Before I get into my Italian adventures, I guess it’s only fair to spend a few lines writing about classes. So Turkish eekk, kicking my American ass! I already have almost 200 vocab words after two lectures. My teacher moves sooo fast! She’s really really pretty so when she loses me I find myself just staring at her and thinking about how she gets her hair to look so full and gorgeous! But my goal for the semester is to have a strong foundation in Turkish so I actually spent two hours in the library (wtf only the few, the proud, and the brave) do that around here! Haha I went to meet Reuben because he had a break in between classes but instead of bullshitting like I usually do here, I spent two hours studying for Turkish and I actually made progress! The class just moves so fast that I can barely keep up with what page she’s on let alone absorb any information so for the rest of the semester I need to make sure I actually spend time trying to learn outside of class. My POLI classes haven’t really started yet so I will update on those next week! I tried to take a Calculus class because my classes here are pass fail and math is not my forte but it was impossible! The class was taught in English but the professor had a very thick Turkish accent and FLEW through the material which seemed to be the standard because everyone else kept up. But I also didn’t realize that this was the second semester of a yearlong class and I’m pretty sure missing the first puts me at a disadvantage. So I left after 40 minutes! I couldn’t take it, not to be cocky but it’s rare that I feel completely clueless, and I did. I felt like an idiot in that class! No worries though, I’m in the process of dropping that class and adding a International Law class (much more of my scene).
Roma :)
Reuben and I decided last week on a complete whim to come to Venice, but there were no direct flights from Istanbul so we flew to Rome. Since we left our apartments at Boğaziçi everything has been an adventure! First, we had to get to SAW, the airport on the Asian side of Istanbul by 10:00am. So after hours and hours of googling we decided the best thing to do would be to find a cab from our apartments to 4 Levent and then take the Havas shuttle to SAW. But of course today was no different from the last week in Istanbul and it was overcast and rainy. Can someone tell me why it is impossible to get a cab when it’s raining?!??!? We finally got one at 8:30 and worried the entire ride to 4 Levent (which is supposed to be about 10 minutes but ended up being almost 25 in rush hour traffic). Anyway once we got out we ran through the rain to find the shuttle but had no luck :(. We finally asked two very nice Metro information men who walked us all the way to the public bus to the airport so we figured what the hell and just hopped on! We got to the airport in perfect time and even had enough time to have a nice breakfast at SimitDonalds. Well, that’s not the real name; it’s called Simit Sarayi which means Palace of Simit (the pretzel/bagel babies). But this café is on almost every corner in Istanbul hence the name we so lovingly gave it, SimitDonalds. We ended up flying along with the Russian Federation Rugby team, cool I guess? Ugh I hate not knowing which teams are famous and which teams are the Durham Bulls. But they all had sponsored gear and were HUGE! So in my head I flew with the Russian equivalent of the Lakers!! Anyway we ambitiously had our books and laptops ready for our three hour flight to Rome but as soon as the plane took off we both passed out. It certainly wasn’t enough sleep because as soon as we landed in Rome I kept hoping the flight would be just a few hours longer!
Via Vignole
I had looked up directions of how to get from FCO, the airport in Rome, to our hotel which is about 15 to Flaminio Square by public transport. And even though both of us were thoroughly exhausted we made the most of our adventure to Hotel Villa Glori! Our directions led us to the Leonardo Express, which is a non-stop train from FCO to the Termini Station in Rome. The ticket seemed slightly expensive (14 euro) but everyone else was doing it and we didn’t know what else to do! It was fun though; we found a café in the train terminal and had our first bottles of Italian wine and a delicious chocolate pastry! Coming from Istanbul where alcohol is taxed like a mofo, a 3.5 euro quarter liter of wine was HEAVEN!
Wine and Pastries!!
We enjoyed ourselves so much that we lost track of time and had to run (full out wine still in my right hand, sprint) across the terminal to catch our train. It was exciting to say the least! After a 45 minute train ride we got off at the Termini station, and walked for another 15ish minutes to find the right metro. Then we got on a tram took us to our hotel!
Single?
We finally found our gorgeous hotel, tucked in probably the only quiet corner of Rome! (http://www.hotelvillaglori.com) More pictures later I promise! Upon checking in we realized that there was a mistake with the reservation and they had put us in a single room. We prepaid in dollars online so there really was no way in hell that we were going to pay the extra 30 Euro (per night) for a double. So even though I was looking forward to (finally) sleeping in a huge comfy bed we yet again arrived home to a gorgeous twin. Regardless the hotel was really nice and surpassed all my expectations of what we could get on a student budget in Rome. Since we were both exhausted and starving (no food since SimitDonalds) we headed to the nearby Piazza del Flaminio and grabbed delicious Roman pizzas and Peroni (Italian beer) for dinner.
Yummmmm
Peroni.
After that we walked around until we couldn’t walk anymore and of course I had a delectable bowl of Nutella gelato :)) Then at the elderly hour of 9:00pm we turned in after a long day of traveling. I’m just so excited to be outside of cold and dreary Istanbul for the weekend, I don’t even care that we paid 10 Euro for 8 pieces of calamari or that Reuben’s more interested in the beday (bedai? I have no idea how you spell it, the butt washer!) than he is with Rome. I’m just so excited to be here!
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