Saying Goodbye to Roma

Well this will be my last blog from Rome! Tonight is my last night and my computer is one of the last things I need to pack :)

I had my last two exams today and overall they went well. I pretty much just had to pass all my classes this semester since only the credits transfer...so I am confident that I at least accomplished that! (I know...such high standards!) After my exam I went to Pamphili park one last time...sat in 'my bench' and tried to process some of the last few months! It will definitely take me longer than one afternoon ;) But it was a good yet bittersweet time and it was sad to look out over the 'forest' of gigantic trees and leave...not knowing if or when I will be back.

Well, I am going with my roommates to a restaurant for dinner and then we are going to walk around the Center one more time...see it all one last time.

So...a van is coming tomorrow morning at 8am to pick us up and take us to the airport. As I mentioned yesterday, our flight leaves at 11:30 and we will arrive in Philly at 3:30. The next time you hear from me I will be back in Macungie, recovering from jet-lag and enjoying the company of my fam ;)

So one last goodbye from Roma...

Ciao ciao!

Packing!

Oh my so I really haven't updated in almost two weeks now!

I am currently packing to come home, which is wonderful and crazy at the same time! These past few weeks have been consumed with the semester wrapping up and finals. I also had some catching up to do after my week of 'medical leave'! Also, much of my time has been spent on my final series for drawing. I still have one final tomorrow and a presentation for photography! And then I am officially done :)

Today was a beautiful day...the first in few weeks. So after my exam I went to St. Peter's to take some black and white photos. I also went up in to the cupola (for the first time)...it was awesome! The view of the city was breathtaking and it was definitely a good way to say 'Goodbye' to Roma; it was a bittersweet moment!

So as I said I am packing now and I think I should be in pretty good shape. Having my parents take almost a full suitcase home with them is really helping right now! We have to find our own transportation to the airport on Friday so we are having a minivan pick us up at 8am and our flight leaves at 11:20am. A 10 hour flight! So with the time difference I will be going back in time and will arrive in Philly at 3:20pm. I will most likely be exhausted but I am excited to see everyone ;)

Well I need to return to packing and perhaps study for my exam tomorrow :) But I just want to let everyone know I am still alive and well! Sorry for not updating for so long! Alright, hopefully I will update before I leave Roma and I will definitely update once I am home and give some closing thoughts on my semester.

Ciao!

Germany Here I Come!

I am so excited! I am leaving for the airport in an hour here and my leaves at 3pm this afternoon!

I am flying into Frankfurt and then taking a bus to Darmstadt where I will meet Daniel, Adela's husband. I am spending a couple days with them and then I leave on Saturday afternoon to take a train to Nurnberg. I will meet Rachel and her dad at the train station there and then I think Ray and I will hang around downtown and take a bus back to her house later. And then I leave Monday morning to come back to Roma! Well that's pretty much the extent of what I know to expect...but I know better than to hold to my own expectations...'flex and flow'!

Well this will be my last 'little' European excursion! I can't wait to be able to go to a place where I actually know people...it will definitely take a lot of travel 'stress' away. I will try to update while I am there...well I need to finish some last minute packing ;)

Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

Well even though Thanksgiving is (clearly) not a holiday in Italy we (my roomates and our friend Danielle) had our own feast! Other than our dinner though, it was just another day.

So my day began with going to the hospital (it's interesting how this is now a part of my morning routine!). Here it seems as if though you pay only once for whatever care you need for the duration of your illness. Monday, the first day I went, was the only time I have paid (besides for lab tests, etc). Much different than the States...I feel like they take more of interest in the full wellbeing of their patients. So Dr. Zanninelli and I are definitely bonding :) She wished me a happy Thanksgiving yesterday and asked me what I was doing to celebrate. I told her we were having our own dinner and she asked for the recipe for my mashed potatoes! Ha :)

After the hospital I went to Ostia Antica with Greg, one of my partners for our project for Imperial Art and Arch. It was 30-45 minutes away by train and it is an ancient city. We have to research the Forum and Forum Baths for our paper due on Sunday :( Yikes- I have a lot of catching up to do on school work especially after this past week!

Alright...so onto our lovely Thanksgiving meal! It was exciting because this was the first time we had all planned everything and pulled it off on our own...with an 15 by 15 sq. inch oven! I made my mashed potatoes the night before so that alleviated some pressure from the kitchen. Leah actually found turkey breast meat, which was awesome because we were planning on cornish hens. She marinated it with a 'orange-sage-garlic' marinade...but we only had blood orange juice (like a red orange)...and it turned the turkey hot pink :) That was clearly the highlight! So here is our full menu:

• Turkey
• Green Bean Casserole
• Spinach and Artichoke Stuffing
• Garlic Mashed Potatoes
• Corn
• Glazed Carrots
• Fresh rolls
• Homemade butter
• Fresh Apple Pie
• Homemade Whipped Cream w/ cinnamon

Everything was so delicious! And we all vowed to keep it our tradition to make homemade butter and whipped cream in remembrance of our Roma Thanksgiving! (Ha...which was a small feat in itself because we don't have a mixer!)

After dinner I called Chicago and video chat with TJ and the Cialkowski Fam! And before I went to bed I called Harford, PA and I got to talk to my family, Grandma and even Cade! It was so nice to be able to talk to everyone and it definitely capped off my Thanksgiving evening :)

Well it's almost lunch time and I am craving some sweet leftovers! Ciao ciao :)

Doing just fine :)

Well it is most certainly true that God has a sense of humor!

My idea of 'enjoying' my last month in Rome is already looking a little a different that what I had in mind. When I said in my last post that I wanted "to get out and discover parts of the city I haven't seen yet". I never expected that to include the Salvator Mundi International Hospital!

There is no tactful way of explaining what I have experienced the past few days so I will just borrow the words of Dr. Zanninelli (my doctor) in the excuse note that she wrote for me to give to my professors (haha!!)..."I certify that Miss Kristin Rhodes is affected by an acute abscess in the perianal region..." Very official, very blunt and very Italian! Ha! She speaks English very well and has been very helpful; which is good considering I have to go visit her every morning for the rest of the week...I think we're going to be quite good friends :)

Thank you for all of those who have been praying for my recovery...I really appreciate it! Know that even though I'm an ocean away I have felt the love and encouragement :) This has really been a humbling experience in many different ways...from Sarah helping me put my sneakers on to God re-reminding me that his plan is always different than mine!

"I'm trading my sorrows, I'm trading my pain, I'm laying them down for the joy of the Lord"

One month...

This time next month I will be at home...it's crazy to think about.

One month ago I was so 'against' wanting to come home...setting myself up to be 'depressed' and feel sorry for myself once I finally arrived. That feeling changed 180 degrees after my fall break (as I may have briefly mentioned before) and I was longing to be back in the States with my fam and friends. Today,though, I think I have discovered a balance...yes, I am still excited to be able to go home but at the same time I am excited to enjoy my final month in Rome (with a lil' visit to Germany in there!). Ha- unfortunetly I do have all of my class work due in this next month but it should keep me busy, hopefully in a good way. But I really don't want to look back and feel like I wasted the end of my time here, I need to continue to get out and discover parts of the city I haven't seen yet or even become more familiar with my favorite parts. It will take a little more energy but I know it will be worth it :)

So I already mentioned that I will be going to Germany! Yes! I bought my tickets earlier this week and I leave Dec. 4th and fly into Frankfurt where I will take a train to Darmstadt, where Adela and her husband live. Then on Saturday I will take a train to Nurenberg to visit Rachel and her fam! On Monday (the 8th) I will fly back to Rome. I am really looking forward to the trip and being able to spend time with all of these people :)

Well tomorrow I have a mandatory Saturday field trip (yes, it's the second one in a row!). I have to meet the class at 8am up at the school! And we're not getting back till 6pm :( There goes my whole day! I am not even sure where we are going I just know that it's 2 hours away into the mountains and that it's an archeological site. But hopefully the weather will be nice since it's been rainy here...if not it could be a yucky day!

Oh well...we'll see

Weekend with my parents :)

So clearly by the title of my blog I did find my parents! But I had my doubts especially after being at the train station for 2 hours...at which point I seriously felt like giving up! As I was standing there among hundreds of people trying to decide what to do someone came up behind me and grabbed me...ha!...and it was my mom :) I guess this whole time she had sent me an e-mail (which I never got) with all of their travel plans- so they didn't have any worries because they assumed I had read the e-mail- ha I wish!

After finding them we went off to find their hotel (fortunately I had looked up where it was beforehand because they had NO idea!). It was actually quite far away and we had to take the underground metro to get there; which was actually my first experience with the Roma metro! We figured everything out and they were able to check in and got a little bit organized before we headed out for the day.

We decided to go to the Vatican first because it was the closest site to their hotel. However first we made a very important gelato stop at Old Bridge Gelato; which in my opinion is the best in Rome. After thoroughly enjoying our generous 2 euro scoops we headed to the Vatican Museum (with our main purpose to see the Sistine Chapel). The museum is absolutely huge and we went through all of the rooms leading up to the Sistine quite quickly. We really could have spent the whole day absorbed in the museum so we tried to at least see as much as we could in a short amount of time. We finally arrived at the Sistine Chapel and it was breathtaking- it blows my mind that Michelangelo was able to complete it in only 4 years! We sat there for about 10 min till we got neck cramps from looking up :) From the Museum we walked around the Vatican wall to St. Peter's Basilica. My mom's expression was priceless when she walked in the door: a long, breathy "Woooow!" We were lucky and got to hear the organ play yesterday as they were starting Mass...it was beautiful.

After St. Peter's we took the 870 bus towards my school, taking a pit-stop for a sweet view of the entire city. Sadly it was getting dark so it was hard to point out certain places but it was a clear night so we could see the mountains surrounding the city. We got back on the bus and got off near my school and walked to my apartment. It was nice to be able to show my parents my daily walk to school, Eolo Bar, the Produce market...all of these places that I have been writing about and they finally got to see them! Plus I gave them the grand tour of my sweet apartment! My dad even took a nap on our couch!

Then we went to a restaurant nearby in Trastevere...Le Fate. It was actually quite ironic that we ended up there because one of my teacher's from high school, whose son, Chris, is also here at AUR told my dad about the restaurant but my dad forgot the name of it. So when we got there Chris and his friends were there! It was a special menu night because they had a chef from Umbria create his own menu and it was a 5 course meal! It was sooo good!

My parents actually had a bit of a disaster getting back to their hotel later that night! I didn't know this but the train I told them to take had already stopped running...oops! So they had a fiasco and a night (into early morning) of running through the city trying to find transportation :( I'm sure that they would love to give you a more detailed story :)

Saturday morning began first off with me having a mandatory field trip which I left early to meet up with my parents. Oh well! My prof. wanted to take all day, literally, when my parents trip was scheduled far before his syllabus! So I met them at Trajan's column at noon and they were supposed to have done/seen a lot of things in the morning but due to their unexpected late night they slept in. So we started off with walking towards the Colesseo, stopping first at the Imperial and Roman forums. We decided to do a guided tour of the Colesseo along with the Palatine Hill...these were tours that were offered by private companies who stand outside of the entrance gate and 'lure' people in with "If you just go in now you will stand in a line for 35 min but you can get inside right now and have an English guided tour for just 10 euro more!" So we 'fell' for it...in a good way :) Our guide Roberto was a little scattered but funny. But it was really neat to be inside the Colesseo especially since I have seen the outside of it more times than I can count!

We then did the tour of the Palatine Hill with a different tour guide, Anthony, who was an excellent tour guide. He was clearly passionate about what he was showing us and he really knew a lot of information! We got to see the ruins of different palaces on the Hill that belonged to Domitian, Vespasian, and even Augustus! Augustus' was only opened 5 months ago and it had really well preserved frescoes- so that was really special to see.

After finding our way out of the Roman Forum area we headed up towards the Pantheon, which was unfortunately closed for Mass so they were not able to see the interior :( Which is the best part! (I was bummed for them). So then we traced back our steps a bit to walk to the Trevi Fountain...where we also took a gelato stop. And then on to the Spanish Steps which we extremely crowded (as usual) but since my mom doesn't like crowds we headed out pretty fast. And that pretty much ended our evening in the center so we took a bus and a tram back to my street in search of dinner. We ended up going to Pizza Family and got a variety of pizzas which we took back to my apt. to eat outside on my patio...in the dark...ha! Fortunately on Saturday night they left early enough and did not miss the train so they had no problems getting back to their hotel.

So onto Sunday...they came later in the morning to my apartment and we went to Porta Portese in Trastevere...the largest open air market in Rome. They were overwhelmed at the sheer size of it...it really does feel like it could go on forever! They were able to find some nice items for gifts and for some reason they were more willing to barter that day than before. We walked around for over an hour before getting lunch and heading into the center. We decided to do a Catacomb tour at the Callisto catacombs (with the same tour company from the day before). We had another really good tour guide and she took us to Circo Massimo and the Mouth of Truth (or at least the church it is a part of) before we went to Via Appia.

The catacombs were extremely interesting and different in many ways than what I thought. For one they were not secret- the Roman soldiers knew about them and would allow burials and visits but not services with communion; which was considered illegal. I always thought (and was taught) that they were secret which would make it seem more impressive but slightly unrealistic. For example Callisto catacombs are the 2nd biggest in Rome- there are 4 levels at 12 miles long! Now something that large would be difficult to keep a secret! They only have parts of the first 2 levels open to the public. Overall they were very impressive and we only saw a small fraction of the entire complex.

At the end of our guided tour we went to another church and saw 'Peter's chains' and Michelangelo's Moses sculpture...pretty cool! Afterwards we headed back towards my school and found a place to eat a cheap meal :) Then we walked to the metro station and said goodbye for another 4 weeks! I was really glad that they were able to come and it is actually quite surreal that they were even here! And I am sure that they would love to add their own stories to their experience in Rome as well as Venice and Florence...they definitely had a busy week!

Their flight left this morning at 10 and I am actually talking to Lisa now on Skype, who is talking to them on the phone as they are driving home from the airport! Crazy how that can work! So they have landed safely back in Philly and should be home home shortly!

The End...