Laura
Hello! I'm going on an exciting trip to Italy for the summer where I will be an Au Pair for a lovely family in Rome. We will be traveling all over Italy so I will be recording my journeys as I go! SephiaSputnik
Travel Blog Posts
September 16th 2009
Well its been forever since I've written and as most of you know, I'm actually home in California and have been for about a week. But I'd like to continue to write about my experience now that I have the time and hopefully it will express a more accurate depiction of the time that I had in Italy... because I've noticed that describing it to my family and friends after being home... I've been so happy to be home that its created this natural feeling of dislike for Italy when really I had some truly awesome times and seeing the Italy MotoGP was one of the greatest highlights of my trip. So here it goes! My trip to Rimini aka San Marino... aka Misano. Ok so one of my goals in life had been to see ... read more
July 17th 2009
Sorry for the long breaks between blogs... its almost impossible to really keep up with all the pictures I take as well as enjoying myself out here. I've needed to put a lot more time in with the children as well as trying to develop more friendships while I'm out here. Put on top of that all the emails and video chats... trying to study more and harder the Italian language... its not easy to find free time to post up all the pics. I had the privilege to go to an Italian wedding a couple of weekends ago! Other than the fact that it was fairly hot and the Italians don't seem to know what air conditioners are... It was pretty fantastic! Basically it was the same as what we would have for an American ... read more
July 4th 2009
The pictures I have included for this are actually a combination of photos from two trips I made to the Vatican which is also known as St. Peter. See being the lazy American that I am, I went to St. Peter one day during the week and saw the huge lines to get in and said "Ahh... maybe sometime else". So I ended up just taking pictures of the piazza and stuff around it which was still an amusing time. The day I actually got to go inside the Vatican was on a Sunday which was really lucky for me because they actually held a service there while I walking around. When you are going inside the chapel you will see lots of men dressed in goofy poofy outfits and they look very very serious. I ... read more
July 2nd 2009
One of my favorite things to do out here is to just put on my headphones and wander around the city. I don't have to have any sort of specific goal in mind or place to be... I just love wandering around and getting lost. There are lots of cool modern city aspects to Rome even though it is incredibly old and the highlights are more focused on the old architecture. Somehow it becomes this blend of many things and I feel it is interesting enough to share. The graffiti around here is pretty interesting, it is used more as a medium for odd expression as opposed to gang warfare. I have a few pics in here from riding around on the metro line A which is a fairly new metro line however the other day ... read more
June 30th 2009
The pictures I am putting up are a collection from a couple of different nights where I have gone out with Erin and Mila. Erin is a girl about my age who is from Washington, I met her about 2 weeks ago when she came here to Au Pair for a different family that is friends with the family I work for. I'll never forget the moment I met her, I was cooking my first Mexican meal in Italy. She came in and I could tell she was already having a difficult time communicating with people, which in the future has made for some good laughs! I sat her down and gave her the low down on what it is REALLY like to be here having to take care of the children and how difficult it ... read more
June 27th 2009
This happened about 3 weekends ago... as I explained already, scooters in Rome are the best! I love/hate getting lost because it feels so wonderful to have the freedom to explore, it just doesn't feel so good after you are lost and wandering for 30 minutes and still unable to find your way. The city of Rome doesn't have one sole place to go to when you are looking for something to do in the evening. Every gelataria is open way on into the wee hours of the night and that is generally the thing to do is get some ice cream(gelato) or to get a beer or something. People walk around a lot and just hang out, bars that actually serve alcohol don't seem to be that popular, and if you are craving some drinks... ... read more
June 21st 2009
I know before I came here there were certain thoughts and opinions that people have about Italy and what it is like out here. People back home ask me... the people of Rome here ask me.. "So what do you think so far?" Here are my impressions thusfar: The Italians: -Italians really think highly of themselves... I'm not sure what makes them think they are better than anyone else but they sure think highly of themselves. I'm not saying this in a completely bad way, they believe these things as if it just simply is true and why should you disagree? - They love to dress in uniforms. Most love to dress in business suits but even if they are park workers, they seem to enjoy just having their uniform on. -They love pasta. I really ... read more
June 21st 2009
My trip to the Colosseum: I rode Rolando's scooter to the Colosseo which is a lot more difficult than one would think. The map that I had bought to help me has been almost completely useless because the names of streets are sometimes listed... sometimes.. its not very accurate either and you have to drive so fast that its almost impossible to simply just trot along and hope you find your way. Even if you mark out a route prior to your leaving, good luck remembering the names! So by some stroke of luck I managed to ride the scooter towards the Colosseo and you'd think it'd be easy to find considering it is pretty... Colossal har har har. It is my personal belief that the Romans decided to build their buildings high enough that you ... read more
June 17th 2009
Many of you have asked if the food is good here in Italy and what do I eat. Here is your answer... its pretty simple... Pasta... pasta... more pasta... if not pasta... then its pizza. Fortunately for me I love pasta and pizza. It is all different kinds of pasta... pasta with red sauce, pesto, pasta with garlic and butter (some fish eggs in it too sometimes). There are many varieties of pizza too as you will see and the tomatoes here are so incredibly good. So yes the food is very good for me. The other thing that Italians seem to love is olive oil. Everything you cook has to have a lot of olive oil and tomatoes in it somewhere. If it doesn't look greasy, it probably doesn't have enough oil in it! The ... read more
June 10th 2009
I've been able to get out and about a bit more lately. I was kinda stuck being with the children the whole weekend which was ok and my Italian is getting better but still it is difficult sometimes to communicate what I want. I was getting really upset when I was having a hard time with the kids and then I would feel very lonely when I was out with the family and couldn't understand what they were saying. It gets very tiring after awhile of straining to hear words that I recognize because the words are all conjugated in different ways so sometimes I think I'm hearing a word I recognize and maybe half the time I am right and half the time I am wrong and still confused haha. Now that I have had ... read more
Tot: 0.069s; Tpl: 0.003s; cc: 8; qc: 67; dbt: 0.0415s; 1; s:notus w:www (50.28.61.183); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.5mb
