Rome :)

I know that I have slacked a lot and not posted about my wonderful days in Rome. Oops. But I'm catching up now, and then tomorrow will be a Portugal update.


So. ROME. As mentioned, our flight got cancelled, but we flew out early Friday morning, after spending a few hours in the airport since I made us leave really early in case snow was an issue with traffic and stuff. I'm the mommy of the group and everyone knows it...they even call me mommy. Oops...

When we got to Rome, we made our way to our apartment, checked in, and then went out to grab food. A lot of Italian restaurants close in the later afternoon, so we just grabbed pasta from a place nearby that was closing and headed back to the apartment. Everyone was exhausted cause our bus to the airport had left at 1 am, so there were naps taken by some, and Alex and I worked on planning the trip. Everyone had basically agreed on what we wanted to do, so we tried to figure out what made the most sense to do when.

After everyone woke up less tired and less hungry, we headed out into Rome. First stop, Trevi fountain. It is BEAUTIFUL. We spent a bit of time around there, taking pictures and throwing two coins in the fountain - the first guarantees our return to Rome, and the second was for a wish. We then went to a gelato place touted as the best gelato in Rome (and therefore possibly the world)....and they're not kidding. We may or may not have gone 4 times in the three days we spent in Rome. Yummm.

After that we walked over to the Spanish Steps, which are ALSO gorgeous. The boys decided to race up the stairs, and Alex and I mooned over St. Peter's which we could see in the far off distance. We found a cheapish place for dinner for our first real Italian meal, and Alex got the best gnocchi I have EVER tasted. It was exquisite, melt in your mouth. If I was Andrea, I could tell you what I ordered, but I'm not, which is too bad. But I'm sure it was very tasty :)

The next day I woke up and headed to the Rome mosque, the largest in Europe. It was deserted, since they don't want tourists milling around during worship, but it was gorgeous and I got some good pictures. On the way back, I got on some auxiliary line of the subway and couldn't find a ticket machine, but I figured I could get away with it since they rarely check. WRONG. They were stopping everyone when we got off in the city to switch to the regular Metro, and I was fined 50 Euro. OUCH.

I met up with everyone else outside the Colosseum, and we went around there. We had a brief rainspell, but it was cool to walk around the Colosseum. After that we did the Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum - both very cool.

For lunch we went around Trevi again, since prices seemed within our range there. Andrew, Andrea, and I ordered the tourist menu: a starter (which was a bowl of pasta), a second dish (MEAT!), dessert (fruit or cheese), bread, and table wine, for 18 Euro! It was tasty.

Later we walked around and went to the Pantheon, had very rich hot chocolate at Taza d'Oro, and had what must have been another delicious meal.

Sunday turned into a bit of a wash - we wanted to walk around the boho neighborhood of Trastevere and go to what was supposed to be great brunch and an awesome flea market, but we managed to find neither. And the Tiber River is VERY disappointing. We did go to a cool church, though, and I had the best eggplant parm I had EVER had.

After that we went out to the old Appian Way, walked along that, and checked out some catacombs. There wasn't all that much to see and our guide was...interesting, but I'm glad I got to do it.

We had eaten weird all day, and by dinner time my blood sugar had dropped low. This happens every once in a while if I don't eat enough, and I didn't recognize it at first, but after a while of being cranky and emotional and hungry and then feeling sick, we stopped for a snack and then some dinner, and I had very tasty risotto. AFterwards we just headed back to the apartment because....

MONDAY IS VATICAN DAY! Alex and I were beside ourselves. We walked past the Castel San'Angelo (the one that has a secret tunnel to the Vatican) and then walked up the street towards St. Peter's, which is amazing. Completely amazing. We had to wait in line for a while, but when we got in, we decided to go to the crypts first. For someone who doesn't consider herself very religious, and certainly not Catholic, John Paul II's grave from 5 years ago really touched me. Unlike older ones, it's just a slab of engraved marble rather than a marble sarcophagus, and it's very un-elaborate and staid. There were nuns and others who were obviously very religious and were praying in front of it, but I had a lump in my throat looking at it and thinking of that great man.

Afterwards we headed up into the basilica itself. Mass had just started, and I ran over to it. It was in Italian, of course, but I can now say that I have attended mass and taken communion in St. Peter's Basilica...again, something that just seemed important to me. And St. Peter's is gorgeous. I loved just looking around and taking everything in, including the marble slab engraved with the names of every Pope, starting with St. Peter, all 265 of them. It was great.

After a break for lunch, we did the Vatican museums...amazing Rafaels and other things, but the beauty of the Sistine Chapel is, again, breathtaking.

After a failed detour to find gelato mentioned in Lonely Planet, we headed home for a bit of a rest before dinner. I got to pick dinner because it was my birthday dinner, but the place I picked was closed (a common theme for us all week). Instead, we found a random quaint restaurant, and the waiter was wonderful and italian. I had delicious roast lamb, and spinach for like the 4th time. England is sorely lacking in delicious nutritious veggies.

And at 12:30, like the good Stanford students that they are, my lovely Oxford family threw me in the shower, which is a time-honored Stanford tradition. It made it special :)

The next morning Alex, Andrew and I went to the Villa Borghese, apparently THE art gallery in Rome to see if you only see one. IT was nice. Then we headed to the airport and flew back to dreary cold England :P Oh, did I mention that it was 60 and sunny in Rome?

So, that was Rome. I loved it. I want to go back. I'm so glad we went, and I went with some amazing people who I love dearly :)

Rome pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=306295&id=725549275&l=69e685af46

Not much happened back in Oxford, we were winding down and packing. We said a not-too-sad goodbye, since we'll be seeing each other again in 3 weeks, and then early early Friday morning I headed to Portugal! More on that tomorrow, it's time to head to bed.

ROMA

Not all that much to update in the last couple days...Naomi and I had a blast in London. We saw Chicago, which was great, much better than the movie in my opinion.

I've wrapped up with classes, I was officially done on Tuesday at 3:30. I've been puttering around, mostly, but now...


ROME!

We were actually supposed to leave yesterday, but there has been crazy snowfall throughout the UK (though not here, luckily, just some pretty flurries), but the result was that Gatwick has been closed for days and our flight got cancelled! After being really upset about it for a few hours, we got our act together and called RyanAir, which promptly booked us on a new flight out of Stansted airport, instead, to avoid the Gatwick madness. So now our flight leaves at 8:45 and we'll be in Rome by noon! Since we weren't going to get in until late last night, we're really only losing about half a day, so it's not that big a deal at all. We might just end up skipping a trip elsewhere, like Pompeii or Florence.

I promise I'll post about Rome when I return (on my birthday!) and I'll have a ton of pictures :)

my sister :)

Again, it's been several regular days, so I haven't felt a need to post that much.

I saw the Harry Potter movie and was disappointed...though my friends and I did go in costume.

The most exciting thing is that my sister is here to visit!!!! She arrived Wednesday afternoon. We've spent most of our time just walking around Oxford, exploring.

Alex's parents and brother are here visiting as well, and they rented an apartment. They were sweet enough to have us all over for Thanksgiving dinner. We baked some pies and headed over for mashed potatoes, chicken, green beans, gravy, rolls, and stuffing that Alex's mom had made, sacrificing clothes to make room in her suitcase for the ingredients...it was delicious. We had a lot of fun :)

Today Naomi and I mostly just walked around. There was a Christmas market that we went to, it was cute and we enjoyed it :)

Tomorrow, we head to London for a day before she leaves on Sunday. It was short, but really fun :)

Next week I have two concerts, I turn in my last paper, and on Thursday we go to ROME!

the last two weeks

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Not all that much has happened, and I got kinda busy with work and being sick and some field trips for my soccer class.

On the weekend of Nov 5, the boys and I went to a Guy Fawkes celebration in a nearby park, which including a little fair, a way-too-nice-for-fair-food cheeseburger, an awesome fireworks display, a burning effigy, and a GIANT bonfire. It was kinda cold, but a really fun thing to go to.









The following Wednesday, our entire soccer class got on a 7:30 am bus to Liverpool. We got there and got to get a tour of the Everton stadium, Goodison Park, where we were headed to a game that night. It was actually really cool; we saw the players' locker room with their uniforms for the night laid out, and we got to see a lot of the Everton memoribilia in cases, and then we sat in the Director's box for a little.

After the tour, we had time to kill in Liverpool. After a quick lunch, a group of us went to the Beatles Museum, which was pretty cool. There were several artefacts, as well as an audio tour and just a lot of talking about the Beatles. The best part was certainly getting socks with yellow submarines on them in the surprisingly decently priced gift shop, followed closely by real goldfish in a model of the yellow submarine.




Our professor very nicely paid for an Indian banquet for the entire class, which we thanked him for by buying him an Everton windbreaker. Afterwards, we went to the game, where Everton managed to score the tying point in the last minute of overtime.

Liverpool pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=298788&id=725549275&l=e8633610eb









The following Sunday, Andrew, Muthu, and I went to London for a Chelsea game at the Chelsea stadium. Chelsea is the team at the top of the English Premiere League, arguably the best English team, hadn't been scored on at home since March 2009, had won all 7 games at home this season...and somehow we watched them lose to Sunderland 3-0. It was ridiculous. It was still really fun, though--the crowd atmosphere was amazing.

Andrew and I stayed in London through Tuesday, very nicely being put up by family friends of mine both nights. On Monday we went to a lot of museums, meeting up with Alex and Andrea who came in after a trip to Canterbury and Dover. We walked through Hyde Park and down Oxford street to the British Museum, then walked to the National Gallery with a stop for sushi along the way. We got ice cream cones in the park, and then went to the Victoria and Albert to meet the girls. Andrew, Andrea, and I went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, which was REALLY cool, though we were slightly disappointed by the rest of the museum. The gift shop had dinosaur socks, but only for small children, and we were sad.

The next day Andrew and I spent a little time in the Science Museum, which was REALLY awesome, and the headed back to Oxford. It was ridiculously foggy out and cold out of nowhere.

Last night, our group went to a formal dinner at Magdalen College. We dressed up, Oxford students wore their robes, there was a Latin blessing at the beginning and end, and there were fish knives, which I didn't even know existed but shouldn't have been surprised that they did.


That is a summary of the last two weeks. Due next week is my final paper for my tutorial, a double-length paper about Muslim women in the United States. On Wednesday my sister comes (!!!!!!!) through Sunday, and we'll have Thanksgiving with Alex's family and then go to London for a couple days.

Hard to believe there are only 3 weeks left here!

travel!

I've made all my plane bookings for my post-Oxford travel, and I'm very excited!

Another girl from the program, Ashley, and I are headed to Portugal on December 10. We're going to spend 4 nights in Lisbon, with maybe a day trip to a small, cute town nearby. Then we both head back to London, Ashley to go home, me to catch a flight to Amsterdam. I tried getting a flight from Lisbon to Amsterdam, but it ended up being just as cheap and as easy to fly back into London - I know, it doesn't make much sense, but there you have it.

I'm staying in Utrecht, Netherlands until the 17th, seeing my friend Natalie and my cousin, who could potentially give birth while I'm there!

Then I fly back to London, spend a couple days with family friends, including their daughter, Claire, who is getting there on the 17th as well.

Then on Decembe 21 I fly home! I can't believe that's in 7 weeks...or that in 2 months I will have already started classes back at Stanford.

Oh, and I don't remember if I mentioned that I'm going to ROME from December 2-7...that's right, I'll turn 21 in Rome with my friends. No big deal. We rented an apartment which was cheaper than a hostel and now we get to cook for ourselves if we want, and save our money for giant Italian dinners. It will be good :)

ahmed's, soccer, and a novel

I forgot the best part of Halloween! After the pub, we went to Ahmed's, the kebab van near the House that we go to probably 5 times a week at night when we're hungry. The last time we had been, we had finally introduced ourselves to Ahmed and his friends/sons/nephews. This time, though, Alex and I spoke to him in Arabic! Alex was in Arabic with me freshman year, and spent this past summer in Jordan on a dig. It was really fun, I actually remembered Arabic, and he was very impressed, I think. He's from Morocco! So I will be attempting Arabic with Ahmed whenever I remember.

For my soccer class, we have to go to a Premiere League and a non Premiere game, so tonight we went to an Oxford United game, which is the local Oxford team, not the University. There were a lot of empty seats, so we sat one row from the bottom. It was a good game, though the other team won. Oxford kept taking the ball right up to the goal, then missing shots or fumbling the ball. It didn't help that their goalie was like 6 foot 7 or something ridiculous like that.

Finally, I've decided to write a novel!

I'm doing National Novel Writing Month - NaNoWriMo. http://www.nanowrimo.org/
It's a non-profit that organizes this every November. People can make an account and write a novel. The goal is 50,000 words between November 1 and 30. If you finish you get a certificate from them and the pride that you wrote a novel.

At the moment, I'm still not sure what my novel is about, but it's currently at 602 words. I'm not sure if I'll make it to 50,000 by the end of this month, but hopefully by then I'll have something that I want to continue writing and editing until it's actually something I'm proud of doing. We'll see how it goes!

Halloween!

Not much of an update, but I wanted to share my Halloween with everyone.


This is a picture of me and my Oxford family on Halloween:


We are dressed as: Cleopatra (me), Ziggy Stardust (Andrew), a unicorn (Alex), Cho Chang from Harry Potter (Andrea), and the rapper Kanye West (Muthu).

We ended up just hanging out and then going to a pub in costume. Other people were there in costume, too, so we didn't feel like crazy Americans.

Remember that you can always see my pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=285952&id=725549275&l=efc6a86b0d