where's the beach?

i'll tell ya where, two metro stops, a train and a bus away, that's where.

and luckily, it's also only 2 euro round trip which if you translate back to ol' USD it's cheaper than parking at any beach back home. even more luck was involved when only one woman we passed had decided against shaving her armpits -- what's the deal? and the beach here offers women on a caliber that the US dare not know. sadly the men were equally scantily clad, but hey ya win some ya lose some. that said, it's easy to see how a day floating about the mediterranean would be ever seen as a hard activity to partake in. it was both really salty, pretty shallow (we're talkin walking on knees decently far out) and warm.

baby baby.

not to mention one of the most gorgeous women i'd ever seen rinsing off, just saying.

my sunday consisted of waking up early to make it to the porta portese flea market (i refuse to return home sans-pointy shoes and a leather jacket so best to start early, right?). it was well worth it, as i have never seen such a sweet mix of garage sale and swap meet action in my life. post-flea market, we went to the villa borghese which is essentially roman central park. it's a huge park filled with trees/sculptures/museums/caffès/rentals (of the boat, bike AND pedal car variety) and other oddities, like fountains.

unfortunately however, for every weekend there exists a preceding week. mine was blessed (staying with the holy theme of rome's proximity to the vatican) with our first week of italian language classes. it's an intensive course which means 3 hrs a day we're studying the lovely vernacular that is italian. honestly, it's not bad but it does drag at spots. i was also visited by my friend on her way to spain, she was traveling with another friend and they both stopped in rome. sadly, due to my newly filled schedule we didn't have too much time, but never bad to see a familiar face.

next week starts our second of three total weeks of the initial language class. after this class we have a week-long break until the start of our core classes (which will again include italian, but only for an hour/day this time round). so hopefully after this week ends i'll have an idea as to where i may be headed for that week to go on many more zany - yep, zany - adventures.


PS i am aware of the difficulties regarding pictures. i'm workin on it. think of it this way, when they do finally get posted you'll get a bunch to go through. kinda like making meatballs, it takes forever but then you have a bunch of meatballs, a huge score.

la dolce vita

a lot of people have asked me "how do you like rome?" and to be honest, at first it's decently intimidating. however aside from the heat, the entire city is pretty damn sweet. and it's never been hard to like a place that takes 3 hours for lunch, encourages j-walking, and can eat a sandwich/smoke a cigarette/talk on the phone while holding their helmet around their wrist (don't want to mess up the hair) and transporting groceries between their legs on a scooter.

that being said, i am doing my best to acclimate to the roman way of life. i now look for open pockets of traffic to cross in with a certain degree of confidence i never knew, all the while being ready to jump back if they're not gonna stop after all. i can order a cappuccino from the bar in the morning, or an espresso later on in the day. i know gelato is readily available at any time and that pizza shouldn't, for the most part, ever come sliced. all in all, i'm adjusting.

i start my italian practicum tomorrow which will help in doing things like ordering (food/drink/gelato/etc) and yelling at traffic which can get a little too close at times. i attempted to get a martini in search of what i had in france and ended up with a glass of red vermouth, not exactly the best stuff around.

my program is mostly girls (not bad) and a surprising number of which are from ucsb. my roommates are good guys, two go to sb and the other two go to berkeley and uci. i'm in a triple and the two sb guys are in the double next door. our apartment is a good one with 3 air conditioners, 2 bathrooms, and wood floors. however in true italian fashion, 1 air conditioner drips water, the shower's broken, and the washing machine's door won't latch. we're working on getting those fixed.

i forgot to mention the rare occurrence on my first flight. that was a fully grown/sane man coming back from the lavatory with a toilet-paper tail. i didn't think that happened! the goofy part was he exited the plane with it still there, i later saw him getting on my connecting flight and it was gone though. how embarrassing!

i'm so far so good and excited for the weather to cool down and rome to wake up from its month-long holiday known as ferragosto. pictures hopefully will be on the picasa page soon, it was uploading pretty slowly. otherwise there are some on facebook (for those of you with it) and are soon to be on picasa.

rome wasn't built in a day, but i arrived in one -- kinda.

all roads lead to rome, unfortunately if you go through canada they also lead to customs and security.

my first day *if you can call it that* consisted of getting myself up and out of california and to la citta eterna, literally. my initial flight was to montreal where i would then home-alone it across the airport to my connection to rome. this was easy enough due to an early arrival even if canada insists on moving slower than molasses (or in their case maple syrup). not only was i forced to go through customs AND security, my gate to connect was essentially on the opposite side of the airport. sweet.

after canada we were all set to go until there was trouble with our plane and we needed to have the mechanic come out to look at/fix it prior to departure. luckily, an hour in the plane earns you a small bag of "chili-citrus corn snacks" which taste like wonky croutons, but even i was desperate enough to eat the entire thing. their in-flight meals however were good, i opted for the 'chicken' which was chicken in some white goo with wild rice. to wrap up the meal we were given chocolate mousse which was light, and surprisingly good for what i have grown to expect.

and 8 (in air) hours later, we were there. ready to take the "air bridge" to baggage and mingle with the nuns as i searched for my program trying not to be distracted by all the pretty girls.

t-minus 13 days to liftoff

aloha and good day, mis amigos. just a head's up for those of you who don't know (or remember) of my upcoming studying abroad adventure in none other than the eternal city of rome, italy.

i'll be there for about 4 months and hope to keep up with a blog roughly once a week. this will, ideally, allow you to either live vicariously through me, feel as though your part of my journey, or just get your fill of alex - at such a length, i know it can be rough to go without.

that being said stay tuned as my departure is looming ever closer and i am forced to get my act together enough to live in a foreign country.

PS i have set up a picasa account and hope to be linking to more pictures through that as to not overwhelm the blog.

PPS for those of you with it, both my AIM and skype username can be found on facebook or find a way to let me know and i'll get it to ya as i'm not one to turn down good conversation.