Rome

Captured everyone's reactions as we came out of the subway the Coloseo was right there!

The Forum

Reflection of a temple in a puddle in the mud.

Taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me.....

Smoking a pipe. I dont know this guy he was just enjoying himself.

Trevi Fountain

Had Chelsea take these. (For you mom so you can see my face.)  The top one Greg and I are throwing our coins in the fountain to assure our return to Rome.  Also, we ate lunch at the fountain and I really stuffed myself.  I had two pizza style sandwiches which is just thick pizza like crust with meat and cheese.  I can't believe how good the meat is here I tried a new one under the advice of our instructor.  He said his favorite is Spek, which is a tougher saltier prosciutto, and my second choice was salame pecante, which is pepperoni. delicious. Also all around Rome or at least at the touristy spots there are guys selling fresh roasted chestnuts which according to our instructor are eaten after the meal as a palate cleanser but he said locals never buy from those guys but i figured when in Rome... they were great, had to persuade the guy to serve me though as he was in the middle of his own lunch, but after our instructor threatened we would find another vendor if he didnt help us the man was more than happy.  After the chestnuts i finished with a two scoop gelato of mint and coffee.

The Pantheon....Amazing, the pictures just can't do it justice it is so massive you just can't start to comprehend how breathtaking it is.  I didn't take any of the facade because it was covered in scaffolding so it wasnt very aesthetically pleasing. 

Rome was a real good time however we did travel with the whole group so that was the only thing that maybe dampened it.  Being in a foreign city in a group of 50 people is a little overwhelming.  They set us up with an english speaking tour guide and then distributed these earpiece receivers with radio transmitters to attach to our pockets.  After 30 seconds of being in my ear and hearing the drone of  Charlie Brown's teachers voice among static and passing groups tour guides, I decided to take it out and just kind of do my own thing.  The colosseum was pretty amazing as were the forum and trevi fountain, however important it was to see them I found the Pantheon was definitely my favorite.  Also I will for sure have to go back to Rome and just explore some more of the off beat places because I just feel so overwhelmed at the heavily populated tourist hot spots.  I almost feel being at those places like its a fake place, I am more interested in getting at the real culture and happenings of a place.

Bangnaia Bonfire Festival

Every year the small town of Bagnaia about five miles outside of Viterbo hosts a large bonfire festival.  The fire is around 60 feet tall when they first light it and burns for the majority of the night.  We were told by our teachers and people from around town that it was definitely worth going to even if we had to trek the ten miles roundtrip.  So we rushed around last minute to try and figure out what we had to do to get a bus out there and hopefully back.  After running around town and making our way outside the walls to the place we thought was the correct bus stop we purchased a roundtrip bus ticket and assumed positions at the bus stop.  There we met an english speaking man from Rome who told us he was a multi-lingual tour guide in Rome and assured us we were at the correct bus stop.  The times on the sign at the stop said 5 for the first stop and 525 for the second stop and then about every half hour after that.  So at five no bus... at 525 no bus... so at 545 after standing for about an hour a few friends and I decided to call it quits.  We walked to the market and I got some supplies for a risotto dinner.  We drank a few bottles of wine and I made a sausage and mushroom risotto dinner and around nine we were lucky enough to get a ride out with some locals.  Upon arriving at the fire the town was quite pleasant with a large town center with the 30 foot tall fire at that time still raging.  There was a quaint folk band serenading the crowd and the thick smell of fire smoke filled the air.  We walked around the town square and stopped in a small bar where we had to swim through the crowd of cheerful italians.  The aroma inside the bar was something like warm apple cider much comfort from the brisk night.  towards the end of the bar where we found enough room to get to the counter there was the epicenter of the smell.  A huge boiling pot of red wine and fruit sat  there and looked quite delicious.  I however just got a cup of the house wine and one of my friends got the hot brule so we could share.  After we got the drinks we went back outside to join our friends who had gotten unknown to us a huge platter of free food and wine.  Without our italian friends we would have totally missed out on the delicious thick fatty strips of pancetta and "mamma sheep" meet as they called it.  On top of the delicious meet there was bread and a huge cask of red wine.  After enjoying the food and wine the band and whole scene of the fire changed. At that point there was a lot of younger people showing up and the next band that came on was a crazy ska band with full horn section and they started to really jam hard.  All the young people close to the band started to dance and even mosh a little bit so we decided to join.  Upon entering the mass of moshing italians a kid with long curly hair swung his fist back and knocked me pretty hard in the mouth which in turn busted my lip open flooding a little creek of blood down my chin.  I had no idea due to the wine until he turned around and started to apologize I told him "va bene" its all good and resumed dancing.  That night really brightened my spirits.  To be able to connect with people via music even though you cant necessarily speak directly to them really shows the power of music and good times.

In Viterbo

Right outside my door the town alive.

From the roof of my friends apartment.

As I have said before the internet is very hard to come by around Viterbo and the internet that you can find is not very good.  I took these photos last week and have been trying ever since to post them so here they are.  Viterbo is just more amazing by the day.  Every day while walking around I see new things.  I am just mostly focusing on what the light provides for me and that is difficult for around here the streets are very narrow and dark even during the day but at sunset when I took these the light is abosolutely amazing.  Classes are alright havent really started the normal routine yet but definately looking forward to that classes should be fun.  Went to Rome this past saturday so I will try to get those pics up asap.  And also will post a story about my sunday evening when I went to a small town outside Viterbo for a massive bonfire celebration.  

In Viterbo

I am currently living in a small town, about a two hour train ride north of Rome.  The city, Viterbo, is an  medieval walled city, the majority of the downtown area is surrounded by a thirty foot wall.  The city is absolutely beautiful and I hope you can enjoy it through my eyes.  

My room.

 Our living room.

 Kitchen and my roommate John from Reno, Nevada.  He plays violin.

Other two roommates Jack from Winchester, Mass. and Josh from Miami, Ohio.

Our building's courtyard.

View out my window.

Looking at our front door.  Our building was built in the 1200's and was a palace for a wealthy family in Viterbo.

Looking out our front door.

Looking out my window down the road. Via Orologio Vecchio.

Friend Mike drinking beers.

Clock tower in Porta Fiorintina.

Old and new, once outside the city walls the town is very modern.  The Ipercoop is a walmart type store with very good prices on food and home goods.

I had originally anticipated posting on this every few days but due to the lack of easily accessible internet access it will probably turn to a biweekly event.  Until next time, Ciao.

1st Day

What a day, probably the longest I've ever had.  I am finally here in Viterbo.  No pics yet, we got in and it was already dark out but next post for sure.  Today or yesterday or whatever, I have no conception of time right now,  I left Manchester at ten thirty ish two hour flight to DC to catch the international flight to Heathrow England.  I get into DC to get my bag and the whole united baggage claim was filled with around two hundred or so confused/aggravated travelers swarming around one baggage carousel, police tape strung about the majority of the room and about thirty or so trench coated official looking clowns shooting the shit with cops and others of the sort.  I find out from a frazzled man furiously punching away at his blackberry that there was a bomb threat and who knows when anyone will get their bags.  At that point I took out my camera to capture a hazmat suited character slinking around towards the back of the room, only to be harassed and ordered to "PUT THAT AWAY NOTHING TO SEE HERE!"  So after about an hour or so finally got my bag and headed to British airways to check in.  All goes well there and down to second security check of the day standing in line herded like helpless sheep behind this clean cut front hair spiked kid with bright green and tan cowboy kicks and a long black peacoat.  All seems normal and I unload my stuff onto the x ray scanner and walk through the old style scanners right next to a brand new one.  Standing behind this kid waiting for my stuff to come through only to find out his oversized carryon has jammed the machine.  With one guard top half torso inside the machine from one end and another guard on the other with a special TSA cane poking and prodding after twenty minutes the damn is broken and out comes my stuff. what fun ha.  then 4 hour layover a few beers and short conversation with a girl from my group and were on the flight, lucky got an aisle seat. well now a few days after the fact due to hard to find internet I will try to get the rest out...stopped in Heathrow England for a few hours and converged with the rest of the students on the group flights and grabbed a few beers in the airport had a real  good czech lager cant remember the name now but it was great.  then took another two hour flight into rome and unfortunately it was dark out so wasnt able to take any pics there or even see any of the sights on the 2 hour bus ride to Viterbo other than lights scattered along the hillside.  When we arrived in Viterbo we went strait to our first italian dinner and had a first course of bruschetta three kinds: olive tapanade, cucumber, and tomato with sides of grilled zucchini, potato, and eggplant followed by three different kinds of pizza a sauceless one with mint and zucchini, cheese called margarita here just sauce with cheese and cant remember the other kind now.  This is now 6 days after our arrival and I am just now able to post this. This was an unusually long one, I dont anticipate the rest of the posts to be this long. Ciao for now.