yo_steedgirl

I finally made it to Italy! I took my mom to Rome for my spring break and it was amazing! I was able to use my Italian quite a bit, too. I had a lot of trouble asking directions for the bus, mostly because I knew how to ask the question but couldn’t understand the answer. I ordered my meals in Italian and on my second night I made great friends with the wait staff of the restaurant we went to. They had the Roma football game playing and they asked who we were cheering for. We said, “Roma! Of course!” and the waiter said, “You’re just saying that because you’re finished and you want a discount on the bill.” But then they gave us free coffees and limoncello shots. Sweet! The third night I ordered completely in Italian and the waitress said my Italian was very good. I was so floored to get such a kind compliment! It’s always intimidating using a foreign languange in it’s home country for the first time, but the Romans are very relaxed about any mistakes you make.

The sights were amazing and I threw a Euro in the Trevi Fountain, so hopefully I’ll go back some day! I’d love to stay at a B&B in Cinque Terre some time.

It’s amazing, make sure to get dessert. The mango ice cream is so good!

A beautiful places any day of the week, but such a fun market on Saturday. There are vendors who sell greek olives and feta cheese. Buy the feta cheese! It’s amazing. Microwave some chicken, then put the chicken in a pan, pour balsamic vinegar on it, and sprinkle the feta cheese on top. Bake it in the oven at about 325 for 20 minutes. It’s amazing. The Portobello Rd. market is also a great place to buy unique gifts for friends abroad.

I’m a little disappointed that the play season only runs from May to September, but I took a tour with Nick Hutchison and he’s amazing, very witty and knowledgable. It was a lot of fun!

The British Museum is an amazing place and has so many interesting artifacts, but you really need to go with someone who knows the artifacts intimately. I’m taking an archaeology class with a lady who is currently excavating in Ethiopia when she’s not teaching and who used to be a curator at the British Museum. Many of the items in there were discovered in digs that she worked on, and she has many personal stories about them. She knows about nearly every artifact in the building, and it’s such a different experience hearing someone talk about these things if they know them personally.

I’m studying here this semester. I flew out on January 3rd, got an extremely delayed flight (damn you, Delta!), but made it to the study center fine. We got to London in the morning and were informed specifically NOT to go to bed or take a nap! This way we’d avoid as much jet lag as possible. So we met a few new people (mostly flatmates of my sister’s) and decided to walk around London a bit. Let me tell you about where we’re living. The study center is on Great Russell Street, on which two blocks in one direction will take you to the British Museum and two blocks in the other direction will land you on Tottenham Court Road and smack in the middle of the West End theatre district. It’s pretty much amazing. We’re quite literally in the center of London. And our very first walk out gave me such a huge culture shock I didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t even know why it was so shocking. I’ve been around both NY City and DC and absolutely loved them, felt completely comfortable walking around them. But this first time out in London I felt like a salmon swimming upstream, like I was being swarmed by pedestrians who didn’t seem to be obeying the laws of walking on a sidewalk (ie. don’t run into fellow pedestrians). Then I realized it was most likely I who was creating the problems because I was dragging my jaw along the sidewalk as I tried to take everything in. I had quite a fit with the money here too. You’d think it’d be simple enough, right? I mean they’ve got numbers on them just like US dollars. But I hadn’t had a chance since changing my money at the airport to actually sit down and LOOK at the bills and coins, so here we were on our first adventure out, struggling quite impressively, and we think maybe we’d like some coffee. So we go into a Café Nero (which is like the Starbucks of London) and I’m standing there in the crowd, staring at the menu board trying to comprehend what I’m reading, and a cute British bloke walks in the door behind me and asks, “Are you in the que?” And all of a sudden it just becomes too overwhelming to stand here and order a coffee with British money in front of a British guy, so I answer him with a definite “No.” and we all leave without ordering anything. Needless to say, since that first day out I’ve become much more coordinated at simply walking up and down a road and ordering a cup of coffee (or a pint of cider :-P). Actually, I was surprised how quickly I came to know my way around and become comfortable with myself in the city. It’s fun! There’s still a lot of places yet to see, but I’m enjoying myself a lot!