Thanksgiving, Tuscana, e Danza

Ciao Tutti,

I apologize again for the delay in postings. Life has been busy here in Roma.
Where did we leave off…

Thanksgiving
Well, I managed to actually have a real turkey dinner last Thursday in Rome. My roommate, Dezera, told me that the Hard Rock Café holds Thanksgiving dinners in most major cities, Rome being one of them! So, I was beyond excited; Thanksgiving wasn’t a lost cause after all! I managed to get a few friends to join me and not a single one was American. It was pretty cool to be able to share this holiday with others my age from across the globe. My group consisted of, Magdalena from Austria, Annemarijn from Holland, Padraic from Ireland, and Mandy from Belgium. It was a pretty solid group and everyone went all out and paid the 25 euro for a real Thanksgiving feast. Our menu was:

-1 flute of champagne
-Onion soup as a starter
-Turkey, baked potato, corn on the cob, and cranberry sauce as the main course
-A bottle of wine -not included in the 25 euros ;)
And for dessert:
-Pumpkin pie or bailey’s Irish cheesecake (which I obviously ordered..YUM)

So, needless to say, we were all rolling each other out of the restaurant. But, it was definitely worth it and I am so lucky that I have such great friends here who wanted to take part in my country’s holiday :)

I hope everyone at home enjoyed their Thanksgivings as well! I was certainly wishing I was in NYC with my family to share the holiday, but I was also thankful to be in another great city across the world.
You should have heard me trying to explain Black Friday to everyone here. It probably only made Americans seem even crazier than they already appear. “You mean you get up at 2am to SHOP?!? Non capisco..”

Next Up: Siena & San Giovanni Trip in Tuscana
My friend, Clementina from Venezuela, and I decided to join the school on their monthly excursion around Italy. This months’ trip was to Siena, and then to a small town called Porta San Giovanni, both of which are in Tuscany, so clearly beautiful places to visit.

It took a good 4 hours to arrive in Siena by bus, but we left around 7:45am so I managed to sleep a few extra hours on the way ;) Siena was a great city and not at all what I was expecting. It was very similar to Pienza and Montepulciano in the way that the town was very, very old and full of cozy, winding roads. However there were a lot of high-end stores that lined the streets instead of the typical butcheries and gelaterias that appeared in the other cities. Don’t get me wrong, Siena had these shops as well, but it definitely had a more modern feel to it. They had stores like Versace, Furla, and etc. so it was odd to see that in such a historic place. You’re probably thinking that I’m a hypocrite right now considering Rome is a historic city with high-end shops as well, but really the difference is that Siena is much, much smaller than Rome and it felt almost like the stores were completely incongruous. In Rome, you don’t really feel like you’re in a historic place until you come across old monuments. Whereas in Siena and these other towns, you are constantly reminded of their time period with the aging buildings, lack of taxis, buses, & metros and really the simplicity of life around you. So, that was interesting to me.

We went inside one of the most amazing cathedrals I have ever seen. It was just called il duomo di Siena (the cathedral of Siena), but it was so unique. The interiors were entirely striped in black & white marble. And the details in the church were absolutely incredible. I mean you could look around that church for years and probably find new sculptures on the walls or ceilings. In one of the areas of the church there was a baptismal bath and when you looked up you could see a circle of angels throwing things down towards the bath. But you really had to look hard or it just looked like a ring of branches or something. So, it’s details like that which made it so unique and exquisite. I’ll post a few pictures so you can get a good image of what I’m talking about.

After Siena we made our way to Porta San Giovanni. Which to be honest wasn’t that exciting because we didn’t get a tour so I didn’t learn much of the history about the place. It had great architecture though and the old buildings were some of my favorite. I was disappointed especially because they had lights on just about everything and I wished it was dark so we could have seen it. I bet it is just amazing once they’re all on. Alas, Clementina and I just grabbed a bite to eat there since we really only had an hour to tour the city and then took pictures of the buildings, etc.

After this city, we made our way home and arrived at the school around 10pm. So, it was clearly a VERY long day. However, we had a good time and met some new people from school (most notably one boy in particular named Samuel who is just the best eye candy you’ll ever see, and of course he just happens to be a doctor, who lives in Switzerland, and is just as friendly to talk to as he is nice to look at ;) so that always makes for a good time too) lol

Sunday I managed to crawl out of bed to go to a dance show with Annemarijn. On our way there we thought we’d take a bus to the train station, hop on the metro, then walk to the teatro. Jumping on our local bus, it was unusually crowded, and Anne got quite a bit ahead of me, but I saw her give me a look of terror as she pulled away from the crowd to grab me. Suddenly I see she’s searching through her purse counting her money and double, triple, quadruple counting all her belongings. Finally she says some woman had been going through her purse as we crowded onto the bus!!!!! Annemarijn’s purse was unlocked, unzipped, and wallet open when she realized this girl’s hand was in her bag. Luckily Anne noticed fast enough to pull away from her and had every single one of her belongings in place. I don’t even think she realizes how lucky she was. When I saw the girl on the bus who had opened Annemarijns purse, I seriously burned a hole through her head with the look I gave her. She was wearing a fur vest and other nice clothes. Who did she think she was trying to steal from Annemarijn??? As she got off the bus only about .10 miles away, we watched her stand there eyeing every single person around her. These poor people had no idea that they were her next victims..
We decided that from now on, we talk only in Italian at the bus stops so we don’t stand out as vulnerable foreigners. And we also continued to essentially HUG our bags the whole night. *sigh* Okay enough of the serious talk.

The dance show we were going to was where dancers were going to compete for the Federazione Italiana Danza (Italian Dance Federation). Basically, this federation would choose the best dancers from all the performances to be in their company. Kinda cool to witness that. And the dances were truly very good. It was mostly modern dance, but some hip-hop that really reminded me of America’s Best Dance Crew competitors. The show started at 4pm and we sat there for like 3 hours thinking it was almost over… ummmm it went on until 10PM!!!!!!!!!!! Thank god we found a woman who told us that it went on until then so we left around 8 to get food and get out of dodge!! Sorry but even Brad Pitt in a tutu wouldn’t keep me there for 6 hours. Well- okay, maybe Brad Pitt would, but let’s be real. Absolutely way too long. And yet absolutely so typical for Italians. We should have known better..

And now, I’m just about to pass out from my busy weekend. Tomorrow I am going to be making plans for a trip to Venice and Garda Lake (near Milano) next weekend! So, look out for details on that trip in the next week or so :)

Sorry this was a rather boring and inevitably grammatically error-filled blog, but my energy was sucked out somewhere between San Giovanni and the 6 hour dance show we nearly sat through. Hope you can at least enjoy the pictures I’m going to post and I’ll be talking to you soon about my next trip :)

Tanti bachi,

-Kate