I have to admit that I've been slacking quite a bit on the blog. I've been fairly busy, and it's been fairly uneventful here. The craziness of the summer is long gone, and we've now resigned to the fact that this is more like real life now, with long hours at work, and we get tired often. It's actually been raining quite a bit lately. It's a huge change from the 3 month drought we had this summer. One night the water was so high that it was flowing into the bus when the driver would open the doors. Walking in [View Full Entry]

---

---

"Philly, you are everything, and everything is you." That was the quote of the day on Sports Center after a weekend full of wins for Philly. Thankfully, we now have the Slingbox working and I can watch games and highlights. I forgot how much I like watching Sports Center in the morning. It's bringing back memories of having breakfast at Penn State in the East Halls commons at the Big Onion and watching Sports Center on the big screen TV. Ahh, the good old days. Speaking of Penn State, the ESPNU All State Fan Poll has PSU ranked at #1 after [View Full Entry]

---

---

It's been quite some time since I've last written. It has been really busy here lately and quite a bit has been happening here. I'll try and give a brief recap here. To start with, we went to Saturnia in Toscana a few weeks ago. Our friend Dario drove Heather, Christina, Debbie and myself to the hot springs there. It was probably about 65 degrees or so outside (we were wearing long pants and sweatshirts) but the water was so nice and warm. The sulfur was nice and relaxing and made our skin very nice, but it really smelled like rotten [View Full Entry]

---

---

As you all know by now, I decided that I just wasn’t satisfied with a 5 month stay in Italy. It just didn’t feel like enough time to do everything I wanted to do. Besides, I feel like the place and my friends in Rome are now a part of me. It was just too hard to leave just yet. The summer was so hot that we really didn’t do much at all besides hang out indoors next to our fan or head to the beach. I really want to experience the autumn in Rome and be able to walk around [View Full Entry]

---

---

...do as the Romans do. Here in August that means, leave the city and go on holiday. Since Jackie and Rob were visiting and we all have limited funds, we stayed in the country. That's what most Italians do anyway, unless you're Davide. In that case, you head to Turkey and Cuba. So my travels in August included Cinque Terre, Positano, Florence and of course, the beaches of Ostia. But over the past week I've traveled a bit. Jackie, Heather and I went to Cinque Terre last week for a couple days. It was amazing. Each town had it's own character, [View Full Entry]

---

---

I really don't understand why Rome is so hot. Jackie and Rob have been visiting for the past week, and we've been dealing with near 100 degree temps here in Rome. We've had to make at least one gelato stop a day and sit in the shade to cool down. We pretend to be interested in what people are selling so we can hang out in the air-conditioned shops for a few minutes. On Friday, we went to the beach. It was a holiday here and everything was closed, so we decided the beach would be the best option. We stayed [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, Lauren’s last weekend here in Roma has come and gone. We’re sad. I can’t believe it’s been more than 4 months since we came here. It seems like just yesterday Lauren and I were anxiously awaiting for our plan to take off and leave Philly for our dream of living in bella Roma if even just for a few months. But looking back on our experience, it feels like it was ages ago that we were sitting in class with our sweaters and jackets learning the ins and outs of teaching English. Now, we’re sweating to death in 95 degree [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, overall it was a fairly nice birthday. The only downer of the weekend is that I had to work on Saturday morning. But everyone at work was really nice and gave me chocolates and "gifts" from the vending machine, haha. On Friday night all us girls got together and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. Yes, I know we're in Italy surrounded by amazing food, but when you eat Italian food 3 times a day every day of the week, you want something else to eat sometimes. The restaurant was good and actually fairly authentic. It was a bit surprising [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last night, we did one of the coolest things (literally) to do in Rome. We went to an ice bar. The bar is called Ice Club Roma and it's made entirely of ice - the seats, the bar, the walls, even the glasses are made of ice. It was really a very interesting experience. There was a 15 euro entrance fee and you get a drink and use of the capes and gloves. The drinks were top shelf liquor, and it was ALL liquor...vodka mostly. The temperature is kept at -5°C (which is 23°F) and the record for staying in the [View Full Entry]

---

---

So, another week has come and gone. I can't believe how quickly time has been passing here. It feels like I only just left the cold weather in Philly and now it's regularly 90 degrees and sunny. It rained today for the first time in over a month. Ok, by rain I mean a quick 2 minute shower and now it's once again 90 degrees and sunny and humid. This week was rather nice actually. On Wednesday night Davide and Andrea came over for dinner and we had the second installment of burger and steak night. This time, we were lazy [View Full Entry]

---

---