Well. So, I just finished taking my first two midterms, and I must say, it sure doesn’t seem to be as bad as I thought. I wrote one of my 3 papers already (10 pages, baybee!), and it just so happened that the topic I chose to write about was one of the three choices for essay topics on my exam… so I just totally rocked the Art History one. I got a 75% on my Italian final, but since the high was a 75%, I’m not too worried.

Anyhow. Due to the recent terrorist attacks in Spain, the program is highly recommending that we NOT go to Spain on any breaks. Not that I was planning on it, but anyway. So, this weekend I’m staying home and officially finishing my other two papers, thus leaving me with plenty of time to travel to Belgium the last weekend in March, Greece over spring break (on a BOAT! My friends and I are chartering a BOAT that is gonna take us Island hopping in GREECE!!! How cool is THAT?), possibly France the weekend after that to visit Jenny, and then potentially Scotland the weekend after that to visit Lisa.

Cool, eh? I like this whole traveling thing. When I get back to the states I want to go see New York. And I definately want to make a visit up to Colorado sometime to go skiing. The urge to travel has been awoken (sp?).

So, as you all can see, life has settled down mostly over here. We’re still in Europe, and I still think almost every day how amazingly cool it is that I can walk by the neighborhood pizza shop, wave “hi” to Niccola and Antonio (and Mama, who also works there. They’re brothers… and boy do they make good pizza… they’re Napolitan), then see the bartender on the corner walk by, say hi, exchange a few words about last night’s Lazio game (I’m a big Roma fan myself… but I’m still civil to Lazio fans. They aren’t bad people, just fascists). I don’t really know… its just fantastic over here. I miss you all, but I wouldn’t give this up for the world. Small things you don’t even consider… I mean, I have a membership card to my local grocery store! (leave it to me, right?) Everyone is welcome to check out my written journal/scrapbook when I get home- aside from the past couple weeks, I’ve been extremely diligent about it.

So. I’m definately getting over that homesick phase I was in 2 weeks ago, and I positively love being here. The culture, the people (I look at tourists in disgust now), the food (which, by the way, is usually about as good as the “pretty good” places back home… its not so much that it is ALWAYS better here, its just that it is very easy to find good food here. And cheese is better here. Beer is awful here… like a cross between Budweiser and horse piss. But food, with the exception that it becomes somewhat monotone somewhat quickly, is most definately better here for the most part).

Alright everyone, I’m off to solidify some travel plans. Ciao from Roma!
-Zac

Well for the last several days I’ve been really bad both about this journal and my written one, but here goes.

We’ve really started to get integrated with the neighborhood. Two days ago, when my roommate and I were walking around to go see the sights and such, we saw our neighborhood bartender and owner, so we said hi, talked to him for a little about the game of calcio (soccer) that we were going to that night, (he got jealous- he’s a Lazio fan and we were going to the Milan-Lazio game. Lazio lost 1-0. Though part of me says “yay” because I’m a Roma fan, its also bad because currently Milan is beating Roma, the #1 and #2 teams respectively in Italy right now… so a Lazio win would have been good). Anyhow, then we went in and chatted it up with our neighborhood Pizza guy, Niccola, and waved to his brother Antonio in the back room making the pizzas, and said hi to Mama, who also works there.

So, we’ve been having an absolutely fantastic time. Unfortunately, our first round of papers and midterms are coming around, which is a shame because our papers have to have physical citations from the libraries…. and libraries in Italy are no fun. Like every other institution of Italian beaurocracy, every book must be requested in triplicate to a librarian, who then takes 45 minutes on average to bring it to you. We’ll see how that goes… maybe CMU is so amazing that I can get electronically stored copies of real journals online.

Life has been settling down a bit. I still go all over the place, but much of it is with my High Renaissance Art class (we went through the Musei Vaticani and the Sisteine on Tuesday). Rome is absolutely incredible- there is just so much to do, so much to see. So many crazy people, actually… I’ve never seen so many crazy people. And they speak Italian, though that doesn’t really affect how well you understand them.

I, of course, miss certain things about home. Burgers being one of them. Mmmmm do I ever miss burgers. Oh man. Pasta only gets you so far (and I never thought I’d say that).

Ciao!
Zac

Things are really starting to get normal around here… I’ve been trying to take pictures of a normal day in the life of Zac in Italy… I’ll put up the pictures for you all so that you can see them. Anyhow, I’m starting to write my papers and take my exams, which are going to be really difficult and annoying. It’s ok though, because I’m actually not being a procrastinator like usual, and I’m getting them out of the way early.

Ciao.. I hate this keyboard.
Zac