It is seriously weird we're almost halfway through November. This month is just flying by.
Here are some thoughts (taken from my journal) on Sunday in Rome:
"One month until my birthday! Weird.
This
morning I had a donut and cold milk for breakfast which was the most normal
breakfast meal I’ve had since I’ve been here. I’m still craving bacon and
bagels like crazy though. The donut was filled with chocolate that got all over
me and was covered in sugar that showered my clothes and clung to my lips. It
was probably a funny sight.
We went
off to church and walked through a pretty heavy downpour to get there.
Thankfully we’d already been to the building so we didn’t get lost. We stayed
for a bit, but had to leave a little early so we could make it to our
reservation at the Museo Borghese on time.
I knew
which stop would take us to the Villa Borghese, but I didn’t expect it to drop
us off in the middle of seemingly nowhere, which it did. The Villa Borghese is
a pretty large sized park, so when we emerged from the metro, there was just a
dirt path next to the road, a wooden
fence and lots of trees. Thankfully we found signs rather easily and were on
our way. The villa was beautiful and probably one of my favorite things. If we
weren’t on our way to an appointment I would have liked to spend more time
there. We stopped at a bar on the way and tried to find some food that looked
appealing. We checked out a buffet that looked delicious but cost 25 euro. Ha.
Hahaha… that’s not gonna happen any time soon. So we got sandwiches and called
it good.
I really
enjoyed the Museo Borghese despite the fact we had to wait awhile and there
were lots of people and long lines. Once we actually got into the viewing area
it was nice. The Bernini statues were beautiful and definitely my favorite. I
loved it.
After
the museum we were tired and ready to go back to the hotel, but we didn’t want
to wander around getting food, so we got gelato. I got strawberry and pineapple
with panna and it was delicious. Unfortunately this was not enough to hold
Amber or me over, so after about an hour and a half we decided it was time to
make a McDonald's run. We walked about 20 minutes in unfamiliar streets and a
dark alley to get our prized food. However, when we got there we realized
there’s a metro that would have taken us right to it. Oh well, it was nice to
exercise. Also, we passed a street named Costanza. And a really fancy
restaurant that was wonderfully stereotypically European. When we took the
metro home there was basically no one there and the stop was really nice and
new looking so that was fun. After that excursion I’d had enough, so I lounged
on the bed until just now. I think it’s bed time."
On Monday Amber and I let ourselves sleep in and when we got out of the hotel we went to see Michelangelo's Moses in a nondescript church. Good thing we came when we did because they closed the church about 10 minutes after we came in. After we decided we wanted to go to Piazza Navona, but we were really tired and after trekking about halfway there and getting a little lost we decided we just didn't have the effort in addition to being short on time. So I took my last glances at beautiful, magical, wonderful Rome and we took the bus back home. I slept most of the way which was probably for the best since I hate bus rides.
Today has been (and probably will continue to be) pretty insignificant except for a couple things.
Firstly, I'm officially on the internet for Antenna Radio Siena. I really don't even want to share this on my blog since I am really embarrassed about it, but I figure I should do it to prove I've completed something significant here. Please don't make fun of me. I know I sound silly and people make fun of the way I talk when I'm speaking normally, so I know it will be hard not to laugh at me, but don't! I would also like to say I talk slowly and try to use cognates a lot because they told me Italians learning English might be listening so they asked me to simplify and slow down. So I tried to think how I would want an Italian to speak to me in Italian and tried to recreate it in English. Anyway, if you want to hear and promise not to make fun of me you can go to the website and click on the little British for streaming.
Secondly, I go to the same place for lunch so often, the guy that works there officially knows what my "usual" is. Embarrassing.