Riot Post

After class on Tuesday I went to Crudo, a restaurant and lounge to make reservations for my friend's birthday, which was Wednesday. I was walking back to St. Mary's (where we have class) when I suddenly noticed that I was surrounded by about 50,000 people (three hours of class makes me less than sharp). I also noticed that I was going in the direction they were going for the most part and that they had trucks blasting music, scarves over there faces, and outdated punk clothing.

It turns out that having a nifty scooter has another use than making you look cool. With a nifty scooter, you gotta have a nifty scooter helmet. Those nifty helmets can be (niftily) worn when rushing a line of carabinieri, who have night sticks and riot shields, both of which could otherwise inflict some not-so-nifty head wounds.

Basically, there was a short but intense battle on the street that St. Mary's is on. The protesters walked/ran forward with their hands up and the police just started beating them. There were a few associated press types taking pictures, but other than that people started to try to get out of the way of the violence. I somehow got locked in a cafe which was right in next to the carabinieri line. The owner was, quite understandably, freaking out. Everything in Rome has big metal storm-shutter type things which I now know are more for protection against riots than from the rather tame weather.

When the protesters retreated a little down the street, the cafe owner opened the side door and I walked out, almost running into a line of far more hardcore carabinieri on the side street, hidden from the crowd of protesters. The guys who had been in the mix earlier looked more like roughnecks. They just had blue shirts and blue helmets, and of course big night sticks. The more intimidating yet hidden carabinieri had like 12 nightsticks per man, guns, full padded riot gear, shields, and an extremely mean and fascist looking captain.

I sadly didn't have my camera, and I had the vague idea of doing work, so I popped into the St. Mary's library, got bored doing work there, and ended up going back to the Villa Bassi to get my camera. An hour later when I got back, the protest had unfortunately taken a more peaceful turn. It had moved mainy to Piazza Nuovona, and had been reduced to eating gelato, smoking cigarettes, and dancing to bad italian pop in front of police barriers (no punk!). I snapped this picture of the same somewhat evil looking captain, and went home. It turned out that the protest was due to some proposed reforms to the university system.

Chè pazzo!

Separate Pic Post

I thought I'd put a pic up of Amsterdam (or more accurately myself and others, in Amsterdam), and relate another quick story.

My friends: Hey, can you tell us how to get to the blue coffeeshop?
Guy: Sure, you go down that street, take a left and, wait, do you guys need coke, ecstasy? No? Ok, well go left, and make your second right...

(That's Anita, Bahar and I looking very cool in Northern Europe. Our expressions pretty much capture the experience. Or something.)

Amsterdam. A Theme Park for Adults.

It really is. And the themes are debauchery and drug use puppies. Needless to say it was pretty incredible. Our hostel was in the red light district, which is one of the most surreal places I have ever been. Walking around it we were constantly accosted by people offering us ''Coke! Ecstasy!'' while we watched men talk to the prostitutes in the windows, and in many cases, go inside. What truly made it surreal was the fact that this all takes place in beautiful architecture, next to canals and bridges (albeit with red lights on them). At one point a guy wouldn't leave us alone about LSD.
Him: Hey, you know what LSD is?
Me: ...
Him: You know? You know LSD?
Me: (Worst Move Ever) Yeah dude, I know what it is. We don't want any.
Him: You know? You think you know? What is LSD? TELL ME! YOU THINK YOU KNOW!?
Him: YOU DON'T KNOW. YOU THINK YOU KNOW BUT YOU DO NOT. YOU WANT?
...and this went on for a while. To avoid this, don't talk to drug dealers at 3 AM in the red light district.

The rest of the city was extremely nice as well. Saturday I was up for literally 20 hours, and I walked around the whole thing. The Van Gogh Museum was particularly nice. And the food was spectacular. A lot of Middle Eastern and Asian food (which I had previously had only once since getting here). The only thing I didn't particularly love was in a trendy restaurant in a nice shopping district, where I ordered ox sausage (being adventurous) and it turned out to be raw. And not like dry curred raw like prosciutto, it was just some raw ground ox meat on a piece of bread with some greens. It was surprisingly good but I probably wouldn't order it again in a hurry.

Dam Dam Dam (Like Bar Bar Bar)

I was planning on going to Venice this weekend with some people, but that fell through. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I'd rather not be in Rome this weekend. A bunch of people are going to Amsterdam, but they bought their tickets long ago, and people who bought tickets more recently payed dearly for them. Also, I wanted to wait till Hatrup was there at the end of next month, but I'm not sure that will work out. Well, I stopped by a student travel agency and booked a surprisingly cheap flight for tomorrow. So excited.

Don't worry, I won't do anything you wouldn't do.

You like absinthe, right?

Back to Sink Laundry

So I didn't bring enough clothes. I knew I wasn't bringing enough, and I had plans to buy some here, which made economic sense because Ryan Air charged us something like £5 per kilo of checked baggage over 15 kilos. Plus, buying stuff here had the added benefit of getting to pretentiously wear Italian clothes...or so I thought. It started in London, we went to visit the 'Top Shop', which Nolan and company praised as 'like 10 times better than H&M'. It was pretty good, more expensive than I expected, but worst of all, all the clothes had American places printed on them. And not like cool American places. The shirts all said things like 'Northern Wyoming High', or 'Eastern Maryland Basketball Camp'. Eastern Maryland? What? Even people actually from Eastern Maryland try not to advertise it.
It turns out the same fad is alive and strong in Rome as well. I need a sweatshirt, but all the sweatshirts either have fictitious American locations or British flags on them or cost 200 euros.

Anyway, in short, I'm cold.

And we have a final tomorrow.

Much Smaller Capri Post (pt #2)

The next day some people and I went to the the top of the mountain in Anacapri, by a single chair gondola thingy. We sat around and had cappuccinos at the snack bar on top. Then we hiked down and took a bus to Capri where we met up with everyone else and went to the beach. The picture is from the long walk to the beach. We had to hop a fence or two, and we got kicked out a few private beaches, but eventually we found the right beach and went swimming. Afterwards we all went to the huge suite, hung out, smoked some Cuban cigars, drank some Glenlivet, had a bottle of Don Perignon, and watched the view and the sky.

Massive & Long Awaited Capri Post (Pt #1)

Sorry this took so long. The Internet was down at the 'The Bassi'. Anyway, after the Museum in Naples, we walked to the port and, after being attacked by gypsies, got on a ferry to Capri. Me and a bunch of other people had already made reservations for a hostel in Anacapri (Latin for 'Poorer-side-of-Capri-with-significantly-less-Gucci-stores') for both Saturday and Sunday night, while other people were staying with us for the first night and then moving to an enormous suite in a hotel in Capri proper. We took all took a bus to the hostel, singing the Phantom Planet song, California (you know, the O.C. theme) with Anacapri substituted for California. Brilliant. The bus ride along sheer cliffs with scooters and other buses whizzing by us on tiny streets wasn't too bad either.

The hostel, Bussola di Hermes, was awesome. Rita, it's proprietor, has gained minor celebrity status in guide books for being even more awesome.
Immediately on checking in she informed us that right now there was a small window of time where we could, being poor college students, get into the famous Blue Grotto for free, as the boat trips for the day were over because the tide was coming up, but the water wasn't quite high enough yet to pose a serious threat of, you know, drowning us. We had to hurry though, cause there wasn't much time. We took another bus there, and went down some metal steps that just sort of stopped when they got to the water, with a big sign reading swimming prohibited. The sign actually spelled prohibited with a K somehow, but more of a problem than the rules were the jellyfish. As we were walking down the steps with a few middle aged tourists hanging out on them, we met a couple of other students who told us the water was teeming (that's right, teeming) with jellyfish, and they had the stings to prove it.

When we got all the way down the steps we saw that they were very much correct. The water was full of the suckers. There were about 15 of us, half clothed, standing on the steps, trying to work up the cojones to jump in this water and swim into this dark, partially underwater cave, that we couldn't even see. There was a chain leading in, but that was about it. We stood around for about 20 minutes, when a random Australian dude jumped in from about 25 feet above us and told us it wasn't too bad. That shamed a couple of guys (Rico, Carlos and Pete, I think) from our group into jumping in, but they got stung by the jellyfish and cut by the coral, so they jumped out about as quickly, without really going into the cave.

In the end, it was good old fashion sexism that saved the day. One of the girls, Jane, looked pretty serious about going in, and I just couldn't handle a girl being the first one in the cave, so I jumped in (careful to avoid the coral) and swam into the dark cave. And man was that cave dark. A couple of other kids , including Jane, came in right afterwards, but my masculinity (and all men's!) was secured.

The Grotto itself was phenomenal. Facing inwards, it was impossible to see anything until my eyes adjusted, but facing outwards I got the whole blue thing. I guess the floor is blue or something, and the light reflects off it, making all the water shine this deep rich blue that you see in this picture of other people I stole from someone else's website. I stayed in there for about half an hour and generally pretended to be mature and concerned for everyone else's safety (I model myself off Ben, when I can). Only a few people were badly stung, most, especially Crys got cut by the coral when they jumped in (and thrashed around to avoid the jellyfish), but I got out without a scratch. Ok enough with the pseudo-bragging.

After the Grotto, we went back to the hostel, had dinner at a cool little (read:cheap) place in Anacapri, and then basically had a party, as it was Pete's 21st birthday. It worked out well because the rooms were pretty big and we had a courtyard between them.

Bay-O-Napoli

...and we're back. I had a text presentation on Wednesday, and then the entire program left for the Naples area at 0700 Thursday morning, where I had to do a presentation in Pompeii. Between preparing for those and, you know, sleeping, I didn't get a chance to post anything about leaving. So my apologies to the three of you (Sam, Genna and my Dad) who read this.

Pompeii and the other sites and museums were pretty good but eventually I start to get tired of that sort of thing. Also it was chilly and rainy, and the bus driver accused us of puking on a seat in the bus (which we didn't). We stayed at a little hotel/hostel outside Naples which is part of some academic society and had good home cooked food and comfortable beds for two nights (it evidently caters to professors). Friday we climbed Mount Vesuvius in the pouring cold rain and wind, and had a shot of limoncelo at the top. It was pretty hardcore. Group picture to follow.

Saturday we went to the museum in Naples which was good (yay erotic Roman Statues!) and then after lunch, we left the official program (all but 4 of us) and walked to the Marina to take a boat to Capri. I think Capri deserves a separate post.

Special K Cioccolato Fondente

If you know me, you know that I love cereal. There's just something about ice cold milk and crispity crunchity goodness that is hard for me to resist. If you really know me, you know that my all time favorite cereal is Cinnamon Crispix, but I eat it rarely as it's so unhealthy and (oddly) expensive. Rice Chex, Special-K, Rice Crispies and other somewhat healthy rice cereals follow close behind. Untill now. Except sort of now as well.

In Italy, they sell...Chocolate Special K. It's real shavings of chocolate mixed in with, you guessed it, Special K. Brilliant.

Oh, and far less importantly Uncle Norm is here. He's good, but involves approximately the same amount of chocolate as he does in the US, so is less exciting than chocolate special K.

But really, Norm is well, says hello to some of you, and is plenty exciting. We went out to diner Saturday night and then got gelato and watched crazy fire dancers in front of the fountain in Piazza S. Maria in Trastevere. Good times, good times.