I'm still kickin', don't worry

January 28, 2010

Hello!

So I know it’s been like a week, I’m still alive, don’t worry.

This past week has been alright, people are getting more and more sick and I hope that I’m not coming down with something too bad. Yesterday I was burning up and I felt a little light headed so I just stayed after class because some of the girls from the Renaissance class watched Troy. I forgot how bad an actor Orlando Bloom is, it’s painful to watch. But anyway, I am feeling better and I’ve been pounding myself with meds and vitamins and whatnot so hopefully I will feel better soon. Just before I got sick one girl, Molly, had been feeling sick too, like fever and vomiting, sooooo fingers crossed because I’ve been hanging out with her a lot lately.

On Wednesdays we have our cross-culture class and we had a cheese tasting, so now I have some idea of the varieties here, one of them they had us put fig jam on it, can you say wonderful? Well, maybe not, but I sure can. And we had white wine with it, kind of strange for me but I asked Filiberto about it and he said that it was just because he wanted us to taste a wine from the area. He then told us to hurry up and finish it before our next class started… again, only in Italy.

 

Tomorrow we are going to an abbey and maybe a castle? I’m not sure, and they said something about a wine tasting.

 

Also… big news! I’m going to Carnivale in Venice next weekend! We booked a hotel today and I’m going to buy my tickets soon, so we will be there from Friday to Sunday, I’m so excited! I will for sure videotape that with the 33 minutes remaining of my battery until I get that package from good old G-Rap… it should be here any day now, hopefully.

 

What else? I’m learning Buttercup on the guitar. “You know, build me up, buttercup baby just to let me down” (that will now be in all of your heads for a few hours I hope).

I also just changed my background on my laptop to a cute little rabbit picture from stumbleupon I’m sure some of you have seen it. Tiled of course.

Also, I just listened to this song and wrote down the lyrics… yes I know I could have gotten them offline and maybe some of the words will be wrong, Mallory will know.

 

But I think you should all read and listen to it, you can think of me if you want to, that way it will sort of have something to do with the blog, here’s the link as well

 

Come and open up your folding chair next to me

My feet are buried in the sand, and there’s a breeze

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

Let’s get a silver bullet trailer and have a baby boy

I’ll safety pin his clothes all cool and you’ll graffiti up his toys

I’ve got a perfect booooody, but sometimes I forge-e-e-e-e-et

I’ve got a perfect booooody cause my eyelashes catch my sweat, yes they do, the dooooo

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Now, I’ve been sitting on this abandoned beach for years

Waiting for the salty water to cover up my ears

But every time the tide come in to take me home

I get scared, now I’m sitting here alone, dreaming of the dolphin song

 

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 

Maybe one day you will understand that I want nothing from you just to really hold your hand

Til that day comes, please to feel so down, don’t make frowns you silly clown

 

Juuuuust come and open up your folding chair next to me

My feet are buried in the sand, and there’s a breeze

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

And the sea is just a wetter version of the skies

 

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyes

There’s a shadow, you can’t see my eyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyes

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCvgXmg0m1g

January 30, 2010

Ok, so yesterday was pretty cram packed… we went to San Ginesio which was snow covered… not like Michigan but it was super unexpected and I was wearing converses, not good. But it was super pretty and I actually took pictures, so I’m pretty proud of myself, even though it was mostly so that I can just sketch Romanesque buildings for my Art History journal from my own pictures instead of other people’s on facebook.

So we went to a few churches and then to an abbey called S. Maria di Chiaravalle di Fiastra which was cool. Then we ate lunch, I had gnocchi and soup, and then we went to a castle and walked to the top of the tower, or keep? I’m not sure what it’s called, let me tell you, people were camera happy, by the end I didn’t want to take anymore, I am already not such a fan of posing. Then we went to a Winery called Il Pollenza and we even got to taste some wine! One white and then the same red but from different years. The white was actually really nice, I’m usually not huge on whites, the red on the other hand was very woody… like very, very woody, it kind of tasted like wood, but I mean it was still good just not my type of red. Then we got back and bought our tickets for Venice and went grocery shopping. After that I went to my friend Katie’s apartment and we figured out spring break… so, the deal is we will take a train to Rome then take a plan to Barcelona, then either a train or bus to Madrid, meet up with Coralie there and take a plane to Dublin, stay a few days, maybe do mini bus trips to other places, it’s a small country, then the cheapest way back was through Brussels and then to Rome… so, we are going to hang out in Belgium for a day or so. Yep, so planes booked now we have to start looking at other transportation and hostels. Hey, if any of you have connections in any of those places or have friends that could house us or something please let me know, there will be 4 girls all together. Or if any of you have stayed in hostels there or have any good tips of where to go or anything anything at all let me know please! I think it will be a fun and possibly crazy adventure, I might have to live on only pasta when I return to Macerata but that is a risk I am willing to take.

 

It took us like 4 or 5 hours to figure this all out last night so by the time we finished it was around 2- 2:30 so they told me to spend the night on their couch… so yeah, it’s starting to feel like home haha.

 

Anyway, that is all for now, I am going to go buy some veggies with Carly and post this all in a few hours, take a look at these pics!

Winery

Abbey... I think that's how it's spelled
Snow
Bad idea...

 

I have no time.... sorry for the long wait between blogs

January 24, 2010

 

Hello folks!

I touched the Adriatic sea yesterday! Never thought I’d do that. We went to Civitanova, this city that is about 30 minutes by train from Macerata. It was pretty cool, pretty cold too. We went to the big market and went to eat at this seafood restaurant and walked along the beach. Some kids ran in barefoot up to their calves, those crazy Oregoneans… Oregonas… I don’t know, Carly would probably be upset with me if she read this right now.

 

There isn’t too much to tell. Classes are going well, but I have to get back into the habit of doing homework again. We have to write a review about Moonstruck for my film class which is what I am avoiding doing at the moment.

 

Let’s see… my legs are killing me, I might have to amputate. Filiberto had us on yet another walking tour of Macerata on Friday from I think 9am to 5ish with a break for lunch, so that was a blast and a half. After that, we went to Pathos (a café) to get caffeine or sugar recharges before going to meet our tandem partners. It’s a program where you are paired with another person who is interested in speaking your language or learning about your culture. I was partnered with Chiara who seems pretty cool. She’s 28 but I think we will still have enough in common to be good partners, plus she lived in Paris for a bit and speaks some French, so we can practice 3 languages. We have to meet at least once a week for 2 hours to speak in Italian and English so we are meeting tomorrow night for aperitif.

 

Oooops, I was supposed to post this last night, fail.

 

It was kind of an intense night last night, a bad day for the Graces we said.

My roommate Grace’s friend died and the other Grace’s grandpa died. So we did a girls night at one of the apartments. They seem to be doing better today, but it must be really tough… so depressing note there.

 

But I am doing fine, it sort of made me homesick for a bit but I will def be fine.

 

Not sure what else to say… hopefully video soon? Or more pictures?

 

Peace out for now.

You know you're in Italy when...

So I know that Grace will probably say the same things but since the great majority of you won't be reading her blog:

You know you're in Italy when it takes more than 5 days for your clothes to dry... I'm running out of clean things!

You also know you are in Italy when it is cheaper to get wine at a restaurant than water, no joke.

So I feel like lately I don't have too many stories, nothing to share really. I have had all of my classes at least once and I am pretty happy with them, I think that I will learn a lot this semester, and as for the history classes there are some history buffs who I might have to cling too.

Lets see... I am trying to take pictures, It's my goal now there just hasn't been much sun lately... buuuut this morning it was very foggy outside so I took pictures of that so you will have a strange idea of what Macerata looks like.

So here you go...

Also, I don't know how to comment on my own posts so Audrey: I don't know how much it costs for postage stamps but I do know that the term "snail mail" definitely applies to Italy so send those out asap so I get them before my program is finished.

Ciao!

So after posting this last blog I went out with Grace to look at other guitar prices just in the window of the store and we decided to make some friends…. So we went to this bar/ café called Maracula or something, maybe Maraguia, a weird name. So we go in and Grace just says ciao and we introduce ourselves and just start talking to them in our broken Italian, we told them that we wanted to learn some Italian so they taught us somethings and I realized that I actually do know quite a bit of Italian already, I was even able to explain what H1N1 is, so you should be proud Gisella. We both had had some coffee and one guy (Roberto) told us that that was just not the Italian way and that it was time for aperitif, so he bought us both a glass of wine to welcome us to Macerata, we ended up getting the coffees on the house too, so basically, if I am ever really broke I will go try to make friends with people so they buy me things… lesson learned. The problem was that since we both had a coffee around 8, neither of us could fall asleep, another lesson learned. Also, the old lady who lives above us kept moving things, maybe she redecorates in her sleep.

 

Yesterday I started classes. I took my Italian placement exam in the morning and then went out to lunch with the other Grace and Molly. Then I ran home to get my guitar and brought it to the store to exchange it, luckily the man was very nice and was totally ok with it. So I now own a classical Yamaha, pretty nifty, and it sounds sooo much better. I’m happy with it. Then I went to painting class with most of our group to try it out and I really like it, so I’m debating dropping my Modern Italy class for it. I have to look up the equivalency tomorrow and maybe I will call Padnos International Center at GV to find out if that is even an option. There is an extra 70 euro fee but I kind of think it would be worth it to have a less stressful semester. The teacher seems to be full of knowledge but I think he likes to hear himself talk, either that or he is super spacey and just gets off track easily. After that class finally ended I went to shop with some of the girls for groceries and then ate a semi-well rounded dinner, I have to get better at that. Then I went over to Katie, Hsuan Hsuan, and the other Grace’s, they live sort of in the center of the city. We had planned on going to an Internet café but they were all closed, Mondays and Sundays are weird here with that kind of stuff. So instead we just hung out and I played some guitar for them, I tried teaching Katie that moldy peaches song from Juno, she’ll get there. Luckily Hsuan Hsuan plays guitar because she helped me tune it, I’m still not too sure how to use that stupid thing. In any case, they said they would baby-sit it for me anytime. I’m going to have to name it, any suggestions?

 

Last night I dreamt that I had a dryer… it was wonderful.

 

Seriously, I washed my stuff probably about 3 days ago and it’s still not dry, at least the heavy stuff, so that is for sure one think I’m missing.

 

This morning my alarm went off at 7:00 and Grace said oops! She said that she was going to take a nap last night at 8 and she just didn’t wake back up, the jerk, I’m so tired today! Anyway first thing she says, after oops, “I wish we had a microwave so I could reheat my spaghetti”, for breakfast? Then I find her eating it and pouring herself a cup of white wine, she said that today she was just going to be Italian, meaning that she wasn’t going to wash her hair…

 

Ok I’m going to try to post pics again of my apartment, let’s see what happens.

Send me things!

My address is... for regular mail:

Alyson Caillaud-Jones

c/o AHA Macerata Program

P.O. Box 221

62100 MACERATA

Italy

 

then for packages it's...

Alyson Caillaud-Jones

c/o AHA Macerata Program

Via Crescimbeni, 5

62100 MACERATA, Italy

 

A Casa Mia

Since I am a bit behind on my blogging I have been keeping track of things in a word document... hence the dates.

January 15, 2010

 

So, I am moved into my new home. This place is biiiig, a lot bigger than I thought it would be and I guess it gets a lot of sun, we have a few balconies off the bedrooms and a wonderful view but it is pretty white and cold. We aren’t allowed to tape things on the wall so our colorful personalities will have to do. I’m so happy I can actually unpack now and no longer have to live out of my suitcase. I was actually surprised that I was able to repack everything, It was like I was leaving the hostel with more clothes than I came with, don’t ask.

 

Yesterday we had another tour of the city and then again today, it seems big but I’m starting to recognize some places and know where others are. Last night we went to this little tretorria (I’m not sure how to spell that) run by an old couple. It was wonderful; fresh made pasta, unlimited vino, homemade tiramisu. Also I tried some anise liquor in my espresso… no comment. It was super fun though. After that we all went out to a bar that was hosting a small concert, that’s when we found out that going out is pretty expensive. The big style here right now is these strange, shinny, puffy coats with a fur trimmed hood. They look pretty ridiculous but I’m sure you will all be wearing them when I get back. And we all thought that we would stick right in with our peacoats, what were we thinking. Next on the agenda was to go to a discotheque but I don’t think it opened until probably around 1 or 2 and we had to wake up early this morning, so we walked to the tail end of the walled in city, whatever it’s called, the old part, I don’t know, and two of the girls and I had to go to the bathroom, but you can’t really use a bathroom if you don’t pay for something. So we bought a bottle of wine and shared it in secret on a bench next to this bar called Bar King (say it out loud real quick). I know lots of people are reading this, don’t judge me, we recycled the bottle.

 

So yes, it has been fun. But school starts soon, we got our schedules today so I will need to start getting serious.

 

January 16, 2010

 

Today we met again with our group for a walking tour, Filiberto seems to like those, and then hopped on a bus to the “mall”. Grace (one of my roommates) and I brought backpacks so we could steal stuff… just kidding, there is a supermarket in the mall so we brought them as our “bags” so we wouldn’t have to pay for plastic ones. I bought a few essentials but I need to go out again today to get some fresh fruit, bread and eggs.

 

Everything shuts down here from about 2 to 4 I think? Well I know things reopen at 4 so in about 10 minutes I’m going to go out and hopefully buy a guitar… I’ll let you know how that journey goes.

 

So… I bought a guitar but I have been wanting one so bad that I really didn’t take the time I needed to to buy it. I should have actually sat down and played it before committing. The thing is, I can’t really afford to buy a better guitar than this because the price jumped from 44 to about 80 or 90 I think, but now I’m wondering if that would have been worth it. It’s a classical guitar so It’s a little different, and I’m not used to Nylon strings so I’m wondering if I should just buy new strings, but can you put steel strings on a Classic guitar? Help please; I know some of you are music people. I don’t really know what the return policy is here, so I’m thinking I’ll talk to Filiberto and see what he thinks, maybe I’ll just have to pay an extra 20 or more euros because I feel like I’m playing a toy guitar. Lots to think about. The guy who sold it to me was a very cute old man and he was very nice, he said that his son was in Seattle and then said (in Italian) it’s a small world.

 

That was a bit of a rant, sorry, anywho, after I came back to the apartment Carly (my other roommate) and I went out to get some fresh fruit and veggies and whatnot. We made polenta with a tomato sauce with no help from recipes and it turned out pretty good, I was proud. Then two girls (Molly and the other Grace) came over and we went to the other Grace’s apartment (I know a little confusing) there, we met up with some other girls and went to the Cinema Italia to see this Beatles cover band play. They were pretty good, I mean, who doesn’t like the Beatles, but one guy sounded like he was Japanese or something and we were surrounded by old people. After that we tried to find a bar or something where we could maybe meet people but we didn’t have much luck, I guess the big days to got here are Wednesday and Thursday, strange.

 

So, you are all semi-updated

 

In Italy you are only supposed to have your heat on for 12 hours in the winter and we accidentally left ours on this morning when we left for the Mall so when we got back we had to turn it off and we can’t use it until tomorrow. Also, I need to wash clothes… and take pictures… sorry guys, I’ve been a bad picture blogger but it’s been pretty gray here so once the sun comes out I will do Macerata justice, and once I have a better internet connection I will upload pictures of my apartment.

Don't worry folks, I made it.

Hey,

There is a lot to tell… bare with me.

 

So after two planes, two trains, a few cabs and lots of walking; I made it!

Where to start… I took the plane from Grand Rapids to Newark no problem along with a man who looked like the Grandpa in Gilmore Girls, if that means anything to anyone. After a 4-hour layover I got onto my plane for Rome. I had to switch with an older man so he could sit next to his wife so I ended up in a middle seat next to… a very round man lets say, but I managed to sleep a little bit with the help of a Tylenol Cold. I went to Roma Termini and took the train to Fabriano. So I get off (this is the only epic part of my traveling) go over to the time table to find out when my next train is, then I look up to see that the train I need to get on is right next to me and it was supposed to leave 10 minutes ago. So I book it to the first open door and jump into the train, trying to heave my 49.5 pound luggage up the steps of the door, an old man had to help me get it up. That was before I realized that that it was an old school train that needed a man to close the doors manually with a key, so I must have looked pretty ridiculous, but it was quite the adrenaline rush. 

 

So I made it to Macerata around 4:30 and was brought to my “single room” which really was only a single room because I was going to be sleeping there alone, along with 7 empty beds… kind of creepy, like something out of a scary movie. But luckily, after going out to dinner with Carly (a student that was also here last semester) I came back to two new roommates and then at around 6 am were joined by another 3 and I have to say, boy did I have it easy getting here, these girls had been traveling for 2 full days!

 

We all slept until pretty late, and I would have slept later if it hadn’t been for one of the girl’s alarms at 12:30. After an unusual shower, I went out with a few others to get a bite to eat, pizza of course (but zucchini mind you). We met at 3:30 at the hostel (Ostello) with Filiberto ( I hope I’m spelling that right) and went on a quick tour ending at the school. We had a little orientation discussion and then went out for hot chocolate and then back to the Ostello for a big dinner.

 

I have to say, I wasn’t so sure about this at first, when you’re traveling alone for over 24 hours you a lot of time to think. But, I’m pretty positive now that this is where I want to be, and I am totally ready to take on whatever comes my way… hopefully.

 

Well I will try to write again soon and at some point will post pictures because this place, is something else.

 

 

Goodbye all

Hey there!

So, as most of you know, I am leaving Monday (January 11th) for Italia!

This is my first time using a blog so I will try my best to keep an interesting and updated one so that you all know what is going on in my life while I am abroad. 

Feel free to comment on these posts and send me your "snail mail" once I actually have an address.