Ciao Bella! Or, Adrienne and Brianne find really old stuff...

Let me announce forwardly, and hopefully seriously, that I am officially moving to Italy. There are a series of reasons for this:
1. Pizza
2. Old shit just hanging all around the city (i.e. the Colloseum, Constantine's Arc, the Forum, and other things that I can't remember but photos will prove they exist)
3. Gelatto
4. Italian people in general.
5. The weather.

Roma was absolutely beautiful. The weather was perfect and was a much needed escape from all this ridiculous rain and cold and back and forth here in Paris. I think someone needs to decide if it's winter yet because I can't deal with these random bursts of 60 degree days and then 40 degree days and 30 degree mornings. One complaint I have about Rome - more than any other city I've seen in my brief stint here in Europe - is that there is ENTIRELY TOO MUCH GRAFITTI. Um, hello? Do you realize how important your city is? Please stop drawing shit all over it and defacing its beauty. Punks.

Adrienne and I started our day with delicious pasta. I won't tell you my food was amazing at every restaurant we ate at because that would be a blantant lie. But, it was cheap, and the two amazing meals and all the desserts outweigh the crappy pasta I had for my last meal there. I freaking love Napoleatano (sp?) style pizza. Anyone going to Rome needs to check out Da Ricci's (or, Est! Est! Est! to the locals) for an authentic meal that everyone in Rome apparently LOVES. Best pizza ever, ever, even better than Two Boots, but I might be the only one who still LOVES Two Boots. The rest of the day became a search for really old shit, as I put it every time, and our reaction was always "How old is that?"

Went to the Vatican, saw the Sistine Chapel, no big deal really... Except that it was and the Vatican is MASSIVE and I actually thought we were going to die Friday night from all the walking. Climbed to the top of St Peter's and really thought death was near... That hike made Sacre Coeur look like a breeze. St Peter's was beautiful and was my second favorite part of the trip, aside from the Coloseo, which was apparently not originally called that, thought I don't remember what they originally called it... Also, the pope was not present so I couldn't say hello, but I totally managed to use the Lord's name in vain at least 20 times. I think Adrienne was ready to hit me.

Seriously, I don't know HOW we did it, but I'm pretty sure we saw everything that most normal people see in Rome and then some. Thank God for my guide book. Also, leave it to me to happen to stumble upon the Jewish quarter in Rome of all places. Yes, it exists. No, I'm not making this up. You don't have to believe me. The square was called Jeruselum Plaza, no joke.

Let's talk about Gelatto. Went to Giolitti, where Audrey Hepburn goes in Roman Holiday, and got a chocolate, pignoli (pine nuts), and coffee gelatto cone and sighed. Hello, Italy, thank you for the gift of the best ice cream ever. The next night I went to Italy's oldest gelatto shop, which was right by my adorable B&B, and had rice, hazenut-chocolate that was not nutella because there were nuts in it, and tiramisu. HEAVENLY. The rice tasted like rice pudding. Who ever decided getting 3 flavors on a cone was a good idea is a genius. A genius. I hope to get to Ossining Pizzeria when I get home for some gelatto, unless there is a better place when I return.

I'm officially moving to the land of gelatto, pizza, and less pretentious women. The women were average sized, like me, and did not make me feel bad about the huge ass I have developped since arriving in France. Granted, I don't know how much of this weight is weight and not muscle. My legs are pretty stiff and I think it's from the stairs. Adrienne thinks it should have toned me down. I don't know if stairs do that but I imagine it wouldn't be as firm... I can't wait to get back to Palladium and be a real human being again.

On another note, our tour guide said something really powerful to us about Rome and world history. He said "Please do not think that this is just the history of Rome. There is no ethnic Roman. This is the history of the world. This is your history. You are all Romans." I thought this was really striking and it made me feel really connected to all the things I was seeing and made me understand the values of modern states and governments.

So go see your history. Maybe by the time you do, I'll have moved to Italy and you'll be able to stay with me and we can eat gelatto and I can live in a world that will probably only exist in my imagination.

I can't wait to leave France.

Halloween: day of the dead and the true start of a week from Hell.

Halloween in Paris sucks. In fact, it blows. The parties are not all that great and people mock you openly on the street if you are in costume. My friend was dressed as a cat and people actually meowed at her. Are you serious? Even some frenchies got dressed up, which was great to see, because that means that these people might actually love my country, but it was at the same time disheartening because people who mocked us actually knew we were American. Talk about double standards.

However, last weekend, apart from being in bed all day Sunday working on my tumultuous Vichy France paper and crying to my father, was fantastic. My soon-to-be-roommate came to visit and I made a huge dinner to celebrate her arrival. A delicious penne vodka, spinach with emmenthal, lemon, and butter, and Adrienne made some guacamole. After our food coma, we ran off to Trocadero to see the Eiffel Tower's new light show. It was a bit tacky but a great way to show Miranda the city. We walked to Concorde and I wanted to die from food coma and general exhaustion, but it was well worth it, especially after seeing the reason why Paris is called the city of lights.

Saturday I took Miranda on the world's fastest and most jam-packed tour of Paris. It was Halloween, so we went to Pere Lachaise, where I have never been, and we saw Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde's tombstones. The tombstones were pieces of art and were huge, grandiose celebrations of death. I was happy she and I could both see it for the first time together. After that we ate a quick lunch and I had a delicious croque poulet, like a croque monsieur but with chicken. It is infinitely better with chicken, laisse-moi vous dire. Following that we ran through Notre Dame, ate delicious macarons at Pierre Hermes (where I will bring everyone who visits me here to taste their first macarons), ran to Sacre Coeur, ate incredible confit de canard (duck confit) at Le Sancerre (officially a new favorite place), and then celebrated Halloween, American-style, sans costumes.

Also, lets talk about the fact that studying abroad actually implies studying. Who knew? Not me. This past week has been the week from hell and back and over again Starting with my professor who actually thought a week was enough time to write an 8 page paper, everything just went downhill. Now, my tests are all over and I am infinitely relieved. La vie est bonne et tout va bien. I can relax and not have a mini seizure every time I turn around. Therefore, this weekend, I am celebrating with a bottle of Côtes des Rhones.

Faire la fête ce weekend.