Days 6 - 9, sorry for missing so many days!

Day 6-9 August 23, 2010


First off, I would like to apologize for not doing any journal entries Days 6-8. Not a lot happened but I was just so tired when I returned to the apartment each night that I didn’t have the energy to journal. So, I will try to bring everyone up to date now.

Friday started off as a regular day. I woke up, walked around a bit, went to the school around noon, had class….and then the girls wanted to go to the student club for the social hour to say farewell to Rebecca. She was only attending the school for one week and is now in Florence.

Before joining the” party”, I wanted to go online to try and figure out how to set up a photo account. The best thing I found was Flickr, but I have too many photos to take advantage of their free program and will need to pay to really have use out of this account. Since I really do not have any money to spare, I am still debating what to do. I would like to share my photos with you, sorry that I am taking so long….

Side comment: Speaking of taking so long, I can’t believe I’ve been here for a week already!!! How did the time go by so quickly? I have so much that I want to do!!

Ok, back to the story.

So, the party started before me. And let me tell you, those girls had a healthy start!! Oh my goodness, I can’t believe how much they had to drink in the hour and a half that I was busy. I don’t understand drinking so much that you make yourself sick or forget some of the things that you do. I have NEVER done this and know that I never EVER will! Anyway, we had some fun, dancing and enjoying each other’s company. We met other students from the school and communicated in as many different languages as possible. But the most commonly used form of correspondence was a crazy form of sign language as we all tried to express our underlying message and understand one another. There were people from Italy, of course, Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, Russia, England, America,….all over the world. It was really neat to just see everyone together having a good time.

And then….one of the girls, Anna from Austria, got sick from drinking too much. She was so miserable I did feel sorry for her. It was kinda aweful. We tried to help her as much as possible. In the end, she was taken home by Giordano (the man/boy who runs the club) accompanied by Rebecca who was one of her flat-mates.

At this point, there were only three of us girls left: Tamara (who we decided to call Mara), Lorena (dubbed Lora) and I. We talked and talked and danced and had fun…and I lost track of the time. All of a sudden I was so tired and just had to get home. And here is where the story takes a wrong turn for me. Well, I WAS the one who made the stupid decision to try and get home by myself…at midnight.

REMINDER: I am ok, nothing bad happened and I am safe and sound.

So, I decide I have to leave and make my way to Termini. I get on the bus at my bus stop and we start going. I was so tired I fell asleep and woke up about 45 minutes later in a part of Rome I had never seen before!! I took the wrong bus!!! It was now about 01.00 and I was alone and I had no idea where I was. Yes, I did kinda freak out and shed a couple of tears out of panic. Then I composed myself and went up to the bus driver and asked if he was going back to Termini. He said yes. So, what was I to do? I sat tight and waited until I got back to Termini. Ok, I made it back safely.

Now, everyone had assured and reassured me that in Rome the buses ran all night long. Not with as much frequency as the day buses, but that still they worked 24hours a day. But there is always an exception to the rule, no? Once I was returned to Termini, I checked the bus schedule for the number 40 bus and to my complete dismay it was one of the very few buses that stopped running at midnight and wouldn’t start again until 6am. I checked the other bus that went my way, the 64, and learned that it too stopped running at midnight. Oh my god, what am I to do? It is 02.30, the middle of the night, and I am stranded at Termini. I don’t have any of the girls’ phone numbers to see where they are. I don’t have enough money to take a taxi. The only two options I had left were 1)wait in Termini for 4 hours until my bus started working again or 2)start walking.

I took a good look around Termini and quickly decided that it was going to be safer for me to walk home on the busier streets rather than wait in a dark station with the street people. So, with a very fervent prayer to my guardian angel, I squared my shoulders and started walking home. You guys, it has been a LONG time since I have prayed so much in such a short period of time. But thankfully I DID make it home safe and sound! I was only bothered by one man who tried to walk with me for a few seconds asking if I wanted to get a ride home in his car. Thank goodness I decided to take the longer route home by way of the still busy streets. (Thank goodness Rome doesn’t really go to sleep!) A police car drove by at that time and the man disappeared. It crossed my mind to stop the police car and ask them to help me get home…but I just didn’t trust that idea either. I didn’t run home but I made it back in record time. It was close to 04.00 when I walked in the door. I cried a little bit then too, but this time out of pure relief. As I showered away the awful event I sent a few more prayers of thanks and then went to sleep.

Saturday morning I woke up around 09.00 and couldn’t go back to sleep even though I was still tired. I got up and decided that I didn’t want to make any plans for the day, to just head out on my first full “free” day and see where my legs would take me. With map in hand, I headed out. I learned a lot about where things are in Rome and how to get from place to place. It was really neat to just walk and blend in with all of the other tourists. I enjoyed it so much that I decided to take the boat tour of the Trevere River. A ticket lasts 2 days and enables you to travel up and down Rome via the river, stopping at various points to let you off and on. It was later in the day when I did this, but I knew I would take advantage of it the following day as well.

Sunday morning I went to the church right down the street. If I was really living at this address in Rome, this would be my church because it is the closest working one to the apartment. I didn’t feel like it was appropriate to take pictures so I went without a camera for the second day in a row. It was a nice mass but I didn’t understand a word of it since it was done in Latin. But then, even if it was in Italian I wouldn’t have understood very much! But church is church and mass is mass. It was nice to be so far from home but feel like I was part of the community. Religion is an interesting thing. The way it binds people together out of shared practice and tradition, out of communal beliefs. So this is how my thoughts ran as I sat during the service (in addition to some more thanks for my safe trip home Friday night!). I had initially wanted to go to the Vatican for mass, but I knew that this would take a large portion of my day and I wanted to take advantage of my boat tour. I plan to go to a Vatican service this coming Sunday. After mass, I went to a nearby Bar (don’t worry, a Bar is a Café!) and had a sandwich for lunch. Then it was off to more touring. And this is how I spent my weekend.

Oh, did I mention the crazy mosquitos they have here?! I don‘t think I have yet. I am COVERED in mosquito bites. I have always been a little smug over the fact that mosquitos generally leave me alone. I think what was really happening was that I was saving up a lifetime's worth of mosquito bites and am receiving them all now! My arms and legs seriously look like I have a disease because I have so many bites. And somehow I even have a couple of bites on my stomach and face! I think I’m a little allergic to them because I keep getting random rashes of hives. I bought some repellent from the drug store (farmacia) but haven’t gotten something like Cortizone or Benadryl yet. I need to do this tomorrow because I am so uncomfortable. Darn these zinzare tigre!!! (Tiger Mosquitos)

Now that I am on the topic of medicine, I am thinking that some of you might like a status report on my health. Other than these bites I am feeling great! My blood sugar levels have been so healthy that some days I haven’t needed to take insulin at all. And when I do it is so minimal I can’t believe it! I am still taking all of my pills and am feeling really really good. My knees are feeling surprisingly great as well. I guess walking forever every day is really making a difference. Oh, and yes, my pants are fitting a little bit more loosely already. I was worried that I was going to gain weight with all of this great food, but I have been keeping myself on a strict budget and am not able to spend a lot of money on food. And all of this walking, walking, walking, walking makes a difference. With the heat (which means a LOT of sweating) and all of the water I am drinking even my skin is looking better…well minus the bites all over. I am still embarrassed over the copious amounts that I sweat and am very chagrined to hear that it is only going to get hotter next week! But this fact is not going to stop me from seeing and experiencing everything I can while I am here.

Now a quick review of today, Monday the 23rd. There is definitely a routine now for my school days. I wake up, pack up my bag for the day, walk around center city if I have time, and make it to the school. Then I have class for a few hours. Then I go out, with one or more of the girls (or on my own) to a given destination and make it home between 20.00 and 22.00 (8-10pm). Today I went to the Pantheon square with Mara (Tamara) for dinner. It takes a while to get to this location because we have to take the Metro and then walk for about an hour. Even though I have been walking a lot, I am still not a fast walker. Mara is one of those walk-sprinters. She just finds the direction she needs to go and zoom, she’s off. So she has to wait for me. I decided before I got here that I’m going to do things on my terms and enjoy my stay. So while I do feel a little bad that I am holding her up every now and then, I remember that I promised myself to be here for me and I keep my pace. Anyway, I reason that she has been out with me enough timeI s to know how slow I am and is still making the choice to do these activities with me. I like having her as a travel companion. She will be staying here almost as long as I am so it is good that we get along.

At dinner, we made the crazy decision to each order our own pizza. Seriously the pizzas they set before us could have easily fed three people each! I just started laughing. The funniest thing was that Mara was determined to finish her meal. She kept telling me to "man up" and keep eating and finish the whole thing. Even the waiters came by and wondered why I had barely eaten half of my pie. I said that I would have to sit there all night to be able to finish. One waiter said that it was ok, they would lower the price of our meal by 1/4 for every hour we stayed. I mean, they were serious about having me finish this thing. Another waiter asked what the problem was: did I eat too little or did the restaurant make too big of a pizza? Was it me or the pizza's fault that I wouldn't eat any more? Per amor del cielo (for goodness sake) why does everyone in this city want you to eat and eat and eat?! And I think that because I am a big girl they expect me to eat even more! Manga, manga, manga. I think Italians have a very short list of the things they love in life: family, church, food, sleep, and soccer. I am sorry to dissapoint you Italia, ma cosi e la vita! (but that's life!)

So here we are. I am sorry that I haven’t been able to communicate with you for a few days. I hope that everyone is doing ok. What is happening on your side of the world? Let me know!

Con Affetto e Cordiali Saluti (With Love and Best Wishes)