Weekend in Cinque Terre

So in my last update I said we were going Cinque Terre for the weekend, made if back from that adventure and it was a good one.  I had class until 3 on Friday so after I had to walk back to my apartment and get my stuff all packed up.  Being gone for only two days you can pack pretty light, way better than lugging around a huge suitcase like we did on the way over here.  I headed over to the train station at about 4 o’clock, it’s only a 20 min walk, but it was raining the entire way which didn’t make the walk to fun.  I met up with the girls at the train station, they all had class till 5 so they took a taxi straight from studio.  Since non of the other guys went along it was me and 15 girls, a little out numbered but I’m pretty used to it by now.  We took that train to La Spazia, its a town about 4 hours up the coast, that is where our hostel was for the next two night. It took us a few minutes to find the hostel since we left train station down the wrong stairs and that turned us around a little bit.  We found it eventually and the guy that checked us in was really nice.  I didn’t know what to expect since I had never stayed in a hostel before and I had heard some of the horror stories from the people that had been traveling before the semester started. We were all pleasantly surprised, the rooms looked more like a Marriott, that they did a typical hostel.  Since there were 16 of us we pretty much booked up the entire place and had 6 different rooms, one of them was a small house that was in the back yard of the hostel.  I had a small cot the first night that wouldn’t have been bad but my feet stuck off the edge and there was a metal bar at the end so that wasn’t the most comfortable.  Since we got to town at 10:30 none of us had eaten dinner so we went to find something to eat.  The only place that we could find open was a restaurant that normally serves dinner but late at night only does pizza.  Turned out to be ok since they had a pepperoni/sausage pizza with sauce on it.  Normally you can’t find a pizza with sauce and meat, a typical pizza in Rome is just the crust with cheese and tomatoes and seasoning, maybe a little meat if your lucky.  After dinner we all just went back to the hostel and crashed.  We got up on time and caught one of the trains out to the Cinque Terre area.  It is a small string of 5 towns that are all build up on the coastal cliffs and you can hike in-between them.  Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, Vernazza, and Monterosso are the names of each town.  It is a total of 9km between the two end town.  On Saturday we ended up riding the train all the way to Monterosso at the end and started hiking the trail to the other towns.  We found out doing the hike backwards was a good idea because the trail was hardest at the end and easiest at the beginning.  We took some time in each town and looked around, got lunch, gelato, something to drink; really just took it easy.  We got to the last town about 4 pm, so the whole day took up about 6 hours including stop time.  We hung out in the last town for awhile, found a good gelato shop and got off our feet for a little while, that was a good break. We went down the little harbor in the town and watched the sunset, that was very cool.  All the colors of the building got really bright as the sun went down, then it was time to find some dinner, we just found a little sit down restaurant and got some food there. Another group of people was there for the day and we ran into them after dinner, their train didn’t leave or home until 1:30 am so they came back to the hostel with us and hung out for while.  On Sunday we got up and went back to Monterosso and just hung out on the beach for a couple hours.  The water super clear, kind of cool but felt really good once you got used to it.  I wandered down to one of the beach shops and bought a pair of goggle so I could dive down and check out the bottom since it dropped off really fast. The first dive was really breathe taking, since you could see so far and could see fish swimming right there.  I could dive down to about 15 ft but then the pressure was got to be to much, I swam through a school of fish that was below me, that was kind of cool.  We swam quite a ways out and it had to have been at least 50 ft deep and you could still see the bottom and some fish swimming around.  I swam out to a point that I couldn’t see the bottom anymore, that’s when I got creeped out and Shark Week on the Discovery Channel came to mind.  We went back to Manarola and hung out there for awhile and caught the train back to La Spazia at 4, our train back to Rome left at 6:06 so we had to be ready to go by then.  There was a McDonalds at the train station so I got a burger, not as good what they are in America; as good at McDonalds can be at least.  Our train ride out La Spazia was pretty uneventful, the ride home was a little more interesting.  When we found our seats there was a creepy guy sitting in one of them and wouldn’t move and since we don’t know much italian we couldn’t fight that one.  He didn’t every say anything but just say and stared at us for awhile, kind of awkward but he was only there for a couple stops then got off.  The worst part about the ride home was the smell.  About an hour in it kind of started to smell but we just thought it was the stop we were at but it kept getting worse.  Turns out a bunch of the toilets on the train somehow backed up and overflowed in the bathrooms. When we stopped in Rome it was almost unbearable, not a fun ride home in that respect.  After the 20 min walk home it was time to crash after a long week. As far as classes go-since I was gone all weekend I definitely have some catching up to do this week. I was in studio for 13 hours last night working on a packaging project and got it pretty much done, I could change a few thing before Friday when it’s due but we’ll see how much time I have between other classes.  This is our last week of italian, I think has helped a little bit, but just going out to shops and stuff like that has been a way better way to learn the language.  As long as I can get caught up for this week I should be in pretty good shape for the weekend to have some fun.  We are going to Assisi for the day on Saturday, that is just a short up and back trip.  I want to try and get up on time on Sunday and go over to the flea market and go see what kind of cool stuff I can find.  The weekend after that we go on our south field trip, but I think I’ll save that for another update.

That’s all for now, check back for more fun later.

As far as the eye can see

Today marks the two week point, and it has been a week since I have updated the blog.  There hasn’t been of ton of new stuff going on this past week except we are getting into our classes and projects full bore.  So far classes have been keeping us pretty busy during the week but since we have 3.5 day weekends we have been taking advantage of that and getting out and seeing different parts of Rome.  A couple days ago I left for class a few hours early so that I could take some pictures as a reference for one of my projects.  There is a huge white building that is part of a monument to the unknown soldiers that we walk past everyday on the way to class.  Normally the gate is closed when we walk by but it was open and people were walking in so I also headed in to check it out.  You walk up a bunch of step and the when you get to the top you are even with the skyline and you can see the whole city from up there, a very cool view.  After that I went and walked around the Jewish Ghetto, the place I am using for my ArtGr 470 studio project and where our studio is located.  I took a bunch of pictures of the details and tried to document how life was in the Jewish Quarter.  When I was done there I still had plenty of time left and space on the memory card so I headed over to the Pantheon.  It is only a short walk over there, nearly everything is within a short walking distance.  The Pantheon is amazing!!  It is a big building when you are walking around it, but when you go inside you really realize how big it is and how much space the dome adds. Then you think about how old this building is, it almost seems unreal, I might have to go back just to see it again.  After that I walked over to Piazza Navone, a popular square that has an open market and stuff during the day and is a big place for night life once the sun goes down, I had class at 3 so I couldn’t stay very long there.  During our art history class we went to the Capitoline Hill museum and look at a bunch of cool sculptures and art.  The crazy thing is that some of the pieces we seen were ones that we looked at on slides back at Iowa State, and here I could reach out and touch them.  This past weekend on Saturday was White Night, in the past it’s when a bunch of museums stay open all night and they are free to get into.  We went to check them out but the funding for the event got cut big time this year so there wasn’t much open, we ended up just walking out to the Spanish Steps and then around for awhile.  We had our first project/exercise that was to make 3 books and bind them due this week, they were simple so they didn’t take long to do.  A bunch of us are going to Cinque Terre this weekend for a couple days so my next update will probably be when we get back from that adventure, booked a hostel and getting our train tickets tomorrow, then we will be set. 

Later

Collin

One Week In

So we have been here a week already, it has gone really fast probably because we have been keeping busy.  I’ve started to get more adjusted to living here and what kind of changes we have to expect and just live with.  Weekends give us a lot of time to get out and see different sights and hang out, and do homework of course.  Since we don’t have a ton of work to do yet we have pretty much been hangout out all weekend.  Friday night a bunch of us went out to Scholars Lounge an Irish Pub where they speak english, it’s nice being able to order and not have to look like an idiot.  They also had a live Irish band playing that night, we didn’t know what they were saying but it was really cool music, to loud to talk to people but we made do.  It quickly became a ISU party since pretty much all of the people over here ended up there, which was fun.  On Saturday we took the train to the beach and hung out there for a few hours, it was only a 40 min ride which isn’t that bad, ended up being pretty easy in the end to.  The beach was nice but it wasn’t a tropical paradise you see in the adds.  The sand was black and really fine, the water was really nice to, cool but felt good in the heat.  It was a breezy day so the waves were really big and were perfect for body surfing.  We ended up going back to Scholars again on Saturday night with a few people, and there was another live band playing, this time all American cover songs. Again it was good to be in a place where english is the main spoken language.  It was really weird to see a little kid in the bar though since there is no minimum age to drink.  He was with somebody in the band but it was just funny to see him running around on stage.  No class for us on Mondays we we still have another day of weekend to enjoy.  I should probably get to work on doing some research for our first project, I’ll have to post what kind of projects we are working on in the next couple weeks, most of then will all be based on some aspect of Rome so hopefully they turn out good.  Today was a lazy Sunday just like back home, we all slept in, went to the store and got some more milk (they don’t sell it in a gallon here, just in small liter bottles so I buy one every day almost).  Doing laundry here is a full day affair, the washer takes like 3 hours to do a load, then we have to hang dry everything.  Since it’s like 90 degrees here everyday it only takes like 20 min to dry which is nice I guess.  I think that’s all or now…more to come.

We finally have internet!

So now that we have internet I will be able to try and update the blog a little more frequently.

To recap we left on Aug. 31 and got here the morning of Sept. 1 at about 10:30 am Rome time (+7 hours here). All of the flight were no problem except for when we got to Amsterdam.  We landed 30 min. earlier than we were supposed to but that saved us big time.  We were walking to our connection and had to go though passport control and there was a huge delay at the checkpoint.  I guess there is never a line here, and you can just walk up, get your stamp and move on.  So when I finally got to the window our plane had already started to board so we ran though the airport to our gate and got there with 20 min to spare. Needless to say I had a good case of jet lag the next couple days.  We had a couple days to just hang out and get everything situated in our apartment.  It is definitely a change of pace when you get here and have to figure out where you are, how to buy food, order food and just get around without getting hit by the insane amount of traffic that speeds by.   The first couple days we couldn’t find a grocery store so we pretty much ate at the same pizza place and I had a few cliff bars in my luggage so that held me over.  We did finally find a grocery store a couple of blocks down yesterday so now the apartment is finally starting to feel like home and we are getting more comfortable.  The colosseum is just a few blocks down and you can see it when you walk out our front door, it’s pretty amazing to have walked by it everyday a couple times. And to see all the ruins that are scattered around the city.  It is really hot here, highs of 85 so far since we have been here, but it cools down nice at night, I’ll be glad once fall get here in a few weeks.  Yesterday we started class, kind of a shock to have to get back into school mode for once, I think this semester will keep me busy with projects and will also make time go way faster than I think.  We spent yesterday walking around the city and they pointed out the different parts of the city that we can use as the influence for our projects for the semester.  I think we will get a lot of cool stuff out of this semester. 

Today I don’t have class until 2 pm so I got up on time and set out to find sir supermercado, a store that I found an add for on the ground.  I looked it up on google map and I was about 2 miles way.  I found the store by walking the long way and then found a better route back, it was worth the walk since they had oreos there…haha.  American food is expensive here, 16-20 oreos ended up being 0.99 euro.  Today after class I think we are going to try and find a place to buy a bus pass and try to get out out to the beach this weekend before we all get busy.  I took a few pictures on my phone once we got here of the colosseum, and the view from our place, I took a bunch of cool pictures with my new camera the other day so i’ll have to work on getting those up to.

I think I will upload pictures to my web gallery from now on so check that out sometime:

http://gallery.me.com/cgroten1#100015