Alla mia famiglia e amici.: Castelli Romani

Interior Design Girls

Ciao! Day Two & Three

This might be a long one...

Nook Wall (my room)

Nook

I'm still trying to get used to this sleeping schedule over here. I go to bed late, 1am at least, wake up a few times during the night, and eventually wake up around 8am to the ring of alarm clocks. But hell, I'm an interior design major I'm used to this stuff, it doesn't stop me from having the most amazing time of my life. To be honest when everyone said they didn't want to leave, that this trip was the time of their life, I said to myself, "Yeah, I'm sure its amazing but never want to go back to the United States? I don't know about that." But! I've been here three days and I'm in love!!!! I really don't want to go back, how about everyone just move over here?! I'm really having the time of my life and made one of the best decisions of my life. I've never been so blessed, fortunate, and lucky to be here right now. It's almost to hard to understand if you come here and just experience it. I think what really hits me about everywhere that I've gone in the past two days is the way of life. Everything is slowed down, people really take the time and embrace life and the beauty around them. Everything and everyone is so simple, so friendly. Oh America, how you have so much to learn from this place.

Rock in the Chigi Palace Garden (look closely!)

Chigi Palace Gardens

Yesterday was packed full of stuff to do. We started the day at the Palace with an orientation to the classes, assignments, and trips we're covering over the next 12 weeks. Lunch was more of a trip planning frenzy! Barcelona, Paris, and Greece are official starting in two weeks with Greece. Switzerland, Germany, and Prague are still in the planning process. Who knows the next time I'll be able to do this so I might as well do as much as I can while I'm here. Lunch was followed by an introduction to the Chigi Palace and pictures in the gardens. I also had my first adventure to the grocery store. I really did fine until I had to order turkey at the deli. I took pre packaged turkey with me and pointed to the word as I murdered the pronunciation, but was okay until he asked how much. How much? I don't know a kg is too much so I knew I wasn't going to get off easy. After a lot signing and laughing at myself he understood to stop when I put my hand up. Sliced cheese, not so much, deli's in Italy don't do that, but not knowing that and trying to explain what I wanted was another, "dumb American" moment (got to laugh at myself, no embarrassing moments in Italy just adventures). For dinner we went for pasta in Albano, just across the bridge next to the Palace. Needless to say the best tomato basil pasta and salad of my life. If I didn't learn to like tomatoes before I came to Italy I definitely would have learned here. I've gotten to the point where I just want to eat them like grapes or potato chips. You don't want to stop eating until you're about to fall over, but that's one thing I've learned over here...you need to stop or you will be miserable.

Church in Frascati

Today we took our first field trip, a tour of the Castelli Romani, made up of the towns of Frascati, Nemi, Genzano, Albano, Ariccia, and Montecavo. We started at the top of the mountain behind Ariccia in Montecavo, and slowly made our way down the mountains through the towns. Every one so close together, but so different. I officially had my first Italian cappuccino in Frascati, why do I drink coffee if I could drink that amazing goodness? We had lunch overlooking Lake Nemi. (Fun Fact: Nemi famous for strawberries) I packed lunch to save some money but ended up sampling fettuccine and tortellini anyway, YUM! Our last stop on our Castelli Romani tour was the summer home of the Pope, Castel Gangolfo. Frascati was by far my favorite. Some of us want to get lunch or dinner there one day just to go back and walk around more because it was the perfect little town.

Three boob cookie(Frascati) .& Brittany

We returned to the Palace around 4:30. The past 5 hours have been packed with picture editing, uploading, blog updating, and emailing. Next to actually being here is being able to share my excitement and adventures with all of you! If anyone has suggestions for places to see, stay, eat, and things to do in Barcelona, Paris, Athens, Prague, Berlin, and Switzerland, please, please comment below and let me know! Or if there's any other places in Europe that should be on my list of things to see.

I love you all, wish you were here!

Jamie