Pictures from Rome

The Trevi Fountain-it had water in it this time





















Me at the Colloseum-dorky, I know













I really was this close to the Pope






















Me at the Mouth of Truth-it's the pose everyone does at the Mouth of Truth, very touristy

The outside of the Pantheon, it was huge and crowded-but still cool

The outside of the Colloseum, sorry it's sideways, I didn't know how to fix it

Inside the Colloseum on the first level

The pyramid that is in the middle of Rome, sorry again for the sidewaysness

I have a lot more pictures, but the computer is really slow in loading them, so I picked my favorite ones and ones I thought would show the basics of what we saw in Rome

Roamin Rome

This was the joke Ali told about 20 times the day we left for Rome. If I had known how true it would be, I still would have gone, I think I just would have gotten some of those gel thingies for my shoes. I'm slightly ashamed to say it, but the first thing we did when we got to Rome was go to McDonald's so I finally was able to get a Big Mac-about halfway through said Big Mac I started to remember again that I don't like hamburgers. But the fries were good and so was the milkshake, since I also haven't had one of those since mid August. We stayed at the Nazarene Church for the first three nights, so on those nights we made our own pasta because it was cheaper than going out. The four nights, three were spent at a hostel, which offered free breakfast and free pasta dinner, and the last night was spent on the airport floor, because it saved us 24 euro. Things we saw: The first day we spent pretty much trying to find our housing and then we went out at night. The first night we saw the Spanish steps-still trying to figure out what the big deal is about them. We also saw the Trevi Fountain-the one girl with us who had been to Rome before went running ahead, the Trevi is her favorite, only to find them cleaning it. Apparently someone had thrown red paint into it. But on the bright side, we got our very first gelato that night, which was amazing. The thing I found interesting about gelato places, and we went to enough of them since we got at least 1 gelato everyday, was that the servers would be astonished if all you wanted was one flavor. Certain sizes got certain amounts of flavors, so if you said one flavor, they would say 'and'. The first few times I was so shocked that I just pointed out other flavors, then after that I just said 'nope that it, just that flavor' Any guesses as to what that flavor was? And surprisingly, since I know this would be the number 1 guess, no it was not chocolate. On our first full day in Rome, we were taking the bus to the center of town, there were no seats so we were just standing in the middle part of the bus. All of a sudden a man gets on with his guitar and comes and stands right next to me and starts 'serenading' us, quite energetically too, since I almost got hit in the face with his guitar at least 5 times, what a way to start off our day. That day we saw a pyramid in the middle of Rome-again, have no idea the significance, but it was sort of shocking to see a pyramid in Rome. On Sunday we went to the Nazarene church service-seemed only right since we were staying right above the church-but the whole service was in Italian, so none of us understood a word. But at one point the pastor asked us to say something about ourselves and our visit to Rome, which was interesting. That afternoon we went to an old church-it seems everyday we went to an old church-but this one had a crypt underneath that had five rooms decorated entirely with human bones-4,000 people worth of human bones. One of the creepiest things I've ever seen, and photos were not allowed-so I bought a postcard because I didn't think anyone would believe me when I told them. On Monday we moved into our hostel, we were put on the fifth floor- and the staircases were pretty but a pain in the butt to climb. They had an elevator, but next to the elevator on every single floor was a sign that said 'This lift is faulty, we are not responsible for your safety if you decide to use it' so I decided not to use it. The rest of the week is sort of a blur on what we saw when. We did see the Trevi when it actually had water in it, and it was cool. We went to Vatican city on the day that the Pope speaks, and I was right next to the fence that he drove by, so I was about 3 feet from the Pope for about 10 seconds. We were also stupid enough to go to the Sistine Chapel that day-when everyone else was at the Vatican City to hear the Pope speak and would naturally go to the Museum while in that area as well. It took forever to get to the Sistine Chapel, and it didn't look the way I had pictured it in my mind. Maybe that is because the room was crammed with people and was a lot dimmer than I thought it would be. We saw the Colloseum, which was really cool even if only 20 to 30 percent of it is original, all the rest is restoration over the years-one of the many facts we learned on our guided tour. We went to the Pantheon-also crammed full of people, but I'd hate to see it at the peak of tourist season. At one point we went to a National Museum which was interesting but it was also at the end of a really long day, so most of us were exhausted. In between all of these things we saw about 8 more really old churches- including the oldest church in Rome dating back to I think 341 AD, and a ton of fountains. It was an amazing trip that I'm glad I was able to enjoy. I hope to post pictures later today.

Rome

I won't be able to post all next week, and before I get more comments about how I'm just like my brother I figured I would warn y'all. The reason I won't be able to blog is that tomorrow morning myself and four of the other girls are all going to Rome for a week. Nope, not Rome, New York, the other Rome. Personally, I'm going so that I can eat some gelato, but I hear there are other things to see and do there as well. Also I remembered a difference that I really wanted to put in the list, but I had forgotten it. The paper money here is practically indestructible, one time at Monday night dinner, we actually passed around a leu-which is worth about 40 American cents-and took turns trying to rip the bill in some way. No one succeeded.

Things I've noticed

So I've realized that I've been in Romania for about 6 weeks now and I figured I should probably post the list of differences that I've noticed. At this point I've even forgotten some of the differences I noticed in the very beginning, so I may post with another list later on. But here's the current list:
- When in America I hate hamburgers. I don't eat them, if that's the only thing being served at a barbeque then I don't eat. In Romania, perhaps because they aren't readily available for me, I'm really craving Big Macs.
- Toilet paper is rarely white-I've seen pink, orange, and gray. The orange was even scented-peaches.
- Nothing ever starts on time. Interestingly the focal point of Sighisoara is a clock tower. When Ali and I mentioned this to our host sister in relation to lateness, she pointed out to us that even the clock tower was four minutes slow.
- Most families don't have microwaves. One host family did buy one-probably for the students living with them. After they bought it, they gave cold food to the students so they would use the microwave and then watched them using it with fascination.
- No chocolate chips. Enough said.
- Potatoes or rice with most meals, with the exception of breakfast.
- Bread with every meal, including breakfast. Sometimes it's the whole meal.
- Every lunch we have soup or chorba. No idea what the difference is but some lunches they say here's some supa-the word for soup- and sometimes they say here's some chorba. Tastes exactly the same to me, but they say there is a difference.
- They don't eat dessert here-at least not in my family.
- They have a carbonated drink made from flowers and tastes like it too. Incredibly wierd to smell flowers in your drink. Not exactly fun to taste it either.
- Seeing sheep being herded down a road and being forced to wait or go around is not unusual.
- Most Romanians don't go out to eat, ever, they just don't see the point.
- They have chips that are advertised as being chicken flavored. They taste like gravy, and not chicken gravy either interestingly enough. Ali was about to say they tasted odd, but we're not supposed to call anything odd or wierd, so she changed it to interesting.
- You can walk on the train tracks, I was a little apprehensive following someone as they very casually walked across the tracks-then I realized the electricity was in lines above.
-Viva, the most addictive snack ever. It tastes like chocolate rice chex filled with cocoa.

Dracula a Social Worker?

So last week we had the equivalent of senior seminar. Or as close to the equivalent as you can get in a different country, with just 3 seniors all of whom are from different schools. Ali came along as a guest to this particular one. We were talking with the social workers that work with the agency we work at and they were telling us about the history of social work in Romania because there are absolutely no books in English on this topic. At one point we drifted off topic and one of the seniors asked about Vlad the Impaler-thought to be the legend of Dracula. So the social work staff were telling us about Vlad and how if there had been any crimes he would just shove the criminal through with a large pointed stick. Apparently Ali hadn't been paying very close attention because she looked up at one point and said 'Wait, so he was a social worker?' What a way to get rid of poverty-just shove the people through with a giant stick.

The oldest of my house sisters is a teacher in the German school here. She teaches an English class and asked Ali and I to come in one day to answer some questions the students have about America. So Tuesday morning we went in. These kids know at this point at least 2 languages, and they are working on a third. They asked us if we knew any Romanian. We sort of just stood there thinking in our heads, we can tell you what is in the kitchen, words like cupboard and spoon, but even knowing the words we still butcher the pronunciation. We know some numbers, but obviously not that well since on Saturday when we went to a little village and were shopping, I thought a woman was telling me that something cost 12 lei, when in actuality she was telling me it cost 100 lei. Needless to say, I did not buy that particular product. Last night Ali dragged me to the neighbor's house because she has this dream of milking a cow. We didn't get to milk the cow, but we got to watch the process and then we drank milk right after it came out of the cow. It didn't taste nearly as disgusting as I thought it would.