Cupola, chocolate, and countryside

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Friday (24/10)

To the top of the cupola! The Make It Count program here that I am a part of is all about counting your daily steps and making sure that you make you time spent traveling count by going out and seeing as much as you can. And on this day, I participated in a group activity put together by the SLA in charge of MIC: climbing to the top of the cupola of St. Peter's Basilica. It cost five euro to take the stairs, a total of 551 of them, or it would have cost seven euro to take an elevator part of the way, still having to climb 350 or so stairs. A lot of the girls that went with were pretty exhausted after only climbing up half way. On the way up, you walk around the inside of the dome, getting an aerial view of the center inside of the basilica. Climbing up further into the dome, the passageway along the stairs starts to lean in, to accommodate the curve of the dome, which is interesting to see as you're climbing the stairs. It was very busy so it took a while to make it up all the way through the narrow staircase. But the view from the very top was quite spectacular. I could see all across Rome. And looking down on St. Peter's Square was so phenomenal. Definitely one of the best things to do in Rome. On the way back down, we walked along the roof of the basilica in front of the dome, where we got pretty close to the tall statues that stand at the front edge of the facade of the building. It was interesting to see that there's high voltage wiring along the top edges of the statue surfaces, which I assume is to keep birds off. Also up here on the roof was a small souvenir shop, which I found a bit odd but also expected for the Catholic church. After exiting through the inside of the basilica and peeking around a bit, we headed as a group to secret bakery where the SLA Chandi bought us all nutella filled cornettos, which were so good. And after that I got some gelato with a friend at the nearby gelateria called Lemongrass, which was very delicious since they had the chocolate orange flavor I love so much and also Oreo. This made for a nice predinner snack

Then myself and a girl from my floor parted ways from the group to walk to Piazza Navona where the restaurant was where we were meeting our floor SLA and other people from our floor for a group dinner. The restaurant was called Osteria dell'Anima and is the popular place for the JFRC to go to for pear pasta, which is like gnocchi with pear inside it. It was quite good, but I don't think it was as fantastic as our SLA had talked it up to be. The meal cost us 25 euro each, but we had a nice antipasto of prosciutto and bruschetta before the pear pasta, and it included some gelato. And I made sure to drink my fair share of wine. The dinner conversation was quite interesting as well, with the SLA telling us about how when she was a student here, they used to give out two 40s of Peroni out to each student at the karaoke nights, but that year it got out of hand when a student feel down some stairs at a local bar. The administration banned students from going to that bar anymore and so it then went out of business. So the JFRC used to be more much more fun than it is now. Feeling pretty good at this point, I left with the SLA Jessica and a few others to get some gelato at a close place called Gelateria Del Teatro, which had some artisan flavors. The two that I had tried were apple cinnamon and lavender peach. They were each pretty unique and the apple cinnamon was quite good. I even finished off some pumpkin gelato another girl had gotten but didn't like. It wasn't that good but I didn't want to waste it. Full of gelato now, we returned to campus. To kick off our Halloween week of movie watching, Sean, the girls and I watched Hocus Pocus in the basement cafe with a bunch of others.



Saturday (25/10)

Waking up at 6 am, Sean and I had to leave early to catch our train leaving at 8 am for Perugia. Today we were going to the international chocolate festival! The girls were rather disappointed that they couldn't come with, as they signed up to go on the World War II day trip with the school. Once we arrived in Perugia, we didn't exactly know how to get to the festival. Luckily, we ran into some other people from JFRC who went with one of the SLAs. She lead us to get bus tickets to bring us there and back. Once the bus dropped us off and we followed the crowd of people, we were inside some underground tunnel system. People were going left and right and we weren't too sure which way the festival was. After asking for information, we realized that inside the tunnels there was a chocolate boutique with some rather unique bars of chocolate with roses, lavender, and violet bits, along with some Italian food stands, where we tried quite a few samples of delicious prosciutto and salami. Then we made our way outside to the actual festival. There were just so many stands of chocolate vendors. It's a good thing Sean's girlfriend couldn't come with because she would've died of excitement from all the chocolate. The first few we saw had very unique chocolate creations. Wrenches, bolts, small engines, various animals there were just so many awesome objects made out of pure chocolate. And then we saw the samples of chocolate liquor being handed out. They had some interesting flavors, like rum, mint and banana; they were alright but the banana was quite good.

When we got to the Baileys tent, we noticed that we had to have some sort of chococard for those samples. So we went and bought our five euro chococards, which gave us a quest for the day: to collect all the samples we receive with the benefit of the chococard. The Baileys shot was first of course. Then we saw some sort of small house sponsored by a cookie company that people were waiting in line for. We found out that it was some sort of 4D experience but that it was closed now until it reopened at 2. So we wandered through the festival figuring out where to collect our chocolate samples. Our sample of hot chocolate was really good, even though it was more like a warm pudding than a drink, but that just made it even better. We even later paid for a second serving. After wandering through a little more than half the tents of the festival, we stopped to eat our packed lunch of salami sandwiches. A nice couple from a bench over gave us some prosciutto that they didn't want so we saved it for later to eat on the train ride back. Then we waited in line for the 4D cookie house. After 40 minutes and barely moving through the line, we decided to cut our losses and wander the festival some more and collect the last of our samples. Having collected all our chocolate and having purchased a bit of our own, we started to meander back to the entrance. Along the way, we saw a magician performing, who did a neat trick revealing a coconut under his hat that appeared out of nowhere. Sean was thoroughly impressed. We still had quite a bit of time before our train would arrive, so we killed a bit of time hanging out by an outer wall of the town which sits on some cliffs, overlooking the area below. We then returned on the train, with me napping a bit, back to Rome, but on the way back to campus we stopped at a small Turkish kebab place that puts fries in there paninos and wraps for dinner. It was very delicious and cheap. It definitely balanced out all the chocolate we had eaten that day.



Sunday (26/10)

Sleeping in until noon was nice. The cafeteria didn't open until 12:30 anyway. Sean told me not to wake him up that day, so I ate lunch and then left campus to explore a bit more of Rome. I headed for the San Giovani metro stop, where I would catch a bus to Appia Antica, an old road with many catacombs and mausoleums along it from ancient Roman times. It was supposed to be great to visit on Sundays because traffic isn't allowed on the road, or so I was told. It certainly didn't appear so, or at least on parts of the road there was definitely traffic. But the bus I was supposed to take there was already stuffed to maximum physical capacity with people so there was no way I'd be able to fit on it so I decided to just walk it, which was only a half hour or so walk. And along the way, I stumbled upon some Italian civic rights movement that was having some sort of event that day just off Appia Antica near an old mill. All the signs said in Italian " on the left there is Left". So after hopping on the nearby wifi and googling the Left campaign, I discovered that it was all about equal rights and giving more power to the people. It was pretty cool to witness. Then I continued down the road, and happened to walk past the catacombs we toured during the Ostia Antica day trip back in September. I also happened to find a nice walking stick in the small patch of bamboo stalks along the side of the road. Continuing farther down, I found a small historical park area that was free to enter. It just happened to be the circus of Maxentius, along with the mausoleum of his palace that he named after his son. The circus area was quite grand, even though it's speculated that it was never actually used for chariot races or anything. The maseuleum was very creepy. It was simply a circular donut shaped room with a large pillar in the center. But there was on one side a small opening into this center pillar. And on the ledge of this opening sat what appeared to be a human bone, perhaps the hip bone of a small child. There was no way this was not discovered, as it was laying right next to a paintbrush and a set of nails, so clearly it was left sitting there by whoever was doing the renovations. This area was not very well lit though, so I doubt very many visitors saw it. I even picked it up and was very creeped out. Just so strange. After this historical site, I kept walking south along the road, and headed for the trails through the Parco della Caffarella. Upon approaching the intersection to enter the trails, I witnessed a large herd of sheep being led by one man and his dog across the intersection and onto the trails. I followed them for a bit and eventually got just ahead of them, at which point I turned around to see this large pack of sheep trotting off right towards me. But at this point I started to head down a different trail than where the sheep were being lead. I hiked north through the park to head back to San Giovanni as it was getting a bit late and I had to return to campus in time for dinner. But I had to stop for gelato along the way, as I had seen a quite busy gelateria right near the metro stop. It was a bit pricey but it was very good. And of course on the way back to campus I had to stop at secret bakery for a thirty cent chocolate cornetto. They just make for a perfect cheap snack.

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