Romah.romeoh.

FLORENCE AGAIN! better this time.

2005-12-16T15:47:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. School is done. and now i have stolen Karen's computer to do my blog updating like a nerdlinger. Keep in mind she took most of these fabulous photos. sooo. Last night I got this pasta dish with salmon and then ate a lot of gelato and then i spent the night puking those things up and rolling about uncomfortably. I feel a little better by this point but, I am glad that this is all happening now at least, because it kind of put a definite end to my desire to eat pasta and gelato for a while. pizza for the rest of the week and then im outta here. and i'll eat nana pasta eventually but i need some of gramper's buttermilk pancakes stat!!! These first few pictures are of me and Karen killing time in our bedroom, first being karen in our closet, second we foundsome nice headbands. The next couple of photos are of the piazza navona right by my house which has a christmas carnival set up in it right now. Carousel time!

So. Last Thursday we took a day trip to Florence, and it was great. We got there at about 9:30 am and walked around the open market. I got a pair of old Levi's and Karen got a fabulous new coat (as featured in these pictures). We then ate lunch and spent the afternoon at the Uffizi and the Academia. The Uffizi was magnificent! We spent most of our time there, there was a lot of really important artwork, including the Birth of Venus. Which is spectacular, all of Botticelli's work was. It is very good that we spent the afternoon in the museums because it was raining and very cold there, well colder than rome. There are plenty of photos of the city and all, and the final photo is of a kid we found playing his gameboy in a cheesy reindeer headband.

Dinner at our art history teacher's, and a visit from Laura.

2005-12-16T15:08:00.000-08:00

These first couple of pictures are from quite a while ago, a group of us waiting for the bus to go see a band on the outskirts of the city wall. The next couple are of karen and me dancing in the street for no apparent reason, it was when they first put up the christmas lights and we were pretty excited about it.

Okay on to the tales to tell: First our arthistory teacher invited us to his house for him to cook for us so he could impress us with his mighty culinary skills. mmmm. We took the train for about an hour to his small town north of Rome called Bracciano. First he took us to this castle that was full of lots of castley stuff. These are the first photos. The weather was amazing and there was a beautiful view from the top of the castle. There is a lake right next to the town and you could see plenty of lovely mountains and I could breathe! the air was amazing, but there was a heavy breeze as a storm was rolling in. After the castle we ran a few errands to get the bread, noodles, and chickens. I put up a photo of the tortellini making machine, it shot them out so fast, a lot faster than when my nana has to make them by hand. So by the time we got to his little apartment it was raining, so it was really wonderful to spend the rest of the day in his house feasting. We had sooo many courses, and each one was spectacular. And he has a wonderful 7 year old daughter that I ended up hanging out with quite a bit. She drew a picture of me, and then one of Karen (we kept them.) She also speaks Italian and english fluently and is learning a little chinese, but she also asked me how i felt about Hillary Duff.... Anyways the whole thing was a wonderful and we left full of wine and delicious Roman food.

After the photos from dinner is a picture of me with our pals Kim and Maria, gelato break. But then we have a zillion photos of Laura's visit! She has been in Paris for a few months and is spending a year there teaching english to french middleschoolers. So she was only here for a few nights but it was great. The first night she was here it was pouring, we went to see the Trevi Fountain and there was no one there! There are always a ton of people there taking their picture in front of it trying to impossibly crop all of the tourists out of it. But since it was pouring no one was there so we got these great photos of us front in center. Then Karen and Laura jumped in the puddles in front of these giant old columns, i stayed under the umbrella and took pictures. The next day we went to the colleseum and the forum (lots of old ruins), after that we went to St. Clemente, it was my third time but it was still fantastic. It is the church with three layers of history, Laura, (like mom), loooved it. After that we went to the cappucino place and I got a heart with an R in my cappucino. THAT is a big deal. I have a pal in this city and his name is Luigi and he makes the best cappucinos ever. We spent the rest of our time getting lost and finding new cool old stuff that we hadn't seen before, it was fun. Laura went to my art history class with us, and we got to go to this clock tower above piazza navona, it was soooo cool. It was really great having another fresh face around, even if it was just for a little bit.

Finishing up.

2005-12-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

Ahhh my classes are basically over. I had an arthistory test wednesday and now i;m just kind of working on taking it all in and moving it all out. Karen is busy working away like all of my other pals on their graphic design projects that are due on Wednesday. That is why i have not posted a blog recently, because first I was fretting about the test and finishing my projects and now Karen is stuck to her computer. Which reveals the secret to everyone that I always use Karen;s computer and her photos, because she is sooo nice and lets me. and all of those really amazing pictures, she took them. So thaaankyou Karen.

Since I last updated a lot has happened and there are plenty of pictures, including Laura visiting from Paris, and a day trip to Florence. But I don;t have good pictures, because i dont take good pictures, like i said Karen. So I thought that I could scan in some of my drawings from my notebooks, and a few other random pictures. And then this darn blog can just be out of order and I;ll update the other stuff later and I wont have to do it all at once and be whiney about it. So this collection pictures consists of: First drawings from my notebooks, and the books I;ve been making, plus me in studio. Next there are a couple pictures of the bookstands that i am so addicted to i have been making the notebooks out of, and a picture of a hillarious comic book i found. Then there are some pictures ofmy walk to school and some things I see, including my favorite daily graffiti's one drawn with crayon and the other with sharpie. Then the patch on my fabulous new but old levis from florence that fit perfectlyeee. And in closing some pictures of me and Karen sitting around making the same faces we always make.

CALL IT MOMTOWN. PART II.

2005-11-25T06:36:00.000-08:00

Mom went to Germany! And then she came back! And it was another fantastic weekend of seeing sights and eating eats. Friday we went to the ‘modern’ art museum with Amaryllis. It is in the Villa Borgheise (featured here a couple of weeks ago), so mom got to see that. And the modern art museum wasn’t thaaat modern but we got to see a vangogh and monet, so that was cool. We kind of just walked a lot all weekend and went to lots more churches and took the bus… ooo the bus. First picture: mom waits at busstop and eats sausage. Second picture: mom reads ironic book in church yard. We had to wait about an hour for the church to open so we sat in their lovely lovely courtyard. That evening we went out to eat with Karen and ate lots and lots of delicious food. Mmmm. The next day we went to Sperlonga which is a little town on the coast that is an hour train ride and then a 20 minute busride. We went on Sunday and the buses were only running out of there starting at four so we had this whole mixup and had to stay there for longer than we would have liked. My bad. But we walked around and ate and walked around and waited for the bus and tried to have a posse of 11 year old girls explain the bus schedule to us. There are more pictures of us with delicious food and then pictures of us and the sea.

I
t has gotten real cold here. I mean not iowa cold, but we need heat in our apartment cold. But unfortunately the heat has been broken, so this weekend it got really cold and we have had NO heat at all, then a couple of days ago they brought us two space heaters (for eight people) and you can only run one at a time without turning the power off. But finally today someone came and ‘fixed’ the heat, but when I left this afternoon the heat was working in the kitchen and living room but not in any of the bedrooms. And it has been agreed by everyone that our room is way colder than all of the others… so I reallyr eally hope they fix it. But after me and Karen dropped mom off at the airport (where we found this giant nutella jar that Karen posed with) we then went to this crazy store full of cheap old stuff and we got some more socks and some dorky hats. The last picture is what me and Karen have been sporting these days (outdoors and in bed), when we came to Europe it was HOT HOT HOT and we were backpacking for two weeks so we didn’t bring anything really… so these days we’ve been layering excessively and wearing weird clothes from the cheap crap store. We kind of look like clowns. The other day this guy heckled us in broken English: “HELLOOOO… Where are you from? Paradise?” The people of rome have been mocking us more these days… they can’t resist our hats.
Sooo… blablabla. Having mom here was the funnest part of being in this city because i got to show off my new found city skills and have somebody to hold my hand. I miss mom. I miss everybody. Its cold. Thanksgiving was alright we went to a pizza place and drank some wine, but I was just kind of sad. I look forward to a Christmas feast at least. I am finishing up projects and getting ready to come home. I am glad that I did most of my Christmas shopping when I first got here, because I just made mom bring it all home and now I can fill any empty space with food. Delicious food.

MAAAAAAMMAMMAMMAA'S HERE!!!!!!

2005-11-15T05:39:00.000-08:00

OKAY. HII. by the time i get pictures up I am always so sick of sitting in front of the computer that i dont really want to write about them. But... here goes... Mom is here! She got here thursday afternoon. Karen came with me and helped me get her at the trainstation. We dropped off her things and she went to our arthistory class. My teacher lectured for about thirty minutes and then we went on our walking tour to a few churches. We saw Michelangelo;s 'Moses', mom picked the perfect day to come, it was wonderful and our teacher explained every detail.
After art history we were soo hungry and it was only six. Italians like to eat at eightish so the restaurant we wanted to go to wasn;t even opened but we went to a cheap and delicious restaurant around the corner from our apartment. Mom and i split a really good salad and then the seafood pasta. I actually refused to eat that thing i am holding, but mom ate them all gladly.

The next morning we went to the Vatican museums. We got there twenty minutes before it opened and the line was still a block and a half long, but every minute that passed after we were there 20 more people would show up. These cute Japanese ladies got in a picture with us, it is on mom;s oldtimey real camera though, so you;ll have to wait to see it. This is a picture of mom in a hall of maps. The sistene chapel was wonderful and all of that. it wasn;t too crowded since we got there so early.

We went to lots of churches and then there are pictures from the capitoline museum from the next morning. Blablalbbla I am sick of writing all of this and uploading picturesbut the main idea of our weekend was that we walked sooo much and went to lots of churches and saw lots of really old stuff and ate lots of really really good food and drank a ton of cappuccinos...And now mom is at Heidi;s in Frankfurt Germany. I am sure she is having a great time but she has to come back to me thursday evening and then she will leave on monday.

That is Katie and her mom who was visiting this weekend too.

Sunday Karen walked around with us and we went to the park with the piazza Garibaldi and took lots of pictures with thigns with willy;s name on it. This is a picture of Karen and mom discussing the design of this cafe;s napkin design.

These are some of the dudes mom picked up this weekend.

and this is willy;s full name engraved on the side of a statue. I'm going to take a nap cause i;m sleeepy. and i;m going to go see a fabulous band play later with lots of my pals. I look forward to mama;s return, and dont want her to leave cause she is so wonderful to have around.

Sooooo.

HALLOWEEN. FLORENCE. MILAN. AND VENICE.

2005-11-09T14:28:00.000-08:00

So a week ago was Halloweeeeeen. and we did what we could. Everyone did a great job pulling together something with our little resources. and it seems like people in italy are trying to get into it. I drew skeleton bones on the front and back of my unitard with a sharpie. Karen was a monster, Av was quayleman from nickelodeon's Doug, Marnie was bottom of the barrel barbie, aaand so on.

So the next morning we left on a train at 8 am.... so we were alittle pooped. but we went to Florence which took a few hours. We were only in florence for about 4 hours. We went and saw Michelangelo's 'David' which was amazing. I didnt realize it was so big, which i guess is what everyone thinks. It was huge huge and his butt looked so rotund i couldn't not giggle. We couldn't get into the Uffizi which is where 'Birth of Venus' is so i was a little bummed. but we will hopefully be able to go back and go see stuff. Florence seemed quite neat but it was raining the whole time, so i would like to go back there. After Florence we took the train to Milan. My first picture is of Katie in front of a photo that is an amazing exhibit that was set up all along a street. It was all of these beatiful photos from all over the world. Katie went to India last summer so this is what I imagine it looked like when she was there.
This is a girl withmy name stitched across her butt in Milan. she was really weirded out a. that i wanted to take a picture of her butt, and b. that my name is mona
This is a fountain in Milan. Amaryllis, Katie and meee.We spent the night in Milan. and Wednesday we left in the middl eof the day for Venice. I have been really excited to see Venice since I was a kid because the cow in the window on PeeWee's playhouse showed him her photos fromm traveling and one of them was Venice. We made it in the evening, and this is a pic of me in the square then, and again in the morning. Next we have a photo of me and my posse modeling our posh sleeping arrangement with three small beds pushed into a super bed.

Then Katie chased some birds and we went to the Bienalle. An amazing contemporary artshow that was so refreshing and good. The Guerilla Girls were there. and there was a room full of these fantastic costumes. There were big parrot phones there too. After this show we had to haul booty to make it to the train. The last couple photos are of me having a fat head in venice, and of me hanging out with all these other mona's i found.

I am tired so imma go to bed. But mom is coming tommorow and i dont think that i could be more extatic and excited because i miss her so. I know what we will eat, i have that planned.ps. this is a big drawing of karen's head and my teeth... with karen.

A day at the Park followed by a night of watchin plank walkers.

2005-10-30T22:38:00.000-08:00

So this weekend we went to the Villa Borghese, which is a park in the middle of Rome. It was great, it was kind of a walk to get there, so once we got there we just hung out for a while. We ate some food, and were hanging out when Peter and Edward decided they were willing to pay the bucks to get one of the large bikes we had seen rolling around earlier. So they left and came back with a lovely 5 person flinstones style bike car thing. It was sooo fun. We were all working really hard to go fast on it and we kept getting passed by rollerbladers. Those rollerbladers are so darned fast... We kept going up this dirt hill and flying down it, I miss my bike. And it was the closest to being in a car that I have been in a long time.

After our bike excursion I proceeded to eat a lot more snacks while Grant and Karen entertained themselves on by jumping off of a stump.

By the time we left the park the sun was setting so we walked blindly through too many people to our homes where we took naps. A day at the park can be quite tiring. When I woke up I decided that I would try to come up with some sort of costume for the nights outting, andall i could come up with was a pirate. So I wore a skirt over the bottom ofthe unitard but I did walk around with an eyeliner eyepatch. Even when I dont have eyeliner eyepatches I think I am the only female in rome who doesn't get hit on, instead overly fashionable groups of boys say things and all laugh. But its cool. When I get home I'm gonna wear costumes everyday.

ASEESEE WHAT I DID IN ASSISI.

2005-10-30T12:27:00.001-08:00

HELLO ALL. There were some problems with the assisi pics last week but they have been recovered and now you can stare at the lovely mountain scape of St. Francis's church and all. Just what you've been waiting for, Karen and me doing the same poses we always do in front of everything. First pic: Look I found the cathedral of St. Francis! Right there! Second pic. standard group photo with Assisi in background. Third photo: Lets climb up a lot of steps and take a picture so everyone can see how hard it was and we can document how out of breath we always are because there are steps everywhere.
Then we made it to the top of the mountain slash hill, and here you have your standard battle pose on top of mountain with mountains in the background. Oh yea we walked up the stairs to go inside the castle and we got on top of the castle and it was a beautiful mountainy landscape. And it was nice and breezy atop the castle and I of course was sweating like crazy, and no one else was. So I am sure that everyone was glad that the castle was cooling the smelly kid off who kept complaining about how hot it was when it was actually nice and brisk. it was nice on top of the castle. so then we took some more pics like you have your Karen crushes other half of castle with her superstrength. And then I ate a gummi dinosaur on top of the mountain and Karen took a pretty picture of it. Katie, Karen and I were checking our circuits. Then Karen and I did waaaay to many fashion poses atop the castle, because like i said it was breezy so our hair was blowing. and i was feeling pretty because i finally wasn't sweating. So I put up a couple of our lovely poses, so pretty. After that we were walking to another lovely church when we met a nice oldman who was feeding the birds and we thought, hey birdflu, no we didnt think that so we took all of these pictures of us holding birds just to scare the crap out of everyone at home. no one is sick, and we have these great pictures of everyone holding dirty pigeons.

I thought we could close this blog with a grand series of a good highfive being born and raised on top of a castle.
We had a grand trip hanging out in fresh air, and then musty churches. And Karen and I went to a crypt and it wasn't as scary as we made it out to be and we freaked ourselves out because we were the only ones down there and it smelled like our basement and I dared Karen to go down this hallway and then we both got really scared even though everything was well lit. Oh crypts, thems so scary. Anyways Assisi was great, and it was nice to beoutside and out of the maddness of Rome and all of its too many people.

oh last week you.

2005-10-25T13:35:00.001-07:00

Sooo. i have a couple of pics to put up, but was hoping to put of pictures of our day trip to Assisi. Something is wrong with the pics, and I hope that soon I can figure out how to get them to work, because it was beautiful there and the air was fresh. it was good. So for now I have a few pics of our weeks foolery.

First of all I put up a picture of Karen in a leotard last week, so it is only fair for me to put up a picture of myself in one of my one euro unitards. its not as flattering as miss karen's photo, but she said this picture was the one that had to go up. It was a quiet afternoon, so i pumped up the jams in my unitard to get everyones beats pumpin.

Then later that day Edward, one of my roommates, decided it was time to turn his beard into a mustache. I just happened to already have made a mustache that was stuck on the wall next to my bed, so i threw on said mustache and put on bad hat and we posed this nice friendly mustache picture.

Then Karen and I had a couple of beers and did this grand series of slapface photos.

This is a pic of me and Karen in our hallway. and then a picture of Peter trying to explain to the guy who is trying to sell him a megaphone, that he already has a megaphone. These guys walk around selling all of this crap, and say "hello megaphone!" really loudly into the megaphones. it is hard to sleep sometimes.

As you can see from these photos when there is no tv we must rely on ourselves for entertainment, and then we sleep a lot because entertaining ourselves is hard. and i sleep a lot a lot and am sick. i have big tonsils and one of them is really big and actually the other one is really small and my nose is drippy and i am whining. and Karen has way too many pictures of me and her doing seriessss on her computer, because often we are bored. oh and i shouldmention that most of the good pics on this blog Karen took. she needs credit. SHE IS a good photo lady. Last night we went to see melt banana, japanesebubblecore is what the flyer described them as. it was loud and our ears hurtbut it was wonderful. and then we walked home and it took an hour. it was great though.

MOM is coming!!!! I am working hard on compiling a list of things i want her to bring, mostly peanutbutter and dr. bronners peppermint soap. oh soap and peanut butter how do i love thee. speaking of love, a certain dude named neal and i have been dating for two years today. thats so crazy. he is cool if you see him please give himj highfives for me.

blablabla last week our art history class went to the church of st. cecilia. and here is a pic of me and amaryllis in front of it. and then a pic of the frescos inside that look like mama's batiking. And finally this is an image we found from an old magazine that was at this really cool cafe we stopped at by the church. thanks for reading. cool.

Karen is a zoo.

2005-10-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

I have realized this blog is a series of photos of me and karen. mostly of karen doing embarassing things. and she asked "why dont you just title it "karens zoo." and so I have decided to run with the theme of karen being a zoo, because she does many hillarious things. Earlier this week she wrote a lengthy and clever poem about hotdogs, which she has dedicated to carissa.
This first photo I am putting up is of Karen modeling one of her new leotards. Friday evening we went to this crazy huge department store and found a whole room full of old leotards and leggings for a euro each. I will try to get more pictures of Karen in them. The next picture is of Karen with her basil plant that she is almost too attached to. The story goes the day karen took this picture she was going to hold the plant up in the air to take a picture and her arms swung too quickly and it flew out of the pot and onto the floor where a piece of the plant broke a little bit. She taped it back together. The day she got the basil plant she named it Lucky, thus dooming the rest of its life.

Saturday night we went out for sushi for Megans birthday, it was aawesome. and delicious, i'd never eaten the real thing and it was delicious. Then Sunday morning we went to the flea market which was a sight to be seen. It was AAAAAAAAAAwesome. totally awesome. and I got this necklace with a "b" on it, the other choice was a T. so the B stands for bootyshaker who likes bookmaker. Its pretty blingin, and was supercheap.

I'm gonna just put up some pictures of my little studio area. We have this store front and my area is right by the window. Its quite nice, and messy. And then a couple of photos of the studio from the front.
This is a pastel drawing I am working on. Find your face...and then the next is a self portrait doodle that I thought was pretty funny.
The next pic is a doodle of Av from this book I filled with drawings. This is a watercolor I did.
This is a photo of one of the many lovely and most delicious ever cappuccinos, they are from the place around the corner from studio. The place that also serves amaazing freshly sliced, pastrami sandwiches on flat bread. mmmm. The guy who makes the cappuccinos draws lovely flowers in the froth and he doesnt move from his coffee corner and has a big bushy mustache. I will work on getting a photo of him, his nose is oversized like his mustache and it looks like a groucho glasses without glasses.

In closing yesterday I caught these boys peeing outside in the middle of the street next to a school. They're parents were off chatting and I noticed them yanking their junks and giggling, and i looked at them as i passed and they looked up at me as if i was interupting something. Then as I walked off I snuck a glance and they were pulling down their drawers. The second picture is of their sort of victory dance for successfully peeing outside.

Another great weekend, this time with Heide and her cats!

2005-10-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

Ok so. Before we went on our big adventure this weekend I went to the police station on Wednesday to get fingerprinted and become officially unofficially living here. I waited with my friend Katie from 7 am to 11 am when we were finally freed. Anyways the point of this story is this is the drawing I had time to do. I just think its kind of funny, and allows one to grasp the boredom we were experiencing.

So now, this weekend Karen and I went to Germany to visit mom's quilting friend Heide who lives in Frankfurt. We had an absolutely wonderful time and had a blast being mommed for a while. Heide fed us, let us do laundry, fed us, fed us, it was great. So we left Thursday at 2 pm and arrived in Frankfurt at 6 am, (there was one stop in Milan). On our way to the train station we picked up some yarn and needles so I showed Karen how to knit. She is quite good. In the later pictures I am wearing a big orange blob on my neck, that it what I made on our way there.

So anyways, Heide was kind enough to pick us up at such an early time, then we all went home and slept for some more time. When Karen and I woke up Heide had set up a lovely breakfast for us. After our breakfast we walked around for the day to see all different parts of Frankfurt.

First we took the tram to the open market, where we ate lots of delicious free samples.
Then we walked for a bit and stopped for some AWESOME hot chocolate. We stopped at a bookstore, went to a nice park and then made our way to the gummibear shop. It was nice to see the city, it seems to be more at me and Karens pace than Rome. It is quieter, slower, and cleaner. and the boys were actually cute too, although they were just kind of all nealerific.

After our day of seeing it all we went back to Heide's and she started to make dinner and sent us off to a street by her house full of really neat little shops. There were some really nice ones, but we got caught up in this really neat vintage shop full of really neat stuff from the 60s and 70s. So when we got back Heide had made us delicious potato salad and bratwursts. mmm. It was soo good. and after that we got to watch tv. And even though it was Who wants to be a Millionaire, and I didnt understand it because it was in German it was fun. I miss tv. there I admited it. So anyways we just kept asking Heide what the questions were and then we didnt understand most of them and it was great. After that Karen and I built up the intellegence to watch Pimp my Ride. also great. After our brains rotting a little we went to sleep and woke up to another delicious Heide breakfast.

After breakfast Heide showed us how to make apple strudel. Then we ate it for lunch, it was soooo yummy, and about the size of a small animal. After our food we went to the farmer's market and looked around, and then went to the Modern Art Museum. It had some good art in it, but the building itself was the coolest part. After that we went got some applewine, which is something that people drink in Frankfurt. Which is something that is kinda gross, but it got good after a while.

After our applewine we went home and Heide made us delicious pumpkin soup. mmm. and then we did laundry....with a dryer. wow. The next day we went to see Heide's studio where she dyes fabric and quilts. It was beautiful like her apartment. Nice, simple, and cleaaaan. After that we went to the Museum full of lots of good German expressionists, lots of Max Beckmann. and we got a deal on coffee and cake with our ticket so that was delicious.... On our way there we had seen a poster for the movie Broken Flowers, and so when we were done at the movie we decided to go see it because they were showing it in english. We had an extra hour so we got a beer and then saw it. It was wonderful, and I ate too much popcorn. After this we went home and ate more pumpkin soup...still soo good.. and got on our train at 10:47 pm on Sunday. We had reserved beds, it was reallyfun to sleep on the train (there weren't any creeps in our room so we could sleep). We got back to Rome at 2:30 pm today and I went to class.

It is a mama's dishtowel sighting. IN CLOSING: if you actually made it through that then congrats cause its a mess. and i kind of put up too many pictures but... so what. blablabla. If I was that good at blogging I would have to makefun of myself even more.

Fun weekends are the best kind.

2005-10-04T21:24:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone. I have crushed under the blogging pressures of blogtownuniversity and am starting my own. just for my trip. because Webmail is driving me nuts and I would like to get my pictures up for all to see.

So I had a HUGE fun fun weekend. It was our Field trip to the south. We got on a train at 7 am and went to Naples where we got on a bus and went to a museum fullof amazing mosaics and big heads. After that we left naples and followed the coast down to another museum about an hour away. We got lunch at a delicious pizza joint with a woman who was just as little and sassy as my nana. The museum was located on this beautiful land and full of wonderful renisance artwork, I could have spent about 3 days there to see it all. It started to rain while me and Karen danced in the courtyard waiting for people.

We all loaded back on the bus and went to another town further south. Here we got to unload our belongings at our convent we were staying at for the night. (This is Karen and I fake Kungfuing outside.)The rooms were beautiful and set up like they were straight out of the Madeline books. Our window overlooked the Mediteranean sea with a view of all of the islands that run along the coast. It was gorgeous! After we cleaned up our whole group went out to dinner at a nice restaurant for kind of a pricey meal with a million courses like the Italians like to do. The meal was finished with the most delicious lemon cake, which the old waiter tried to feed me. it was weird. I dont have a problem with men hitting on me here except the occasional old waiter. blabla anyways. We left so full it was hard to get to sleep.

The next morning (saturday) we woke up to a delicious breakfast of good rolls and coffee from the very sweet nuns. I ate so many rolls because people kept daring me too, they were impressed by my roll intake, but they had honey. and i hadn't had honey for a while. So i got good and fueled up for our trip to Pompei. We took a 30 minute train ride there and went in. We were there from about 10:30 to 4pm and we only saw a small part. I took so many pictures of the mosaics and frescos. I could not believe how vibrant all of the colors are after so many years. And it is all so well designed, and elaborate. I had a wonderful time there. I was being the annoying kid who kept making everyoone stop everywhere so I could oo and ah and all of it. We left Pompei and took the train back to Naples, this is when the teachers and some of the students went home and the field trip part of it was officially over.

So earlier this week my friends told me that they had decided to go to Capri from Naples once the field trip was over. I decided to tag along because they had found a hotel for 35 euro for a night. It turns out that about 20 students were going also. Look up Capri in your atlas its a tiny little island that is kind of a tourist trap. But I kindo f love some of the touristy things here, and I loved it there. We took a big ferry that took 80 minutes to get to there from Naples.
We took lots of pictures because our hair was blowing and the sun was setting so they were overly dramatic. One is of my travel buddies, and the other is of me licking out the bottom of a Nutella wrapper.

When we got to Capri we called our hotel to see how we should get there because our hotel was actually in Anacapri which is the opposite side of the island. So the woman working tells us to take the bus that would be there in a minute and sure enough we all hopped on the bus and 20 minutes later were in Anacapri. The streets were so narrow and windy some people were getting a little sick, and you would look over the cliff and there was the sea that the bus could easily roll into. But anyways we followed the signs that said "villa eva", our hotel. We finally made it and were greeted by the sweetest woman. The hotel was Beautifully decorated, and was surrounded by a huge garden and lots of lovely porches. We asked her of a place to eat and she told us of a place, which she called and made a reservation for us. So then we went and had another elaborate meal of the most delicious food I have had yet. They also had amazing house wine, the white wine was my favorite. Food food food. i love food. Here we are with the food.

The next day we woke up to another delicous free breakfast with crossaints, chocolate cakes (mmm), cereal, orange juice, salami, and capuccinos. After that we decided to check out the pool which we layed by for a while. I got in, it was pretty cold, so some people didn't want to. But my friend Megan tried to teach me some synchronized swimming routines from her highschool days as a shark. It was fun and the weather was perfect for it. After our pool time a group of us walked down the long and windy road to the bottom of the mountain, which took about 30 minutes. We went to see the blue cave which some kids from another group had seen earlier that day and said was really cool. This cave has a small opening and a white sand bottom, so the sun hits the water in such a way that it glows a neon blue. So you pay to have a guy row you into the cave and the bring you around inside for a little bit and then you go "wow' and then you go home. We noticed that this couple had gotten in the water, so we asked our rowerguy and he said it was ok. So we all jumped in and jumped right back int he boat, it was kind of scary being in somethingthat is that glowy. After the cave we went to a cliff and jumped off right into the sea. Everyone else went before me and I finally got the nerve and just did it. Karen took some great pictures of everyone making their leaps.

We took a bus back up the mountain and cleaned up and went to dinner. We were all quite pooped and quite tired of spending money so we were in search of a cheap place. Well all of the cheap places were kind of shady, so we decided to go to this cute little restaurant which was just a little more in cost. They had a nice porch with a wooden moon on the wall, we couldn't resist.
So they gave us free samples of sangria and appetizers before we even got the menu. Which was a good move on their part because then we all got sangria, but anyways we were checking out our menus when the waiter came over and tapped my shoulder and said "do you like Keanu Reeves? Matrix" and im kind of like what? and he points to the back of someones head who is a table away from us. Sure enough Keanu Reeves is visiting his sister who lives in Anacapri and they had just joined us in our cheap little restaurant. So I order a cheeseburger and we spend the next 30 minutes trying to figure our how we can properly document the hillarity of this situtation. So I go to the bathroom which involved walking right past him and when i got back everyone at my table was like "MONA. Keanu Reeves just watched you walk all the way to the bathroom." So I was all "pshwhatever." and then somehow it was decided that now that he knew I existed it was up to me to go ask him to get in a picture with us. So I threw back the rest of my sangria, and took a few swigs of Megans, put up my hood, stood up and walked right over to him. I said "Mr. Reeves, I dont mean to be a bother but I was just wondering if it would be possible for us to get in a picture with you." He was really nice and looked into my eyes and saaaaaid "Sure, when I finish up here." so I strutted back to the table and told everyone that we would get one before he left, afraid that he would just ditch out on us. But sure enough I was sitting there taking a picture of avalan and megan in front of the moon and they started laughing really hard, and then Grant started to tug on my shoulder and I was annoyed because I was trying to take a picture and no one would hold still. But then I realized that everyone was trying to tell me that Mr. Reeves was standing behind me waiting for me. He apparently was motioning for everyone to jus tlet me take the picture. So anyways once I realized he was there I jumpedup like a super dork and was like umhcool. so he asked Karen to take the picture and was all prepared to just be in a picture with us. And so i asked if my friends could be in it and he said "Sure babe." HA. SUREBABE. HAHHA. So I told him we'd stand in front of the moon and sure enough he did it and then left. hahaa. Keanu Reeves ate a 7 euro cheeseburger like me. and he put his hand on my back. oh mama.

After all of this exicitement we ended up outside of a dance club that was opening that had free entry. We all went in and Avalan and I tore it up on the empty dance floor for awhile. The bartenders were watching us and laughing pretty hard, we think we made their night. It was nice to be able to dance when no one was there because italian men in clubs are weird and gross and lookin for love. So we left after our dramatic reenactment of the Madonna montage the dj put on for us. It was a collection of her greatest hits from the 80s and we did not hold back.

The next day we ate lots of free breakfast, took the ferry back to Naples and hopped on the train to Rome and then took the bus to our homes and cleaned up and took naps. We have all told the Keanu Reeves story about 20 times, and we all have really sore butts and calves from walking up and down the mountain so much. I had one of the best weekends ever, which was nice considering last week I was pretty bummed out. I am kind of homesick, I miss my momnealcarissa team. I miss everyone though, but I was having trouble functioning without them. So anyways this trip made me realize that I need to suck it up because I am in this amazing place and I need to see as much as possible because its all gonna be over and I dont want to be mad at myself for being a sadsap the whole time. wah wah, blablah. If you read allof this I am really impressed, its kind of a lotlot.
IN CLOSING: here is an emporer that loooks hillariously similar to Jubal.