la fine settimana rilassante

Ancient Roman Paved Road (really hard to walk on)

Ciao a tutti! I last updated on Wednesday, so here's what's happened since.  I did nothing exciting on Wednesday.  On Thursday, I had classes.  In Italian, we started our review, and I started remembering everything.  I've used the same notebook since my first Italian class, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but my notes are amazing.  If they weren't so good, I'd be super behind in all my Italian classes. I would really like to get post-it notes so I can use my old notes as reference easier, but unfortunately, they don't seem to sell them anywhere.  I'm still looking though! I also had theology, and I also still don't like my theology class.  Because the teacher is a priest, we started class with a prayer, and ended the class with a prayer (I HATE that). He also uses his "sermon voice" for his lectures, which seems inappropriate because its too quiet and the inflection is all wrong.  He doesn't write anything on the board, or use powerpoints or anything, so it's difficult to pay attention and/or learn anything.

ancient sign

On Friday, I didn't have classes, as usual. And once again, I really didn't do anything productive.  I slept super-late, and rested, which probably was a really good thing, seeing as how today went down (more about that later).  Last night, I was on skype with my mom and my sister.  We booked our tickets to London! We're meeting at Gatwick Airport on November 10th and staying until the 14th. The Harry Potter movie premier is on the 11th, so we'll go to that.  Kayla also wants to do a Harry Potter tour of London, so we'll do that too.  We haven't figured out the rest of the weekend yet, nor have we booked a hostel (suggestions are appreciated!). It didn't end up being too expensive, but I definitely have to watch my spending for awhile.

awesome mosaic floor!

This morning we were planning on going to the walled city of Orvieto.  I woke up around 11, and was ready to go at 12.  The train was at 12:45, so if we had left then, we would have made it in plenty of time, however, due to several hindrances, we didn't leave campus until around 12:15.  When we got to Termini, we had to purchase our tickets, and just about every other ticket machine in the building was broken.  By the time we all had our tickets, it was 12:42, and we had to find the train platform.  For whatever reason, the train didn't pull all the way into the station, so we were forced to run all the way down the platform and out of the station.  We watched as the train left without us.  Fortunately, our tickets are good for a few weeks, so we're going to try to go tomorrow instead.

Theatre

Determined to do/see something interesting today, some of the girls and I decided to go to Ostia to see the ruins.  Back in the days of ancient Rome, Ostia was used as a port for Roman trading.  It was a pretty sizable city.  Now it is known for the well-preserved ruins it holds.  You can clearly see what some of the buildings had been used for, and their theatre has been kept functional even after all of this time.  We walked through the ruins for a few hours, exploring and imagining how it used to be as we went.  It was actually really interesting, because ruins like that aren't really in Rome.  Most of the Roman ruins are functional buildings (pantheon, colosseum, forums, basilicas), whereas the buildings in Ostia were a lot of houses, and shops and secret underground tunnels.  It was an enjoyable experience, until I started to feel terrible....

ruins!

About an hour before we left, after having walked for hours and hours in the hot sun, I got really really hungry.  I had eaten breakfast, but apparently not enough.  There wasn't really anywhere to eat in the ruins, so we decided we would wait until we were back in Rome.  Unfortunately, I had finished my water about halfway through the ruins, so I was getting dehydrated, and I knew it.  It took all my strength to get out of the ruins, and once we were out, there was a public water fountain, where I drank a bottle and a half of water.  Then we stopped at a shop near the train station and I grabbed a granola bar with chocolate to hold me over until I could eat real food.  Thinking all my problems were solved, I ignored my stomach and brain telling me something was wrong.  The first train (of the three it took to get back to campus) was fine.  I knew I didn't feel 100% but I figured it would just take time to get better.  On the second train, I felt a little worse, but I didn't want to alarm the girls I was with, so I didn't say anything.  We had to stand up on all three trains. On the final train, it was just me and my roommate, because the other girls decided to stop at a bookstore.  Thats when things took a turn for the worst.  The train was packed to capacity, and there was no room to move around (I witnessed a pick-pocketing!).  It was about a million degrees, and sweaty and smelly on the train.  We didn't have too many stops to go, so I just focused on surviving.... About 2 stops from school, I got really light-headed, nauseous, and confused.  One stop from school, everything went white.  I could still see-- sort of. Everything was glowing so brightly that I couldn't tell what I was looking at.  My muscles all got really weak and I was swaying around uncontrollably.  My legs tried to give out a few times, but I stayed standing.  Finally the stupid doors opened at our station, and I stumbled off and got my roommates attention (she had headphones and hadn't looked at me).  When she looked at me, she asked me if I was going to be sick.  My lips had gone completely white, and I didn't look so good.  She gave me her water bottle and I downed the whole thing in about a second. We walked slowly to campus and once I got to my room, I grabbed food, water and collapsed onto my bed.  I'm reasonably sure my blood sugar was really really low, which caused all the symptoms.  I ate what I had quickly, but I only had crackers and nutella, which would have to be broken down into simple sugars before they had any affect.  My roommate just so happened to have some hard candies, which break-down much faster (shoutout to my Nana for teaching me that!!), so I ate a few of those, called my mom and fell asleep for awhile.

Pretty awesome Corinthian Column

My primary thought through the whole ordeal was that if I actually fell to the ground, I wouldn't be able to speak enough Italian to explain what was going on, and if they took me to a hospital, I would be screwed, because I didn't have my health insurance card, and theres no way my italian skills could have handled that.  I'm feeling much better now, after a few bottles of water, a lengthy nap, and some pizza.  I'm still looking a little pale and feeling a little light-headed, but I'm sure I'll be fine by morning time.  Needless to say, it was a scary experience, but I got through.  I also tried a new type of pizza... it was weird.  It had pepperoni (salami?) swiss cheese, lots and lots of basil and tomato sauce.  I'm not sure why I picked it.  It was okay.  I don't know if I'll get it again-- I had to pick off most of the basil to make it edible.

More ruins

Well, I'll leave you with that for today.  I was invited to go out tonight, but I declined.... probably not a good idea for tonight.  Tomorrow morning we're going to that walled city, so I'll try to post again tomorrow.  Buona notte!