Italians, Gelato, and Beaches

**Not all my pictures would go onto my blog, so you are missing out on some good ones sadly**

CIAO CIAO CIAO (Italians love their CIAOS)! This week has been a crazy blur! Tuesday, our second day at AOSR, I was able to meet the rest of my students. They were totally different than Monday’s students, it was interesting. I love trying to learn all their fun, beautiful names and faces. Since this was my first red day, we had period 1, 2, and 3. Period 1 and 2 were both English (and before lunch). These were eighth graders, and totally acted like it (too cool for school of course). In English, we were finishing up The Outsiders (best book ever) and the kids absolutely love it. Most of them actually read it too!! When I introduced myself to these kiddos, they were definitely more vocal and had more questions fJ. They are a good change of pace for me during the week and they were VERY interested in me and what I was doing. Someday I will have to share their ideas for helpful hints with you and I bet you could tell who the younger ones were. After third period, we had the rest of the day to plan. Yes, this is crazy. After school, we took the bus home, went for a beautiful run, and relaxed.

or me about myself, Iowa, and actually one asked me an interview question… “Why do you want to be a teacher and what do you teach like…?” UHHH OKAY!! I was definitely prepared with my super awesome interviewing skills…….. (hint of sarcasm). I then passed my little notebook around for them to put helpful hints in for me and there were a ton of great ones (like super awesome places to shop and where the best gelato is—and of course I want to shop and eat gelato). Finally period 2 was over and we got to go to lunch (PS there is a famous student in one of my periods but I can’t say their name… just ponder that and how wealthy these students are!). Lunch was wonderful… again… and we ate outside, on the beautiful terrace, staring over at the beautiful view (including tons of sheep) and smelling the spring air. Heaven on Earth? Yes. After we ate, it was time for third period. These students are actually sixth and seventh graders for study skills. They are MUCH less mature… but a lot of fun

Wednesday came along and the weekend crept closer. I barely saw the students because of meetings this day. During our third period, we ended early for students to meet in their trip groups (because next week we would be going on Middle School trips). That was how we ended this day. I was beginning to feel a lot more comfortable, with the students and teachers. We took the bus home this day and I think I passed out… I must have been exhausted to sleep on the bus… in ROME traffic (CRAZY). When I got home, Anna and I ran to the Coliseum and around where we lived. It was a beautiful day in Rome and was good to just chat with Anna about Rome and life. It is so hard to take in all the things that surround us here… literally everywhere we go there is something amazing and important. Sometimes it is hard to even realize how wonderful it is… and to realize that we are actually here and really seeing it. Raise your hand if you have ran around the coliseum for fun… yeah, my thoughts exactly. LIFE IS GOOD. J

Thursday, we were running a little late in the morning, and I am pretty sure we made our bus driver a little angry… he is very APT… but hey, we are girls and sometimes lose track of time? Anyways, we got to school safely and on time as always. We went to the bar, got cappuccino, and went on our way. Did I mention that this week we were able to get FREE blood orange juice from our on campus machine?! It is because the season is ending in Sicily, so we are trying to get rid of them. This is the most AMAZING juice I have ever tasted in my life. The machine squeezes the juice straight from the orange… and it is RED. YUM and so good for you. During school, we ended The Outsiders and had our last activity. We cut out important quotes for the students to talk about with a partner… and then another… and then one more. Then, we had an entire class discussion and pretty much analyzed them (stuff you all probably don’t care hearing about, I know… but hey, it’s fun and what I do!! J). The kids did a GREAT job with this because they loved The Outsiders. One of our favorites (and one of the most famous quotes form the book)… “Things are rough all over.” SO TRUE, RIGHT?! Everyone has good and bad days, but in the end, life is beautiful, we learn from what we do, and we make the best of what we have, because it will all be okay (wise words of Ms. Bergstrom).  In study skills we did a fun activity with an organization we recently had a presentation about (KIVA). This organization is one that lets you donate money (in increments of 25) to a person who needs it based on what you believe in… and they pay YOU back. It is a really neat organization. If you are into donating and things like that, check it out, because you can help people that you believe need helped (ex: I believe everyone deserves a chance at an education, so if someone was trying to raise money for college I could donate to them). Anyways, school ended and we had a faculty meeting (that we student teachers had nooooo idea about, so that was fun). It was actually a presentation by a famous educational writer named Dr. Michael Thompson (much wiser than the Mike Thompson we all know J). He was a great speaker and had lots of great advice for working with parents at school. Then, we took the late bus home and got back pretty late. We all hung out and went to bed at a decent time (I think, honestly can’t remember if we did anything).

FRIDAY, FINALLY. Did I mention, Kieran, one of our coordinators, told us there is a different bus we can take now that doesn’t leave until SEVEN THIRTY!!! This was amazing (extra half hour to SLEEEEP). Other positives of this new bus ride: beautiful Italian man drives it, huge charter bus, not bumpy, and we get to school and home earlier! Ya, we got it GOOOODDD. Oh, did I mention the drive to school on this new ride is just….. CRAZY, WONDERFUL, SPECTATULAR, BREATHTAKING… SO ROME. I love it. We pass by every beautiful site in Rome and drive along the Tiber River. Someone pinch me because this is not real life. So anyways, we get to school earlier and get to hang out and drink our cappuccino… more slowly…. Although, I do miss ONE thing about America.. sipping on my coffee!! Here… it is literally a shot, and that is how they take it, every day!!! Sad, I know (I sip on my little shot glass). Oh ya, I meant to explain what cappuccino is. It is NOT flavored, yucky, sugary stuff like in the states. It is pretty much espresso with a small amount of foam milk. School flew by (we did the same things as the day before), and we were able to plan our weekend trip and such.

After school, we came home and got ready to go to dinner at Eataly!! If you do not know what Eataly is, it is a chain restaurant that we actually have in the states, but it began here. It is right by our apartment and it huge. Literally four floors, each one dedicated to something. There were restaurants dedicated to meat, seafood, fried food, street food, cheese, bread, pizza and pasta, gelato, and pastries. Plus, I am sure I am forgetting something. You can also shop at this place, like essentials and produce. Pretty sweet. We ate at the pizza and pasta place, but were much smarter about ordering this time. So, in Italy, you pretty much all HAVE to order your own pizza… like it’s offensive or something not to, but we recently began just ordering two and they seem okay with it. We got margherita and four cheese. Of course we got vino too (WINE). We got the house wine, so pretty Italian and delicious… and high in alcohol content, oops. After we ate, and drank, slow like Italians, we wondered the rest of the store, may have gotten gelato, and then made our way out. As we walked, we saw some trees with oranges on them, so obviously we picked some (they were just so bright and delicious looking). I tried jumping, but my hops were sadly not that good. Instead I used my super women strength and gave Anna a lift to get some (we still have not tried them). After this, we made our way to a random jazz club… couple minutes later made our way right back out. It was fun while it lasted. Then we walked down to Testaccio, the bar scene by our apartment. This area was so much more “live” after ten. People were everywhere trying to go to the bars. We chose not to go in because we had to be up early on Saturday for our trip.

Saturday, we woke up, and bought a train ticket to Bracciano—a volcanic lake town. The sand on the beach was black and beautiful, and the lake surrounded three little towns, Bracciano being the main one. So, we took the hour train ride here and got off to explore. Holy cow, the views in this town were beautiful. It was a much needed break from the city life. Calm, but still lots of people. There was actually a huge bike race going on (TV stations filming all over). The first view we got to was breathtaking; mountains, lake, Italian homes, etc. I can’t even explain it. The town in general was a hill town, so everything was very high and lots of climbing. We then got to the castle, which was built in the 15^th century and is where, guess who… TOM CRUISE got married. We did not do the tour, but saw some of the inside and boy was it awesome. I literally thought of peasants, kings, queens, and the whole nine yards. We then walked around the town, coming upon many shops and views. After stopping for a cheap slice of pizza we decided to make our way down to the wonderful beach. It was a long way down, but totally worth it. There were quite a few young people sitting along the docks, drinking, eating, dancing, and speaking in beautiful languages to each other, smiles on their faces, laughter filling the air. It was neat to watch. We also watched a little dog try to fight two swans. Of course the dog thought he was tougher than he was; he jumped and ran away every time. After taking in the sound of the water on the beach, people laughing, sun beating down, and the beautiful view, we decided to make our way down the beach collecting sea glass and old tiles with amazing designs on them. While collecting them, I head people speaking more English, so of course I introduce myself (I’m good at that). These were two boys studying in Rome and they live right across the lake from us (in the area where most study abroad students live). They were much smarter than us though… they brought bread and wine to the beach. Luckily, they had some to share J. We hung out with them for a while, while they crazily jumped in the FREEZING water, and talked about their CALI  lifestyle. It is always a good time getting to know more people and where they come from. We then all went back up to the town, walked around, got gelato, and made our way to get on the train back to Rome. We all rode the train back to Rome together… writing, reading, and listening to music. It was a solid day. Night came, and so did our beds.

Sunday was a rainy day in Rome. I slept until about nine, but Kylee and Anna slept until NOON. If you know me at all, you know I cannot do that. I just quietly tip toed around so they could get their beauty sleep they deserved! We had a rainy day in, although we did TRY to go to the market and bar (don’t forget, bar is coffee shop). Come to find out, most things are closed in Rome on Sundays… news to us. BUT, one thing was opened… STREET FOOD and since we could not get groceries, we got DONERS! I was beyond excited because this was my FAVORITE food in Germany… don’t know if the girls liked it as much as I did though, worth a shot! Then we came back and hung out for the rest of the day. It was definitely a movie kind of day…. But we don’t understand Italian, so that was not happening. We read, worked on papers, and job kinds of things (grown up stuff that I do not want to think about yet… even though I do ALL the time)! Kylee and I went to bed early, preparing for our big week of… MIDDLE SCHOOL TRIPS.

So, finally, today is Monday. It was another RAINYYY day in Roma. Kylee and I prepared to be outside, in the rain, at Adventure Park all day with the students on their trip. We got soaked going to the bus stop, but hey who cares, because WE’RE IN ITALY. We got to school and immediately found out… surprise, no Adventure Park! We switched Monday and Thursday’s trips around so we could be inside today and outside when it is nice. Today, we took a group of about twenty students to San Clemente Basilica in downtown Rome. This was one of the coolest churches I have ever been in (next to Notre Dame), but sadly we could not take pictures. The first floor was the church that was rebuilt by the Irish Monks in the 1800s. The second floor was part of the 4^th century and nothing was redone. It was a sanctuary that they worshipped in. There was also an area that was like a “community” room. Then, we went down to the bottom floow (SO FAR BELOW GROUND). This part was from the 1^st century and had not been touched either. There were many theories about this floor, but it was most definitely for pagans. Theory one: where the pagans lived, worshipped, learned, and sacrifices. There was literally a room where they sacrificed animals and people in… I got the chills. Then, there was the school room for boys. Don’t think education though… think about where they learned how to be pagans (you can look up what a pagan is, it’s creepy). The second theory: the floor was where pagans lived, but also a secret bank. Architects think it was part of a bank because there are holes in the walls that had brass bars in them. After this tour, we made our way to a pizza shop where we had reservations. The students were very respectful and did a wonderful job! J I was proud. This took up our entire day and we made our way back to school. At school, the students had about an hour to reflect in their journals about their day (because they will be presenting on Friday what they learned). After school, we came home, got groceries for the week, and have been hanging out ever since. Kylee and I are ready for the rest of our adventures this week with the middle schoolers! Tomorrow, we will be going to San Lorenzo.

I am missing you all more and more every day, but I am enjoying this enriching opportunity so much. Professionally and personally, I am growing day by day. Amore a tutti!! XOXOXO.