CIAO BELLA

Arrival in Rome was a long, long journey! On Monday, May 23, 2011, my mother and I set out from Albany to Philadelphia due to my plane reservation at 6:15 PM at Philadelphia International Airport! Leaving at 8 AM, we did not end up in Philadelphia until 1 PM, ending my journey with a wonderful omelet/hash browns/fruit brunch at Haimey's, a Jewish deli only two blocks from my campus! After eating the best brunch of my life, I picked up my friend Peter and my mom dropped us off at Philadelphia International Airport, ready to begin our journey.
Walking into the Airport, our first stop was the baggage check. In all my experiences, the baggage check is the quickest stop in the airport when compared to the security stop. When we walked into the baggage line, there was a large group of young teenagers who seemed very confused. When Peter and I got into the line, we were greeted by an older man who told us that he was a teacher, originally from a suburb in Philadelphia, who decided to take his teaching degree to Poland. As per special request this year, he was allowed to take his students in Poland over to his hometown in the US where each student stayed with a different American family for two weeks. He was one of the nicest and talkative men I have ever met! We ended up talking and waiting in line for over an hour, until finally we got to the front and realized that, since we had checked-in online, we DID NOT even have to wait in that line because there was a special "speedy" check-in line. awesome. To make matters even worse, the scales were off and both of us were told that we were at least 6 pounds over, so Peter and I stood at the front of the line shoving jeans, shirts, and anything that we could possibly fit into our carry-on bags. Finally, our bags were the appropriate weight and they were successfully checked, on their way to Rome.
The security stop was another struggle, still being flustered from the initial rotating of clothes from luggage to carry-on's. As you probably already know, many of the guidelines for the security at airports is to take off shoes, sweatshirts, jewelry, etc. Well, still being preoccupied by the fact that there was no way my bag was over weight, I threw my backpack and over-stuffed purse onto two separate boxes to be scanned through the security x-ray and tried to walk through the metal detector-complete fail. The security guard yelled at me not once but three times- first for my sweatshirt, second for my shoes, and third for my watch. After successfully making it through the security check, I threw my bags down at our terminal (that was luckily right next to the security check) and began to fold my clothes in the middle of the terminal, catching the stares of all people passing by. But what did I care? I was going to Rome.
Not much happened in between the fiasco of checking-in and arriving in Rome, other than that we flew from Philadelphia to Heathrow (London) Airport and got in around 7 AM, where we sat and had tea and breakfast until our flight at 9:10 AM from Heathrow to Rome. We ended up arriving in Rome around 12:40 PM, just in time to catch our shuttle provided by AUR to our on-campus housing!
Getting in a shuttle car with an Italian driver is an experience, to say the least. Six of us packed into a van with all of our luggage and set out on our journey to different apartments located around Rome. As we drove around, the driver would nearly hit and clip every car that was near it or pedestrian that was walking across a cross-walk (apparently in Rome, cross-walks and "rights-of-way" mean nothing).
Arriving at my apartment, me and another girl, Alli, hopped out of the van and was greeted by an Italian girl, Valencia, who showed us the apartment, went through the guidelines and then introduced us to our roommates (4 of which go to Towson and know each other, and my direct roommate goes to Montana State). All of the girls are so great, we get along very well. One would expect that they would stay with the people that they know, especially since two are roommates at Towson, but that is not the case! They are all great. That day, we went to a cafe close to our apartment and all got pasta and pizza, muy deliciosa! After, we came home and napped for a few hours, then went exploring and found ruins right in the middle of a busy section of Rome. It's wild to think that Italians can wake up and on their casual walk to work or campus or wherever, they can see those thousands of year old ruins. We ended up eating dinner around 9:30 PM (very late compared to my 6 PM dinner back in the US), where we all munched on more pasta (gnocchi, fettucini, etc.) and had one of the longest dinners i've ever been at, lasting until midnight!
We all had varying orientation times, but my roommate had hers first at 9:30 AM. Feeling her waryness about going to campus by herself, I agreed to venture to campus with her and just explore until my 2 PM orientation. Boarding onto the first tram, we figured we could get by without directions- we were so wrong. We ended up attempting to ask for the bus that we needed, getting nowhere, and eventually finding two American's who helped us find where we needed to be. But, we ended up getting on the wrong bus and ending up at the Collosseum, about 30 minutes away from AUR's campus. But how could we complain?! When do you ever get lost and end up at the Colloseum? It was beautiful and one of the most interesting sites of architecture I have ever seen before. We marveled at the arches and how large the structure was in person. We probably walked a good 6 miles attempting to find our bus stop, ultimately failing and getting a taxi cab to our campus (left for campus: 8:30 AM; arrived at campus: 10:40 AM). Orientation was like any normal orientation would be, with safety precautions, guidelines, etc. After orientation we explored campus for a little and found a park directly across from it, with large fountains and caves that were freezing when we began to descend into the dark! It was so cool! We all made our way home and ended up getting lunch at a pizza place right below our apartment called "Pizza BAMMO" , where I nomm'ed on a pesto and zucchini pizza, delicious! Returning home, we all fell asleep once again, then woke up and decided that we felt like just exploring again! We traveled down a side-street near our apartment, found a large gathering area filled with people of all nationalities, many many restaurants, and just tons of fun! We ended up eating at a restaurant where we all, once again, got pasta and had 2 bottles of wine-Red and Pinot Grigio. I officially love Rome!

pre-Roman experiences...waaah

At the beginning of the school year, both myself and one of my great friends at school decided that we would travel to another country after going through the grueling MCAT study process for basically an entire school year. When the time came to make a decision on which location, Rome was an obvious conclusion with our background in the Italian language and the beautiful architecture, people and places that revolve and make the country one of the most visited tourist spots in the world.
May 21, 2011 was D-DAY, the day that all my studying would be displayed and put to use by completing the Medical College Admission Test. Many people celebrate the end of an MCAT test by partying, going out to dinner, basically anything that is unrelated to school and especially biology, chemistry or physics; I on the other hand, after spending the entire 4 hours and 45 minutes to ween through each detail of every problem, went home and literally slept almost an entire day. When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was still mentally and physically drained, making me dread fully unpacking all of my clothes from school, sorting through each item, and then deeming which items were necessary and unnecessary. After 4 hours of packing, weighing, unpacking, etc. I finally had all of my items packed and ready to go. Next stop Rome?

New Aspirations

I don't want to be a doctor anymore. If you fast forward to 2:56, you'll see my new life goal: to be one of the four background singers who gets to dress in knee-length sweaters, leg warmers and live life in blacklight... wish me luck.

What If....

If I ever somehow ended up in this situation, I would act just like that guy in the green shirt. I would open the door, expecting to see exactly what I thought I had seen prior to walking into the porta potty, and then walk into something that I could not remember. The guy acts confused at first, and then, when the entire meeting turns around and gives him bad looks, he tries to apologize. Now, I would not duplicate what he does next, with trying to walk back into the porta potty to find a way out, because at this point I would start tweaking out and trying to remember where I was before I walked in to go to the bathroom: was it a park? A baseball field? And then I would second guess everything about that day: what did I eat for breakfast? Was it pancakes? Eggs? CEREAL??? After stopping at 7-Eleven to refuel my mind and soul with a blue slurpee, I'd redirect my thoughts back to this situation of confusion and a potentially large incoming brain-freeze to determine that I knew exactly what was happening: my mind was being incepted. Leo was trying to hack into my dreams, find out how I kept getting A's on my weak physics lab reports, and finally crack the secret of the megabus system.

All I can say is: keep trying Leo....

What the Fuck Discovery Channel

Potentially the Weirdest Thing I Have Ever Seen

for your own sake, do not watch this whole thing.

Can You Be a Boy Scout Forever?

Dazed and confused after a long night in New York City, I was waiting on the corner of 30th and Market after successfully stowing away in a Megabus back to Philadephia. As I was waiting for my ride, I heard hundreds...no, thousands of footsteps coming from where my peripheral vision was unable to see and I was too weak to turn around. The footsteps crept closer and closer, and before I knew it I was being trampled by the biggest wolfpack of boy scouts I had ever seen in my entire 19 years of existence. Back in the day my brother was a boy scout and I was a girl scout, so I knew a few things about these little groups, but this one was unlike anything my eyes had ever seen: dressed in the khaki pants, green button down shirt, tan scarf with overstuffed backpacks (most likely full of 45 extra pairs of socks for their "epic" adventures) and hiker boots. But their attire was not what struck me as strange, the age-range of this wolfpack was what hit me hard; I saw little boys appearing to be, at the youngest, 6 years old, and then I saw men who appeared to be at least 20 years old. What? What new badges can you possibly get after being a boyscout for 10 years? Isn't there a cut-off? When did it become okay to be an over-achiever when it comes to building a tent and steering clear of poison ivy?

"On my honour I promise to do my duty to God and to obey the scout law." i guess the boy scouts mean business...

New Jam

One of the newest additions to my iTunes library-Enjoy.

How to Beat the Megabus System: One Worker at a Time

For all of you that didn't know how I spent this past weekend, I'll give you a hint: concrete, floods of tourists and Al Roker. If you didn't guess it already, I traveled to the Big Apple to camp out and become best friends with the one and only JMay (or for you that don't know him personally, you may know him as John Mayer?) After deciding to embark on this trip, I looked at all of the different possibilities of transportation to and from New York and Philadelphia. Attempting to find the cheapest route possible due to a summer net income of $0.00, I weighed the options of an Amtrak train, $100 round-trip, driving and finding a parking spot, at least $75 round trip, or a Megabus for $16.50 round-trip-it was clear who the winner was. Megabus had impressed the shit out of me- not only was their price less than a 24 pack of natty light, but there was even cushioned seats and WiFi, what's better than that?

Prior to getting on the bus, the Megabus process is that you show them your reservation number and you are pretty much free to get on the bus going to your designated destination. Getting on in Philadelphia and going to New York City was a slice of cake, and 10 hours later it was time to do it all over again, this time from the city back to Philadelphia. Now, while making this reservation, we believed that JMay would be playing until at least 10-10:30 on the Today Show, leaving us ample time to get back to Penn Station by 11:45 to catch the bus. Little to our knowledge, JMay only played four songs and was done by 9:45, leaving us with 2 hours to kill on zero hours of sleep; it would have been an understatement to say that we would have done anything to get home earlier. Arriving at Penn Station around 10:15, we approached a random Megabus employee and asked him if we could just get on the bus coming at 10:45. He sternly replied "NO. You must pay $5 extra, that is if there is even a spot open." Alright buddy.

Two girls. 27 Hours of No Sleep. There was no other option but to sneak onto that 10:45 bus.

Thus, our plan of beating the Megabus system commenced. We strategically placed ourselves in the line for the 10:45 bus to Philadelphia so that we were not the first passengers or the last, perfectly in the middle. Then, instead of showing the Megabus employee (who I will refer to as Mr. Megabus) the reservation number on a printed-out sheet, we showed him the reservation number on my blackberry, conveniently hiding the time of our scheduled departure of 11:45. As Mr. Megabus went through the line, he checked our reservation number, wrote it down, then moved further down the line; Allie and I thought we were in the clear, beginning to mentally prepare ourselves to actually sit in real seats and not on concrete sidewalks. Then, we saw Mr. Megabus head to the start of the line again, telling everyone that they had to show their reservation numbers again because there was an "impostor trying to pull a quick one". With our hands starting to shake and butterflies building up in our stomachs, we thought he would catch us this time, which would then be followed by a severe beating (he looked like the type of Mr. Megabus who throws down). So, going through the line again, we tried the same scheme of only showing the reservation number; to our surprise, he checked us off and continued on down the line.

After a few minutes had passed, we heard the call for everyone to start boarding the bus. Allie and I began to make our glorious walk to the side door of the bus, head's held high. As we passed by Mr. Megabus, the man in front of us asked "So, did you catch the guy who was trying to sneak on?" To that question, Mr. Megabus' response was "Oh, I caught him. I always catch 'em." Even though we most likely kicked a couple off of the bus that they had originally scheduled themselves for, we hopped into our seats and passed out, guilt-free and happy to be sitting in our $16.50 Megabus.

And to Mr. Megabus himself- fuck the system.

to stoop or not to stoop?

Hey Arnold! was one of my top five cartoons when I was younger next to Doug, Rocko's Modern Life, The Angry Beavers and Rugrats; all had the qualities that kept me glued to the TV in my babysitters living room, incorporating simple jokes and a load of

adventurous shit that I always wished I could do. Tommy Pickles always had some shit up his sleeve, Spunky was an idiot dog who had crazy eyes, Skeeter honk-honk'ed after every phrase and Norb played the french horn in his spare time, what's there not to like? But, compared to all those enticing qualities, Stoop Kid was the epitome of a cartoon character; he was a dick who refused to let anyone look at, step on or go on his stoop.

Coming home from class today, I realized I had no food in my cupboard. By no food, I don't mean that there was nothing I felt like eating; there was actually nothing there, completely bare. So, I instantly thought to go to Kimmy's down the street, chat with the legend herself, and possibly get a $5 steal of a sub, chips & soda. Looking around as I was roaming the streets of Philadelphia, I saw a kid, most likely 20, sitting on his stoop, drinking a keystone, just enjoying the view. He was the king of his stoop, with his feet up on a coffee turned pong table and damn it, I was jealous.

With Stoop Kid's mindset and the kid near Kimmy's real life engrained in my head, I have

made it a priority to one day (preferably my senior year in college) have a stoop. With a stoop, anything is possible: grilling, lounge chairs, jam sessions... all the essentials. Researching the real estate around the Philadelphia region, I found some pretty respectable stoops, but damn are they expensive, ranging anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 a month. The ones that I could afford are either no where near my school or in the worst neighborhood in Philadelphia, but hey, who says you still can't get a little barbecue/pre-game action going?

With not enough cash, will or bravery, I don't think I will be moving on to a beloved stoop anytime in the near future. So, for all you that have a stoop around school, be prepared: I'm adopting it.

here's a little pittsburgh sound brought to you by the one & only Wiz Khalifa. Enjoy the weekend!