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. 20th: 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. 26th (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. 27th: 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. 29th: 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. 31st. 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 11th 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. 1st: 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. 3rd: 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. 4th: 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. 7th), 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. 8th) 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
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