tutto okay??

ciao regazzi, allora, sono molto stanca perche ieri sera non ho dormato mai. Ho preso una pill da la mia amica sta mattina, ma, io CHOKED on it cause I can't swallow pills. omg. ayuta!

Tengo sickness. arrabbiatta means angry and you can order angry pasta and it is maddd good.

I am currently procrastinating for my sociology final.

these photos are from our class trip (that the "other" Julia came on) to an old fortress which has been turned into a community center. People started squatting here and the government eventually gave them the space. They pay bills by hosting small concerts. THe walls inside are all covered in graffitti, and not the crappy ti amo claudia or merda lazio you see everywhere in Rome. Most of the artists are actually come from affluent families and use the space as a simple medium for their art. THe lady in the first picture is making a catalogue of the art on the walls here. It is all temporary, you pay a certain amount of money to tag a wall and it stays up for a few months or more.

baby will is gettin cuter

i found some videos

celebrating. i love pizza

sir thomas gobbler!!! Bob and I made this turkey all by ourselves. He is stuffed with butter and herbs. and paprika. and his legs are tied together with tin foil! <3<3

We did some performanc art in the piazza del popolo for class- Our sign says free haircut! in acutal roman slang its phrased taglio di capelli a gratise. THe sign on the back of the chair had that phrase on it. Lots of people inquired and took photos. It

was a success, I think.

this video makes me chuckle

gimme that bike

Hello there! The time is currently 6:55 pm I am sitting in my kitchen eating nutella and listening to the thunderstorm outside. The rainy season is officially upon us. I can't attempt to document everything that has happened this past month- although you could probably get a pretty accurate idea of my life if you imagined me eating a proscutto and formaggio sandwich and playing guitar in a piazza somewhere. I started babysitting for Veronica, who has a three month old son named Will. She lives in Vittorio Emanuele, the "chinatown" district of Rome, where the most popular flavor of gelato in the most famous gelato parlor is.....RICE!! This I know because my sociology professor asked the owner when we went to visit said gelato parlor. And then when the chinese girl in our class couldn't finish her gelato he told her she should have gotten the rice flavor. Also, in class, he likes to call her the Chinese representative. October 24th- We went to Paris and saw Animal Collective. The show was amazing! I should be able to put some photos up from it. After Paris we went to Amsterdam, and got a free tour, saw Anne Frankes house, visited a few coffee shops. While in one coffee shop a lady walked in and tossed a joint to a dog, who ate it promptly. HA HA! but then she told me that the joint was not a joint, but a bone. Called a joint. I still think she fed the dog drugs. I am going to try and remember things that have made an impression on me: Babysitting and being around Veronica and Valerio has made me realize I don't want to get married or have babies until my ovaries are ready to call it quits. I love to paint. I love color. I love mixing color and slapping it down on my page with a brush that is full to its bristles with wet, shiney, sloppy pigment. None of the sights here can beat the view on top of the Villa Borghese. Especially when I am there with my friends, a sunset, and a guitar. I have never in my life been so exposed to art. There is too much I want to say and none of it I can really articulate. Maybe I'll write a long entry later. Amsterdam is eerily quiet. I don't think I want to smoke weed ever again. Okay now for more stories. Last weekend I went to this hipster Italian club called Fish n' Chips with some friends from class. It was excellente. They played every type of music from Arcade fire to Madonna to The Arctic Monkeys and we danced and it was GREAT! one of the best nights out i've had here. Thursday Andrew got sick so I got to play mom. We went to get some fresh air and rode the subway to New Jersey. No it wasn't really, but it could have been. We found a park and some bananas and had a nice nap though. I'll let the pictures explain the rest.

















this is from white night, I described it in an earlier post

Trevi Founatin, crowd to see the Pope,The Vatican, the Pantheon, where Julius Ceasar was killed, the Forum, the Coloseum

the rijk museum, canals, pastries of amsterdam

Piazza del Popolo, the view at the top is the one I mention in the blog

These 5 are from the Marino wine festival. It was a medieval town, people dressed in costume like these little kids marched through the streets in a big parade, and the fountain poured wine.

me and my boyfriend Will

In Paris with Guilluame

With two roomates ourside the Vatican
we were the only people in the bar this night, they let us put on their burger king hats and took a photo of us behind the bar.

deuce juice

well, today we went to the beach. this is me on the subway...where a man came over and started jammin on his violin with us.

ciao bella

Hello again! So many things have happened in the past week, so please pardon the length of this entry as I paint you a beautiful picture...

Of most significance was Notte Bianca, which happened last Saturday. We started out by going to the zoo, where I saw some monkeys...blah blah some elephants... Meanwhile I am drinking wine out of a giant juice box. For a euro. We went to the piazza navona which is just a place of shops and art and things, but that night they had "assault poetry", which is where poets in black carrying umbrellas and long hollow tubes walk around stealthily and grab people from the audience and talk into their ears via long scary tube. They got my roomate Jenn, and Andrew, and said some creepy things, most of which was in Italian or French. But it was a sight to see! The night picked up later as the stragglers of our group went to bed, and four of us were left to brave the crowd. We went to the coloseum, and here there was this crazy show of people singing opera and playing instruments whilst suspended by a crane. They were wearing scary colonial/devil costumes, which im sure the Pope would disapprove of, but luckily he was asleep!

The night was incredible; to see a million people out in the streets and to be able to walk anywhere and be entertained by the sights and sounds, and monkeys, was quite unique. The highlight of the night was talking to the gypsies (or street vendors). They come up to you and start trying to sell you roses, or crappy bracelets that they make while you hold out your thumb and they ask "so, you have boyfriend?" So as one of these gypsies approaches me I turned the tables on him, and I whip out a peice of string and attach it to his thumb and started berating him with questions. So you have boyfriend? Where you from? He thought this was hilarious. And then he tried to sell me the shoes off his feet for 16 euros.

We got home at around 5:30 am, with enough time to get a few hours sleep before our trip to Todi.

Todi was a great day, they fed us courses from a "wedding menu". It was a religious experience!! I think there was 8 courses, including boar and venicen, as well as tiramisu for dessert and sweet wine with biscotti. We had appetizers of proscutto and cheesecake, then rissoto...oh man. I was in heaven. They also gave us wine that was made locally and didn't have any preservatives, but it was really strong!

My classes are wonderful so far, I just signed up for an art history class that my friend Andrew is in, called museums and galleries. Its kind of intimidating having no background in art history, but the teacher is good and we go out into the city every Thursday to observe studios and galleries as a class.

So most of the stereotypes I've heard about Italians are proving to be correct. Nobody here follows and sort of order; the vespas will run you over if you make eye contact with the cigarette smoking- cell phone weilding driver. The people are beautiful and usually friendly to Americans, which is refreshing. They all smoke and nobody knows how to stand in a line.

I've made some great friends and I'm starting to feel more at home here. Thinking of going to the beach this weekend! And Kurdistan in the near future. But more on that later...

I need to put captions up somehow but these are photos I have photos from white night and todi. You can see the assault poetry, my friend Andrew, the view of Piazza del Popolo with the crowd, and all the shots of Todi.

Take care everyone
love
julia

First Impressions

I have arrived! It is beeauutiful

When I first got off the plane I met two kids who I shared a shuttle with to our residence, Magdelie d'Oro, which is literally 4 blocks from the Vatican. In the car, a girl named Lindsay who can only be described as "so philly" started talking loudly to our driver and asking him if there is any opera in Rome because she loooooves Opera! And he replied, "huh?", to which she said, you know, opera...uhhh uh, Luh-Opera...and then he siad OHHH YESS L'OPERA!! It was comical. (but maybe you had to be there)

The first night I went out with a group of people to the Spanish steps, the teenage hang out spot of Rome. Loads of kids in school groups were there singing and drinking wine, and it was great. Everybody was shouting and I met some interesting folk in the program, one who I had a class with before and a girl from Penn who I had actually seen perform at an a capella show a year ago. Later when I got back I met my roomate Jenn, and she totally rocks! She goes to Haverford (and yes she knows Lauren).

So things of significance so far, I live right next to an open air market which is open from 8-2 every day. I can't wait to learn some Italian so I can communicate and buy groceries! Tomorrow one of the teachers is giving a cooking lesson. I tried pizza with anchovies, and I nearly died. The food is just incredible and you can't walk 20 feet without seeing a gelato stand.

Today I bought a bus pas for the month of September which was 30 euros, and it gives unlimited bus and metro access. So with this I plan on going out into the hill towns and the beaches. Also coming up is the "White Night", which is an expression that means you pulled an all nighter. Basically all of Rome stays up and everything is open; the shops, museums, restaurants, and all the transportation is free. They do this in other European cities too but I had never heard of it. Usually everything here closes pretty early, and its been surprisingly quiet. Most Romans vacation for the month of August so perhaps it will get louder soon!

Anyways, please allow me to describe my delicious slice of pizza
1. anchovies
2. cheese
3. olives
4. mushrooms
5. fresh tomatoes

ohh it was good! and the people here couldnt be friendlier! One fat man in the pizza shop told us that he was pregnant! haha

ciao mi amores!

love,
Julia

Mont Tremblant and Montreal

I just got home from Canada, where I spent four days camping/coneing in Mont Tremblant and two days in Montreal at a surreal youth hostel. The canoeing was fantastic and I managed to navigate my English counterpart Gulia and myself down some rapids without flipping our canoe, although we came close.

Montreal is a beautiful and progressive city with friendly people. I wish I could have stayed longer. The hostel was very casual, it was difficult to leave because you had to find somebody to pay. It was set up as a regular apartment but with beds stuffed in every corner. At a bar I met two Quebecians who in broken English explained that Montreal, the art and culture haven of Canada, wasn't appreaciated enough by Americans or the rest of Canada. This is true!

Tomorrow I am off to Rome and as most of you could guess, I haven't packed.
Will hopefuly write from my apartment next! ciao

Let me explain the photos:

top left is a deer that asked me for an apple,

to the right is Julia my friend from England at the end of our two day canoe trip,

the view from one of our day hikes, the four of us in Montreal at the top of a park, and me in a canoe in the center of a giant lake.