Sit on the seat directly above the wheels on a bus on the cobblestone streets of Rome. They have these fascinating products here in Italy on the infomercials for these pieces of "excercse equipment" that you sit on, lay against, or relax your feet on that cause immense vibrations through your body. Supposedly they help you lose weight. Instead of spending 99 euro on one of these things all you need to do is take a ride on the bus. Seriously, every part of your body vibrates. Note...beware of the bus if you already have a headache. The cobblestones combined with [View Full Entry]

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I am so tired right now and not sure why I am awake and have already done a load of laundry. We went out to a club last night and we got home around 4am...I woke up at 9am. The past few days have been somewhat interesting, if you'd like to call it that. On Friday there was a transportation strike. Not sure what it was all about, but the metro and some bus lines closed from 8:30am until noon. Of course the bus I needed to take to get to school was one of the bus lines on strike. It [View Full Entry]

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Today was my first day of Italian class. I just wasn't getting enough practice and I need to learn the language properly. Everyone I hang out with speaks English, so there isn't much Italian speaking going on. Heather and I are trying to change that. I realized how much of the language I actually know while in class today...it's a lot. But I have trouble actually speaking, so I hope this class helps. After class Heather and I went to see our Mirko, awwe. He was so happy to see us. It had been over a week since we last saw [View Full Entry]

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Hey! I'm back in Rome after a relaxing week in Sicily. It was amazing there. The weather was beautiful down there and we're all nice and tan now. We stayed in Giardini Naxos which is the beach resort below Taormina. I highly recommend going there sometime. We stayed in an awesome fully stocked apartment. I'm in the process of posting pics now. I'm going to put all my pics at the following site: http://picasaweb.google.com/carlascardino/Italy2008. So, check it out often. Right now Heather and I are sitting in the bar at the corner of our new apartment in the Testaccio area of [View Full Entry]

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Well, we did it...we graduated. All of us passed our TEFL course. I graduated with Merit, haha. Nice to know I can speak English :) We all went out on Thursday night to celebrate. Our two teachers came out too. It was really nice and we all had a good time. Only one problem...allergy season is in full swing here and there is pollen everywhere. In Italy EVERYTHING happens outdoors. You eat outside, you drink outside, all the major places to go are outside. I am so sick right now. I've lost my voice and I've been living on Mucinex, Tylenol [View Full Entry]

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I think I mentioned last week that we were going to McDonald's after teaching last Thursday. Well, we went. It was a lot of fun actually. It's supposed to be the nicest McDonald's in the world. Well, I definitely spent like 7 euro in there...that translates to about $11 in America. Not a cheap meal! They have a Euro menu here, and they only have hamburgers, cheeseburgers, McToast (whatever that is supposed to be) and small fries. Not as good a deal as back home. I do have some pics, and a video...yes, a video. We found the trash cans fascinating. [View Full Entry]

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Only one more day to go in the TEFL course and then I'll be a certified English teacher. I think my grammar exam went really well this morning. I have to admit, I think of Grammar a lot differently now than I ever did before and I'm much more conscious of my sentence structure. Learning grammar at the age of 27 is much different than learning at the age of 7, and I was shocked at how little I actually knew regarding the rules and parts of speech. Don't worry though, now I can tell you everything you ever wanted to [View Full Entry]

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I was so loopy from that medicine yesterday that I forgot about half the day on Saturday! We attempted to study outside on Saturday since it was so nice outside. We ended up going shopping at Zara, walking down Via Condotti (where Gucci, Prada, Armani, etc are located) and then down Via del Corso until we decided to go to Piazza del Popolo. We were going to study outside in the square, but we realized there was a HUGE concert going on. It was the "Amici" concert. "Amici" is the Italian version of American Idol. So, all the contestants were there [View Full Entry]

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Ok, I'm going to keep this one short because to be honest, I'm a bit tipsy right now. No, I haven't been drinking. I must have forgot my allergy meds at home and I woke up with the worst sore throat and the worst head congestion since I spent like 14 ours outdoors yesterday. Anyway, I somehow was able to communicate in Italian with the woman at the pharmacy and told her what was wrong. She gave me throat lozenges and some pills. I took one pill like 5 hours ago, and I'm still disoriented and my heart is racing. But [View Full Entry]

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I can't remember if I mentioned yesterday or not, but it was Mirko's birthday. He's the guy in the coffee shop we go to every morning. We tried to buy a birthday card and it didn't go so well, so we (like little kids) used some colored paper and markers and made him a card. We did put a picture of ourselves in the card for him though as well...an actual picture, not a drawing. We gave it to him this morning and he really liked it and he started blushing. He then showed the other guy that he works with [View Full Entry]

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