2 Oclock

Its a little late here, I wanted to finish my Rome blog before the weekend but have been studying for 2 tests next week all night so havent really had time. Camille let me load my pictures on her computer and burn them to a disc so I am attaching a few Rome / Alcalá pictures. We are leaving for Asturias tomorrow morning, which is a region in northwest Spain, Senel's grandmother lives there. It is a well known region for great fish and green land so we should have a great time. We are making a stop half way for a picnic lunch at Embalse de la Luna, which apparently is one of the prettiest spots in Spain. Anyways, here are some Rome pictures and I will finish that story with plenty more to come next week.

Rome, 3 days in awe

This past weekends was truly one of the greatest times of my life. I have never experienced anything close to that of Rome, and I appreciated it even more after our "close call" at the airport. We began by marching straight through security, because we figured since we didnt have any bags to check and checked in online that we would be fine. We were wrong. When we passed through security I made the first slip up, by looking at the arrival times instead of departures for Rome, so that caused the group a 30 minute unnecessary walk, but when we stepped on the plane we realized that our boarding passes had not received the passport approval stamp so we ran back to the ryan air check in, skipped the entire security line, but sure enough we barely made it on. In the end this was a blessing in disguise, because Ryanair is a first come first serve seating airline, so I ended up sitting next to two girls from the Rioja wine region, who are students in Barcelona. They were very nice and gave me the best areas to tour and ride bike trails near the "Rio Oja" (Oja river, where the region gets its name), so we are going to do that trip in two weekends. When we landed in Rome we took a bus to the Termini train station, which is in the northeast part of Rome, about 2 miles from the coliseum. We checked in, got ready for dinner and hit the streets of Rome. We found a great restaurant within 5 minutes of leaving our hostel which was called la famiglia. We started off with cheese stuffed rolls and a bottle of red wine (for less than a euro each) and proceeded to order pasta, I ordered a bacon-red sauce pasta and when I took my first bite the only thing I could do was look up and tell the table, "This is by far the greatest tasting food I have ever had". It really was awesome. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel because we had a big Friday ahead of us.

We woke up around 8 and knew that the first sight we wanted to see was the Coliseum, so we headed in that general direction while seeing a few plazas / monasteries on the way. Our first stop was at the plaza della republica, a huge roundabout with a fountain in the middle surrounded in a circular pattern of classic roman architecture, (pictures coming when I buy a memory card adaptor). From there, we headed to the Santa Maria Maggloire Monastery and the San Pietro in Vicoli building, but didnt take our time because the next stop, of course, was the Coliseum. It was breathtaking, massive, and I couldn't fathom how people built such a wonder without modern technology. For a few Euros we were able to go inside and take pictures and tour all around the first and second floors. An amazing experience to say the least. From there we toured ancient Rome, the Arco de Constantino, monument to Vittorio Emmanuel II, and pretty much all of south Rome before heading towards the Pantheon. The Pantheon was another place that was just truly a jaw dropper. They were doing yearly upkeep on the right part of the outside, but it was the inside that really blew my mind. It was massive and how they closed in that dome roof that seems half a mile above your head I still have no idea. After the pantheon we had a great lunch, went to the trevi fountain, saw the presidents mansion, and many more sights. I'm going to pick up there later because I have to get up for class tomorrow.

There's the coliseum, wow.

Rome was great, we saw everything from the fontana trevi to the coliseum to the spanish plaza to the vatican and much much more...

It was a great weekend, we got back around 12 last night, and got to alcala around 2 and hit the sack.

Today we ate a bowl of boiled peanuts, rice, and a plate of striped tuna for lunch, which was scrumptious, then had an omelet with some sort of sweet side dish that im not sure what its called. We took our dinner to senel's house to watch the real madrid game, they won 6-2, then his cousin bea and her husband chipri joined senel, leanne, chipri and I to watch "algo pasa con maria" (theres something about mary) in spanish, as funny in spanish as it is in english.

I have to write a carta de circulacion for my business class now so I can't write more but I will update on Rome as well as the trips to Salamanca, Toledo, and all others after class tomorrow.

Rome is a great city with more history than any other place I have ever visited.

Hope everyone is doing well.

Drew

Week 1

Monday, January 11, 2010

12:45 PM

We are sitting in the Paris airport waiting to get on our flight to Madrid. Our first flight was cancelled because of snow on the Madrid runways but we are scheduled to take off around 5:00 Paris time. The flight over was pretty easy considering I slept the whole way. A lot of the others watched movies the whole time and are sleeping now but we should be leaving for our gate pretty soon. We got free sandwiches and drinks because of the cancellation; I got a decent chicken sandwich with some weird mustardy sauce but it was pretty good. Other than that nothing much is going on at the CDG airport, the University of Alcalá is sending a bus to come get us from the Madrid airport as soon as we land and then we have a 15 minute ride to campus, where Pepi Pozo will pick up Chandler and me.

We arrived in Alcala around 10PM and Pepi greeted Chandler and me. She is such a great lady, single mother of 3 boys. We later found out that her husband died in a tragic terrorist attack by the Eta group, he is a hero by any standard. Pepi is a Jehovah’s Witness and is very interested in other’s religions. Julio is the youngest son; he is 21 and still lives at home. He plays for a 7 on 7 soccer league and plays attack, we went to one of his games, they won 4-1 and he scored 3 goals, stud. His body is his holy ground; he works out everyday, and never drinks. He does work as a bartender though, which should be convenient for the rest of us. We ate salad, rice, bread, and ham for dinner, which is a classic Spanish meal, and all 4 phases have lots of Spanish taste, the salad dressing is delicious.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

7:24 PM

Computer is about to die haven’t gotten an adaptor yet, everything is great campus is beautiful group is fun sending email don’t have wifi for free at our house but will work on that. I got a “movíl” (cell phone) for 5 euros and put a 10 euro plan on it where I can call all “movistar” cell phones for 5 cents a minute. Also from 8 PM to 8 AM Madrid time I can call America for 15 cents a minute, but its 1.90 euros during 8 am- 8 pm.

I am getting my campus “wee fee” (wireless internet) password tomorrow so ill write more then.

Hasta luego,

Drew

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Wow, what a great country. Chandler and I just ate “telepizza” with Leanne and Camille, and that really was the first taste of America that we have had. I got pepperoni and Chandler got barbeque cheeseburger pizza, which looked awesome. This morning was our 2^nd day of business Spanish and advanced Spanish, (9+1030), both of which we have the same teacher. She is nice but is tough on her students, which will benefit our skills vastly. After class we came back home, were pretty hungry and ate fish with rice and a mixed up vegetable soup. She grinds up all sorts of veggies and serves once a week to ensure we eat what we need. Pepi believes in eating healthy, and is extremely generous with her portions. Its not an insult to say “Estoy satisfecho” (im full), but it does make her curious why we cant eat 3 pounds a meal like Julio. After classes and lunch I got in bed for a siesta and didn’t end up waking up until around 8 when Leanne called to meett up for dinner with us. Other than that not a busy day at all, the socket lost power Julio thinks we may have messed it up but “no pasa nada”. (Don’t worry about it). Tomorrow is my later class day, (1030+1230), and I have a 30 minute break between the classes so we will likely go to “Porton”, which is about a 2 minute walk from campus. Pepi just came talked to Chandler and I and told us of 2 guys who stayed here in the past and wrote journals every day, which we are going to start more in depth now. She also said that she is only kind of hungry and when I asked her what she was going to eat and she said she didn’t know, “Cuando uno no sabe que debe comer, juevos.” (When one doesn’t know what he should eat, eggs). Anyways. Porton is a great spot to get café con leche, (coffee and milk) with a piece of some type of cinnamon or ginger bread for 1.10 Euros, and it is extremely tasty. Im about to start plugging in things from the past few days and then hit the sack because after class tomorrow we are going to go to Madrid. We are going to take the train around 3 and do some sight seeing until Senel gets done with his class. (He got a job with American Express and starts next Monday but is having to take classes all week to prepare) When he gets done Im sure he has some good ideas for where to go and what to do. Senel truly is a great guy, he has the big brother protective instinct but knows how to show us a good time. If tomorrow is anything like our last trip to Madrid I’m sure we will have a blast.

Hello all I'm working on transferring my notebook to this blog so that you can all see whats been going on... We're heading to Rome tomorrow morning coming back Saturday night, I'll post something more soon.