A few more hours in the day, please...

Wouldn't it be nice though? We figured 6 more hours in the day would be perfect. (Without need for any extra sleep) 2 or 3 of them would be completely wasted due to facebook and www.stumbleupon.com (which was recently shown to me and to which I am completely addicted) and the like, but three more hours a day of productivity... wouldn't it be nice... Oh well. Guess that's where the whole "self control" thing comes in... :-P

Soon after I wrote my last, Ian (one of my roommates here) and I headed off to Budapest, Hungary for a weekend trip. It was quite the adventure from start to finish. We used a great airline called "Wizz Air" which flies at all the times most people wouldn't want to fly (5am, 10pm), students are able to get incredibly priced tickets and if we get a cheap ticket, Lord (and the airlines industry, apparently) knows that we could care less about how little sleep we get. While in the line to get our tickets at FCO we started talking with the two girls behind us in line (A and D) who happened to also be studying in Roma and taking a weekend trip to Budapest. A and D both live in Jersey, where Ian goes to school, all about an hour and a half from where I am in Delaware. Small world, huh? Anyway, our first... adventure was when something shiny caught my eye and noticed a metal clip on Ian's pocket. "Uh... Ian, you can't take that on the plane!" "Take what?" "...the knife on your pocket" (one of the small pocket ones, but still- a knife). So we look for either a trash can to toss it (expensive loss), or somewhere to stash it to grab when we get back, but at that point we were too far in line to do anything about it, so he put it in his bag's pocket to give to the security when we got there (next line). We check-in to our flight, walk with the girls to the security gates, A, D and I all go through and turn to wait for Ian, looking for security around him. We hear a voice from behind us (farther past security), "You guys ready?" It's Ian. Security had no idea there was a folding knife in his bag, even though it went through security screening x-rays and everything. I can not explain how much confidence I know had in the safety of my flight to Budapest. *rolls eyes* The flight was a short one, about an hour and twenty minutes with no major turbulence or problems at all. However, much to all of our surprise, the flight attendants were young and stunningly beautiful. Not what we expected for a cheap and mainly Eastern European airline. No complaints from us.

We arrived at the airport exchanged numbers with the girls and took Taxi rides to our hostels. This was after withdrawing money from the first ATM we found, which was an absolute riot. Withdraw 25,000 Hungarian Forint? Sure. (Rough equivalent to 90 euro.) We arrived to our hostel just after midnight, were able to be checked in late with only a 5 euro extra fee which we paid gladly. If anyone ever plans to travel, or knows anyone is is planning to travel, to Budapest- check out Bell Hostel first. It was only 20 euro/night for a private room with private full bathroom (even had hot water!). Everything was brand new (opened last May), full size kitchen next to us, stocked with free tea and snack foods, the tea we took full advantage of, trying a new type each time. The next two days we spent walking all over Buda and Pest. The city is divided in half by the Danube River. The east side, where we stayed is Pest, the west side is Buda. Each night we met with A and D for dinner and drinks, and were able to experience real Hungarian food which was a lot of fun. Previously, I had no idea that Hungarians used so much Paprika. On Saturday, Ian and I walked all over Buda and found some of the old Hot Baths that have been preserved and are still used. We figured we couldn't go to Budapest in the freezing cold and not take advantage of giant hot tubs, right? Of course not. So we spent the evening in three baths, kept around 34 Celsius, that were each about half the size of an Olympic sized swimming pool, 4 feet deep. Wonderful way to relax after walking for the past two days. I would highly recommend anyone in Europe to visit Budapest for a few days, Eastern Europe is much different from the Europe most people think of, in Italy, Spain, and France. However, as nice as a place it is to visit and as much as I enjoyed getting to see a different part of the world first hand- there's no chance I'd ever consider living there. To make a bad comparison, it was as if you were walking around completely colorblind. Everything around seemed to be just other shades of gray. Of course there were green leaves and red rooftops here and there, but from the 100% cloud cover to the buildings and the streets and monuments, it almost felt as if the city had been in a depressed mood for the past 1000 or so years.

We headed out late Sunday night, got to the airport no problem, through the check-in line, turn to head to our gate when we see... security talking with Ian. We had completely forgotten at this point about the knife he put in there. Apparently the x-ray security guy in Budapest is more alert than in Roma. They pull him aside and talk to him for about 10 minutes, the language barrier was tough, but Ian made it clear he wanted to give the guy his knife and be done with it. They understood after a game of airport security charades and gladly accepted pocketing an $80 knife. One plane ride and one train ride later we were back home in Roma and very much ready for bed after a great weekend.

Other than that, nothing too big has been happening around here... It's getting close to finals time, so people are studying more and more, library is getting full and trips are getting scarce. Although I just planned my last trip to Paris for the weekend of December 4th, a huge thanks to those who helped make that one possible; ranging from professors giving me a great exam schedule, friends on suggestions on how to get there cheaply and where to stay, and family for being wonderfully encouraging and supporting of me travelling, as always. This past weekend, my roommate Will had a few of his friends from back home visit us (they are currently studying in northern Denmark), great to meet them- we all had a fantastic time. To keep everyone's wallets somewhat happy, we would make dinner here, then go out together after. One of the nights we were leaving Campo di Fiori (a large piazza with bars/restaurants/hotels surrounding it), and one of the girls asked "So... how does Rome look at night?" "Well, it's 2am, why don't we show you?" So we proceeded to walk by the Pantheon, Fontana di Trevi and the Coliseum, all beautifully lit up. It was also a great way for me to practice being a tour guide for a weekend, since Sunday morning I'll be taking the train to FCO to meet my family!

It should be a great week having them in town, no idea what we'll all end up doing besides all of the regular tourist spots, but I know it'll be a blast. And it'll be great to see them. Thanksgiving is a day of family as well as a day of thanks, so fortunately, even though I'm in Roma- I'll have both. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell after next week- but with finals coming up, I can't promise I'll be writing anytime too soon. Hope everyone's doing well and has a great thanksgiving!

Ciao,

Scott

Wow it's been a while!

So it's been a while since I last wrote, I know- so I guess instead of going into too much detail about every single thing I've done since the last time I wrote- I'll go over major highlights.

I feel as if it were the day after I wrote my last entry, but I was invited through the school, by the Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to attend a guest lecturer speak on this year's World Food Day theme of "Attaining Food Security in Time of Crisis" (or something close to that extent). I was told this in my Public Int'l Law class one morning and received the invitation a few days later. However, when I opened the invitation (which was pretty impressive looking, I won't lie), it said nothing about the guest lecturer, but about the General Assembly style meeting earlier that morning. I did as I was told and showed up to the FAO World Headquarters (here in Rome), about an hour before hand and presented my invitation and multiple ID's when asked. Apparently, most received invitations to the lecture, but for whatever reason, I and another guy in my class were invited to this assembly instead (muuuch cooler). I know this should have come as no surprise and it really didn't- but the security getting into this building was like nothing I've ever seen. I had to have had my passport, license, and Italian ID from school, as well as the invitation checked at least half a dozen times before I got into the building. And I'm not talking about TSA people who look at your ID for half a second in the airport while letting things through the X-ray machine without looking, these guys were in full tactical BDU's, rifles in hand. Along with 5 snipers on rooftops (that I saw) watching everything. (For those of you who have done the tour of the Capitol building in DC, it makes the security getting into there look more like mall security in Manchester, NH. (Oh- and we had already submitted our names and soc. sec. numbers for a background check weeks before hand.)

So I get into the building eventually and am directed to the hall where the meeting is to take place, walking past incredibly impressive conference rooms and even more impressive looking people along the way. However, before I'm allowed off of the elevator I need to show my ID and the invitation again, to make sure I belong where I'm going. I arrive at two giant wooden doors of the hall and as I step up to the doors (after again, showing my id and invitation), two full dress uniform guards open them up to... a room like I've only seen in the movies. Hundreds of people standing around in suits, guards in every corner, professional photographers taking thousands of pictures, and pages running around like chickens without heads trying to make sure everyone is pleased. The room is a giant rectangle with desks for each diplomat set up with a country name, a flag, two fancy glasses for water, a silver pitcher on a silver tray, stationary, and a microphone attached to the desk. The desks were for the diplomats of every State recognized by the UN. They also had a button which they seemed to thoroughly enjoy, which when pressed, resulted in a page darn near sprinting to offer any and all assistance. For the next half hour or so before the meeting started, I sat in my seat (first row of visitors, about 15 feet from the Congolese representative), absolutely stunned by the amount of... power, in the room. I was surrounded, for all intents and purposes, a few hundred of the most powerful people in the world. Awesome.

The assembly commenced, with the director general making a speech, representatives talking about food security in their countries, what the problem there was and asking for help to fix it. Of course, not everyone spoke English, or any common language for that matter, so everyone (including us) had an ear piece that we could wear, and switch between 8 languages being translated real-time by people up in booths above us. (Think the movie, "The Interpretor", exactly like that.) Near the end, a group of three performed three songs, one guitarist and two singers. One of the songs is called "Shalom, Shalom" (Peace, Peace), a beautiful song with a great guitar part to accompany it. The original chorus goes: So when you come and when you go, the words are "peace, goodbye, hello", in a language that I know- it goes like this: Shalom, shalom... (and repeats "shalom" a few times.). However, there were two women who were singing, one from Israel and one from Palestine (singing together, wow.), so for purposes of unity, they changed the lyrics to instead of repeating "shalom shalom" four times, they repeated it twice, then switched to "Salam Salam" (Arabic for peace) two times. As soon as they switched the chorus, you could feel the room's atmosphere change from appreciation of great music by talented artists, to hope for peace in a region that's been rocked for generations and generations. It was amazing to see the reaction on the Israeli diplomat as well as diplomats from the Arab League nations reflect (at least in appearance) a desire for the same peace.

After the meeting ended, everyone mingled around, it was hysterical watching these UN representatives run to each other and take pictures with each other on their own point-and-shoot digital cameras. We couldn't help but laughing, imagining the conversations of "Oh, tag me in that one on Facebook!" coming from these world famous diplomats. So being myself and completely unafraid to put myself out there, I decided that I should introduce myself to the guitarist of the group that performed and tell him how much I appreciated the music they performed. He introduced himself as Gil and we talked for a bit about the songs and how I played guitar and was hoping to find the music online somewhere. He said he didn't think I would be able to find it, but "here, let me give you our home e-mail addresses so we can stay in touch, just send me one reminding me". !!! AWESOME!!! He introduces one of the other women he performed with as Noa. I was stunned at how willing they were to talk with some random college student while they were in the presence of such others. A few times he would have to say "One second, Scott. Oh, thank you Mr. Director-General, Mr. President, Madam first lady (or whomever wanted to talk at the minute)", then turn right back to me and continue a conversation. These people literally run the world and he took time to talk with me. It then impressed my even more, after talking with a friend from Israel to find out they are as popular in Israel as U2 or any famous group is in the United States. By far, this assembly was the coolest thing I've done in Rome so far.

This morning I went to Porta Portese, an incredibly large market in Trastevere, the neighborhood in which I live. I went along with a few from my Italian class and our professor to work on conversational skills (we had to speak Italian to the vendors). We had such a great time, it's a really... interesting assortment of items that is sold there. You can find incredibly inexpensive, but also very cheaply made clothes, fake DG and LV purses, fake prada sunglasses or fake Rolexes, but you can also find, if you spend the time and know where to look, pretty cheap real purses/sunglasses/watches that have been acquired by the vendor or someone the vendor does business with in... less than savory means. I know, I know, it's a terrible thing to buy stolen merchandise, but you don't really know that it's stolen... :-P

Those are all fun to look at, as well as the animals for sale and the electronics, but the cool stuff, the really cool stuff, are the antiques that are sold. You can find second-hand paintings that are still in good condition (as far as I can tell), that were actually incredibly valuable when originally sold. I purchased a book this morning called "Le fait du Christ" (The work of Christ), a small French book, written in the mid 1800's. 2 Euro. I couldn't pass it up when I found I could actually understand the few pages I turned to, it'll be nice to brush up on French as well. I was telling the vendor how I appreciated these types of items much more than the clothes and electronics. He responded with "Then you'll love these" he goes to his van and pulls out two old folded up pieces of giant paper. They were incredibly old Italian bills of sale and deeds to land, purchased (or given, I couldn't tell) by someone incredibly wealthy. One was about a sq. meter, the other about .5 sq. meter, with intricate calligraphy style writing (not too faded at all). I asked if he had any idea about how old they were, he told me to turn them over- the dates were on the back. I couldn't believe it. Still have a hard time. Turned the first one over "1634". WHAT?!!? Turn the next one over, "1514". .... speechless. Still, I have no idea what to say about that. All I could muster was "Posso...? ...Quanta costa?" "May I...? How much do they cost?" He told me he had just received them himself and wasn't sure how much he was selling them for quite yet, but to come back in a week or two- he'll keep them in his van unless people ask to see them specifically. So, if anyone ever visits Rome- se non vuoi andare in chiesa, vai a Porta Portese! (If you can't make it to church, make it to Porta Portese!)

So more or less, that's been the last bit of my stay here... last Tuesday we passed the half-way point of our time here... huge bummer. I'm really looking forward to checking out Little Italy and the Boston's North End after being here... should be fun. Heading to Budapest (Hungary) this coming Thursday night for the weekend with a roommate, should be a good time hopefully will have much to write about when I return!

Ciao for now,

Scott.