Antics and Escapades
Er...so the daily thing sort of went out the window about the day after I got here and it appears the weekly thing is barely squeaking through. I'll try, I promise! Now if I can only remember everything I mean to relate in the past week.
* I spent Saturday morning at the cat sanctuary in Largo Argentina, cleaning litterboxes, feeding and helping socialize some of the more traumatized kitties. They're all sweethearts, especially little blind black Imogene, who takes any excuse to crawl into a lap and sprawl and Arrotino, who trills until a hand is inserted in his cage and he can push his ears into it and fall fast asleep. Lilium is easily the queen bee of the place, a beautiful white longhaired cat who lost both ears to skin cancer. She was shy, according to the supervisor, but you'd never know it now as she crawls into the litter bag, watches the door to leap onto unsuspecting shoulders and climbs the window screen. Just FYI, anyone who really wants a cat, all the cats there are up for adoption and there's no quarantine period to get them into the states. Imogene's going to New York next month. Michelle and I went for gelato after our shifts and spent the evening doing class readings. Website is here: http://www.romancats.com/index_eng.php
* Professor Myer, our youngest professor and the only one living in the centro (poor guy, he lives on the girls' floor and always walks in on the worst conversations!) recommended a chinese place down the street (I know, I know but we eat pasta every night and pizza every weekend!), which turned out to both cheap and excellent, with a mean chicken curry.
* Sick of being cooped up in the centro, Michelle and Erin and I persuaded Laurel to go on a night to try and find the Tolkein bar, which reportedly has lord of the rings decor, serves drinks named for characters, and is technically called Il Vecchio Gandalf. We could not, of course, actually find it, a fact which I blame largely on the pouring rain and not at all on my sudden loss of directional mojo. We did find a great little enoteca, a local wine bar, run by a young couple who played old American pop and jazz and upon finding out that we hadn't the slightest clue about wine, chose an excellent red for us. We went back this weekend to try the white and they actually remembered us and welcomed us back in. We may end up regulars by the end of the semester.
*Tuesday was a trip out to Lavinia where a myriad of ancient tufa altars have been found, along with a tomb rumored to be Aeneas'. There's not actually all that much left, but the site was pretty. We then went on to Nemi, which is a lake in the base of a volcanic crater where two huge ancient luxury barges were found. Those of you who have been to the Palazzo Massimo with me may remember the room of bronze fittings associated with 'Caracalla's pleasure barges'--well these were the actual ships. Or at least they would have been. They were fully excavated by draining the lake in the 1930s and the ships themselves, (which were remarkably well preserved) along with most of their outfittings, were housed in an on site museum. The museum was burned to the ground, along with everything in it, when allied troops invaded the area. The current theory is that American troops were camped near the lake and let a stove get out of hand. At this, the entire group proceeded to insist to the director giving us the tour that we were certainly not American, nope, all from Canada, which is a wonderful country that does NOT burn priceless ancient artifacts or seriously consider electing Huckabee (and a country to which I'm certainly moving if things look like they're moving in that direction).
*The final stop of the day was Tusculum, an ancient site at the top of a huge Tuscan hill. We all climbed to the acropolis to check out the obviously ancient tufa foundations up there that no one's ever excavated and claimed a fantastic view of the countryside (see facebook pictures). We also followed the ancient road down this winding path and ended up in a collapsed and overgrown amphitheater, where we all broke out the flashlights and crawled around until the professors literally had to pull us out of various holes and caverns, promising better opus reticulatum further in the semester.
*Thursday was our first day at the forum, which of course was closed for a worker's strike for most of the morning. We could only walk around for the last hour of class and Erin and Michelle and I sort of got a little carried away and I may or may not have been lecturing a little and we may or may not have actually missed lunch....
*This Friday was a wine tasting, with a good chianti and a white called a Tocai from the Friulli region. 8 euros here, $50 wines at home. But both were excellent and after some wine at dinner it was only natural that we ended up around the piano in the common room, encouraging Laurel and Kenny to piano duets and singing all the songs we could remember.
*Saturday was a homework day for the most part, broken up by a run in the park since it was 60 and sunny and that place is so gorgeous. I ended up finding a new route that led back to a path around a soccer field that opened up onto a breathtaking view of an old villa and the back garden maze. If only I could run with my camera, I'd have some great pictures. The last thing I stumbled on before I went to run back was a pair of mounted policemen on adorable matching flea-bitten greys. Italy may have no government right now, but those were the prettiest police horses I've ever seen. I asked for a ride and to pet the ponies, but alas was denied on account of being a silly American and even pretending frantically to be from Britain did nothing to persuade them. The lack of pony love is very sad.
*Today a group of us hit the 'flea market' along the river, which is more like sidewalk days on crack...or possibly steroids. Some sort of mind-altering drug, at any rate. I found a knockoff burberry bag to match my scarf for 5 E, a pair of pretty bronze leather flats that actually fit me (and seriously, how much do I love that a 35 is a standard shoe size here? It simply cannot be expressed) for 5E and a couple of necklace charms that fit my existing chains for a euro. I also got some adorable beads...I may need to enlist the aid of one my jewelry-making friends to make pendants from them. We're headed back to the chinese place in about ten minutes and then possibly retiring to the piano room for the evening.
Hope all goes well with everyone!
Em
ETA: Very annoyed that the accomplished icon for this journal says PC. Could not get nearly as much done with stupid PC. *Pets insulted Maccie*
* I spent Saturday morning at the cat sanctuary in Largo Argentina, cleaning litterboxes, feeding and helping socialize some of the more traumatized kitties. They're all sweethearts, especially little blind black Imogene, who takes any excuse to crawl into a lap and sprawl and Arrotino, who trills until a hand is inserted in his cage and he can push his ears into it and fall fast asleep. Lilium is easily the queen bee of the place, a beautiful white longhaired cat who lost both ears to skin cancer. She was shy, according to the supervisor, but you'd never know it now as she crawls into the litter bag, watches the door to leap onto unsuspecting shoulders and climbs the window screen. Just FYI, anyone who really wants a cat, all the cats there are up for adoption and there's no quarantine period to get them into the states. Imogene's going to New York next month. Michelle and I went for gelato after our shifts and spent the evening doing class readings. Website is here: http://www.romancats.com/index_eng.php
* Professor Myer, our youngest professor and the only one living in the centro (poor guy, he lives on the girls' floor and always walks in on the worst conversations!) recommended a chinese place down the street (I know, I know but we eat pasta every night and pizza every weekend!), which turned out to both cheap and excellent, with a mean chicken curry.
* Sick of being cooped up in the centro, Michelle and Erin and I persuaded Laurel to go on a night to try and find the Tolkein bar, which reportedly has lord of the rings decor, serves drinks named for characters, and is technically called Il Vecchio Gandalf. We could not, of course, actually find it, a fact which I blame largely on the pouring rain and not at all on my sudden loss of directional mojo. We did find a great little enoteca, a local wine bar, run by a young couple who played old American pop and jazz and upon finding out that we hadn't the slightest clue about wine, chose an excellent red for us. We went back this weekend to try the white and they actually remembered us and welcomed us back in. We may end up regulars by the end of the semester.
*Tuesday was a trip out to Lavinia where a myriad of ancient tufa altars have been found, along with a tomb rumored to be Aeneas'. There's not actually all that much left, but the site was pretty. We then went on to Nemi, which is a lake in the base of a volcanic crater where two huge ancient luxury barges were found. Those of you who have been to the Palazzo Massimo with me may remember the room of bronze fittings associated with 'Caracalla's pleasure barges'--well these were the actual ships. Or at least they would have been. They were fully excavated by draining the lake in the 1930s and the ships themselves, (which were remarkably well preserved) along with most of their outfittings, were housed in an on site museum. The museum was burned to the ground, along with everything in it, when allied troops invaded the area. The current theory is that American troops were camped near the lake and let a stove get out of hand. At this, the entire group proceeded to insist to the director giving us the tour that we were certainly not American, nope, all from Canada, which is a wonderful country that does NOT burn priceless ancient artifacts or seriously consider electing Huckabee (and a country to which I'm certainly moving if things look like they're moving in that direction).
*The final stop of the day was Tusculum, an ancient site at the top of a huge Tuscan hill. We all climbed to the acropolis to check out the obviously ancient tufa foundations up there that no one's ever excavated and claimed a fantastic view of the countryside (see facebook pictures). We also followed the ancient road down this winding path and ended up in a collapsed and overgrown amphitheater, where we all broke out the flashlights and crawled around until the professors literally had to pull us out of various holes and caverns, promising better opus reticulatum further in the semester.
*Thursday was our first day at the forum, which of course was closed for a worker's strike for most of the morning. We could only walk around for the last hour of class and Erin and Michelle and I sort of got a little carried away and I may or may not have been lecturing a little and we may or may not have actually missed lunch....
*This Friday was a wine tasting, with a good chianti and a white called a Tocai from the Friulli region. 8 euros here, $50 wines at home. But both were excellent and after some wine at dinner it was only natural that we ended up around the piano in the common room, encouraging Laurel and Kenny to piano duets and singing all the songs we could remember.
*Saturday was a homework day for the most part, broken up by a run in the park since it was 60 and sunny and that place is so gorgeous. I ended up finding a new route that led back to a path around a soccer field that opened up onto a breathtaking view of an old villa and the back garden maze. If only I could run with my camera, I'd have some great pictures. The last thing I stumbled on before I went to run back was a pair of mounted policemen on adorable matching flea-bitten greys. Italy may have no government right now, but those were the prettiest police horses I've ever seen. I asked for a ride and to pet the ponies, but alas was denied on account of being a silly American and even pretending frantically to be from Britain did nothing to persuade them. The lack of pony love is very sad.
*Today a group of us hit the 'flea market' along the river, which is more like sidewalk days on crack...or possibly steroids. Some sort of mind-altering drug, at any rate. I found a knockoff burberry bag to match my scarf for 5 E, a pair of pretty bronze leather flats that actually fit me (and seriously, how much do I love that a 35 is a standard shoe size here? It simply cannot be expressed) for 5E and a couple of necklace charms that fit my existing chains for a euro. I also got some adorable beads...I may need to enlist the aid of one my jewelry-making friends to make pendants from them. We're headed back to the chinese place in about ten minutes and then possibly retiring to the piano room for the evening.
Hope all goes well with everyone!
Em
ETA: Very annoyed that the accomplished icon for this journal says PC. Could not get nearly as much done with stupid PC. *Pets insulted Maccie*