Settling into our Homa in Roma

Yesterday, after a long anticipating wait, we moved into our apartment! Nomentana 225: The Labyrinth.
 It is named so because IT IS HUGE!  It really is a maze! We had family dinner with the 6 of us that have moved in thus far: Michelle, Kate, Missy, Erin, Jesika, and Me. Ashley was delayed due to the the hurricane. Pasta, bread, salad and wine. It was a fabulous welcome feast :)


I hope you don't get neck pains from looking at this video... I'm not quite sure how to turn it right side up. Mi dispiace.

We settled into our room and then checked out some of the other apartments CSBSJU kids are living in, Including one with a terrace! It was so fun seeing everyone, catching up, and finally embracing that we are living in Rome.

Today began orientation, not much to report. The staff here is wonderful, so fun and welcoming. We took a tour of the neighborhood, had a group lunch with all the CEA students (including some kids from Providence and Connecticut) and went to the campus to fill out forms and take a tour.

For now we have temporary wifi. Only one of us can use it at a time. We should be getting the real deal later this week. The Internet we have is pretty crummy. I am so ready for actual contact to the outside world!

RRR in Rome

Today was deemed a lazy day. After 9 days of walking across Europe with over 30 pounds on my back and intensive sight seeing, it was time for some relaxing. We figured we have 2 months in Rome to go exploring, we can take a day to chill. We left the hostel at noon and made a trip to our future apartment. 

To you it may look like just a door, but inside holds our future home

 We went to a grocery store to make sandwiches and grab apples. We went to a glorious nearby park Charlie had scoped out, and we got free wifi to update our blogs and facebook. We walked to get our first gelato. I got my favorite: fruiti di bosco (a mixed berry flavor )

Just as magical as I remember

We then walked to another park. We returned to our hostel and I finished The Godfather (SO GOOD!). We grabbed margharita pizza  and a coke and chatted for a good while outside. We came back to the hostel I spent the rest of the night journaling about London. It was amazing to realize that was only 9 days ago. It feels like forever, and I am so pleased with our experience and proud of everything we did. 

Casually lounging and eating macaroons while reflecting upon my experience... fancy huh.

 Now for the next chapter of my adventure... stay tuned

Late Arrival "On An Evening in Roma"

Yesterday (Sunday) wasn't much for sight seeing, we pretty much only saw the inside of train stations, the inside of trains, and the inside of our eyelids.

After staying up all night, we left Maxime's and the Julien, Jean, and Maxime were perfect gentlemen and helped us with transporting our stuff to the train station. After arriving at the station we came to an unfortnate realization. Since my card, the one we used to pay for the train tickets, didn't work in the French machines our other option was to print the tickets at the ticket booth. The problem: Our train left at 6:54 and the booth opened at 7:00. After Maxime spoke to several people in frantic french, we were allowed to board the first train without tickets (We probably would still be in Toulouse without his wonderul help!)

We said our goodbyes and our new friends waved as we pulled out of the station. We were joined by Scott- our middle-aged Australian guardian angel who traveled with us all the way to Rome. He definitely looked out for us and made sure we got on all our connections (some of which we had under 10 minutes to make!) .We got a temporary ticket until Nice, but on our second train there was no room so we were forced to stand in the bar for a good deal of time until finally claiming spots. We then got the tickets sorted in Nice (most of my money was refunded expect 20 euro) and we boarded a very tiny train  to Ventimiglia. Before the train left we chatted with an extremely cultured woman from Chicago whose son has his Harvard’s doctorate in European history. She was fascinating and very opiniated and told us all about her thoughts on everything from Van Gogh’s suicide, to Versailles, and the problem with consumerism (She expressed extreme distaste in the Mall of America and was clearly frustrated by the souvenir shops in Notre-Dame) 

We shoved all our stuff on our laps for the hour long train and barely caught our next one where we were reunited with Scott. He took us to a back coach which was entirely empty. There was no good place for our luggage, so we spread our stuff in one section and sat in the other. This eventually was a poor decision as during the course of our three hour train, it got very crowded with Italians. I woke up to two old Italian ladies scolding us for taking up so much space and got very irritated at us ( I couldn’t really understand her but she seemed pissed). So the last half of the trip I was very uncomfortable. Surrounded by cranky old ladies and stressing about our last connection which we would have to make in under 8 minutes. Luck stuck again, and it proved to be the easiest switch yet. We just had to cross the platfor where Scott helped us with our bags and the four of us got a nice spacious area to ourselves. 

After our final and most comfortable 5 hour train ride, we arrived in Rome around 12:00, said goodbye to Scott, and found our hostel. A clean bed and a shower have never ben so appreciated. 

 

A Quick Review of Quite the Adventures

As you are well aware, it has been some time since I have shared what I have been up to. I am so far behind on this blog due to wifi access (McDonald's are only so easy to come by). So here is everything you've missed (mostly)

Wednesday the 24th we once again began our day with wifi at McDonald's to attempt to figure out train tickets once again. We also switched to our new hostel (a drastic improvement)

Our nicest hostel yet!

We  had our first crepes and checked out the Moulin Rouge (I think I prefer it in the movie... the neighborhood was not so welcoming...)

Mmm Nutella and Banana 

A tad less glamorous than the movie

We then ventured to the Eiffel Tower! And boy is she (Flora informed us the Eiffel Tower is not an it she is a she) beautiful. After a dramatic photo shoot, and trip a nearby super market for wine, we returned for a picnic right in front of the Tower to watch her light up. It took no time at all for us to realize we were sitting next to a group of guys from St. John's! Talk about small world! So we had a very loud and excited reunion (loud indeed! Oh those Americans) and enjoyed the wonderful view.

There she is!

Surprise meeting with our friend Josh!

Thursday the 25th was a museum day. Michelle, Kate, and I went to the Louvre bright and early. Thanks again to Flora and her friend who works there, we were able to skip the large line going in and managed to get free tickets for being "European" students (even though they kind of laughed at our visas)

The Louvre was overwhelming! So much to see, everything in French, and lots of people! We saw the Mona Lisa and the large group of people surrounding her as well as many other beautiful and iconic things (Liberty Leading the People, Venus de Milo, Crown Jewels, Napoleon III's apartments)

The Louvre

Too bad her beauty is almost overwhelmed by the crowd surrounding her 

On our walk back to our hostel after lunch by the Seine, we came across a lovely surprise! Little did we know Paris had a Love Padlock bridge (for more information on love locks go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_padlocks )! We had so much fun looking at all the people who had decided they wanted their love to be forever connected to Paris.

Just some of the love locks! 

After returning to the Hostel to say goodbye to Charlie who was heading to Rome, we went to the Orsay Museum (for free again!). This was my favorite by far! Unfortunately they didn't allow pictures to be taken, which was quite the bummer. Thanks to sophomore year of high school's honors english class involving impressionistic and post-impressionistic art, I recognized a majority of the artists, including Degas, Cezanne, Monet, Toulouse Lautrec, Renoir, and my favorite Seurat. It was so much fun being able to identify the different paintings- it is such a shame we ran out of time.

Before we knew it, it was time to meet up with Flora and Amaury (another friend of Michelle's who made an excellent tour guide) for more exploring. We saw the older Opera building, a very swanky neighborhood, the Galeries Lafayette (an alarmingly expensive mall) and the Arc de Triomphe. And just when we thought our tour guides couldn't get any more wonderful, they bought us macaroons!!! Let me just say, they may just give gelato a run for its money as my favorite desert (check back with me on this later this semester...) We finished the evening at an american bar for cocktails and sadly bid Flora, Amaury, and Paris adieu. 

Flora and Amaury: our lovely guides

Arc de Triomphe

The next morning, Friday the 26th, we caught an early train to Toulouse. It was cold and rainy and our original plans on meeting Maxime at the park were changed to meeting him at our favorite location: MCDONALDS!!! We were shocked to see him pull up in a CAR!  A foreign mode of transportation to us expert metro riders and marathon walkers. We met the Toulouse crew and quickly discovered how unfair it is that they know both english and french. They  could have any conversation without us having a clue as to what they were saying (sure makes for paranoia). Michelle, Kate, and I attempted pig-latin. It failed... 

Meet our host Maxime! 

We went on a little tour of Toulouse (nothing compared to our many tours of Paris, my feet were not nearly as mad at me afterwards). But we did enjoy the tour, especially our time in the Japanese garden! Later we went out to dinner with our new friends (Maxime, his roommate Jean, his friends Julien and Sly, and his girlfriend Anais), and ended the evening back at Maxime's apartment where we played a fabulous new card game called Jungle Speed (oh you can be we will be bringing it back to the States) Maxime and Jean were so generous and their American themed apartment made us feel quite at home.

The beautiful view of Toulouse from Maxime's

Japanese Garden 

So welcoming: American decor and clean sheets to boot! 

Today (Saturday the 27th) we were awoken by the American National Anthem and a lovely breakfast of Chocolate Croissants and coffee. We then headed to Carcassonne, a medieval city outside Toulouse. Holy Cow! I wish America had castles! We spent our afternoon meandering around the city, taking it all in, and took a tour of the castle itself (also for free since we were Italian students!) It was such a beautiful experience and I struggled to resist the urge to take a bajillion pictures of it! .

Carcassonne's Castle 

It's not everyday a girl goes to a real castle 

We stopped by a mall for groceries for tonight's dinner and our packed lunch for the train tomorrow and then returned to Maxime's. Jean prepared an amazing french dinner of sausage, duck, beans, potatoes, and cassoulet (a kind of casserole from France)! It was so delicious. After we had a mini dance party where we showed off our sweet dance moves! The guys attempted to teach us the electric slide (only not to the electric slide song... weird) and I embraced the opportunity to teach them some of Catholic Youth Camp's favorite dance party dances such as the Cupid Shuffle and the Cha Cha Slide. 

We then decided to take our sweet moves to the club called iBar. I was a tad hesitant and extremely sleepy, but it was a fabulous time! Who knew clubs in France were like massive wedding dances (We got the whole dance floor in on the electric slide as well as sang our hearts out to Grease). 

Jean, our chef, cooking up some deliciousness

Bon Appetit!

Now it is five in the morning and in one short hour we will be leaving the apartment for the train station to begin the long and stressful train journey to Rome. We switch trains 5 TIMES and are praying for safe travels and that we don't miss any of our connections!

Good Night/ Morning and I will write again from ROMA!   

We love Paris so much we had to extend our stay! Or We realized how expensive trains are and are more or less stuck here for a bit

TUESDAY 8-23

This morning was not the most exciting.

It started with our “free breakfast”= a croissant from the vending machine in the lounge.

We then adventured to get free Wifi at the local McDonalds (managing, of course, to get lost on the way)

At McDonalds we made the unpleasant discovery that we have far too small a budget to travel to a place between Paris and Toulouse so we decided to stay in Paris two more days and booked a new hostel around the Moulin Rouge. We then made the unfortunate discovery that a train from Toulouse to Rome was over $300 plus we had booked a $65 dollar ticked to Toulouse. GROOOOOOSSSSS.  Charlie decided it was too much for him and made the suggestion to just skip Toulouse since he isn’t staying with Michelle’s friend Maxime. We now are contemplating if we can exchange our Toulouse tickets and pay the difference for train from Paris to Rome. Unfortunately WE DON’T SPEAK FRENCH and are having a difficult time translating the train’s policies. We decided we would have to hold off until we reconnect with Flora and ask her for assistance.

I guess it’s all up in the air right now. We’re good until Friday but until then our plans are a big old question mark.

This is me, learning to roll with punches… I think it will be a valid lesson for the next four months.

We had a lovely park picnic (a common theam already on this trip) and ate sandwiches in Place de Vosge. 

It was quite pretty. Afterwards we walked to Fount San Michel we wandered around the area and took pictures of pretty buildings and Michelle standing under 800 different signs.

We met up with Flora and she took us on a 3 hour tour of the city at night. It was BEAUTIFUL AND SOOOOOO WONDERFUL! I love Flora and Paris and we learned so much!  It was so much fun and FREE- can’t top that! We returned to our hostel for the final night and eagerly met our beds. 

Sorry, we don’t speak French…

The constant refrain we have been saying since arriving in Paris.

But before I delve into that, the conclusion of our London saga:

We checked out of our hostel and decided to spend our last few hours checking out the free Science Museum conveniently located down the block (If only we had known that first day we had three free Museums down the block: Natural History Museum, Science Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Art Museum- dang) We had a wonderful time exploring the various exhibits and learning knew things J We grabbed our luggage and another cheap lunch of an apple and a sandwich, caught the tube- stress with all our luggage- soooo crowded- to St. Pancras to hop on the Chunnel.

The extremely crowded tube... joy

Getting on the Chunnel was way less stressful than airport security.  The ride there was pretty chill (other than a woman being in my spot she had confused a past ticket with this one). 

After stepping off the Chunel in Paris!

After arriving we stressed over trying to get to our new hostel. First our credit cards don’t work here (we don’t have a chip or something in our cards), so they wouldn’t work in the ticket machines. After finally getting a ticket, we boarded the metro to Guar de Lyon. THEN we couldn’t find out how to escape the train station. There were like 14 exit options ALL IN FRENCH. When we asked the information woman she didn’t speak any English. Then Kate saved the day with some Spanish-French, and we finally escaped. At the hostel we made the beautiful discovery that we have our on private room and bathroom! Downside: no Internet. We showered and got dolled up, grabbed some “kebabs” (gyros to us) from the place next door (it’s like Mexican food here in France apparently).

Our new (and obnoxiously bright) hostel! Our own room! 

Kate, Michelle, and I then ventured to reconnect with Flora (our French lovely French friend) for her birthday celebration at a typical French bar. This was another struggle. Only 4 problems to our advent: It was Paris, where we have never been before, at night, we don’t speak French, it was going to rain, and we had issues trying to get out of the train station earlier and now we were willingly getting back in.

After almost calling it quits and heading back, we decided to ask the guy behind the counter (named Bear Grills who looked like he could be in the black eyed peas)

And he was actually helpful!  As we were waiting for the metro, we were entertained by an fabulous flute player who played a symphony track through speakers to back him up- it was AWESOME!  We took the metro and the proceeded to get very lost. FINALLY we found the bar and Flora and Dianne eagerly welcomed us! We thanked Flora for all her help and presented her with Minnesota gifts (we seemed more enthusiastic about them than she was). She and her wonderful friends helped us decide possible plans for the rest of the trip. We had some pink wine as well, walked back, made plans to meet Flora at the Fount San Michelle the next evening, took the metro, and returned to a sleeping Charlie.

Happy Birthday Flora! 

It’s been a crazy transition day, but ended with a fun and successful evening! 

"Please Mind the Gap"

Today consisted of five things: Walking, Riding the Tube, Taking pictures of "the sights", Walking, and Riding the Tube.


The first thing to know about the Tube is the pleasant British announcer saying every time it stops to "please mind the gap." Since we took the train 6 times today (we got a day pass!) "please mind the gap" is stuck in my head like a Bruno Mars song.

But lets start at the beginning: After waking up to our lovely roomies complaining about the extremely bright skylight, we had free breakfast at the hostel and grabbed an apple on the way to the tube to begin our adventures.

First stop Kings Cross for Platform 9 and 3/4 (disappointingly not between 9 and 10... perhaps due to construction?)

Hope I'll make it through!

We then checked out the British Museum (for free) Where we encountered artwork from all over the world. We managed to explore Greece and Rome (because we aren't going to see enough of that with our Art history class) Egypt, Assyria, Australia (kinda lame) and our favorite China and India. We were captivated by elaborately decorated Chinese snuff boxes, but were kind of uncomfortable in the presence of statues used for judging those before they entered the afterlife... The judgement was very apparent (another theme of the day...)

Sorry! I'm not from around here!

After the museum we grabbed some food at a lovely and straightforward restaurant called EAT where I got the most beautiful fruit cup on the planet.

We then walked quite a bit and after stealthily acquiring a map from a disappointed bus tour salesman, we found the main attractions: Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament (as well as the London Eye from afar)

Buckingham Palace

Stoic guard with fluffy hat

Westminster Abbey!

Big Ben

London Eye

Parliament 

After our sightseeing and a quick break at our Hostel. We snagged dinner at a typical English pub where I was carded for the first time and had my first legal drink- Pimm (kinda good- lots of yummy fruit involved). I also decided to avoid the fish part of fish and chips and go for the meat pies instead (plus chips and mashed peas (whose idea was that?))

We then used the last of sunlight and our train day pass to head over to 221B Baker Street for a fabulous photo opportunity in front of Sherlock Holme's home (haha Holme's home) It was a shame the souvenir shop was closed, but it's probably for the best. I can't afford anymore books being stuffed in my already too heavy backpack. 

I was being the dramatic damsel in distress calling upon Mr. Holmes.

Then back to Astor Hyde Park hostel for some reconnecting with the  rest of the world.


Off to Paris tomorrow! I'll enjoy the english while I can! 

London: A Sight for Sleepy Eyes

At approximately 2:30 American time, our flight landed here in London. We took our first trainride from the airport to London with minor issues (we may or may not have been sitting in first class on accident for a while- who knew?!) We then attempted to figure our where our hostel was. After much deliberation and even more peer pressure about 8 of us went trooping down the streets of London in search of the Astor Hyde Park Hostel. 45 MINUTES LATER, with very sore shoulders, backs, and feet, we stumbled in to store our bags.

Our caravan in search for the hostel

Our hostel was getting closer!!! Hooray! 

Then the fun began. We adventured around some cute shops and cafes  before settling on grabbing some cheap croissants and having a picnic in the beautiful and momentarily sunny Hyde Park. We strolled along, taking in the sights and taking just as many pictures. We arrived back at our hostel with a half hour to check in, but just in time to miss the rain. More adventures to come!

Our lovely (and fairly cheap) picnic in the park

Because it was necessary...

Here we go, I guess!

Off to London. Off to France. Hope no one steals my underpants!

As many of you lovely readers may know, last time I departed for Europe (on my choir trip in 2008), I arrived in Rome to the unpleasant discovery that ALL MY UNDERWEAR HAD BEEN STOLEN.

I refuse to let this bizarre inconvenience happen again and have strategically packed my underwear in several locations. I guess if it does happen again, I will just take it as the Universe complimenting me on my fabulous taste in undergarments…? Or just the Universe laughing at me. Probably that one. 

But getting to the less-awkward point, in approximately 24 hours my flight to London will be leaving. My bags are packed. Pre-departure homework all done. Last minute errands have been completed. All that is standing in between me and this next adventure is a very looooong plane ride and a potential nervous breakdown (hopefully it won’t come to that!). 

So andiamo (let’s go) and let’s get this party started! Next time I expect to update, I will be in a time zone far far away! 

Cheers and Adieu! 

Go to the dentist. Tell my dental hygienist I am moving to Rome. Soon learn she has several relatives in the Mafia…

One of her in-laws is serving a life sentence for bringing organized crime to Sweden. Another was just offed by the mob.


All I could say in response was “Oh well I am reading the Godfather for school!”

I’ve had more boring trips to the Dentist. 

 Awesome. 

Giving Thanks and Freaking Out

So today was Thanksgiving at the Johnson household. All three of my grandparents as well as my Uncle Tom came over and we had a feast. It was in the middle of my Grandma Alice’s delicious stuffing that I realized- Holy cow! I leave on FRIDAY! I used to think, “Oh yeah, August 19th. That-super-far-away-date-that-isn’t-really-getting-any-closer.”


No. I leave Friday. As in this week.


How did this happen?!? 

So I decided to be productive and after I procrastinated thoroughly by painting my nails- I filled out some paperwork (health insurance, packing lists, other boring things) in an attempt to feel less overwhelmed.


Did it work? Mmmmmm not quite sure yet. Check back later…