Is Broken

Of course the very first week I am in Viterbo living in my dorm room something would go wrong! It is just my luck! I was going along minding my own business, living it up in my room. So last wednesday or thursday I think, I am getting ready to leave the dorms to go to class and I get stopped by the lady at the front desk and she starts speaking rapid italian to me! First of all I don't understand italian and when spoken at the highest speed ever I really don't understand it! Well turns out my bathroom was broken and they needed me to move to another room for just a few days while it gets fixed. So I had to move all the things I would need 24/7 into a room on the fourth floor while I could leave the rest of my stuff on the second floor in my room. So everyday I would go back and check on my room, they had completely torn out the toilet and bidet and done who knows what to the plumbing! So saturday rolls around and I go check on my room and the bidet is just chilling in the middle of my room. Sweet thanks for putting the nasty bidet in the middle of my living residence! So sunday comes and goes without any work being done and I figure okay so by monday or tuesday I should have my room back right? WRONG! So today is wednesday and I go down to the front desk to give them my keys( because I have 2 rooms) before I head off to school and the lady again starts speaking Italian to me and then quickly finishes her sentence with "bathroom is broken". So now I officially live in room number 464! Now its over and done with and I have one room again and hopefully I won't accidentally break the toilet in this one and get kicked out of the dorms entirely!

Roma

As I said before I had a really busy weekend. The next day saturday was exhausting but so much fun and so amazing! Me, Cassie, and Rachal got up super early to meet Francesca (another girl in our group) at the Porta Romana entrance to the city center at 4:45 to catch the 5 a.m. train to Rome. So we were up at 3:15 and ready to go at 4:15. We walked over there and ended up going to the train station called Porta Romana. Francesca's alarm didn't go off so we told her we would meet her in Rome. So we made the very first train to Rome and had to transfer once onto another train to get to the main station Termini in Rome. Once we got there we grabbed some breakfast and then bought our "hop on hop off" bus tour ticket. At about 9 we met Francesca and one of her roommates Mike at the bus and started off on our tour. The tour took about 2 hours and we stayed up on top of the double decker bus the entire time to get good pictures. It was freezing cold and I was completely numb by the end of it but it was a lot of fun. Once we were done with the tour we got off at the Colosseum stop. It was so amazing to see the Colosseum in person! It is so beautiful and breathtaking. Also the Arch of Constatine is right by it and so are the Roman Forums. After walking around and taking a ton of pictures we decided to get some lunch so we met up with some more friends at a restaurant. Ate lunch and then met up with 2 more people from our group and went onto more sightseeing. We saw the place where Ceasar was stabbed to death, the Panthenon, The National Monument to Victor Emanuel II, Trevi Fountain, the Spanish Steps, and the Cathedral they lead up too. At the Spanish Steps we met up with a few more people in our group so by the end of the day there was like 12 or us all together. So we started to head back to Viterbo, got on the metro to get to Termini and from Termini we went all the way home to Viterbo. We got back around 9 and I crashed at like 10 from a very exhausting and fantastic weekend! I will definitely be going back to Rome because we missed a few things such as the Vatican and going inside the Colosseum but for now this is what I have seen in Rome and it was absolutely amazing!

Cassie, Rachal, and I sitting on the Spanish Steps

View of the crowded street from the Spanish Steps

The Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon

Monument of Victor Emmanuel II

In front of the Roman Forums

View of Rome from the Monument for Victor Emmanuel II

The place where Julius Ceasar was stabbed to death.

Arch of Constantine

St. Peter's Basilica

The first view of the Colosseum!

Bagnaia

This weekend was super busy and a ton of fun. On friday I started another class Italian Culture and right after that class it was just about time to go to the big bonfire in Bagnaia. Bagnaia is a neighboring town of Viterbo, 15 minutes by bus, 60 minutes by feet. So Cassie, Rachal, and I had bought 2 bus tickets earlier that day one for the way there and one for the way back. After class we walked to the bus station which was about ten minutes away and found the right bus to get on and hopped on it. We were a little early so we were just sitting on the bus waiting to go. A little bit after we got on some other people from our group started getting on the bus as well. We met new friends that night the Iowa girls....Beth, Amy, and Jenny. They all go to school in Iowa hence the name I have given them. Well we got to Bagnaia about 6 and walked to the Piazza where the bonfire was going down. In the middle of the Piazza was a huge tepee of wood, with a newspaper inside and guys pouring gasoline all down it, so that it would actually start on fire. We got to see it the wood tepee get lit and how much smoke it made was crazy! Then there was a meal for 6 euros that you could enjoy. However the meal was not so enjoyable. It came with bread, cheese, pork, sausage, beans, and wine. The pork was basically just fat and bones, the beans were like a grey color and cold(not very appetizing), and well I don't drink wine. So all I had was the bread, cheese, and sausage and water. While we were eating we were freezing because we were not near the fire so we went to stand closer to it and little flecks of flames were flying everywhere so we decided to go back to Viterbo. We had to wait a little bit for the bus and so I got hot chocolate out of a vending machine(crazy I know) to help warm me up. It helped and was acutally really good and just about the perfect amount of hot chocolate. We ended up getting back to our dorms around 9ish. So it was a fun night but too cold for my liking!

Me, Rachal, and Cassie in front of the massive bonfire!

The Massive bonfire

Our new friends!

Cassie, Me, Rachal, Amy, Beth, and Jenny

Nutella

As I was in my room eating my bread with nutella on it I was thinking I should write a post on how good nutella is! So here is my attempt! First of all nutella here is soooo good! It's everywhere it's in a lot of the candy it's in the ice cream and of course it comes in it's own little jar so that you can spread it like peanut butter on bread, crackers, Special K bars, etc...(I have tried all 3 of those products with nutella) For those of you who have not had the fortune of trying this amazing product, I suggest you go to the store right now and buy it for yourself and you will see the reason why I have such strong feelings for it! F.Y.I. if you didn't know nutella is sold in the states, if you can't find it in the grocery store, then go to Cost Plus World Market and you will for sure find it there!

Pictures!!!!

Here are a few pictures that I stole from Rachal's camera because I don't have a laptop so all my photos are on my camera still! Hopefully I can upload them soon! But these ones are pretty good! So Enjoy!

This is my dorms where I live.

The building in the back where you can kind of see arches is where the Pope used to reside before going to the Vatican.

Cassie, Rachal, and Me with that same thing behind us.

The wall surrounding the city center!

This is the hotel we stayed in the very first night and had the 5 course dinner.

Me, Cassie, and Rachal again standing on the grounds where the Pope used to live!

Some of Viterbo.

Some of the oldest part of Viterbo.

This is how small all the streets are inside the city walls.

More pictures to come once I go on more adventures!

Mailing Address

If anyone wants to send me anything while I am here below is my mailing address:

Bethany Finn

c/o USAC - Stefano Pizzetti
Universitá degli Studi della Tuscia
Facoltá de Agraria - DAF
Via S.C. de Lellis
01100 Viterbo, ITALIA

Welcome to Viterbo

I finally made it to Italy! Its official I live in Viterbo, Italy! How amazing is that? There are some things here that I love and some things I find rather annoying! Let me go over them. First of all the city I live in has a city center that is surrounded by fortress walls that have been here since the medieval times! Its absolutely beautiful! Second thing I like is there are pizzerias everywhere! Since this is the only food I know how to say here that is what I have been eating for lunch and sometimes for dinner too. Thirdly I like having Cassie and Rachal here with me because they are more outgoing than me so I have met a bunch of people in my group that I probably wouldnt have talked to if it was just me! So onto a few things I dislike......um......how about not having internet access for 5 days!?! Yeah not fun at all! I had like a million e mails to take care of! (Well actually it was mostly junk mail and 3 from my mom and 1 from my sister but still.) I am not a huge fan of how late they eat here for dinner, they eat at 8 p.m. and my stomach starts growling around 5, I am gonna have to get used to that one. One other thing I dont like is how I dont know Italian at all! But this will obviously be worked on everyday! I can already say a few words I didnt know before! And my Italian class starts tomorrow! I am so excited to learn the language! Last thing that has been annoying, my adapter broke. I tried to use a blow dryer, WORST IDEA EVER!!! So it broke my adapter I think, I borrowed Cassies and made the electricity go off in my room and my straightner broke so my hair has been looking funky for a while. Well that is the beginning of my adventures while I am here in Italy! I am sure plenty more are coming!