There and Back Again: The Final Post

After 3 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, and 2 hours, the final post of Scott on the Rocks is here. Chasers, please take a moment to wipe away the tears from your eyes before continuing to read. I don't want your emotions to run too high. It's been a great ride from August 25th until now, and I hope that you all have enjoyed every post. But, I am now officially back in Minnesota, writing to you from my bedroom once again, the same place where the first post was written. It's a weird feeling being back here again after learning so much over the last semester. But here I am, back where I was so long ago when I was nothing but a young, naïve 20 year old writing his first ever blog. Now I'm a young, naïve 20 year old who's writing perhaps the last blog post of his life. So without further ado, here is the final post of Scott on the Rocks.

When I wrote my last post, it was a Monday night and we had just finished taking our history final. At that point, I had thought that the hardest final day was over. I was wrong. After studying most of the day Tuesday (which was a national holiday in Italy), we had to face the hardest Wednesday of my life (On a scale of 1 to exaggeration, that was about a 7). Our first final on Wednesday was Theology and it started at 2:30, which meant that we had all day to wallow in fear. The test was a 90 minute final consisting of two essay questions. Needless to say, nothing makes a person's hand hurt more than writing non-stop for 90 minutes. And we weren't done.

The next final was Art History, the subject that I knew least about coming into this trip. Though this test was only an hour long, it started a mere 60 minutes after the Theology final ended. It consisted of four long questions and 12 slide identifications, in which the teacher would show a piece of artwork on a projector and we would have to identify it's name, artist, date, and current location (and we couldn't just say Italy...we needed to know the museum and city). After both of these tests, my mind was like moldy porridge. I basically had retained all the information that I needed to know right in the front of my brain and then exploded like Vesuvius onto the tests. Once again, what happened to this trip being easy?

The next two days were our last in Rome, which meant that we got to frantically run around and see all of our favorite sights one last time. Thursday mainly revolved around St. Peter's Basilica. Earlier in the trip, we had booked a reservation to visit the Vatican Necropolis (the underground "city of the dead") where St. Peter himself is buried. Our tour was at 3:00, but we decided to get there a little early and do another exciting Vatican event...climb to the top of the dome.

The dome of St. Peter's was designed by Michelangelo himself in 1560. It stands a whopping 404.8 feet, making it the tallest building in Rome. To get to the top, we had to wind up a ton of stairs (we were too cheap to pay the 2 extra euro to take the elevator) that brought us to the roof first. From there we could look out over the Vatican museum on the left and stand in the shadow of the dome that towered above us. The next flight of stairs took us inside the dome, but at it's base. This was cool because you could see down into the basilica with the floor 200 feet below. Finally, the last set of stairs wound us around the interior of the dome. It was a tiny, shoulder-width staircase that gradually slanted with the curvature of the dome until it almost was impossible to climb, at which point it finally moved straight upwards and over the crest of the dome. We had reached the top.

The view that awaited us when we came out of the dome was mind-blowing. Directly in front sat St. Peter's Square, upon which thousands of people walked around taking pictures of the basilica. Beyond that was the entire city of Rome, sprawling into the horizon beyond. To the north was the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel, looking quite small from our great height. To the west was the rest of Vatican city, including the Swiss guard headquarters and the Vatican Gardens. Finally, to the south was the Vatican auditorium and the suburbs of Rome. There is no way that my feeble writing skills can describe what it was like up there, but hopefully the pictures that I took will help you out.

After the journey to the top, we continued on to our journey below the basilica. The necropolis was like a buried cemetery, with giant mausoleums and even old chapels buried in the dirt around us. It ended at the site of St. Peter's tomb, two stories directly below the modern day main altar. Bone fragments of his body sat in tiny glass cases, allowing us to view the remains of the Rock of Christianity. After that, we were brought one floor up into the room of the recently deceased popes where John Paul II is buried. The whole experience from top to bottom of St. Peter's made for perhaps the best day of the trip.

After a Friday of goodbyes, cleaning, and packing for home, we were ready to leave Rome. Bill, Ryan, and I left Saturday morning bright and early and headed off to one last destination before leaving Europe for good: Dublin, Ireland. Arriving in Dublin was like coming home to the Shire. I had this song in my head the whole time. The air was nippy but joyful as Christmas lights filled the streets and people milled around the city. Since we were only there for a day and a half, we were forced to take it all in quickly. On Sunday, we toured the heart of Dublin's social and economic infrastructure...the Guinness brewery. The entire building was shaped like a giant 7-story pint glass and served as a monument for Arthur Guinness' 250 year rule over Ireland (metaphorically speaking, of course). We tasted the roasted barley, watched how the "liquid gold" was formed, and finally poured our own perfect pints (but that doesn't necessarily mean we drank them). The final floor of the building was a 360 degree view over all of Dublin, allowing us to take in the city in one fell swoop, continuing our trend of visiting a city's highest point on our final day (for those who don't remember, we did this in Paris, Athens, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Florence, and Rome as well).

Monday morning was our last in Europe. We woke up early and hopped on a bus to the airport after saying goodbye to our last hostel. I unfortunately had ran out of deodorant, effectively becoming European on our final day. After a 7 hour plane ride, a 4 hour layover in Chicago, and another 1 hour plane ride, we were back in Minnesota. And now, I'm back in my bed.

I guess the best way to end this blog is to once again look at the goals that I set out to achieve in writing this.

Goal 1 was to "inform family and friends of my whereabouts while studying abroad this semester in Greece and Italy while also telling insightful stories and tidbits about what it's like to be a college kid in a foreign country with a bunch of people who don't wear deodorant." I feel as if I achieved this goal, but I guess that verdict is up to you.

Goal 2 was to "become a big enough internet sensation that Taylor Swift would finally notice me." While this blog became bigger than I could've ever expected (as of right now, it's had 1,131 hits), it unfortunately wasn't big enough to get the girl of my dreams to notice me. She instead started dating a werewolf from Twilight who some might say looks more manly than me, but again, that verdict is up to you. Hopefully this last post will finally push my blog over the edge and into the Hollywood mainstream.

So I guess this is finally it. When I thought about what it would be like coming home, I was scared, not sure whether home would be the same as it was when I left. Would I be able to find home again? Even after returning, who knows whether my life will ever be the same. But, I feel that everything that happened did so for the better. I guess only time will tell. So now, like the ending of most of my favorite movies, Scott in the Rocks will now sail into the sunset and the great beyond. Goodbye, Chasers. It's been real.

And one last time...here's Taylor Swift. And some pictures from the final days if that's more interesting to you.

Final Special Shout-Out of the Day: All the Chasers. Obviously, this blog for me was but a journal of my experiences that I thought maybe someone else would like to read. It turns out over a thousand of you wanted to. So thank you to everyone who cared enough about me, CSB/SJU, or the entire continent of Europe to read what I had to say about it. You stay classy, Chasers!

Final European Insult Tally:

Bill: 1 - Bill, I expected more out of you...I really did.

Scott: 4 - Winner of the European Insult Tally. I would like to thank the academy, the writer of Scott on the Rocks, and of course the Europeans (mainly the French), who without I wouldn't have anyone to insult. Should I get 5 points now?

Matt: 1 - Matt never was able to get past his first insult point and was thus never in contention for the winner's trophy. But, I guess this should've been expected. The only person that Matt ever seems to insult is me...and thankfully I'm not European.

Ryan: 3 - A surprise loser in the insult tally. Ryan's honest comments usually can spark controversy and anger, but he was apparently able to keep it in check around Europe. I would say this could count as personal growth, but the point of this was to be competitive and win the Insult Tally, but Ryan's competitive side never really showed.

For the last time...ya digg?

Your friend or family member (or random acquaintance)

Scott Twelves

The Last Three Weeks

Chasers, I realize that I have been a little absent over the last couple of days, but can you blame me? We only have (or, actually, had) 5 weeks in Rome, and that doesn’t leave me much time to write a blog whilst also trying to experience everything that the entire country of Italy has to offer. So, I’m gonna break it down like this. Here is a quick recapitulation of everything that we have done since the end of Part Three of the fall break posts. After the recap, I will tell some stories that you will hopefully enjoy. Got it? And here…we…go!

• Nov. 20^th: We traveled to Naples. Though the city was dirtier than an Imperial garbage compactor, we still managed to have a good time. During this weekend we also visited the sites of Herculaneum and Pompeii, both of which were buried during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD. We all escape without being covered in volcanic ash.
• Nov. 26^th (Thanksgiving): We traveled to Florence along with our Art History teacher. We were treated to a Thanksgiving dinner put on by a restaurant that “researched” American Thanksgiving Day meals. We were served cornbread, pumpkin soup, cranberries, potatoes, and everyone’s favorite Thanskgiving Day bird…roast duck. Where is the turkey? I give their research a B+ at best. Later that night, we found a bar that was showing the Cowboys/Oakland game. Unfortunately, the bar turned the game off at halftime because it was karaoke night. We don’t stay.
• Nov. 27^th: Still in Florence. We spend four hours chasing around our art history teacher while trying to frantically take notes on every major artwork in Florence. We fail. Our director, Chuck, takes us out to a burger joint to get a true American meal. I enjoy my first bacon cheeseburger (not including Crispy McBacon’s from McDonald’s) in 2.5 months. My stomach reacts like the guys from Animal House when Otis Day and the Knights show up.
• Nov. 29^th: We go to the Catacombs of San Callisto, something that we meant to do on Halloween but couldn’t find. This is probably a good thing. 20 kilometers of underground tombs might’ve been kind of scary on Oct. 31^st. We meet some family with a daughter on the USA figure skating team and a son on the USA speed skating team. The son is apparently 11^th in the nation. I tell him congratulations but secretly know that he must be one of 15 guys that speed skate. At least he’s faster than 4 of them
• Dec. 1^st: The bar that we watch the Vikings games at is having karaoke night. We decide to go and flex our golden pipes. After listening to bad renditions of Don’t Stop Believing, Bohemian Rhapsody, and I Just Can’t Wait to be King, we (Brian Skluzacek and I) decide that we can show up the entire bar. By the time it’s our turn, the bar is so full that we can hardly make it up to the front. Brian and I grab the microphones and shock the bar with our crowd-pleasing choice of Sweet Caroline. The whole place reacted like a FIFA soccer celebration while singing along. Meanwhile, I run around the stage, handing the microphone to different groups of people so they can sing the BAH-BAH-BAH! part of the refrain. We leave the stage to a standing ovation. Or maybe there were just no seats left in the bar. We’ll go with the former.
• Dec. 3^rd: We have our last actual class before finals. It’s Language and Culture class and we finish by singing a song with a lot of easy Italian phrases in it, but we still don’t know what it meant. We find out later that it’s a love song about marijuana. Leave it to a song about pot to be the simplest song in the Italian language. After class, we have a taste testing of typical Italian Christmas treats. I pick out the table nearest the front with only two other people at it (all other tables had at least six). We are always the first to be offered more food and eat an equivalent amount to the 6-person tables. The evening consists of much flatulence and stomach pains.
• Dec. 4^th: We go on our last excursion outside of Rome to the city of Ostia Antica (the ancient port city of Rome). With the walking lecture over, we are officially done with learning and only have the finals to look forward to. Since we no longer need our notes for Language and Culture class, I turn them into a baseball-sized wad and we play our first game of baseball/football/soccer/dodgeball since leaving the States. I’ve forgotten how much I love sports (Who am I kidding, no I haven’t).

Whew. Are you tired? I sure was at about 3:00 yesterday, when all of this caught up to me and knocked me out, allowing me to have a wonderful nap. We are now in finals week and there is really not much time left. Yesterday (Dec. 7^th), was a date that will live in infamy. We had our first of three finals (Ancient History), which was best described by our teacher as “making Afghanistan look like a frat party.” And here I thought that study abroad was supposed to be easy.

Tomorrow (Dec. 8^th) is a national holiday, so there is no school. We follow that up with our last two finals on Wednesday, and then we’re done. That’s right. D-o-n-e Done. Doesn’t it seem like you just became Chasers? It’s seems that way to me, too. There is still a little left to be done before we leave, but time is now going to start flying by. On Thursday we are touring the Vatican underground Necropolis, where St. Peter himself is buried. Friday will be filled with revisiting our favorite sites one last time and most likely packing. And Saturday, we leave for Dublin, where Bill, Ryan, and I will stay for two nights before continuing back to the great state of Minnesota (Matt is taking a different route home, choosing to go through some city called New York on his way). So whereas today was sunny and 8 degrees Celsius, I am exactly one week removed from landing in a place with frozen ponds, dark evergreens, and temperatures of 8 degrees Fahrenheit. Can’t wait!

There have been many things about Minnesota (and the US in general) that I’ve missed during my time abroad. These include a currency that doesn’t look like Monopoly money, free water at restaurants, prices that don’t feel like highway robberies, videogames, sports, snow, more than 5 different outfit choices, efficient washers and any sort of dryer, a car, my family, my dog, and most importantly my bed. I can’t wait to wake up without my neck or back aching, put on warm clothes, and go downstairs and lay on some sort of comfortable furniture. I think I’ll even be happy to pay for gas instead of using free (but often smelly and cramped) public transportation.

I’m not really sure what the state of the blog will be after the trip, but I can’t really imagine that you guys are gonna care about my days at college. I realize that the only reason I was semi-interesting was because I was on a different continent. I’ll at least write one more blog before I leave for good, at which point I will give a State of the Blog address. Until then, wish me luck on finals! And start counting down the days.

Here's the pictures from the last three weeks. Enjoy.

Special Shout-Out of the Day: Matt Butorac. He has pleaded to be named on the blog for quite some time now, so here's hoping that he's finally satisfied. While this shout-out isn't entirely deserved, it's not not deserved.

European Insult Tally:

Bill: 1

Scott: 4

Matt: 1

Ryan: 3

I guess this poll got a little old after a while. We thought that we'd be the typical Americans and would accidentally insult many people (which we may have done without even knowing, but ah well). We got one more week to insult any people living in Europe, so we'll see what we can do.

Ya digg?

Your friend or family member (or random acquaintance)

Scott Twelves