Birthday Abroad!

Birthdays abroad are interesting. It's even different from being away at college. The phone isn't ringing off the hook, the internet stops working so you can't see e-mails people send- you could almost forget it is your birthday! To start it off, I was woken up to a "Happy birthday! Rafael Moneo is on the neighbor's terrace!" Moneo is a famous architect and I studied him last year and wrote a paper about the Roman Art Museum that he designed. So for him to be on the terrace was pretty cool. The dean of the Pantheon Institute program that we are doing lives there and he was having a party- which of course we were sneaking peeks at. It's right out the window! We had class on Thursday and later that night, everyone from my program came out with me to celebrate! We went out to dinner at this restaurant in Trastevere that serves a 3 course meal for a set price. The 25 of us just barely fit in the inside of the place. It was a good stressbuster too, because we had been dealing with a little more schoolwork and hadn't really hung out together in a while.

And of course, the menus are in Italian, so it's always fun guessing what you food you'll be eating. Well, the boys behind me ordered the plates with "local meat." Which was tripe! Trippa a romana was what it was called, I think. They did not enjoy it at all- it was so funny seeing their faces when they ate it, hahaha. We took our time over dinner, and didn't end up leaving the restaurant until about 3 hours later. After dessert, my friends all started singing "Happy birthday" and the waiters came over afterwards and kissed my hand and cheeks. Someone took a picture of me with them- I'm sure I'm beat red.

And last night we had fun too. Zach had made eggplant parmesan with some Italian sausage and salad (yumm!), and a bunch of us sat around talking, laughing, drinking vino....And we decided to go to the Ice Bar, which is somewhere near the Colosseum. It is a bar that is made completely out of ice! It cost 15 euros to get in, and we were given silver capes to stay warm. We each got a free drink, artic-themed, with our entry cost- I got the Passion Artic (peach vodka and lemon juice). They were served in hollowed-out cones of ice and then placed in a clear, plastic cylinder so we could hold it. It was a really small bar but it had these cute little cubby holes where about six people could squeeze into. And of course, they had fur "rugs" on the ice seats to help keep us from getting too cold. But we could only stay inside for so long before freezing, so we headed back towards home. And of course swung by Anima, which when we entered, the bouncer told us "Welcome home." Anima is across the street from us. It's a popular club that is comparable to the Boot at Tulane. Both are the place you swing by at the end of the night, not the place you go out to. 

                                                                           

(The above picture is inside one of those cubby-hole areas.)Today was a work day- we have a pin-up on Monday that we are getting drawings ready for, so I didn't really leave the studio all day. However, Jen and I had an adventure this morning. Some background info on our room- we get visited by ants. A lot. Usually they stay to the walls and the edge of the room. Not today. This morning they were all over my closet and in my clothes! Gross. Naturally, I grabbed the spray and killed them. However, that meant I now had dead ants all over my clothes. So I started shaking my clothes out the window. Well, knowing me, the adventure didn't stop there. I started shaking out my shorts and accidently dropped a pair of underwear onto the window ledge on the next floor down. The sports bra was the next thing to fall out our window. And of course, they were new so I wasn't about to leave them there. So Jen and I went down to get them from the ledge (we thought it would be a room belonging to Penn State). Unfortunately, the last room in their hallway was the window before the window we needed to get to. There was no way to get to this window! And I wasn't about to walk on the foot and a half wide shingles (well, I kind of wanted to, but Jen wouldn't let me). So we went back upstairs and devised a "fishing line" out if a wire hanger and 2 scarves. I'm so glad we live on the fourth floor. It was a sight seeing my undergarments being pulled into the window- Jen and I were dying of laughter. Ahh, another story to add to the drama of Rome. And to think I've been here for less than 2 weeks!  

Buonanotte!