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.