True life.  I am in the middle of packing for a weekend trip to Barcelona, Spain...say whaaaaat?!

I just want to say that as many times as I can while I can so that in about 4 months when I have my nose buried in a book for 3 straight days, I can think back to how unreal of a summer I had flying from country to country on a whim.

This week of school was much slower than last week.  For starters, my feet are not cracked and bleeding. I was walking on my tip toes for a good 3 days last week because of all my Roman adventures.   This week, got got to learn more about the people of Italy...which is totally my jam.  I have been waiting to pick the brain of someone and learn all about Italian life, everything from their culture right down to their favorite Nicolas Sparks novel.

Wednesday we got to go on a trip to the Ariccia's elementary and high school.  I fell in love with the big brown eyes kids at the elementary.  Gosh they were cute!  They were looking at us with those big brown eyes like we were Justin Bieber himself.  They were so excited to show the Americans their art work and sing us songs.  They were so proud!  We were in a 5 year old class room, and watched them do a math word problem.  I'm pretty sure when I was five I was making finger puppets and eating glue.  Not only were they solving math problems, they could speak basic english and their drawings would put Picasso to shame.

When we came up to the school, my mind went to the crummy Guatemala schools with dirt floors.  It was nothing great to look at on the outside, so I and others selfishly thought, "man, they are so lucky they get to have American students come help them for the day!"  I guess I walked into this day thinking I was going to some third world country school where the kids don't have shoes and are playing with rocks.  Shows you how clueless and American I am.  I wasn't the only one.  We were all surprised at how the kids in the elementary school were so well behaved, smart, and loved.  I guess us haughty Americans think everyone else in the world is sub par to our education.  We may have the best looking schools, but like I said.  Sometimes not much is happening inside the school except feasting on glue.

Next, we went to the high school.  It was YoungLife all over again, except the kids were looking at us like they wanted to BBQ us for lunch and we couldn't understand what they were saying.  It was their break and all the kids were circled up in their prospective cliques smoking...and staring.  I'm positive they were saying, "Who are the strange dressing new kids?!" There was for sure no hiding how uncomfortable we all were feeling either.

We were led into the school by a nice guido looking lady and each divided up into groups.  I was so nervous and felt like I was being sent to my death.  I love high school kids, but I really like high school kids who speak my language.  Six of us went to a classroom full of both boys and girls.  When we first walked in, I had an immediate rush of panic wash over me.  I mean, I was being such a baby.  I don't know why it freaks me out so much to be around a group of people who stare at you an uncomfortable amount of time and don't speak "American" as we keep referring to it.

We were each assigned to about 2-3 students.  I was paired with two 16 year old girls who were all smiles when I sat down.  "Ok", I thought.  "this may not be so bad.  I don't think they want to eat me."  The purpose of this assignment was for these high school students to practice their english with someone who cannot help them out by knowing Italian as well.  So, in comes the stupid American's role.  Because unless I could help them out by repeating 'ciao' or 'grazie', I would be no help.  

These were the two girls I got to spend the afternoon with.

Clearly the students were given a list of questions to ask us because the first question they asked me was if I had any siblings.  Eh, I mean I guess we can start there.  They spoke very good english so it was really fun to sit and talk.  When I could tell they ran out of their questions, I started asking a few of my own.  Starting with, when you think about America, what comes to your mind?  They sat a thought for a good while, so I was getting excited about the answer.  After a few moments, they smiled, apparently very proud of their coming answer.  "Fast food and the Statue of Liberty", they stated proudly.   I tried to act really excited that this was their answer, but I couldn't help but be mildly offended.  Fat Americans.

Their favorite American movies are Moulin Rouge' and Silence of the Lambs.  I just nodded trying not to look totally weirded out.  To each his own.  They asked me if I had met Edward Cullen...to which I replied no.  I didn't have the heart to tell him that 1. vampires do not exist, and 2. he is a fictional character.  You gotta leave something for girls to dream about, right?

After being at the high school, I realized kids are kids.  No matter what country they live in.  Looks, boys, gossip, cliques, self image, and Justin Bieber are all important.  We are all made in the image of the one God and that one God saw that it was all good.

That night, we put on an 'apertivo' for the town of Ariccia.  It was part of our classwork and we each had to make an appetizer for 40 people, and we were told to purchase 40 bottles of wine as well.  It was so fun!  All of our professors and directors of the program came and brought heir families and friends.  We invited the kids from the high school as well so we got to hang out with them as well.  Somehow they found us all on facebook and have proceeded to like every move we make and my newsfeed is starting to turn into all Italian!  Everyone came around 7:30 and did not leave until almost 1:00am!  That is the longest appetizer party I have ever been to for sure!  They just love being with each other.  Age doesn't seem to matter in this country either.  Your best friend can be 70 and you're 30.  They love learning from each other and I have loved learning from them.  They take life slow.  One of our professors, Marco, gave us some great life advice.  He said, "The secret to a long and happy life is to enjoy it and laugh often."  Spoken like a true Italian!

I made fresh garlic cheese bread with basil.  Crowd pleaser.

All the girls made such wonderful appetizers!
 Everyone loved all of them!

Enough wine for the entire town! 

Delicious desserts!

If there is one thing I hope to learn during my time here in Italy from the Italian people is the ability to appreciate where I am and who i am with.  Stop moving so fast that I don't love well the ones I am with.  I hope i hold onto that truth forever.

Yummy spread if I do say so myself!

Enjoying the evening with our Cooking professor, Mary Lou.

That's all for now!  See you after Barcelona!
Leigh

when in rome...

(This post was meant for last night, but the internet here has a major attitude...so here yah go.  Today.  My deepest apologies.)

Just hangin.  No responsibility but seeing the world.  I could get used to it.

Since being in Italy, my life seems to have taken a turn…to simplicity…as strange as it may seem.  I think I am beginning to adopt the slow, easy, life loving lifestyle of the Italians.  My life needed some of that.  When I first arrived here, I think I was still spinning 100 mph from the close of school, moving, graduation, good-byes…and the fact that I was preparing to be living internationally for the next 3 months of my life.   A lot was dumped on me at once, and I am finally beginning to see through the fog.  I think my emotions are settling and I am able to really stand in awe of where I am.  Like really stand in awe and take in the wonderfulness that is surrounding me every moment.  Isn’t that a cool feeling to have wonderfulness surrounding you at all times?  I’m not sure that my emotions knew how to react to everything I was seeing for about the first week.  But my body and mind are settling in and I am officially falling in love with Italy.  When I finally put down my camera, I was able to see the beauty without the lense.  (Sometimes I do put down my camera people.)

You know all those cute things you hear about Rome?  The pizza, the dogs, the cafes, the cute restaurants around every corner, gelato, accordions playing in the streets amidst the Roman solders who wonder around protecting the people…quintessential Italian things.  Come to find out, they are all very true.  Well, all except the Roman soldier thing.  I had to pay 3 euros after I took a picture with one.  Poser.

Like, how cute is she?

One of my favorite pictures thus far.
I would literally have to roll the window down and stick a leg out.

He made me place my hand there.  I promise.

Sunday was my first day into Rome.  It started early, 7:00 am to be exact, with a brisk walk to catch the train from Albano.  “Why were you catching a train so early?”, you may be asking.  CHURCH!  Duh people.  (parents you should be very proud of your very religiously devout daughters.)   We found an English speaking church in the middle of Rome called Rome Baptist so we thought we would try it out.  Funny…The pastor of the church is Jason Smith.  I’m acting like I know him.  I don’t. But he is with campus crusade.  So hey, there yah go.

We follow Captain Anna Davidson through the train station and Metro.  She had her map in hand and was a lady on a mission.  I just took a backseat and followed.  We could not have navigated through all of it without her.  It is about a 40-minute train ride to Rome from Acriccia/Albano.  The train stops at Termini and from there you can purchase a Metro ticket for only 1 euro.  Anna had it all figured out from which line we needed to get on to get to the church to which stare case was the closest to use.  So we hopped on line A and before we knew it, we popped out right by the Spanish Steps.  There we were.  In Rome.  Complete with horse drown carriages near the bottom of the steps and Fendi straight ahead.  It was like one of those dreams where you kinda know it’s fake and you just pray you can keep sleeping because it is just so dreamy.  But this was no dream, and yes…I just said ‘dreamy’.

At the Spanish Steps

The church was just around the corner from the steps so we went ahead and made our way over there.  I did my typical one hand grasping the person’s purse strap in front of me as not to get lost while I stare at the amazing things all around me.  (Mom, Dad…you know the drill).   We had time to spare so we went next door once we found the church and got a quick cappuccino because we were all a wee bit tired.  Then off to church we went.

So I am not really the emotional type.  But for some reason the service just moved me (please read as if you are a big African American woman who wears a hat to church and fans herself the entire time).  As we sang the first song, I looked around at the people in the room.  The ‘band’ was Indian, the choir was Asian, the 2 deacons who prayed were black, and the pastor was white.  As we sang "Oh Ancient of Days" tears began to well up in my eyes.  I am in Rome, worshiping with people from all around the world.  Worshiping the same God who I have worshiped my entire life, but for some reason it was different on Sunday.  It put the body of Christ in an entirely new perspective for me.  He is the God of the nations!  Do we really know what that means?  He is the God to every tongue and every tribe.  One day, all the saints, black, white, Asian, Indian, Roman, and American will be worshiping our king together.  There is so much power in that.

Revelations 7:9…”After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nations, from all the tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

He is talking about us, and about all the people who were worshiping in that same room with me from Singapore, Hungry, and Ireland, and Arizona.  It gave me straight up chills, y’all!  Gosh, our God is so big!

Sunday was fun because we had no idea what we were doing.  At all.  We were literally roaming around Rome.  Luckily, Americans stick together.  We found some girls our same age who had been there since January studying who pointed us in the ‘general’ direction of some good stuff.  I say generally very lightly because the roads make zero sense.  It isn’t like a, ‘2 blocks this way then 3 blocks that way’ kind of a city.  It’s more like a, ‘go down this side street until you see this giant monument than follow those ruins until you get to that statue’, kind of a city.  No sense at all.  Like I said, we roamed.

Just Roaming around

As you just casually roam Rome, big historic things like the Pantheon for instance, will just sneak attack you sometimes.  You will be all like, “Oh my gosh, look at this cute little pasta restaurant with small dogs sitting outside and the coffee shop tucked inside this little cobblestone lane…BAM!  PANTHEON!  It reminds me of one of those dunking tanks at carnivals.  You never know when it’s going to come, but when it does, you are instantly soaked.  Rome is a little bit like a carnival…of history.  (Gosh, my analogies rock.)

The Pantheon in all its glory!

I could go into all the details of what we saw, but you would probably be better off just googling the info.  The whole day really was just spent feeling like I was on a really rockin’ movie set.  While we were looking at the ancient ruins of what was once an emperors palace, I just kept getting this feeling that Indiana Jones was going to come out and do a show or something.  It really is unreal the history that is packed in this city.  You could spend years here and never fully know all about it.

This week, class and field trips have been great!  We watch these videos from the History Channel about the rise and fall of Rome, learn about all the buildings, and explore the reigns of emperors.  I could seriously watch those videos all day.  Mmmm.  Just give me a bean-bag and some pop-corn and I’m good to go.  What is really cool about the program is Monday we learn, Tuesday we go.  Monday we studied about the Grand Tour.  The Grand Tour was when the aristocratic English men traveled around France, down through the Alps and then finished going all the way down Italy.  They said no education is complete with out experiencing Italy.  So yay me!  After this summer, according to 400-year-old hoity-toity English men, my education will be complete.

We finished up the Grand Tour and got to see one of the most beautiful views I have seen in my lifetime.  We went to the top to the Medici Palace and from the balcony, could see the entire span of Rome.  It was quite breath-taking actually.  I even posed for a selfie.  I am becoming quite fond of them.

I also got to experience my first pick pocket interaction.  It was rather thrilling, and made for a good laugh.  I know, most of you are thinking how twisted I must have become here.  No, you would laugh too if the pick-pocketer pocketed your friend’s McDonald’s chicken nugget box.  Funny story, she wasn’t going to take any of that pick-pocketing business.  This is how the story goes.  We were a bit smooshed in the metro, and before she knew it, she felt something move in her purse.  She looked down just in time to see a hand go back in a pocket.  So naturally, she reached back into this man’s pocket to get the stolen goods back out.  Hah oh but Mr. Pick- Pocket was no fan of that so he hit her.  She hit him back.  The metro begins to slow and it is about 24 to 1 at this point.  He knew he was the under-dog so he decided to make his exit, but not with out throwing the lovely F bomb at her before he made his escape.  Well my friend, who shall remain nameless due to this next point, decided she would return the favor by shouting it right back at him.  So, the little joust ended clearly in her favor, and yes, she did get her chicken nuggets back.  So crisis averted.

At the train station...about 5 minutes before the scene.

Tomorrow we go back to Rome to see the essential Rome spots.  They are the must-sees of Rome (apparently).  I dunno what all the hype is about the Coliseum, but I shall report to you tomorrow.

Just a little sneek peek of the fun times had

Selfie at the Colosseum!

In other news, I have booked flights to Barcelona as well as a flight to Switzerland.  Tomorrow we are booking Paris, and Mollie and I are booking London and Ireland as well.  I think I may frame the page in my calendar with all of these eventful weekends to remind myself of how cool my life was for like 2 months.  For real, the mid-term break portion on my calendar reads, and I quote, “Fly to London Monday, Fly to Ireland Wednesday, Fly to Rome Saturday”.  Is this real life?

Well, that’s all for now folks.  I am going to bed, which is weird because it is only about 4:00pm most of your times.  But never the less, buona notte!!!

Sunset over Ariccia.  Home sweet, sweet home.

1 week down. 11 to go.

I cannot believe we have been here our first week!  The time is flying by!  I am trying to savor every moment and document everything.  This may end up being the most documented 3 months of my entire life, but I'm down with that.  I think we could stay in the Lazio Region the entire summer and still not get to see everything.  I keep walking around thinking about how lame everything back home is going to look.  Everything here is so old and rich.  At home, when we think old, we think of the apartment complex across the street that was built in the 80's.  America is such a baby!

For those of you who have been requesting pics of the Palace...here yah go!  This is our comfy little den

THis is looking into our classroom.  My bedroom is actually off to the left.

Thursday we got to take our first field trip.  We do school Mondays and Wednesdays, then on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have travel days.  This Thursday we toured the Lazio Region.  We got to hike part of the Roman Road to a lookout that spanned the entire Lazio Region or Castelli Romani area as some call it.  It would be equivalent to going on a tour of all the areas in Birmingham like Vestavia, Mountain Brook, Homewood, and Hoover...except nothing like that at all.  But you get the idea.  Birmingham would be the Lazio Region and all the areas we drove to would be smaller areas in Birmingham like Vestavia.  Got it? :)

Finally making it up the Roman Road

HTis is looking out to the Castelli Romani.  Ariccia is smack dab in the middle of this picture.
Right between the two lakes

AOII takes Italy!

Travel days make for long days.  Very packed and overwhelming.  We were all like kids at a circus though.  Everywhere we went we could not help but take tons of pictures.  After our hike we stopped first at Montecavo where I got to see my first Greek Orthodox church.  So ornate and just simply jaw dropping.

Frescati was our next stop.  It was a fun little town.  More populated than what we have been used to seeing.  We hung out at this fun candy/coffee/pastry/bar shop and got our first conollis.  Ann Burgwin ordered a conolli and somehow ended up with a gin and coke with a nice lemon on top.  We laughed so hard!  It wasn't even noon yet!  Every town is known for something.  So our experts of the day, a student who has researched the area, tells us about the town.  Frescati is famous for the three breasted lady.  They even make cookies for her.  One breast for wine and two for milk.  Interesting to say the least.

Behind Kelsey, Carolyn and MAry Caylor is the Frescati Party House.  Not to shabby.

Thumbs up for Italy!

The Tripple Breasted Woman of Frescati...as a cookie.

Laughing over Ann Burgwin's mistake.  AB's face is priceless.  So confused!

America's Next Top Model hits Italy!

Next we stopping in Nemi and got our first Italian pizza!  Pizza is like water here.  I spent 2 euro on pizza and a drink.  They practically hand it out!  It may have been the best pizza I have eaten in my life.  And I consider myself quite the pizza connoisseur.

Nemi is famous for their home grown mini strawberries.  Packed with flavor, these little treats make for great desserts!  I was obsessed with them and gave them their own little photo shoot.  Nemi look over Lake Genzano which was absolutely beautiful.  We all know I'm a sucker for a good view.  A girl can't complain when she is eating the best man made pizza, drinking a Cola Light (puts diet coke to shame...sorry Mom), poppin' back the best little fruits for dessert while gazing at one of Italy's finest views.  Made for a great afternoon!

So itty bitty

Travel day was not over yet.  Through many a windy road we keep on trucking.  We only have a few get sick, so we did decide Dramamine would be a good investment before our next field trip.  We saw Genzano where a world famous flower festival is held every year and passed through Castel Gandolfo where the Pope has his summer residence.  We also go to do our first bit of souvenir shopping.  Us girls got excited about the Italian scarfs.   

After we had seen about all we could see, they drug us all back to the palace where we all crashed.  I am going to have to work on my stamina for the summer because there is no time to waste and Italy is not for the weak.  I may or may not have woken up sore from our hike up the Roman Road.  Needless to say, I was looking forward to having a class day on Friday. 

I really like our classes.  We started the morning with our first Italian lesson and we are all well on our way to being great little Italian conversationalists.  Our teachers finally settled on calling this class 'survival Italian' instead of 'conversational Italian', because let's be real, we really do just need to survive.  I am just interested in learning to say 'food' and 'how much'.  :)  We also learned some Italian hand gestures.  I still have no idea why they have or need a hand gesture to tell someone their spouse is cheating on them.  Maybe it happens often.  

Proud to be in Italy

Our wonderful Expert of the the Day

We got to get a short tour of more of the Chigi Palace as well Friday morning.  I was sitting in the back so I had the pleasure of getting to watch everyone's heads nod off.  It is a bit hard to pay attention when the guy talking speaks really broken English and your stomach is literally echoing against the giant stone walls.  We did get to meet the mayor of Ariccia though.  We felt like some pretty high rollers.  Side note, the mayor is a woman and she was wearing jeans and a bedazzled shirt.  Eh, to each his own.

We get a lot of free time.  So I took the liberty of taking a nap, naturally.  I woke up craving Mexican food.  So I looked up plane tickets to Madrid.  Who are we kidding?  I am not above paying 120 euros for a plane ticket to get some Mexican food. Not above it at all.  

We also learned about the train and bus system to get around to Rome and such later that afternoon.  If I can figure this out, I have full confidence in my ability to figure out the train and bus system next year in Philadelphia.  At least I'll have one thing going for me there...English.

Dinner last night was fun.  We have a fun group.  I laughed so hard I cried.  Our bill was 230 euros...so obviously I am going to not eat this weekend.  Very much worth it.  But nothing like some good pizza, wine, and friends to spend a Friday night with!  Maybe next time we won't get the appetizers though.  oops.  The rest of our evening was just spent soaking up all things Italian.  Beautiful way to start a weekend!

Ciao peeps!

we have got to learn Italian y'all.

Are those plane tickets and passports i see?  Why, yes it is!  Bon voyage y'all!

On the plane!  Ann Burgwin likes to keep things real by not actually getting to the gate until just before take off.  So, we were all very glad she arrive, as out of breath as she was.

And we are here!  10 hours in the air and we have arrived!  Glad to have my feet firmly plated back on the ground again.

So a very successful first day in the beautiful country of Italy.  Breathtaking doesn’t even describe the feeling I had when I first laid eyes on this country.  Tears may or may not have welled up in my eyes at my first glance. 

We arrived in Rome safe and sound…barely.  10 hours on a cramped airplane is enough to about do a girl in, but regardless we have arrived.  Customs was a bit disappointing, only because they fell a few fries short of a happy meal complete with a grunt and not even a stamp in my passport.  I almost ran back to get him to stamp it, and would have had I known the language.  Italy is a fascinating country.  I am going to have to get used to long, lingering stares and feeling like a complete and totally idiot.  I have got to learn Italian, y’all!

Sunrise over the ocean.  Hands down best wake up call I have ever had!

Fun fact: If you so chose to mot walk around on the plane during your flight, you must endure the unavoidable prospect that you will have kankles.  I mean, our ankles had rolls.

Welcome to Rome!  Delirium and all!

So.  Our first venture out, of course, had to be an adventure.  We were trying to fill the time by not going to sleep even though it was about 3am our time but about noon in Italy.  So we walked a little ways down the road across the bridge into the small sleepy town of Ariccia.  It was a scene straight form a movie.  A scene complete with window boxes, kids playing Barbie in the fountains, dogs patiently waiting for their friends to finish lunch outside the café, and friendly Italian greetings from the locals.  So we continued on in the illusion of this being an easy task of finding a simple cup of coffee.  But, we may as well have been wearing an American flag cape around town.  We stuck out like a boy in a sorority chapter meeting.  Struggle.  Im sure lots of people in Rome know English, but there is not a soul in tis small town who knows a lick of English…and somehow I thought I could make it by with one word, ‘ciao’.  Oops.

Because we were such over achievers, we got to Rome a day early.  But never fear, we just had to stay in tis cute little thing for a night.

Well, as you can probably tell, it is about 3am our bodies time.  But this was our first look at our new home in Ariccia.

Ciao Italy!  I will be gracing you with my presence this entire summer!

We wondered into the small café where we thought we had struck gold.  Keep in mind, this is the first time we had really tried to communicate with the people.  Trying to be as friendly and as non American as possible, we ordered 3 lattes.  Lattes, right?  Pretty standard.  False.  Big difference between a latte and a café latte.  The woman working spoke literally no English so it was kind of like ordering coffee from my dog, but no big deal.  She looked kinda confused when we said we wanted a latte and then asked if we wanted it hot or cold.  I assumed this was some weird Italian thing because I have never had a cold latte.  So naturally we said hot would be fabulous.  She begins to prepare the dinks.  All we see her add is milk.  She steams the milk, then proceeds to add the nice touch of some chocolate syrup on top.  Wha La!  A latte!  What we really ended up getting was some warm milk.  If you have ever been really tired, so tired that you could curl up in the middle of the road and take a serious power nap, you will understand when I tell you that warm milk was less than conducive to our current, delierious state.  We laughed at our mistake later and mentally noted that next time, in order to get come caffeine in our system, we must order a ‘café latte’.  We paid for our milk, gave up on trying to stay awake, and drug our tired little booties back to the hotel.  A nap was just bound to happen.  We stopped trying to fight it.

The day continued in regular fashion as we ventured out later that day to get some dinner.  I’m pretty sure the entire city knows the Americans from Auburn have arrived.  It took about 10 Italian-speaking men to help us find a “pizza store” as they called it.  As valiant as their efforts were, we were yet again a few fries short.  We ended up at this hole in the wall restaurant and we were pumped that it was at least open.  We waltzed our way in and tried to explain to the woman up front with a nice little game of charades that we were hungry by rubbing our stomachs and just looking excessively pitiful.  We realized later on that the restaurant was probably not open, but who could refuse 3 cute American girls playing charades with you?  They probably just wanted to see what other dumb things we could do.  Adds a bit of comic relief to your hum drum working day, and so we accepted where our meal was about to come from.  Note, no one speaks English.  And we do not speak Italian.  Problem.  Comical…no…hilarious.  We sit down and before we knew it, so Guido looking dude yells for us to come upstairs and starts showing us all these kinds of meats and cheeses.  We thought we asked for a menu, but whatever.  The actual kitchen works too.  So we point to the things we like/ just nod to the things he is holding up because we have not clue what he is saying.  For all we know, he was probably holding cow tongue but we just rubbed our belies and said yummy to anything he held up.  When in Rome, right? We were just going with it.  We go back outside and sit down.  The food just starts coming, and the wine keeps being poured.  In the back of my head in thinking that this is going to cost a fortune, but on some level I was hoping they just waned to clean out their refrigerator on us.  Hey, I am not above charity people.  They were loving us and we were about to puke.  If there is one thing I am going to come away with I this summer is the ability to fake an entire conversation when I have no idea what the other party is saying.  So, before we knew it, we had taken over two entire tables with plates of food.  They even gave us an on the house bottle of red wine.  I was beginning to grow more and more concerned about how much this meal was about to cost me.  But what could I do?  We had already eaten it and I didn’t know how I was going to explain the check to him.  We sat and tried to chomp our way thought all the great cheeses, meats, pastries, breads, wine, and some unmentionables that I don’t really want to find out what it was.  At one point we are sitting there eating and we hear Neos’- ‘Baby Let Me Love You’ almost as an anthem playing over head.  We were dying of laughter and also thought I may die of over eating.  You see, it is rude to leave food on your plate.  So mom, you would have been so proud!  On some level I think we may have offended them because we left a lot of food, but you could have fed 2 medium sized families with the amount of garb covering our table.

The check was brought to the grand totally of 50 euros.  Umm, nope.  So, I worked my mad, blond skills with the Italian waiter and got it lowered to 32 euros.  Much better.  We paid and were on our way.  I’m pretty sure the entire city of Ariccia is well aware of the arrival of Auburn University students.  We have made our mark, but needless to say, we have got to learn Italian, y'all!