trastevere.

Welcome to my home. I live in the Trastevere neighborhood of Rome, known for its orange washed buildings, peeling facades and allegria (good cheer)! It's the SoHo equivalent of Rome, if SoHo housed frescoes by Raphael and centuries old buildings and piazzas. There are pubs, wine bars, and osterias (resaurants) scattered down every street and funky jewelry shops and vintage stores galore. The best thing about the neighborhood though, in my opinion, is the abundance of small niche book stores you can find. Yes most of the books are in Italian, but inside the stores are dusty, dimly lit, and smell like ancient libraries. It makes me feel like I'm stepping back in time every time I walk inside one of them.

Like all other places in Italy, there is graffiti everywhere in Trastevere, but here it seems to fit. I still don't like the idea of tagging buildings that have so much history to them, but I can't help but like some of the graffited walls that I walk past.

Trastevere quite literally means across the river, in this case the Tiber River. And that is pretty accurate considering that I am a quick five minute walk to the Tiber, with its multitude of bridges to take me into the heart of Rome. But many nights I'm quite content staying just where I am.

vatican.

Surprise. The Italians love their Catholicism. And given that I live a short 10 minute walk from the epicentre of all things Catholic, it seems to be a little more blatant. You can't walk to the grocery store without encountering a nun, a priest, and a painting of Mary with Child on the corner of the street. Pope Benedict's subdued face greets you at every Tabacchie store as you try to buy postcard stamps and rosaries are as abundant as I <3 ROME t-shirts. But this love is not nearly as declared as when you step inside the Vatican. Beautiful and stunning on the insides as well as the out, the Vatican is quite a site to behold. But remember to bring a long sleeve sweater and wear skirts that don't show too much leg or you will only be able to marvel from afar. They ban you from entering if you are showing excessive skin.

There are guards dressed like court jesters who stand watch over the crowds and statue after statue bearing crosses and religious emblems galore.

Once you step inside it becomes difficult to focus. The floors, ceilings, walls, and alcoves are all so ornate it gets to be overwhelming. All the statues are dedicated to figures from the bible or past popes. They even go so far as to have the preserved bodies of popes in glass caskets so you can pay your respects. At the risk of sounding sacrilegious, it was beyond creepy.

Hello dead Pope.

florence.

Duomo

The Rape of the Sabine Woman

My family and I spent an eventful two days in Florence going to any and all buildings that contained art of some kind, be it paintings, statues, or tombs. There was the Uffizi, which was well worth it just to see Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera and Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi. Mary with child (Maria con bambino), on the other hand, became old quickly. Renaissance painters had quite the skill but lacked in diversity of subject. The Accademia Gallery was my favorite. It housed Michelangelo's David, which proved to be stunning. I could have stared at it for hours. The Medici Chapel, where most of the Medici family is buried, was a great example of the sheer indulgence of the ruling family. The tombs were massive rooms covered from floor to ceiling in marble, with elaborate statues and gold encrusted shrines to each dead ruler. Understandably you couldn't take pictures of anything in the museums, but the rest of the city was photogenic enough on its own.

View from Duomo

Medici Garden Statue

We of course had to climb a tower. This time it was in the form of a Dome. We trekked up the narrow stone steps of the Medici Duomo and were rewarded by more amazing views, but the most impressive part is the outside facade of the Duomo. It is made from pink, green and white marble and is one of those buildings where you can't help but stop and stare as soon as you see it.

The only downside is the graffiti that covers the inside walls and the surrounding streets. I can't imagine tagging structures that are centuries upon centuries old, but here they do it with abundance and abandonment.

yum.

sperlonga.

My friends and I decided we needed a quick holiday before classes began, so we planned an excursion to the lovely Sperlonga beach, right between Rome and Naples. What was said to be only a quick train and bus ride to get to our final destination proved to be quite the adventure as we became acquainted with the Rome buses, train stations, and taxi drivers named Bruno. In the end we made it and frolicked all day in the Mediterranean.

The water was blue and clear. You could see straight down to your toes! Every house was whitewashed and so were the sidewalks, but all the beach umbrellas were brightly colored to match the colorful doors and shutters that were scattered through the town. The beach was crowded with confident Italians strutting around in barely there bikinis and speedos, which only added to the atmosphere.

Beach vendors were selling everything from jewelry and clothing to rafts and ski caps in carts that they wheeled along the beach. Since it was Sunday almost every restaurant was closed, but we did manage to find a gelato shop to end our trip with. For only a grand total of 20 euros I would say it was well worth it.

volterra.

Before my family dropped me off in Rome, we took a lovely tour of Tuscany. We wound our ways through the country side as my dad re learned how to drive a stick shift and I saw my life pass before my eyes with every S curve turn that we took up the hills. It seems that every city in Italy was built to ward off the unavoidable Roman invasion. They each have their own set of high walls that can withstand cannons and numerous towers within the city walls where the ruling family could run and hide if any outsider did manage to find a way in. Volterra was one of these cities that we toured.

We climbed the first of what would be many towers to get a better view of the city. Note to anyone who visits and decides to partake in the tower climbs: wear shorts. In almost all the towers in Italy there is only one very narrow staircase, which is used to go both up and down. This means that after you have climbed up and marvelled at the view you must wait your turn to climb back down. So when your turn finally comes and you begin your descent, all the people who are waiting to walk up stand at the bottom and watch as you saunter towards them with a clear view up your dress/skirt/kilt if that's what you choose to wear for the day.

Unbeknownst to us, the Volterra A.D. 1398 festival was in full swing on the day we visited. It is a Renaissance type festival with people dressed in medieval clothes peddling meat on sticks and swords. Walking around made me feel like I was in a living Monty Python movie. It was fun and lively, but filled up the already small city to the point of bursting.

rome.

collosseum.

I'm studying in Rome for the next four months, or as the nice Italian waiter corrected us, quattro mesi. The city is absolutely lovely. I feel like I'm constantly on the set of a movie, with the cobbled sidewalks, abundant ruins, zig zagging vespas and pot bellied Italian men who shout at each other down the streets. My Italian is pretty shaky, but luckily the people here understand our hand gesturing and butchered pronunciation enough that we can get by. And hopefully the introduction class that I'm taking and the day to day living will help me become at least conversational. I plan to share pictures and lost in translation stories, that I'm sure will be abundant, soon. For now though, I'm just taking everything in and marvelling at the city that I will now call home.