Daylight Savings

Ciao mi amici e famiglia!

Getting into Halloween season. Do they celebrate Halloween in Italy, you ask? Kind of. It’s obviously not unheard of and it seems as if it is a holiday that is just becoming mainstream. I think a lot of the Halloween-ness is totally directed towards tourists and American students, etc. but you can find the occasional shop with Halloweeny stuff in the window, and even a few pumpkins at the market. Trying to decide what I’m going to be for Halloween with the resources I have, slash maybe a cheap trip to the market. Ideas anyone? Thursday night we are going on a Halloween pub crawl with hopefully the majority of the interior design and graphic design students. Should be a good time, especially because our perspectives/storyboard project is due Wednesday. And after that due date we get to take it easy and leave for our North field trip the following Wednesday :) Get excited.

We got into the “Autumn” frame of mind and made Veggie Chili on Friday night with baked potatoes. Holy comfort food; it was fantastic! Keep in mind 2 of my roommates are vegetarians, so I have been eating a lot of non-meat. In fact it’s been soooo long since I’ve had chicken! And then I tried a new beer, Ceres Strong Ale, a recommendation from my boss from over the summer who had been to Italy.

The other thing about this time of year in Italy is that we had daylight savings time this morning, a week earlier than America. So let it be known that for one week only, I am only 6 hours ahead of you! It was much brighter out this morning and it even got to 70 degrees out today. I’m going to miss how perfect the weather (usually) is.

Last night, Sarah, Lindsay, Liz, & I ventured out to the English speaking movie theater, Nuovo Olimpia for the comfort of seeing a movie in English! We saw Taking Woodstock and it was pretty good. Afterwards I hit the hay early to rest up for the Vatican in the morning! Emily and I had decided to take advantage of the fact that the last Sunday of each month, admission into the Vatican Museums is free! So we got up at 6 am and made it to the entrance by 7:30, to wait in line for it to open at 9 am. We weren’t too far back in line but it sure extended on past us, and even as we were leaving hours later, the line had stretched all along the Vatican City walls towards St. Peter’s. I had been to the Vatican 2 years ago with my family but it was SO nice to be there again, and this time without a tour guide. Emily and I covered a lot of ground and saw a lot that I hadn’t before, a few wings of art and statues as well as the gallery of the Pope Mobiles! One of the most satisfying things was finding a marble statue and realizing you know the name of it and the century it was from (i.e. Augustus of Prima Porta, 1st century A.D.). The thing about the museums is that you want to stare at the amazing mosaic floors just as much as you want to gaze at the frescoed ceilings. The other highlights were seeing Raphael’s “School of Athens,” Raphael’s “Altar of Transfiguration,” Caravaggio’s “Deposition of Christ,” and the bazillion Byzantine Madonna and Child paintings. Oh and of course the Sistine Chapel, the ceiling by Michelangelo and the Last Judgment. We were unable to go into the actual St. Peter’s Basilica because Sunday morning mass was still in full swing. The piazza was packed and there was a never-ending line of people headed into the basilica to drink the communion wine. But I did see the Pope on the big tv screens!

Other highlights of my week
...watching a scene from who knows what movie being filmed on the street, from a moving vehicle, of a green taxi being followed by a white Fiat. Let me know if you see this ever show up in a movie...I wish I knew what it was!
...wishing I had been home for the Nebraska-Iowa State game!!!!!
...eating amazing zucchini pizza from the cheap pizza place run by Chinese people

Buonanotte!