the airport and save hostel money. Being two thrifty college kids, we decided to take the later train out of Perugia. So around 10pm last night we finished packing our stuff and started walking down to the train station (apparently walking takes about the same amount of time as taking the bus and we saved a euro). The walk down was a bit shady since it was 10:45pm on a Friday and we were given very crude directions to the station (just keep walking down and you’ll see it). We finally made it without any problem to find out that the ticket machines weren’t working, but somehow we got a ticket to the layover station, Terni. So onto the train we got. It was so cold outside. I’m wearing a tank top, long john shirt, sweatshirt and a coat with 2 layers of pants on as well as gloves and a hat. We get to Terni and look for a nice place to spend the night. A man gets up from one the long benches in the main waiting room (it’s about 1am by now and our next train leaves at 5:39am). Right as we sit down Erica notices a girl she knows from class who is also doing the same thing we’re doing (sleeping at train station to catch her plane). It’s freezing cold. We are all shivering. Parents, do you remember that one time a long time ago we spent the night at Connor Praire? Well, I think this might have been worse. Someone between consciousness and sleep I notice she’s gotten up and when she returns she mentions that the sottopassiggio is a lot warmer, and that there is also a chapel down there. So we grab all our things and head down to the little chapel. We each grabbed a pew (about 2 feet too short for me) and tried to sleep. But it was still frigid down there. I tried to use my towel as a blanket, but it was too thin and basically did nothing. At 5:20am we all woke up and grabbed some HOT cappuccino cioccolato from one of the vending machines. It was so nice to hold something warm in my hands. Still shivering we wait for the train to arrive, get to Roma Termini (the big train station), transfer to Ciampino and then get a bus to the airport. The airport takes hardly any time to get through at all. We’re checked in and waiting at the gate within fifteen minutes. Throughout these transfers we’re still trying to get warm as well as catch some sleep. So the plane ride is highly uninteresting besides RyanAir gives you no leg room and the stewardesses come around at least six times trying to get you to buy a soda or chip bag on the plane since they are not complementary. But we arrived in Dublin!!! It was so green outside and not as cold as Perugia. The Dublin airport was under construction so it took some time to walk through it all especially since they put all the cheap airlines out in the boonies of the airport. None of that mattered though when we got to baggage claim and our bags were there!!! We grabbed out bags, I got a smoothie to eat/drink, and then we headed to information to find out which bus to take to the hostel downtown for the night. The plan was to get to the hostel, drop our stuff, take a nap, eat something, look around a little bit, get on the internet to finalize our plans for the trip, and then go to bed very early. So we get to the hostel with little trouble (we had help from a nice lady sitting next to us on the bus) only to find out that we’re staying in that hostel tomorrow night. Erica had forgotten that we were staying at a different place near the airport tonight. We need to find the bus to get back to the airport which takes forever because it’s not on the main street with the rest of the bus stops; it’s on a side street and down quite a ways. We are wicked tired due to not sleeping for 36 hours by now as well as schlepping our bags across Dublin and back again. Back to the airport we go to get directions to the hotel Erica knows she made reservations for. On the way to the airport four boys dropped a stink bomb in the bus and ran off. Luckily for me, I couldn’t smell it but everyone around me had their sweaters and coats over their mouths and noses. The hotel has Wi-Fi which is all we care about now to figure out our days in Ireland and the bus from Edinburgh to London. But when we get to the hotel they don’t have our reservations, we paid an exorbitant fee (we were too tired to try and even find another hotel especially since we’re near nothing), and the Wi-Fi is not free whatsoever. At this point we’re hating life and just want to sleep. Unfortunately our heat is not working so well in the room, the people above us are having a trampoline party, and there’s this little Asian boy running up and down the hallway. Oh, earlier we also got ripped off on power adaptors. We just got back from having decent cheeseburgers (the first in months…we also had fish and chips today! We’re not eating pasta while we’re away and we’ve vowed to eat lots of meat) and watching the semi-final world cup rugby match between South Africa and England. South Africa won. We are tired and delirious and still have no idea what time we can get to the hostel tomorrow because it’s not written anywhere and the hostel people were mean to us today. This trip will get better when we drink some real Guinness and buy some Ireland shirts. Maybe those giant Leprechaun hats too.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

10/11: Traveling to Budapest this weekend! Julie and I decided to go to Budapest and visit the sites of a Soviet country. Our plane was at 8:15 out of Rome so we decided to take the 3:40pm train out of Perugia to Rome (a 2:30 train ride), but we had to transfer twice to get to the Rome Airport: Foligno and Roma Termini. When we arrived at the Rome Fiumciano airport, we had about an hour before the plane boarded. Luckily, Julie spotted the Malev Airlines ticket counter. It was a tiny ticket counter in the middle of the huge checking-in area. So we walked over to where this youngish guy was checking in another lady to a plane. When it was our turn the guy took his sweet time checking us in, answered at least two phone calls from his mother, tried to get us to talk about ourselves in Italian, and then finally gave us the tickets. He did, though, allow us to carry-on two bags instead of just one. We thanked him and ran to the security line. It was very long, but we got our stuff all ready and waited our turn. Going through security was fine; the guy in front of me left his belt so I handed it to him as his luggage was getting looked at at a separate counter. He thanked me as I walked back to the security belt to wait for Julie to get through and to get the rest of my stuff. One of the airport security guards came up behind me; “Do you speak English?” “Yes, I do.” “Did you have the liquids?” WHAT? I did bring some liquids, but they were all in my little 3-1-1 bag, and I had taken it out of my bag and put it in one of the bins. He waited for Julie to grab her stuff and then motioned for us to follow him to another counter so he could look through our stuff. He asks to see our liquid bags which we hand to him. “Do you have any more liquids?” At which we replied no; we really didn’t have any more liquids. He gave us a strange look, stared at us; we stared back. But we really did not have time for this since our plane was boarding then. So we tried to hurry things along with him. He finally asked to look at our plane tickets, saw we were late for the plane, and allowed us to go. We ran to passport control and waited impatiently for the line to go. Some people behind us tried to tell us that their plane was leaving soon and wanted to cut in front of us to catch their plane. After we told them that our plane was boarding NOW, they apologized and went back to their spots in line. We got through passport control and ran down the airport to our gate. But instead of a gate, we had to wait for a shuttle to take us to another terminal. We jumped in front of the shuttle door, hopped on, and got our ways to the front of the shuttle – right in front of the exit doors. The door opened we sprinted up the escalators, not really noticing the lady at the top of the escalators who called out to us which gate we were suppose to go to. Thinking that she knew where we were going was quite strange we just thanked her as we rushed by. Julie was in front of me when she ran past the gate, so the lady at the top of the escalator yelled at us that we were passing our gate. I slid to a stop and turned back to the gate. The two gate agents quickly stood up. Before we were even at the gate, they told us to get out our documents. We handed them over quickly, and they started talking in rapid Italian. One started to get on the phone, but the lady at the top of the escalators had run after us and told the other lady she had just called whoever the other one was trying to call. The man gate agent got us checked in and on the plane. We were so relieved that we made the plane that it took a couple of seconds to realize we made the plane because they had held it for us. That has never happened to me before. They never hold planes or call out your name if you haven’t boarded. But they did this time. It was amazing. We could not stop talking about it the entire plane ride. Unfortunately with all the stressing and running we had sweat through our clothes and just shed most of them on the plane. We were also a little worried that Malev airlines was going to be very sketchy, but that plane was very nice. Not sketchy in the least bit. The plane ride went smoothly; we arrived in Hungary, and grabbed a taxi to my friend Dan’s apartment where we were staying for the weekend. Julie and I felt so gross and tired that we just fell asleep as soon as we got there.

10/12: I woke up very early Friday morning. I started turning a little bit which woke up Julie (since we’re sharing a bed this weekend). Julie was hungry so I went downstairs and awoke Dan from his comfortable couch-bed so he could make us eggs for breakfast. We ate and then started the adventure that is Budapest. Our first stop was St. Stephan’s Basilica. Part of the church was closed (but closed I mean you could not go down the center aisle) because there was a funeral for an old Olympic athlete occurring. But we went to the roof of the church. We walked up and up. Finally we came to about a half-way point with an elevator, tried to get on, but a church employee yelled at us not to get on it so we found the stairs and continued up. But the view was worth it. Plus, it was very cool to walk around on some sort of permanent scaffolding in the innards of the famous church. We started back down, but the only way down was by elevator. That was definitely fine with all of us. The first elevator took us back to that middle point, and that’s when we realized that the reason the lady yelled at us about the elevator was because it was the wrong elevator, and she was yelling at us to get on the other elevator. Oh well, we got our workout. After St. Stephan’s, we walked to an ice cream place (different than our gelato but still good), figured out how to get stamps at the post office, and then walked across the river to Buda, since the entire time we had been in Pest. In Buda we walked up this massive hill to Buda Castle and Fisherman’s Bastion. We all got so hungry walking around so we found a restaurant close by where the waiter confused Julie’s “We want to eat” with “Black teats.” No idea how that one happened, but we ordered some goulash for lunch which was very tasty. The restaurant, though, was playing some of the most interesting music. It was mostly big American hits from the 80s and 90s, but the singing was replaced by a recorder, like the instrument you learned how to play in the 4^th grade. Lunch was followed by a quick stop at Dan’s apartment to get bathing suits, and then we headed for the Turkish baths. It really wasn’t a “Turkish bath” because it wasn’t built by the Turks, but that was about the only dissimilarity. It was a very surreal experience. We had bundled up to get there since it was freezing cold outside. Julie and I have on sweatshirts and our North Face jackets, and I put on my ski cap. We got to the bath house (huge and yellow and very ornate) which looked like an old Russian palace. Julie and I were left on our own to figure out the women’s locker room and met Dan outside. The air was so chilly, but we hopped in one of the pools as soon as possible, and the water was so warm. And the pools were packed. We kept laughing at how this very macho man was getting a back massage from one of the fountains in the pool. We switched it up with the pools every once and a while, but it was miserable every time we got out of the water since the air temperature was so cold. After about an hour and a half we decided it was time to head back to the apartment to shower and make some dinner. We went to get our refund for the baths (we were suppose to get 400 forints back, but the lady checking us out knew we were foreigners and never gave us our receipt for the refund. We realized she was taking advantage of us like 30 seconds after it happened, but the way the system worked, we tried a couple times to explain what happened to other people, but they kept pointing us to other people. There was no way we were going to get our money back so we just gave up. With wet heads we decided to take the metro back (the first metro in the world!) back to the apartment, stopping at the grocery store for some chicken (turned out to be some sort of mystery meat) to cook for dinner. During dinner some of Dan’s friends came over to talk and pick up stuff they had left in the apartment a couple days ago. Right after they left, Dan’s roommate Claire came back with like 4 friends. We hung up for a little bit, went up to their apartment’s roof which has a very neat view of the city, and then decided to head out to some sort of very laid-back club. We walked a fair bit to this place to find out it was closed. After walking to another place that this guy, Mike, was leading us to for about 45 minutes, I finally asked him exactly how much further it was because it was 2am and we had been walking for such a long time. He never gave us a straight answer back, so Dan, Julie, and I hailed a cab back to the apartment since we would have had to walk about an hour back. Very tired because we had walked about a total of twelve miles that day, we headed to bed as soon as we got back.

10/13: Today we slept in so much and didn’t get out of bed until about 11:30 which was glorious. Julie made us eggs for breakfast. We planned a course for the day: House of Terror followed by a little bit of shopping and a nice dinner. The House of Terror was amazing. It’s a museum dedicated to the atrocities committed by the Nazis and Soviets in Hungary during their occupations of the country, but the museum itself is in one of the old interrogation/execution buildings. Each room was set to music – starting with some music similar to Black Hawk Down when they were explaining the Soviet and Nazi occupations and take-overs. And in the basement of the building are the old prison cells as well as some solitary confinement cells and some torture rooms. One towards the end of the tour had a video where some of the women who were placed in one of the prisons confronted their guard – in the present day. Somehow the producers or whoever got all these elderly women together, back in the prison room with their guard, and they were explaining to her how much pain and suffering the lady put them through. It was very strange, but sort of neat how they were able to confront this lady many years later and explain to her how terribly she acted. After the museum we came back to the apartment and re-headed out to McDonalds because Julie and Dan were both hungry, and we all wanted to visit the first McDonalds built behind the Iron Curtain. It was definitely an experience. The food is still terrible, but we decided it was okay since it could be a tourist stop. The McDonalds is in the middle of a very large shopping street so we window shopped for a little bit, got very cold, and went to a café for some caffe latte and hot chocolates. We were going to go out for dinner, but it’s so cold outside and we are still so sore from walking everywhere yesterday that we’re ordering in Pizza Hut and watching a movie tonight – mainly because we’re getting picked up by a cab tomorrow morning at 5:30am. Julie justified McDonalds and Pizza Hut today by saying that we needed an “American” day, and we haven’t had one yet. So this is it. Calling Pizza Hut was a bit of a disaster since after finally getting the number and finally calling them and telling them the address and order they said there were technical difficulties and we had to call back in a half hour. So did and got the pizza and it was delicious! I can't believe we ate McDonalds and Pizza Hut, but we did and it was....well McDonalds and Pizza Hut. We also decided to watch a movie, Amelie, since Julie had never seen it; we took a break in the middle of it because someone was shooting off fireworks which we watched from the apartment roof. We tried to go to bed early since we had a cab picking us up at 5:30am but Julie and I didn't get to bed until about 1-2am. That girl is a tickling monster!

10/14: Julie and I woke up at 5am. I am not a morning person to begin with so waking up really early is not my thing, and its worse after only like 3-4 hours of sleep. So we got all our stuff, said our goodbyes, and jumped in the cab - it was still pitch-black when we got to the airport. At the airport we got our tickets and hopped in the passport check line. When we were very close to the front this elderly woman comes over to us and starts speaking to us in Hungarian. Looking at her blankly and then telling her we spoke English, she got really excited and told us she spoke English too. She had picked us out to start talking to because we had the same looking passports (She was most definately holding a US passport too. Why she thought we spoke Hungarian while holding a US passport is beyond me. I've been thinking about it for about 7 hours now). After asking us where the line was and pointing her to the back, I think she pretended not to hear and continued to talk to Julie and cut tons of people behind her. But she graciously let us go first at the passport check since we were there before her (If you can't tell, I am incredibly grumpy in the morning and did not want to make small talk with this old lady). Unfortunately, both Julie and I did not feel well so we were sitting and trying to drink some water, but it wasn't really working. So we both just slept on the plane ride back which made some of the sick feelings go away. From the plane we took a train from the airport to the main train station. We got off the train, tried to buy tickets from some broken ticket machines, helped a German family figure out the ticket machine in German (I was quite impressed with that). We were walking down to the restrooms when I realized I didn't have one of my bags and had left it on the train. I sprinted back to the train, forced myself on, but unfortunately the train started to move with me on it. So I got 2 free rides to and from the airport today. Got back to Roma Termini with about 5 minutes before our real connection to Perugia. The train was packed, but we got some seat together. Unfortunately for us today (and wonderful for the rest of the week) since EuroChocolate is happening right now in Perugia so its mad packed. Julie and I were mean and just pushed through the crowd. But we made it back to the apartment!

Pre-Birthday

Julie and I decided to kick off Kate's 21st Birthday celebration by going to a karaoke bar. Turned out to be really fun. The bar, well pub since bars in Italy are just caffes, was full of Americans at first and then the Italian showed up. But all the songs played were old songs like "Its Raining Men" with some newer stuff by RHCP and Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys thrown in the mix. Julie kept telling everyone I was turning 21 in 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 5 minutes, 2 minutes. It was a ton of fun. We said we were only going for a hour - that turned into 2 hours. When we got back much later than anticipated Erica and Jeanette, who didn't come (grrrr), were waiting with a chocolate birthday cake for me! It was delicious. Earlier that day we said we were going to wake up super early (6am) and watch Hot Fuzz before classes. Going to bed around 2am, Erica called me from the next room to discuss movie plans in about 4 hours. So of course we decided to sleep through it and this morning, my birthday!, everyone was awake when I woke up. Usually I'm the only one awake in the mornings since my class is hours before the other roomies. And when I got back from class this morning, the whole kitchen was decorated in princess and birthday decorations!

Lago di Como

10/5: This weekend I had been planning on going to Venice with some friends. But when everyone bailed on me, I also decided that I was not interested in traveling to Venice – one of the most romantic cities in Italy – by myself. Instead, I decided to travel to Lake Como and visit my parents for the weekend. I was very nervous with the train situation since all the trips I've been on thus far have included some sort of problem with the trains: train strikes, missed trains, ticket problems. I got to the train station in Perugia about 20 minutes early. I bought my tickets; I had two train changes to make, once in Firenze SMN and one in Milan Centrale. Each had about a 20 minute 'layover.' The train leaving from Perugia was delayed 5 minutes which was fine until it was 10:10am – 15 minutes late. Then 20 minutes late. There goes my layover, and I knew I had just missed my train in Firenze. But there was nothing I could do, and I'd wait until I got to Firenze and just get the next train to Milan and then to Como. No need to fret over it since last trip home from Cinque Terre that was all I did and we got home safely while making every train. So I waited patiently to board the time and got on. Somehow the train managed to make up all the time so I got to Firenze and onto the next train without any problems. My train from Firenze to Milan was very nice except the screaming toddlers. But even they are incredible. I have idea what he was saying but if he was speaking it English I feel like it would have been something like this, "Mama, my soul is weeping with sorrow. My heart is pierced by this cruel existence." He was probably hungry or upset that his mom took away a toy, but there was so much emotion to his voice which could only be caused by a deep wound. Despite what I thought he was saying, I still got a splitting headache listening to him screaming in aguish. But no matter. I got off the train in Milan very hungry and went to a vendor for a salami sandwich. The place was packed. I finally ordered my panino and the guy behind the counter took forever asking me if I wanted the panino hot or if I wanted a beer with my sandwich. I think he took offense when I said I just wanted the sandwich and he didn't have to toast it; I would eat it cold. After all, it was a salami sandwich and I brought a water bottle with me. Not really thinking about the time because I had 30 minutes in Milan I headed to my train platform and realized that it left in 5 minutes. I quickly got on and found a seat, not noticing that this train had assigned seats and I was nowhere near my train car. I walked through 3 train cars until I got to one that barely had anyone in it and decided this was good enough. The train staff could move me if they wanted to, but there were only like 20 other people in the car which could hold about 100 so they probably wouldn't. I arrived to Como on time. The first time that has ever happened! My parents were there to greet me, so we hopped in the rental car and drove around the lake a little bit. We decided upon where George Clooney lives – a nice, big, yellow house right on the water with a private drive going up to it. After the driving tour we went to the hotel since my parents hadn't gotten there yet to drop off all the suitcases and everything. It only being 6pm we decided to wait a little bit before going to dinner. At first we wanted to get on a boat to go across the lake to other town for dinner, but all the boats had left. So we hopped back in the car to go to this little restaurant my mom read about in her slow foods book. After an hour and a half of searching for it and road signs we arrived to find out that the place was booked for the night. Starving at this point we headed back to the hotel and had dinner there. It was delicious. Tagliatelle with 'prawns' and zucchini followed by tiramisu for dessert. I couldn't ask for a better meal. So we are back in the hotel room for the night, most likely getting up earlier than I would like to explore more of Como and the other surrounding towns. Maybe George Clooney will be flying in tomorrow and we'll meet him. Hey, you can only hope…

10/6: Today we woke up early (9am) to catch a ferry from Como to Verenna for the day. We got good seats on the ferry and made frequent stops along the lake. Lake Como is gorgeous and huge. There are a ton of little towns up and down the coastline with lots of very big old Italian manors with acres and acres of gardens surrounding them. We get to Verenna and have a quick look around before deciding to eat. That's my family's most favorite past-time: eating (probably explains why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday). So we found a restaurant in a tour book that was suppose to have amazing food. It did. I am in love with ravioli and tortellini. My mom forced some wine on me even though we were going for a hike later that day (you guys are wonderful role models!). After lunch we grabbed some homemade gelato - also incredibly delicious. Then started the hike up this mountain to the ruins of an old castle. We started up the mountain, ended up far away from the castle and in a cemetary. Went back down the mountain, looked at map and realized our mistake and hiked all the way back up it. None of packed well for the trip; instead of wearing shorts and t-shirts we all had on long pants and long-sleeve things and jackets. We finally reached the top all hot and sweaty. It was definitely worth it; the castle ruins were gorgeous with great views of the entire lake as well as a falcon demonstration that we happened to stumble upon. We hiked back down and got on a boat to Bellagio. I don't think I would recommend visiting unless you want to shop; its like Disneyworld for the wealthy. After about 40 minutes we decided to leave and got in line for the high-speed ferry back to Como. Next to me in line (lines in Italia are more like clumps) was an older man and his wife, most likely German. He tried to get ahead of me in line, but the only way to do that was to push me which isn't kosher at all. So when the ferry docked and people were allowed to get on the ferry he tried to get in front again. But being my father's daughter, I quickly sidestepped in front of him which is when, I'm pretty sure, I learned some bad German words. After securing good seats on the ferry, my parents and I had a good ferry ride. We arrived back in Como about a half hour later, starving, and went to a small pizza place since my parents had yet to eat pizza in Italy (granted they had only been in Italy for 2 days now). After dinner, where the waiter told me I stop Italian beautifully (I said one word), we ran back to the car in the rain because it had started sprinkling during dinner. Luckily, the rain really started coming down right after we got back in the car. And then back to the hotel for the night where they were hosting a smallish wedding dinner.

10/7: All three of us woke up early on Sunday to get to the train station. My parents decided like that morning to train with me to Milan where they would spend the day and I would continue onwards back to Perugia. I was slightly nervous because my connections in Milan and Florence were 13 minutes and 25 minutes, and if the trains were late, I'd have to wait about 2 hours at the stations. So about 10 minutes late a train arrives on our platform, we get on, only to realize its the wrong train. We're going to Milan, but we're not on the direct train to Milan so we're stopping at every single stop from Como to Milan (which is a lot) which means I've missed my train connection in Milan already and then my connection in Florence. We're also not arriving at the same Milan train station so we had to figure out the metro in Milan. When we did get to the correct Milan train station, there was a train leaving for Florence in the next 5 minutes so I ran over to the platform, talked to the train workers about having a ticket to Florence just on a different train and everything, but its Italy so they were like, "Whatever. Get on the train." Trying to find a seat and walking the length of the train, I got stuck behind a foreigner like me with two rolling suitcases; that's a difficult feat to accomplish when train aisles are narrow so I helped her by dragging one of the suitcases along with my two other bags. I felt so bad because people were giving me dirty looks for trying to drag this bag along the train instead of putting it up somewhere and I think I ran over a couple people's toes. Once the girl found her seat (there were assigned seats and since I didn't have a seat on this train, I was hoping to find a carriage with lots of empty seats) and I helped her get her bags up and out of the way. She sort of repaid me by telling me to sit in another seat close to hers by telling the guy sitting next to the empty seat to get up so I had a seat! The entire time I was slightly paranoid that I was going to get kicked out of my seat since it technically wasn't my seat. But I had a nice long time on the train, in the same seat, and was bale to get most of my homework done. When I got to Firenze I had to wait about an hour and a half for the next train going through Perugia, but I got back when it was still light which is always nice.

Opera Night

Tuesday Julie, Jeanette, and I went to the opera – The Barber of Seville! We decided to get dressed up since we rarely get really dressed up to go out. We met up with some other Umbra kids and staff for appertivi at a pub or restaurant. It was more like a buffet and you were allowed one drink on the house (well, we had really already paid for it when we got our ticket for the opera). So I ordered a glass of white wine. Everyone else had just a little bit of wine pulled into their glass, but the bartender decided to fill my glass to the brim with wine. TO THE BRIM! Luckily, my roommates helped me finish it because there are no way I would be able to drink all that in one sitting and be able to pay attention to an opera, especially one in Italian. After our appetizers we headed to the opera which was supposed to start at 8:30. We walked up and up and up to our seats. We reached one level when we realized the stairs to the next one were plain concrete and we had to open this little attic door to go up the stairs. So up we went again until we reached our seats. They were actually pretty decent since they were right in the middle - just very high up. Also they were bench seats without backs. The 6 of us in our little box sat in the box in our nice dresses on these very uncomfortable wooden benches for hours and hours. I think it finally let out at midnight. For 3 hours we sat on these benches. Every other level had nice chairs with cushions on them. I guess I shouldn't complain since I basically got a dinner and tickets to the opera for 20 euro. The opera was fantastic. The music was wonderful, the playhouse was gorgeous, and the actor's voices were unbelievable. Unfortunately we were just dog tired at the end of it and then had to walk back to the apartment. I was in awe with the Italian women and how often they wear heels on those hills. Now I have a new appreciation for them. Walking uphill is not the problem. The problem is walking downhill in heels. It's virtually impossible: it's much easier to just sort of jog down the hill. Maybe rolling would have been easier, but I didn't want to get gravel stains or cuts in my dress. Plus, I would just look silly rolling down a rocky, stony street.