ok i know it's been a few days since i've updated but for the first few days, nothing really happened and then a whole lot happened and i just got to be ridiculously busy and barely even got to use my computer. i shall recap it for yall.

so my friend alex from tufts has fall break at oxford right now so she decided to head down to italy for the break to visit me as well as see her friend ellen. she flew into rome on wednesday so i went to meet her at termini station. after great confusion, she got to rome safely and we got to hang out. i went to the ATM to get some money and it says that my card isn't international. seriously, bank of america needs to slow its roll before i harpoon them with my fork, king triton style. so basically, before i left i physically went to the bank and explained that i will be living abroad for 4 months and need my card to work. the teller was totally like oh yeah thats fine no problem, it should be fine. wednesday rolls around and i need to take out money and it says your card is not international. for some reason i didn't flip out, but i immediately emailed my sister (who is the best by the way) to take care of it since it would cost me almost 40 cents a minute to talk to these people for probly a few hours. so she took care of it by the end of the day which was so so nice and now i have a functioning ATM card. whew.

so back to the point of the story. alex pryor is here! though she is not physically with me at the moment, she flew into rome on wednesday morning and then she and i spent wednesday and thursday together. her friend ellen got here last night and so i took her to the bus stop where she headed out to the train station to meet ellen and check into their hostel. if i had space, i would totally take them both in so that they wouldn't have to pay for a crappy hostel, but unfortunately i have one small couch and hardwood floors which i assume would not at all be comfortable. well anyway, so alex got in wednesday afternoon to downtown rome and we came back to my apartment so she could get settled in and shower and everything after her long long day. after a few hours, we hopped on a bus downtown to start the sightseeing. im kinda proud of myself for knowing where everything is in relation to my house as well as to each other. anyway, we started at Piazza Barberini where we walked to Piazza di Spagna to see the spanish steps. apparently, other tourists dont understand that when you ask someone to take a picture of you in front of a monument it means to get you AND the monument in the picture. anyway, this is the picture we got of us and the spanish steps.


so then we walked down via condotti to see my favorite stores (dior, gucci, prada, YSL, ferragamo, etc.) and then headed towards the Trevi Fountain. I didn't know i knew the historic area so well, we didn't get lost at all and i generally knew where to go. granted, there are signs everywhere but i felt really familiar with the area and was able to predict where to turn and things. anyhow, i didnt know it at the time but it ends up that the trevi fountain is a fountain that was built at the end of one of the canals that brings water into Rome to commemorate the fact that its the end of the canal i guess. eh whatevs. here's a picture of me and alex at Trevi.


we kept walking out towards the tiber river and hit the pantheon. i didn't know it was open in the evening, but it was! for some reason, half it was closed off (for cleaning im guessing) and so we went in to see the hole in the ceiling and a bit of art and then headed back out to get a picture with it. this is probly like the best picture we got all night of us AND a monument.


we continued on our journey to piazza navona where i showed her where kevin lives as well as try to describe the fountain a bit. maybe after hearing it so many times, it's started to stick in my mind but i'm actually not a bad tour guide and know a lot about the main tourist stuff. after two attempts, here is the best picture we got of us and at least part of the fountain.


so it was pretty late at this point and we decided to stop for dinner. i wanted her to have some good italian food since she says Oxford's food isn't so great so we went to the restaurant that kevin recommended. the place was gorgeous since it was mostly outside tables and right on piazza navona on a perfect night to sit outside and the food was quite good but not as good as i expected it to be. anyway, here's a romantic picture of the two of us after finishing our delicious meal.


after dinner we walked down towards piazza venezia where i showed her the wedding cake (monument to vittorio emanuelle II) and then on the colosseum. after reaching the colosseum we decided that we were both really tired and headed home to have ice cream and relax a bit. thursday morning, alex headed to the IES center to use the wireless internet and work on her paper and then i had 2 classes which were both so ridiculously painful. i came back after school to get her and then we headed down towards the spanish steps again to go shopping. for the majority of the day, we were a complete failure but at the very end i bought a pair of bermudas and then we both got black ballet flats that only cost 14,90. awesome. so we came back and as i was sitting down i all of a sudden got completely hit by exhaustion. i felt really bad cause alex thought i was mad at her but it really was just that i got so tired after doing so much walking and stuff for 2 straight days that i needed to sit home and rest if i wanted to be ok to do anything at all this weekend as well as go to sweden next weekend.

anyhow, so last night i just hung out with lisa and talked about life and the like and then we both got up early (a relative term) and went to buy books. then i headed back to do a bit of grocery shopping to prepare for our american dinner tonight (hamburgers and french fries with chocolate cake for dessert) and then every1 converged at my apartment so we could head out for the afternoon. around noon we decided to do pretty much the same exact thing i had just done with alex plus some. so we headed down to the spanish steps, via condotti, trevi fountain, wedding cake...you know the yoozh. this is where things changed a bit. we decided to walk up into the wedding cake since its open and free during the day for tourists. so we walked up and around and out the back where it led us to campidoglio. weird, huh? well we went out and sat in front of the senate building for a while to rest and take in some sun and then set out to find the mouth of truth. here's the picture of campidoglio from where were sitting.


this is the fake statue of marcus aurelius that sits in the middle of the square.


this is the view of the forum from the back of campidoglio.


so we walked out the back of the piazza and looked for the mouth of truth. for those of you who don't know, la bocca della verità was in roman holiday (as well as only you). the legend is if you stick your hand in and you tell a lie or have a guilty conscience, it will bite down and take your hand. well anyhow, in both movies the characters stick their hand in and then pull their arm out with the hand tucked into the shirt sleeve to make it look like their hands have been bitten off. so here's the picture of me shoving my hand into this mouth of truth.


after walking some more down south, we hit circus maximus which is right off the palatine hill. this is a huge field where they used to host both foot and chariot races for all to see. it sits next to the palatine hill and, actually, the rich people who lived on the palatine hill could watch the festivities from their windows. here's me and lisa at the circus maximus.


here's collin running laps at the circus.


these are the buildings that remain on top of the palatine hill. legend says that romulus settled on top of the palatine hill and remus settled on top of the aventine hill. since romulus won and killed remus, the city was built around the palatine and was called rome. and as collin pointed out, not reme.


so we headed south even more looking for le terme de caracalla. these are the ancient baths that were built under the comission of marcus aurellius and are still in pretty good shape now. the outer structure is still intact and they actually preserved a pretty good number of the mosaics and things. this is me and lisa with the outer structures that you first encounter when you enter the complex. this isn't quite the main building yet, but it's what surrounds the entrance to the complex.


here is me and collin inside the baths. i believe this room is the frigidarium which was used for cold bathing.


these are the mosaics that hung on the walls in this bath. due to severe damage, the mosaics are no longer in one piece, but they were able to save a few pieces to keep on display.


so after thinking about our french fries and hamburgers some more we headed back up north on the other side of town to catch a glimpse of the colosseum by day. this is the only picture we got of the colosseum (collin with her fob pose) since both lisa and i have already been there.


we also encountered the arch of constantine while walking around the colosseum. here's the three of us with the arch. special thanks to collin's k people for taking our picture.


after the colosseum we were pretty much completely beat and decided to head back to corso trieste to have our american night. here's a picture of collin with all of our ingredients for this fine evening's dinner. consisted of: hambugers, french fries, lots of ketchup, cheese, really cheap beer, cake batter in a bag, etc.


after unsuccessfully cooking italian patatine (fried potatoes) but enjoying them anyway with cheese and hamburgers, we attempted to make a cake. it would be useful if you didnt feel a cold draft coming out of the oven when you were trying to heat it. anyway, we ended up making our cake successfully and making this like pastry creme thing instead of frosting and enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. we watched anchorman and decided to call it a night.

calling it a night was a good idea cause tomorrow is...THE VATICAN. haha yes, i will in fact be heading out to the vatican tomorrow. we're gonna hit up the museums, st paul's basilica, and the sistine chapel. i've already been but my mom wants me to go see the body of PJP2 (pope john paul II) so we're gonna try to make that happen. my trip to italy would also be complete if i got to see benny. hope that is in the agenda somewhere in the next 3 months!