ND Dinner Party

Wednesday night, our 8-man decided to make use of our new cooking skills and invited all of the Notre Dame Rome kids over for dinner. We made our classic homemade Mac & Cheese, grilled vegetables, garlic bread, 3 different types of chicken, and ricotta-chocolate pie for everyone.

Old Bridge Gelato!

People had been telling us about a great gelato place called Old Bridge Gelato that was right by the Vatican, so after dinner on Monday we decided to go find it. It was amazing! Just more reason for us to continue eating gelato at least once a day..

Olympic Stadium And Back to Rome

Saturday, the weather was really nice again, so we hiked up the Acropolis and got to see the Parthenon and a bunch of other ruins (we know we're brats, but they all kind of started to look the same after a while..)

Then, we walked to the first ever Olympic Stadium! Of course, we had to run a lap while we were there, and rotated taking pictures on the podium so we all got a chance to be gold, silver, and bronze (the people taking the picture might have laughed at us a little...) 

We had our last meal in Greece (we realized all we really did there was eat) in the Plaka, and got amazing Chicken Slovaki (chicken in a pita) and Greek Salad.

We loved our flights because they served dinner on both of them, even though they were just two hour flights! I can't say it was the best food ever, but we were just excited that airplane meals still existed! We called another car to pick us up at the airport since we were so excited about the Mercedez-Benz that had picked us up to take us there, and loved it when we were greeted at the Rome airport by a limo driver holding a sign that said "Carolina Brustein"... we couldn't have been happier to be back in "Home Sweet Rome."

We Bring Natural Disasters With Us Everywhere

We woke up Saturday and took the hostel's walking tour of Athens, where our tour guide, George, informed us that we were in Athens on the first day it had rained since Easter. Of course. We grabbed umbrellas and started to see the sites anyway.

We got to see Hadrian's Arch,

the Temple of Zeus,

the National Garden,

Greek Parliament in Syntagma square,

and by that point it started POURING. Our tour guide told us it was probably raining too hard to continue, so we started to walk back, and were sprayed by every car that drove past us, just like in the movies. By the time we got back, we were DRENCHED. So naturally, we decided food would make us feel better, and we tried another Greek restaurant that was not as good, but still had really great chicken and potatoes. After we had dried off, we went to a cute café with rows and rows of couch chairs. We ordered frappés, another Greek specialty that's kind of like a mix between a frappucino and really sweet espressos, and sat for a couple hours there like all the Europeans were doing.

Greece!

We flew into Athens late Thursday night, and finally made it to our hostel around 1am. We were really excited that we got a free upgrade to an apartment-style room right by the Acropolis with a bedroom, kitchen, common room, a TV (so exciting! we hadn't seen one of those in weeks), and 2 balconies.. until we found out that we were sharing it with 2 Australian girls who were CRAZY. The hostel had free breakfast, so we went down to check it out the next morning and saw that "free breakfast" meant toast and raw eggs, yum. I thought it would be a good idea to make cinnamon toast, so I covered my bread in cinnamon, only to find out that the "cinnamon" was actually instant coffee grinds, which are EVERYWHERE in Greece.. whoops. Needless to say, it was not the best toast I've ever had.

After breakfast, we took the tram that went straight from Syntagma Square in Athens to the beaches along the coast. We laid out on sunbeds all day, and I even swam in the Mediterranean! This vacation never ends...

We were starving heading back to the hostel, so we decided to stop and have our first real Greek meal at one of the many outdoor restaurants lining the streets of Athens. We picked a place called Vitro, and had probably the best meal I've had since we got to Europe - 12 euro for fresh bread (yes, that is exciting since they even charge you for the BUTTER you put on your bread here), tzatziki (my new favorite, I ate the entire plate), Greek Salad, Chicken Shishkebabs, and a glass of wine. It was the perfect way to try all the Greek food! Even though we loved everything we ate there, we decided we'd probably be huge if we spent more than a weekend there...

That night, we walked around the Plaka, which is a neighborhood in Greece with pretty lit outdoor restaurants, live music, and shops. Then, we finished up the night at the hostel's Bingo Night and were all one away from winning 44 euro! We lost, but still had a great first day in Greece.

"So Chef"

It was our turn to make dinner for the room on Monday, so we decided to make baked macaroni & cheese, chicken, and broccoli (since we've pretty much been living on tomatoes and mozzarella and needed something new). We had to improvise with the recipes because Italy doesn't have the same kind of cheeses as America... and none of us had ever cooked chicken before... but it turned out to be delicious!

Roma Soccer Game! ... NOT.

Sunday afternoon, our Italian "sorpresas" continued. We were set to go to the Roma-Bologna soccer game at Stadio Olimpico (the Olympic Stadium from the 1960 Olympics), and were all ready for it in our own Rome version of ND's "THE Shirt 2010." We tried to buy tickets at a Tabacchi but the computer wasn't working, and after trying a few more with no success we were told to buy them at the Stadium, so we started out on what we didn't realize was an almost 2 hour walk. We asked a couple people along the way to make sure we were headed in the right direction, and were first told in broken English that the man, "didn't have the stadium," (thanks, but we didn't think you did), and later that it was "troppo lontano," (too far), but we finally made it there! We were so excited that we had actually gotten there...until we found out that we would have to take a bus somewhere else to buy tickets, and it was too late. Italy gets us again. A little disappointed, we started our long walk back home. At least we got cool shirts out of it!

Andiamo In Pace

Sunday, we went to the Church down the street, Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere. It was beautiful inside, and even though the mass was all in Italian, we tried to pick up as many things as we could. We love saying "Andiamo in Pace," "We go in peace."

Waka Waka

Italy seems to love Shakira's "Waka Waka" and plays it everywhere, so we made it a goal to be able to perform the entire dance by the end of the semester. Feel free to judge.

Pizza and Pasta

Saturday, we woke up and walked to Villa Borghese (a huge park in Rome about an hour walk away). It started drizzling just as we got there though, so we decided to stop and have some amazing pizza in Piazza del Popolo.

It was pouring by the time we were done, so we found H&M (!!) and did our first European shopping. On the way home, we stopped at San Crispino, which we'd heard is the best gelato in Rome and is actually the gelato she eats in Eat, Pray, Love (aka Mangia, Prega, Ama)! We had been looking for it for a couple days, and actually stumbled upon it the night before while we were running away from a mime that was chasing us at the Pantheon, haha... just another normal Italian happening.

We stopped at Despar on the way home, and made pasta and bruschetta for dinner.. the first meal I've actually cooked here!

Roman Forum

We went to the Roman Forum for Ancient Rome & Its Monuments on-site class on Thursday and saw the Temple of Saturn, The Arch of Severus (or Titus? clearly I was listening..), and stopped at the Colosseum again on our way home.

Campo and more

Wednesday morning before class, we went and bought fresh fruits and vegetables at Campo dei Fiori, a market about 15 minutes away.

After dinner that night, we went to the Jewish Ghetto part of Rome to find cannolis..and because I fit in so well there :) The pasticceria was closed, so we went to go get gelato instead at a place called Blue Ice. Just as we were about to order, the power shut off in the store and the people working there closed up all the gelato and just looked at us and said "bye." Surprised? Not really, Italy continues to hate us, but we love it.

Scavi Tour!

Thursday was the longest day everrr. We were meeting our first on-site class (Ancient Rome and its Monuments) at Piazza del Popolo, so all the Notre Dame students in the class left for the 45 minute walk over at 8:30. We had part of our class in the middle of Piazza del Popolo by an Egyptian Obelisk (they're all over Rome), and then walked even further to Villa Giula museum, where we saw two hours worth of Etruscan artifacts, and then walked an hour back home. After a quick lunch, we headed to the Vatican for what was probably my favorite thing I have done in Rome so far. Our Mystics, Saints, and Sinners (theology) professor arranged for us to have a tour of the Scavi, which is basically a tour of what is underground St. Peter's Basilica. We saw the cemetery and mosileums that were there before they built the Basilica, the bones that are believed to be those of St. Peter (and are directly below the altar in the modern Basilica), a beautiful chapel built for St. Peter, the national chapels and the Papal tombs - we even saw the tomb of Pope John Paul II!