It's officially May which means that this is my last full month in Rome before I head back State-side. Unbelievable. It's crazy to think about how quickly time has flown and a little frustrating to think about leaving just a few months after I have really begun to feel at home here. I have a circle of close friends who I see on a regular basis and have been involved in volleyball, yoga, and Zumba which is really getting me motivated to get back in shape when I am home and work off those pasta pounds! I enjoyed a visit from Rosa, one of my nearest and dearest friends, who flew over from Seattle for a week at the end of March. We had a wonderful time catching up and I loved showing her all of my favorite haunts here in Rome.

Today is a national holiday in Italy (and most of Europe) known as the Festa del Lavoro, or Labor Day. Though many things were closed, tons of state-run museums and sites were offering 1 Euro entry in honor of the holiday. My friends and I took advantage of it by visiting Palazzo Spada, a museum close to my house that is famous for Borromin's Perspective Gallery. The weather wasn't the best so it was a good day to spend inside a museum.

Last week, I had a visitor come to Rome! Alison arrived in Rome on Wednesday and stayed until Saturday morning when we traveled up to Florence together for the weekend. After arriving at the train station about 20 minutes before the train was meant to leave, I noticed and advisory on the departures board for our train. After talking to the assistenza, they informed me that the train was actually leaving from Orte, a tiny town about 40 minutes outside the city, instead of Rome today, due to a train collision that happened two days prior. Knowing full well that we wouldn't make it to Orte by the time the train was supposed to leave, we headed over to the help kiosk to join all the other displaced passengers. To make a long story short, we ended up taking the metro to a different train station and catching the next train out of there to Florence. We arrived in Florence a couple of hours later than expected, but were able to find our living accomodations quickly and set out to explore the city.

I had been to Florence once before with my friend Leah in 2008, but we walked everywhere and went to all the sites as it was Ali's first time in the city. This included trips to the Galleria d'Accademia to see Michelangelo's David and to the Uffizi Gallery for a viewing of Botticelli's Birth of Venus. Visiting any Italian city at the end of April almost inevitably means long lines. True to form, Alison and I spent at least two hours in line for each of the respective tourist attractions. The highlight for me was climbing to the top of the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, a trek up 463 stairs leading to a magnificent view of the city. The rest of the weekend included yummy meals, lots of gelato, and a serendipitous encounter with a slow-food market displaying foods from all the regions of Italy. We stopped by the Sicily stand to pick up some sandwiches filled with grilled meat. Unbeknownst to me, this would lead to my purchase of a panino stighiola, a Sicilian street-food sandwich filled with lamb intestine. Yum. Actually, it ended up being quite tasty once I had gotten over the fact that I was eating a baby sheep's innards. Ali and I parted ways in Florence after she caught the train to Venice to continue her journey and I was back to Rome for work.

The rest of the month is going to be a whirlwind of travel and visitors, starting with this weekend when I head off to Cluj, Romania for the wedding of my dear friend, Irina. When I get back, I will have one glorious week to spend with my dear mother and then only a few days rest before Ali's sister Emily stops by for a visit. At the end of the month, I go out with a bang with a girls' weekend trip to Istanbul with some of my close friends here in Rome. Then, before  I know it, it will be June! Amazing how time flies when you're having fun.

Sending everyone lots of love from Roma,

xx S

Marzo e' pazzo (March is crazy), at least that's what they say in Rome. It's usually referring to the weather-as this is the month when the transition from winter to spring happens. It seems though, that spring is in full force here and Rome can't help itself but to be sunny and warm every day. No complaints by me, of course! While I was previously planning on posting a bunch of pictures to this blog, I was irritated by the inability to add captions to the pictures, so I decided that because most, if not all, of my readers are on Facebook, I would simply add the pictures with caption in an album on there and focus on writing here. March has really been an interesting month for me because it marks my 9th month here in Rome while reminding me that the clock is quickly ticking down to my imminent return to Seattle. In T-3 months and 3 days, I will be getting on a plane to head back to American soil, with a brief stopover in Frankfurt. It amazes me and how quickly the time has gone by and how long I have been abroad. I have missed the birthdays of every member of my immediate family, along with Thanksgiving, Christmas, Stef and my anniversary, and, in just a couple more weeks, Stefano's birthday. By now, the newness of Rome has almost disappeared for me, like a once-new sweatshirt whose inner fleece lining has begun to pill because of so many wears. And yet, I don't feel like I completely know the city. Each day, I find a street I've never been down and I feel as if I am constantly discovering neighborhoods I haven't explored.

I am not much of a museum go-er, which is a shame as I am in a veritable mecca for art and culture, but for me, living in Rome is not about going into every museum and seeing every sight that is advertised in a Rick Steves guidebook. I have known Rome through its sounds and smells, the perpetual unevenness of its cobblestone roads, and its one-way streets. If you asked me to show you around Rome, I couldn't explain the history of Castel Sant'Angelo or detail the works of Bernini. Instead, I would take you to a park on the top of a hill where you can see the skyline of the city and watch as the setting sun illuminates the dome of St. Peter's and smell the faint citrus perfume of the nearby orange groves. Instead of going to a Caravaggio exhibit, I would rather spend my day getting lost in the city, wandering the backstreets of Monti, or picking my way through the vintage market in Prati. My expertise doesn't lie in Baroque architecture or Renaissance art, but in sampling the newest flavor of gelato or finding Rome's best cacio e pepe. When I leave, my memories of Rome will not be of sculptures and churches, but of pasta and piazzas; and that, my friends, is all right by me.

That said, I did go to a museum the other day. March 8th is celebrated in Italy (and much of the rest of the world) as International Women's Day. In Italy, women are gifted bright bouquets of yellow mimosas and in Rome, all state-owned sites and museums are free (women, keep that in mind next time you plan a visit to Rome!). Taking advantage of the opportunity, my friend Amanda and I went to the Capitoline Museums to see their newest exhibit, Lux in Arcana, which is an exhibition of some of the contents of the Vatican Secret Archives, revealed to the public for the first time in history. If I go to exhibitions, it is usually for the historical content rather than the art content (I have absolutely no eye for art, nor the appreciation to spend hours in a museum). This exhibition was perfect for me-on display they had the trial of Galileo Galilei, a letter to the Pope from Henry the 8th requesting the anullment of his marriage to Queen Catherine, and the excommunication of Martin Luther. I got to geek out at the sight of Abraham Lincoln's letter to the Pope and Napoleon's declaration of free worship in France. Also present were the trial proceedings of the Knights Templar, an extensive document quite literally--they were a staggering 68 meters long!! Other highlights included a letter from Michelangelo to a bishop regarding the commission of the Sistine Chapel and works by Copernicus and Voltaire. It was really a once in a lifetime opportunity to be able to see these pieces and something I absolutely would have paid for, though it made it even nicer that admission was free!

On an unrelated note, today was the Rome Marathon as well as my very first race! No, I did not run the marathon. They do a 4K (actually, 4.7 K, basically 3 miles) for the rest of us who want to be involved but aren't crazy athletes. I was glad I finished! It was a beautiful course, basically a gigantic ring around the area of the Colosseum and I brought my camera so you can see what a beautiful run it was. After I finished (in just about 30 minutes, so around a 10 minute mile), I walked home to shower and then got to watch some of the marathon on my way to meet my friend Whitney for lunch. It was so nice to see tons of people lined up along the sidelines, cheering for the thousands of people who were willingly running over 26 miles under the Roman sun. It was definitely difficult navigating my way through the city when nearly all the main streets were cordoned off for the marathon. At lunch, Whitney and I talked about how surreal life in Rome was sometimes. As if to prove a point, we stumbled upon a quaint outdoor cafe, with vintage wooden table, vines crawling up the walls behind us, and petals from the cherry trees falling around us. After a wonderful meal (linguine with capers, olives, and peppers for her and lamb with grilled vegetables and potatoes for me) we shared a decadent chocolate torte. Just as we were finishing up, a sparrow landed on our table and proceeded to hop around, picking up the spare crumbs we had left behind. I swear, I can't make this stuff up. It's days like today that I fall in love with this city and cannot believe this is real life.

More soon...I promise! Much love to you all, S

Hello all who are still reading this blog, despite a 3-month hiatus,

I am here, I promise! I have not been kidnapped or had my fingers cut off. Why haven't I updated in so long? I'll be honest, generally out of pure laziness. I haven't been up to anything horribly exciting in the past few months, though today is an important day: I will be stateside only FOUR months from now! Crazy? Yes. Scary? Kind of. Exciting? Abso-fricking-lutely! So excited to come home and watch one of my dear friends get married! Where will I be after that? No idea. I will keep you updated (I promise!) about my future plans. If you haven't heard, Stefano has accepted a job with Teach for America and will be teaching general science for the next two years in the D.C. area. Such an exciting opportunity for him, I know he's going to be an amazing teacher! He came to visit me over the holidays in December and I can't even put in words how happy I was to have him here. We split our time between Rome and Venice, where we spent Christmas with his extended family. This is my second time meeting them and I just adore them more each time. It was so interesting that I definitely noticed a difference in accents between the north and the south. The first time I came to Italy after studying the language, it all sounded Italian to me. Now, it sounds so different, I can't believe that I never noticed it before! Gold star for language improvement!

I also had another guest here just recently. Grace (my friend who lives in Geneva and was my London travel buddy) came to stay with me for 10 days this month and we had so much fun together. I wasn't the best host because my daily work obligation got in the way. Nonetheless, we ate and drank and generally had a merry time with each other and yes, crosswords and deep talks were a must. I am always amazed at what a kind heart she has and how she always provides me with a new way of thinking. It's wonderful to be able to talk to someone, even when your opinions differ, and still be friends afterwards :)

After she left I decided that I needed to be a bit more productive with my time. I am not sure why I keep thinking that my need for structure and tangible goals will change, but I finally came to my senses, sat down, and created a weekly, goal-oriented schedule for the next couple of months. This includes exercising, drinking more water, and working on my paper. YES, the paper. After months of passive research and idle thoughts roaming around in my mind, I finally put pen to paper (not a metaphor, I actually used a pen and paper!) and put my ideas down. The result was immediate and I am happy to say that I am four pages into my paper! The goal is for it to be between 20-30 and my goal is to have a rough draft done by the end of winter quarter so I can spend all of spring quarter polishing it. It's hard because I find the topic so interesting, but if I think about it too much I get depressed and have to walk away from it for awhile-it really is heavy stuff.

In other news, it's starting to look like spring in Rome. Almost all of Europe (and some of North Africa) was hit by a massive cold snap which brought below freezing temperatures across the continent and killed over 600 people. Even Rome got some snow and it was funny to see the Romans react (much in the same way Seattle-ites do) to the snow. Schools, public offices, and all transportation stopped running and the mayor declared the city in a state of emergency. Though it was only a couple of inches, it was the most snow that Rome had seen since 1985. '85!!! That's a long time. Those of you who know me well are aware of my...shall we say, distaste for cold weather. This has been one of the shortest winters I have ever experienced, but I am ready for it to be over and for warmer temperatures to grace the city once more. Luckily for me, the weekend is set to be in the mid-60's (Fahrenheit) and it should only get warmer from there!

My next blog is going to be a compilation of photographs from the past couple of months (though there really aren't that many as I wasn't up to anything exciting) and will include snow-covered Rome, my holiday with Stef, and, of course, some more food pictures. I hope all is well will everybody back home--I love you all and will see you in just a few short months!

Hello all!

Happy 5 monthiversary for me and Roma! I have learned so much about myself in these past few months and I cannot say how thankful I am to have had this opportunity to spend the year here.

This is going to be more of a picture post than an actual entry, but I wanted to say that it is possible to make a real Thanksgiving dinner for 15 people in a different country! I had an absolutely fabulous potluck with some of my favorite people here in Rome and I didn't ruin the turkey! It took all day cooking, but it happened. We made everything: turkey, stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie, rolls, apple crisp, cheesecake, brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad, and it was amazing! Jamie even managed to track down what was probably the last remaining can of cranberry sauce in Rome! However, I can show you better than I can tell you so, without further ado, I present to you the slideshow of Thanksgiving a la Romana 2011!

In other fabulous news, my wonderful mommy is coming to visit me in the spring and I am so excited because she will be here for Mother's Day! SO EXCITED! Also, I got admitted to my first graduate program! It is an International Policy Studies program at the Monterey Institute for International Studies in Monterey, California. It is an affiliate with Middlebury College which is, coincidentally, my mommy's alma mater. I have plenty more waiting to do as news from my other programs come in, but it's nice to know that at least one place wants me! The next challenge is figuring out how to pay for it...

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a bottle of FRESHLY pressed olive oil, generously given to me by Giustina, my wonderful housekeeper. I know Thanksgiving has passed, but can I express my gratitude anyway?!

Last weekend I hopped on a plane to visit Grace in Geneva, where she is studying for the year. I was so excited after she and I had such an amazing time together in London. When I arrived Friday morning, I was greeted at the airport with a huge hug and a beautiful flower-what a welcome! Since it was a school day, I decided that I wanted to go with Grace to her French class and oh, how much fun it was! It had been so long since I'd heard french in a classroom (5 years to be exact!) and it was so great to be in school-I miss it dearly. Then we took a stroll around Geneva (which is musch smaller than I had imagined) before going back to her apartment in Vernier, which is just 15-20 minutes by bus outside of the city center.

We spent most of the weekend blabbering to no end. I didn't realize I was so deprived of female companionship until I got there and couldn't shut up for three days straight. Literally the only time we weren't talking was when we were chewing our food or sleeping. I didn't want to leave! Also, we established that we make an amazing team when it comes to solving crossword puzzles and we tore our way through a book of NY Times crosswords.

Grace was an absolutely incredible hostess-she showed me the cute old-town area and we went to the top of the Cathedral St. Pierre which has a wonderful panoramic view of the city. She also took me to get croissants and a number of other delicious goodies-including the fixings for chocolate chip cookies. One night we stuck ourselves in the kitchen and made a zillion batches of chocolate chip cookies while watching Beauty and the Beast (a match made in heaven, folks!). Needless to say, her roommates weren't too upset about taste-testing them. Unfortunately, we did nothing to disprove their existing stereotype about American girls loving to bake.

We paid an obligatory visit to the UNHCR and the United Nations so I could geek out for awhile and take some pictures, but the majority of the trip revolved around eating as many baked goods as possible. Italy does a number of things well, pastries are not one of them. I also tried fondue for the first time! Can you believe I have lived 22 years and hadn't tried fondue until this point? We went out for lunch a couple of people from her church and Tom HAD to inform me that each of us were consuming approximately 200g of cheese in one sitting. YIKES. However, you can't go wrong when it comes to bread and melted cheese and so I left feeling very happy.

ALSO, amazing breakthrough!! I had been searching in Rome in vain for roasted watermelon seeds (similar to roasted pumpkin seeds but different fruit, obviously). They are a very Egyptian thing and thus far, I hadn't seen them sold outside of the Middle East until, UNTIL Grace and I went to Geneva's international market whereupon I enountered a Cairean who manned the spice stall that Grace is such a fan of and THERE THEY WERE! I will have to return to Geneva if only to replenish my watermelon seeds (which were gone in a matter of hours).

The last night was one of goodbyes as Grace was saying goodbye to her friend Casey, who was leaving Geneva to go back home and one of her roommates, Alex, was moving out. We spent a brief, but wonderful time with the first group of friends at an Eritrean restaurant and then went back to her place where Alex and her other roommate Aditya were making a delicious dinner. As I was leaving Grace's apartment at 4:30AM to get to the airport, I didn't bother going to sleep and spent the majority of the night chatting about a number of different topics with her and her amazing roommates.

Alas, it was time for me to go and Grace graciously escorted me to my bus stop, where I caught a bus to the airport and flew back to Roma. As it is only 1.5 hours away from Rome, I imagine I will be making many trips back to Geneva. Overall, it was an amazing weekend with one of the kindest, sweetest people in the world and I had a wonderful time! And when I got back to my neighborhood, I was greeted by this view--seriously, is this real life?

Spending the past four months mostly alone and with a lot of free time has made me think about what I would do if I had all the time (and money) in the world. Here is my list:

If I could spend my time doing whatever I wanted I would...

•Be with friends and family
•Bake/Cook
•Plant/tend a vegetable garden
•Practice hot yoga
•Belly dance
•Travel around the world
•Eat what I bake/cook
•Write a novel
•Read good books
•Play volleyball

It's nice because I finally have the chance to do all these things and I have always come up with reasons not to. First of all, it is very difficult to bake or cook for one person. I never feel motivated to spend time on elaborate recipes when I am going to be the only one partaking. But starting now, I am going to start baking because it's cold and I want to be near the oven and baked goods handle transport much better than cooked food so I can bring little goodies to all of my friends without it being a huge pain. Stay tuned for pictures, recipes, and misadventures!

Unfortunately, the vegetable garden will have to be put on hold until I possess some kind of land on which to grow a garden. I really love the idea of growing your own vegetables and being as sustainable as possible so hopefully I will soon find a place that will give me the opportunity to do that.

I have been taking belly dance classes and that has been really fun, so we can check that off my list and I am participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time! It's a worldwide event where people spend the month of November writing a novel. They commit to writing a 50,000 word novel during the month and you get a certificate and everything if you finish. So cross that off too.

I haven't been doing hot yoga because it hasn't really been cold enough for me to be motivated. Maybe January and February (reportedly the coldest months here in Rome) will be a good time to start doing that. If I were in Seattle I would be in the studio on a daily basis just to get my blood flowing.

After moving to Rome I consider the 'travel around the world' part covered until June. The volleyball thing has proven to be a bit more challenging, but I'm working on it! When I get back to the States, I plan to take this more seriously because I really do love it and miss it very much.

As for the being with friends and family, that is the part I wish for most fervently and unfortunately, there's not much I can do about that. I am so thankful to have found so many great people here in Rome and while I still miss everybody back in Seattle, I am glad that the expat community here has welcomed me so kindly.

It's good to know what I enjoy doing and how I like to spend my free time. These are the things that make me truly happy and I'm lucky because the majority of them can be done in any location! Being at such a crossroads in my life, it is good to know that regardless of whether I end up in London, D.C., Seattle, or who knows where, I can still do the things that make me happy. If you had all the time in the world, what would you do?

Today, Rome and I are celebrating our four monthiversary together. I spent the morning walking to and around one of Rome's biggest farmer's markets called Campagna Amica, which is located near the Circo Massimo. I will go into detail about this market (which I adore) in my next blog post, but today I want to recap my trip to London with Grace.

Grace had arrived on Friday night and so I met her outside the bus station when I flew in on Saturday afternoon. By the time we had met up, it was time to check into the hostel and then make our way to high tea! Grace had made us reservations at this wonderful place that was beautiful and oh, so glamorous! Grace is a tea connoisseur but this was my first time having afternoon tea and I had a blast drinking delicious tea out of beautiful china and snacking on finger sandwiches and petit fours. They were so delicious and the petit fours were really beautiful but I will show you rather than tell you!

After stuffing ourselves with cucumber and goat cheese sandwiches (among other delicacies), we made our way to the Lyceum Theatre to see the Lion King! She and I had both seen the live musical before but this version was unlike what either of us had seen before. There were costume changes, music changes, and even plot changes (Scar tries to get with Nala, ewww!) so it was definitely entertaining. Also, brilliant British idea that America should pick up on: serving little ice cream cups during intermission-YUM! We had a great time and both cried when Mufasa died, no surprises there. We also met a lovely older couple who were sitting in the row behind us and we talked with them about a conference they had just attended about the emotional effects of music that can be measured in the brain. Tres cool.

The next day we woke up very early (Grace even earlier as her alarm was still set to Geneva time, which is one hour ahead) because we had a lot of ground to cover before Grace had to leave to head back that evening. We planned our itinerary and decided to start with the furthest away and make our way back to the hostel. So, armed with Starbucks, we made our way to King's Cross Station to see Platform 9 3/4 and this is what we found:

WHO MOVES A PLATFORM?!?!?! Okay, I get that it is not very practical to have a major tourist attraction in the middle of a train station when people are actually trying to travel, but seriously??? Anyway, we found where it was and took the requisite Harry Potter geek-out pictures.

After King's Cross we geeked out, Beatles-style. Yes, we found Abbey Road. Coincidentally, it was on the day of Sir Paul's wedding to his most recent wife and he actually lives really close to Abbey Road-maybe we should have tried to find the wedding! Anyway, Grace was very patient and diligent in making sure I got my Abbey Road picture and we tried not to get in the way of too many cars.

From there we hopped on a bus up to Camden Market to get our shop on. Camden is a really cute neighborhood and the market was just the right combination of pop-up stores and actual storefronts. Also, Amy Winehouse used to live in Camden (RIP), It's London's most popular open-air market and, luckily for us, the weather gods were on our side the whole weekend so it was mild and dry while we perused the market (my favorite was the William & Kate flag).

Consumerism aside, we headed for some real culture and found a sphynx and Egyptian obelisk...ummm, what? Turns out the obelisk was a gift from the governor of Alexandria to a British ambassador for finally getting out of their country--ha, jokes, but there was some diplomatic reason for a huge Egyptian obelisk planted in the middle of London.

We did get some British culture in and made our rounds to Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc. We also partook in gastronomic culture and had a lunch of fish and chips. In all honesty, I came to London thinking that I really didn't like British food, but between my meals in London and my trip to Oxford (another blog post), I actually do. I think it is just a really stick-to-your-ribs kind of cuisine so it's not something I can eat on a regular basis. Here are some pictures of the whirlwind walking tour before Grace went on her way to Geneva:

The last thing we did before I sent Grace off was go to the TopShop flagship. Oh. My. God. As a girl who has a total obsession with shoes, can I just say that their shoe floor is WALL TO WALL happiness. They legitimately had every type of shoe I could imagine. Grace came out with the cutest pair of beige booties after a mad search for a very specific type of shoe that we thought existed only in her dreams. A girl could do some serious damage in that store.

So off she went, but that same evening my friend Katie came in from the English countryside where she had been WWOOF-ing (Google it, it's awesome) and I spent Sunday and Monday night catching up with her, which was much needed and a total blast. And then, just as soon as it had begun, it was over and I was back at Stansted to head back to dear Roma. So after a horrible first impression of London from an experience a few years back, I am happy to say that it has convinced me of its wonderfulness and I can't wait to go back. Also, stay tuned for my blog about my day trip to Oxford in which I describe the Hogwarts Great Hall and show you pictures of my first steak and kidney pie!

Much love to you all, xoxox

The other night I was watching Woody Allen's 'Midnight in Paris' and one of the characters (albeit a very annoying character) said something that I thought was very poignant: "Nostalgia is denial - denial of the painful present... the name for this denial is golden age thinking - the erroneous notion that a different time period is better than the one ones living in - its a flaw in the romantic imagination of those people who find it difficult to cope with the present."

In the film, the protaganist lives in the modern day but dreams of the 1920s as the Golden Age. Adrianne lives in the 1920s and views Paris in the 1890s as la belle epoque. It reminds me of how I always feel like I should have been born 50 years earlier. In the film, Owen Wilson says that "the present is unsatisfying because life is unsatisfying".

Is that true? Do I wish I could escape to a more idyllic time to escape my dissatisfaction with life in the present? Do any of you wish you could live in a different era?

P.S. Woody Allen is currently filming his next film in Rome. It's called 'Nero Fiddled' and it's starring Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg (of The Social Network fame), and Ellen Page (of Juno fame). Please let me run into Penelope Cruz while walking the streets of Rome...

Fall has definitely arrived in Rome. This morning was decidedly brisk and the air had a slight edge that didn't arrive on winds from the north. Nevertheless, it is still beautiful and sunny and the transition from summer to fall has been a slow one. It has yet to rain since that big storm at the end of September and though the air has a nip to it, it is still warm in the sunshine, of which there is plenty.

In recent news, I returned from a lovely trip to London with my friend Grace who is studying in Geneva this year and I had a wonderful solo visit to Oxford to meet with a professor in the Department of International Development at the university. I will be sure to post pictures soon, along with a more detailed re-cap of the weekend.I have submitted all my scholarship applications and should be hearing back by the end of October/beginning of November whether or not I will be asked to interview for the Marshall or Rhodes scholarships. I won't hear back from the Fulbright until a few months later.

One important thing you guys might already know about (it was on the cover of the NY Times on Saturday). Last weekend in Rome was one of the planned protests that were a part of the continuation of what started as Occupy Wall St. I was with some friends at their apartment on Via dei Serpenti, which is just a few blocks from Via Cavouur, one of the routes of the protests and got prime viewing of the tear gas canisters and the broken glass and burnt out cars. Though the neighborhood of San Giovanni suffered the most damage, most of the car windows and shop windows along Cavour were completely smashed in and some cars were even set on fire. That radius of the Monti neighborhood ended up being cut off by the Polizia and the Carabinieri because of the damage and we ended up watching the action on TV at Finnegan's, though it was the next street over. So many Italians are angry and frustrated with how the protest ended, given that most of the day was spent peacefully marching. It was only when a group of hooded youth wearing gas masks joined that party that the riots began. Some speculate that it was arranged by the government to discredit the real protest, but either way, it was a shame to see what had been calm and peaceful dissolve into lawless riots.

Thoughts about siimilar protests in cities where you live, dear readers? I have a lot of thoughts about why they are happening and what they stand for, but I won't post about that...not yet, at least.

Hoping you all are well and sending love from Rome in October!

Hello loves!

I have been in Rome for three months now, which means I'm 25 percent of the way through my stay here. I cannot believe time has flown by this quickly! There are times when I feel that I've been here forever and other times I feel like I've just arrived. Summer is over and everybody back home has started back at the UW, which means I need to buckle down and start on my research. I am really hoping to meet people from North African communities here so I can talk to them about their opinions on the revolution as well as the situation in Lampedusa, but I think my paper will be mostly focused on policy simply because of the greater number of resources.I will keep you updated about that as I go along. Right now I am starting by reading the book of the professor I am visiting up in Oxford next weekend. She is an anthropologist by training and her focus is on forced migration and displacement in the Middle East. I am so excited to finally meet here and I hope that I will have some talking points in her book that I can relate to what I want to study if I end up at Oxford.

Speaking of England, I am going to London next weekend and will get to spend all of Saturday and Sunday there before I go to Oxford on Monday. The best part is...I have a travel buddy! My friend, Grace who is studying in Geneva this year will be accompanying me and we have tickets to see the Lion King musical at Lyceum Theatre! So excited :) You can bet there will be lots of pictures from that trip.

I had to say goodbye to Amy last weekend, which was very, very sad, but we had a fabulous lunch at L'Asino D'Oro as her last meal in Rome. Here are some yummy pictures-highlights include gnocchi in white hare ragu', snails in an amazing fennel-y tomato-based sauce, and pear tiramisu'. SO GOOD. This place is double-y incredible because on Tuesday through Friday they have a four-course fixed price menu for E12!! And the food is absolutely incredible, thanks to the wonderful imagination of the Umbrian chef who runs the place. Buon appetito!

In other news, two of my dear Mistral friends (they are regulars) are in town for the weekend. Last night, Justin and Heather and I went to Da I Due Ciccioni in Trastevere. I love this place because it is so shady, but so delicious. Word on the grapevine says that it is not technically an official "restaurant" because it seems like the owner is just running it out of the bottom floor of his house-but boy, is it good! At E25 each we feasted like kings-we couldn't even finish all the food and it included water, wine, grappa, and limoncello, wow! I think my favorite part of the meal was an appetizer for sweet potato puree that was so, so yummy I could have eaten just that for the whole meal. Other highlights included a delicious tomato bruschetta, some yummy pasta all'amatriciana, and my very first cacio e pepe, which is a very traditional Roman pasta dish and consists of fresh pepper and a WHOLE LOT of melty cheese. I didn't take pictures because we were in a very small place and already the only Americans, so I decided not to draw further attention to ourselves :) After dinner, we wandered up through Trastevere and over to Piazza Navona and finally to the Trevi, which they hadn't seen yet. Amazingly, at 1 am the Trevi Fountain has an acceptable number of people and isn't completely overwhelmed by tourists fighting for an unobstructed view. So I took the obligatory photo of them in front of the fountain-aren't they beautiful people?

I also need to post pictures from way back, when a bunch of people from the Early Fall LSJ program and I went to Dar Poeta for pizza and merriment, Also in Trastevere (it seems like all the good places are!), it is known for its wonderfully thin pizza and the AMAZING nutella/ricotta calzone I mentioned in another post. Behold:

One final note: I had my first bellydance class in Rome! The instructor is named Zara and I am taking the class at a dance studio called IALS, which is located north of the centro storico-but I can get there by bus and a little walking in just over 20 minutes. There were only six of us at this first class, which was so nice because it felt like a group of girls just getting together. I had to postpone my first language exchange until Sunday because I mixed up the times for the dance class, but I will let you know how the exchange goes on Sunday! Also, my first volleyball game (hopefully) will be this upcoming Monday night! Wish me luck, it has been awhile :)

A presto!

Sara