Roaming Around Rome

As promised in my last blog post, here is a look inside of my apartment:

My room!

My closet

The other bathroom (complete with a bidet)

One of our two bathrooms

One of the shared bedrooms

The living room (plus drying racks)

Our dining room

The kitchen (And yes that is a washing machine right next to the refrigerator)

Okay now that you are probably tired of looking at all of the pictures of my apartment, here is an update on what has been going on here in Roma! It has been raining a lot here lately, and two Sundays ago I looked outside of my window and what do I see?! A DOUBLE RAINBOW!!! I have never seen a double rainbow before so as some of you might guess, this was a very exciting moment for me! It was so beautiful. I took some pictures of it and you can’t really see the second rainbow in one of my pictures but in the other picture if you look really closely you can see both.

Double Rainbow :)

Two Tuesdays ago (January 21^st) it was Emma’s (one of my roommates) birthday! Of course all of us roommates had to go out to celebrate so we headed over to the Abbey Bar because it was also Taco Tuesday! However, when we got there we were informed that they ran out of tacos (Who runs out of tacos on Taco Tuesday?!...Yeah I don't know either). We were all very disappointed but we were so hungry that we ordered other things off of their menu. Megan and I split a basket of chicken fingers and everyone else got nachos. Then after we devoured our food, we went to Sloppy Sams. Bria and I tried something new and got a Miami Iced Tea, which was pretty tasty. All in all, we all had a fun night just dancing and hanging out at the bar.

On Thursday Laura, Danielle, and Lauren left for Interlaken, Switzerland so it was just Emma, Megan, Bria, and me that stayed in Rome for the weekend. That night we went to one of the gelato places and got a nutella crepe with gelato on top. It was one of the most delicious desserts that I have ever had. However, it also gave me the biggest food coma that I have ever had as well. I literally had to lay down on the couch because I could not move. Luckily, my wonderful roommate, Bria, made me some green tea which helped soothe my stomach pain. We definitely could have split the nutella crepe because it was just too much to eat. I will for sure be getting it again but next time I am going to split one with someone else so I won't have to relive the experience of that food coma!

My Nutella Crepe with Gelato. Mouthwatering.

On Friday we went to dinner at a restaurant that was near the Pantheon. We got a table outside, and we had a wonderful view of the Pantheon from where we were seated. I ordered ravioli with spinach and ricotta and got a chocolate dessert cup (because everyone knows that a meal isn't complete without dessert!). I also tried Limoncello, which I was not exactly a fan of since it was quite sour but I guess it is just an acquired taste. Then we went out to the Drunken Ship and got drinks. Their music was on-point that night, especially when they played “Get Outta Your Mind” and “Get Low” (I love me some Lil Jon!). Then we went to a nearby club called Mood. I didn’t know very many of the songs at Mood since a lot of them were Spanish but nonetheless we tore up the dance floor and danced the night away until 4 in the morning.

The next day, all of us slept in (typical) but even more so than usual since we were out so late the night before. After we finally got up we went to the Colosseum because we wanted to tour the inside. Before we reached the Colosseum we made a pit stop because we saw this HUGE donut that we could not pass up because it looked super scrumptious so Bria and I split one of the humungous donuts. We continued walking toward the Colosseum while munching on our donut, and when we finally got there the Colosseum was closed (Fail #1). So we will just have to go back another day since our mission didn’t go as planned. After our failed attempt to see the inside of the Colosseum we walked to the Jewish Ghetto and wandered around that area. I wanted to try to find a bagel there since bagels are rare to find here in Rome but we were too full, tired, and cold so we headed back home. By the time we got back home we were exhausted so we all just crashed early.

The donut was bigger than my head

On Sunday I forced myself to wake up early and went to the Vatican at 7:45 in the morning. The Vatican was absolutely exquisite! I was in awe. After taking everything in, we walked over to the Sistine Chapel to try to get in because it is free on the last Sunday of each month but the line was so incredibly long and wrapped around 2 and a half blocks so we decided to just come back a different day when it will be much less crowded (Fail #2). Then we walked back home and I climbed right back into bed and took a 3 hour nap. After I felt rejuvenated from my nap, we went to get pizza and walked up to the top of Gianicolo Hill to watch the sunset. The view was spectacular! One of my roommates, Emma, and I were talking about going back to Gianicolo Hill to watch the sunrise so I will have to do that one of these upcoming weeks too!

The Vatican

As for tonight, I will be heading to LONDON!!!! The other day I booked a last minute flight to London to meet up with one of my best friends, Chen, who is studying abroad in Paris but has these next two weeks off. We are going to see what Londontown has to offer, and we are going to see Taylor Swift in concert on Sunday night so I am super stoked for that. So I will update you on London next week! Ciao for now my friends.

                                                                        XOXO Jaden Ellesse

My New Home, Rome!

Ciao! So here I am…..in Rome…..I still cannot believe that this is all real. It has officially been 2 weeks since I have arrived in Rome, and I have finally started to settle in. I still don’t really know how to get to a lot of places around town yet though because: A) There are so many small, somewhat hidden stores and restaurants so I walk passed them without even realizing it, and B) I have a terrible sense of direction and the small, winding streets here certainly do not help. What also doesn’t help is that I am constantly dodging cars and vespas. I find myself looking at the ground a lot around here because you have to watch out for the dog poop along the roads since apparently many of the dog owners here don’t pick up after their dogs. Yuck. Anyways, classes started last week, and I found all of my classes without any problems. There are two campuses that we go to for classes, and luckily the walk to my classes from my apartment is about a 5 minute walk to one campus (Guarini Campus) and about a 10 minute walk to the other (Tiber Campus). I only have one class on Mondays and Wednesdays but I have 4 on Tuesdays and Thursdays with basically no breaks in between (aka I have 6 and 1/2 hour days on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I make myself a lunch in the mornings to ensure that I don’t die from starvation during my classes).

My roommates and I
(Starting from the top left: Lauren, Laura, Danielle, Bria)
(Starting from the Bottom Left: Emma, Megan, and Me)

The first week of being here I spent settling into my apartment, going to orientation, and of course exploring Rome. I live in the Gionicolo Residence, which is in the Trastevere part of Rome, and I share an apartment with 6 other girls. My roommates are all from different schools, and they are all very nice. In our apartment we have a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and 2 bathrooms (I'll post pictures of my apartment in my next blog post). I’m not even going to write about orientation because it was pretty non-eventful except for going on the Navigation 101 tour where we were shown and told how to get around via bus, tram, and train. The whole time while we were taking public transportation I was clenching my bag because pickpocketers here are crazy good at stealing foreigners’ stuff. We also took a small little tour around Rome during this Navigation session as well. I have already seen a decent amount of landmarks, including the Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, and the Pantheon.

The Colosseum

The Pantheon

The Trevi Fountain

Not only are the landmarks here amazing, but so is the food! I have already gotten pizza, pasta, sandwiches, gelato, a chocolate croissant, and my first ever cannoli while I have been here. I also have made gnocchi a few times at my apartment, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I have to say that I did a job well done! Also, although I have only been here for 7 days, I have already made three trips to the grocery store! This is because the grocery store is sort of far from our apartment, and since we carry all of our groceries back, you can’t exactly get a lot of items unless you want to be in pain the whole time walking back or enjoy the feeling of having your arms about to fall off (which is how I felt after my first grocery store trip). My diet here mostly consists of pasta, pizza, and paninis because that is basically all that Italians eat. Thankfully, I do a lot of stair climbing (we live on the 4^th floor so I go up 8 flights of stairs each day/several times a day) and walking around here so hopefully that will keep me from gaining 20 lbs.

My first real Italian Pasta dish here: Penne al Salmone (It was delicious!)

Snickers and Stracciatella Gelato

My first slice of pizza in Rome
(they cut it in half because it was so big)

More Pizza!

Let’s see, what else have I been up to….Oh yeah, I spent some nights out on the town. On the first night out, most of my roommates and I went to a bar called The Drunken Ship with some other students who also go to John Cabot University. It was pretty fun and we liked it a lot because it had a pretty chill, laid-back atmosphere. The second night out a few of my roommates and I went to a place called G bar and to two other small bars near G bar. That night we met a lot of local Italians who were all nice, and they gave us advice on places where we should go in Rome so that was kind of helpful. On the third night, all of my roommates and I went to Scholars Irish Pub where we watched the Seattle Seahawks vs. New Orleans Saints football game. Naturally I rooted for the Seahawks because Russell Wilson is their quarterback and he was just playing for our team at Wisconsin last year (#BadgerPride!), so I’m happy that the Seahawks won. The last night, we all went to a bar called the Abbey and then we went to a place called Sloppy Sam’s after we got tired of the Abbey. All four nights that I have been out were really fun, and the nightlife here seems to be pretty great!

Scholars Pub

My final update is that three of my roommates (Bria, Laura, and Megan) and I took a day trip this past Saturday to Tuscany to do some wine tasting! I had such a blast and seeing all the vineyards and wine cellars was really cool. We went to two different wineries, Montalcino and Montepulciano. Some of the wines that I tasted were pretty good and some were not exactly my cup of tea. All of the wines that they provided were red wines, and my favorite out of all of them was the Rosso Di Montalcino. I do wish that they would have had white wine to taste since I tend to like white wine better but I can’t complain since some of the wines we tasted were some of the top wines in the world!

Okay, that’s all for now, and sorry that this is such a long (and late) post. I’ll try to update my blog once every week but it might be more like once every two weeks sometimes since I’m new to this whole blogging thing, and I might forget. Ciao for now!

                                                                                       XOXO Jaden Ellesse