Vatican for Easter

I was lucky enough to get an extra ticket for the mass on Easter Sunday at the Vatican! It was an amazing experience that I am very glad to have been a part of. We got up at 5:30am, and waited in line for the gates to open at 8:30am. It was a mad dash to our spots, which ended up being in the seated section in front of everyone! I got some amazing pictures, and even though it was raining, it was still a great way to spend my Easter!

Spring Break!

Again, I know that I'm not great at posting regularly...but here's another!

I had just finished my spring break 2010, and I was lucky enough to visit France and Sweden. I started my travels on friday the 19th, and flew from Rome to Paris where I met my friend that I work with all summer-Charlie. We made it to some of the many amazing parts of Paris, including the Eiffel Tower (which kind of looks like a big oil rig), and the Louvre. After our time in Paris, we went back to his homestay mom's house in Angers. Grandma, as I called her, was a pistol of an 80 year old woman. We got to walk around Angers and see the sites until I left on Tuesday for Uppsala Sweden. Another camp friend, Lauren, is completing her graduate school studies here, so I got to come see what Uppsala had to offer. I was really impressed when I got there with the amount of people that bike everywhere!! We rode bikes all over Uppsala, and we were lucky enough to take a day trip to Stockholm. The thing that impressed me the most about spring break 2010 was not only the scenery, but the Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet) in Stockholm. The Vasa was a ship that in 1628 sailed 1000 meters, and then toppled over and sank. The cool part was that they brought the ship up and it is standing tall in the museum, perfectly preserved.

Back to reality! (not really, I'm going back to Rome)

Yes, yes, it has been a while I know!! I was waiting for my friend to put the pictures of Palermo, Sicily onto her computer, and it has finally happened.

Things are still as awesome as ever here in Roma, and as the weather starts to get better, more and more people hit the streets to walk around and talk. Yesterday my friend from home, Ben, flew into Rome at 7am. He is meeting his girlfriend in Florence, but she was on her spring break until late Sunday night, so we had a whole day to check out the city. We found this place near me that rents bikes for the day, so we took some bikes and rode around until we saw all of the sites!

It was pretty cool to see Rome in a day!

Time to go research for a paper!

Next stop, Alassio, Italy to visit my aunt!

Sunshine.

Sandals. Shorts. T-shirt. This is what I was able to wear today, because it was 60's and sun all day long. Thank goodness I didn't get sunburnt!!!

Tomorrow morning at 5am, so midnight your time, I will be awake, in a cab, and on my way to Palermo, Sicily!!! I am excited to see what southern Italy has to offer, and I am also excited to the weather ahead of me...high 60's and sunshine.

Have a great day!

Budapest

This weekend I was lucky enough to go visit my grandma (Nugyi) in Budapest, Hungary. It was about 10 degrees colder than it was here, but still beautiful. The thing that struck me the most were the mountains...just amazing. We started off by seeing the countryside of the city the first day, the downtown area the second (my grandma showed me where she grew up as a child), and went all over on the third day. Words cannot describe how cool it was, so let me show you with some pictures!

P.S.- When you look on the near side of the river, that is Hungary, the far side is Slovakia

Examination

Sorry for the lack of posts! I have been studying my butt off for my first exam over here, in cognitive psychology, and man is it tough. The material isn't hard by any means, but at school back home we have exams after most of our topics, and over here we only have one or two exams in the class before the final, so there is a ton of material. For example, today I have to know everything about the history, methods, and paradigms of early cognitive psych, and then we jump to attention, perception, learning, and theories, THEN! we get to all of the people associated with the theories, and before you know it....my brain hurts. I am confident that it will go well today, and, despite the rainy weather, I will come out of the exam a happy guy.

Hope everyone has a fantastic Tuesday!

SNOW?!

For the first time in 23 years, Rome has experienced snow, and it stuck to the ground! I am very happy to have seen it, and I feel like this is equivalent for Romans to seeing a Haley's Comet, but at the same time, I thought I left all the snow in Wisconsin!

On another note-

I had heard about "keeping your valuables (wallet, phone, etc) in check" because there are many pick pockets here. After being here for a month, I had determined that this was just a misconception of the city....fooled. My roommate had his Italian cell phone, blackberry, and wallet all taken last night without his knowing. scary!

Vatican

On my friend Charlie's final day here, we decided to take a trip to the Vatican. I had been to the Vatican before, but never to St. Peter's Basilica. Walking into the square, it was amazing at just how vast it was, but then I quickly remembered that I was standing in the most holy place of the Christian faith. Walking into St. Peter's, we were all stopped, as a group of Swiss Guards walked past...pretty cool. They looked goofy, but I'm sure they meant business if they were responsible for protecting the Pope. As we entered, my eyes got wide at the overwhelming amount of art and history associated with the building. There were many amazing things, but I think that the part I liked the best was seeing the popes in their tombs, with wax over their faces, perfectly preserved. Here are some pictures from the day, hope you enjoy!

Colosseum

I have now officially hit all of the touristy spots of Rome. Today was the colosseum day, and ho-ly crap was it cool! Although it was a cloudy/rainy day, we didn't let that stop us, and made it through the colosseum, palatine, and the roman forum. I'm usually not all about old stuff, but this city is just amazing. Tomorrow we are going to the Vatican!!!

More to come later, enjoy the pictures

Typical Day

Hey there again,

I am quickly realizing that I have great days, but am then unable to put those days into words!

So let me just run my schedule of today down...

745am- Wake Up

815am- Finally get out of bed

830am- Jump on tram to get to class on time

9am- Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery (talked about what a slave is)

1030- Intro to Italian Cinema (talked about the movie Umberto D. terrible movie)

1pm- Ate lunch on the go (grabbed a great piece of pizza from a very small place)

2pm- Living the Good Life (learned about how to live a good life I guess...)

330pm-headed back to my apartment

4pm- Skype with the motha, then went to workout

530pm- Picked up dry cleaning

6pm- Went to the supermarket with the roommates...chicken parm for dinner

7pm- Sat on my butt listening to new music

8pm- Started making dinner

And that is where I am at for the day!!!

Hope you make the most of your day

Casey

Firsts

I would just like to let you in on some of the "firsts" in my life, two weeks into my journey in Rome:

-being on a big plane

-traveling outside of the US

-using a currency other than US dollars

-using a passport

-riding on a train

-living in a huge city

-speaking italian

-eating gelato

-going to a night club...a legit night club

and the list goes on

if you can think of more, let me know!

Laundry and a Cold

Today was the day. Laundry day. I separated my clothes as usual, but realized that the washing machine was the size of a baseball. How am I supposed to stay fresh when I can't wash my things??! ha but seriously, the smallest washing machine ever, and apparently Italians don't believe in efficiently drying things, so all of my clothes are on a clothesline outside.

Also, I am coming down with a cold. It doesn't help that Italy is 'super cool' (Italian accent) and the people party night and day. I need to take a breather and recuperate.

Ciao!

Rainy Roma

I have officially experienced my first rainy day here in Italy, and man does it stink. I'm not one for the rain as is, but tack on a half hour walk to and from class three times today, and you can see my frustration start to come out. On a happy note, I am loving all of my classes. Today was the first day that I had my Italian Cinema course, and it was fantastic. First of all, the professor is a fox, and all we did today was watch "The Bicycle Thief."

We went to an irish pub last night called Scholars to eat and watch the Jets game, that was a fun experience!

Time to go to the supermarket to get dinner!

Casey

Florence

This weekend was my first travel weekend! I wanted to start out small by going somewhere close, and not jumping right to a far off country. So with that in mind, I walked with my friend to the train station, bought a ticket to Florence, and off I was. When we got there, we all walked around the city center until we found a reasonably priced hotel. I usually don't roll like this, not having any plans, but it was nice to just do everything on a whim. We hit all the big places, like the Duomo, Santa Croce Church, Ponte Vecchio bridge, etc. It was absolutely beautiful.

Here are some pictures from the top of the Duomo, overlooking the entire city of florence, and some other great pictures!

Today was a good one. Started off the day by going to class at 9am, where I couldn't keep my eyes open....class at 1030 and 215 as well. Took two naps today, I don't know why I am so tired!!

After class I made steak, cod, and pasta for the roommates. After dinner, it was nice because all of us sat around for about an hour just shooting the you-know-what.

My late night entertainment was a movie on my friend's computer, and now I am home

Night

Casey

Hey world-

Casey here, just another day here in beautiful Roma~

Today I had my first day of classes, and man were they great, can you say 4.0??

-Human Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery

-Italian Cinema

-Cognitive Psychology

-Child Developmental Psychology

Casey-

Ostia Antica

Today was amazing! We woke up at 8 am, took the tram to our school, jumped on a bus, and made our way to Ostia Antica. This place was absolutely amazing. Instead of letting you in on the secrets of Ostia Antica, check it out for yourself!

http://www.ostia-antica.org/

We then went about a half hour away to a farm for lunch. It was very cool because 1-it was beautiful, and 2-everything that we ate was produced on the farm itself.

Getting There Is Half The Battle...

So with my mom and dad walking out of the airport doors, I knew that I was on my own. My friend and I made our way through security and to our gate, realizing that we had three hours to kill before we could board the biggest plane I have ever seen and fly over 1/2 the continent and the Atlantic Ocean to London. We made it to London just fine, but God bless these girls sitting next to us, because what do I hear as we are landing??? "There is fog ALL AROUND US!" It took every ounce of my energy to resist informing them that we were currently inside of a cloud.

Got into London at 645 am their time, and were expecting to wait until 1035 am for our connection. But no....London got a sprinkle of snow, and the world ended. We got our flight cancelled, then rebooked, then sat on the plane for who knows how long....ended up taking off at 3pm their time.

RECAP-

The trip was supposed to take from 5pm tuesday to 2pm wednesday...

The trip actually took from 5pm tuesday to 930pm wednesday...no sleep!

My room made the wait worth it though. I walked into marble floors, HUGE rooms with a large balcony in each, a full kitchen, shower, tub, bidet (butt cleaner), and tons of other goodies.

Time for bed though, computer is about to die, and who knows how much more time I will have to write because I bought the wrong charger!

Somewhat Packed, Somewhat Prepared, Completely Stressed

This whole "pre-departure" deal is stressful! I cannot believe how much paperwork it takes to go study in a different country! Soon enough though I will be in Rome, Italy!!

Wish me luck, I will be posting quite often!

Casey