We have landed home!!!

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Hi all,
Well I am in Rome - my home for the next five weeks. Definately homesick and missing everyone!!!! But here is the scoop on what has happened lately - I will post the two weeks of travel later on this week, so much and so many pics to sort through. Well I will address phone card issues. It seems for whatever reason se do not have a phone in our apartment, so whenever I use a phone card at a payphone the service charge eats up 90%!o(MISSING)f my minutes. So I will have to put that on hold and find another way to call home. But you can always call me I have cell phone. I got it in Genoa. (1010220 is great deal - hint hint hint) But back to my trip.
All of my wonderfully mature classmates on this trip have been very busy showing their maturity level. In the end it works out so I get my own room and I am very very happy about that. A hudge room all to myself. But what promted this was that the girls over at the Campo di Fiore decided that their did not want me in their room (I snore - thanks mom) but rather than tell me this they just picked roommates and told me there was not room for me at their place becasue they were all sleeping in mixed rooms (this turns out to be a lie). But I told them at the meeting that I was not sharing my room with a boy - since they could not figure who to send over that we should draw straws. They were all outraged at this because they felt that was not fair, they had intended to lie to Brian - the other guy they did not want over there to get him to come over to the Vatican Apartments. So they eventually guilted him into and he folded like we knew he was going to - and then they decided not to let him come over to Campa de fiore when they promised him they could. The 3rd year girls are not letting the 4th people have the extra bed becasue of course they promised to. But now they need it for friends and family of theirs that are comming into town. So they have not told anyone this but everyone will find out eventually. I really really can not wait till grad school at least my classsmates will be my own age and I will not have to put up with this petty stuff. But finally the four girls who have made my life miserable are getting a taste of their own medicine, the 4th year boys who were flirting with them have figures out what I knew all along they are B!@$%!!(MISSING)$ and will not talk to them for lieing to their faces. They are being treated as badly as they treated me and they are complaining and feeling left out - just desserts!!! But enough of the drama that has played out in our little group to the fun stuff, the city of ROMA!!!!
Well I finished a book that I had started the night before and then we (my fellow appartment dwellers Robert, Seth, Brian, Josh, Jason and Tomei) decided to go see a movie in english. KILL BILL vol2, Since I never saw the first one I was a little concerned but I deceided to go and they caught you up in the first ten minutes or so. But theatres here are very diffrent than back home. No matinee / student price. One price fits all at all times. There were only six rows of seats and four houses in the theatre. They only show each movie four times a day and that is it. But the seats are all like at the arenda grand so you have plenty of room between you and your neighbor. No problems with guys taking up to much of the leg room there. We also went out for chineese before hand and found a four course meal for € 6.50 each. For room dirt cheap and really good food.
I got to see the Vatican briefly and the Piazza de Popolo, these places with exception of the Vatican seem such a monumental scale because of the angle of the pictures in class. They are big, trust me, but it is a compactness to them - which is not expressed in our classes. So Not a whole lot we did today, we are trying to unwind and hopefully let everyone's tempers cool off from the fighting and hurt feelings of the last few days. Our apartment is very very quite and the day we could not have asked for a better one. I have found that I like Roma at night. Or after the daytripers and tourists have gone in for the day. At least I can say I have enough time I am covering a walk in my book a day (two if they are short). I am really trying to see as much as I can. We have been told we will not have a whole lot of time once studio starts but I find that hard to believe. The work moral of my classmates will surley prove them wrong. They mostly sleep in till noon and I am up around 6:30 / 7:00 so I get to see Roma before most of the tourist and classmates. So I guess that would mean I have two favorite times. Sunrise and evening - they are still out at sunset, I cannot blame them it is breathtaking.
I have decieded to change my final project to something I am going to enjoy more. I am looking at the ornamentation of lighting in the public spaces of the Roma, I have started my collection of lighting in Historical Centers from the begining of my trip in England, which is where i noticed how intricate and well suited to the architecture. So Rome definatley has more diversity and I play more with the idea. The Vatican use a diffrent manner than the Piazza Novina. So I am much happier and intrested in the project.
 

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