A thousand apologies for the severe lack of quality posts. Sometimes, in life, shit happens. But tonight it's Friday and I finally get some downtime to chill out and regroup, because tomorrow it all starts back up again.
Let's see... where did I leave off? Damn, I haven't really posted since Monday. That's practically a month ago - or so it feels like.
So here's a quick summary of my week [as quick as I can make it, anyway]:
Tuesday was full of adventures, but not really in a good way. After class, instead of going to the open-air market as planned, a group of us decided to go see the Spanish Steps instead. Remember that fearless leader I mentioned in an earlier post, who claimed to lead us in the right direction? Well, basically he did the same great job again, leading us straight past the Steps. We ended up in Piazza del Popolo, which I was tripping hard about, because I had seriously studied a painting of it in class last quarter, and when I realized where I was I felt like I was in the painting. On the way there, we did our first bit of shopping [my only purchase was a really warm scarf for 4.50euro - quality], and I proceeded to get extremely grumpy with said leader, basically because he was full of shit and way too proud to admit it. Luckily, Mike had a map of Rome and led us to where we wanted to be, but not before our group got separated and much stress ensued. But you don't really care about that. Suffice to say, when we got to the Steps, I was more than irritated. While half our friends climbed the steps, the rest of us waited impatiently. When we were all reunited, our friends had a story to tell us, but you need some backstory to understand: So there are a ton of people in Rome that make their living solely on scamming naive tourists. It's kind of sad. Anyway, one of the best scams goes something like this: a man comes up to you and asks you if he can tie a string around your finger. Unless you actively resist such a tempting treat [because who doesn't want a stranger tying things on their appendages?], he will proceed to tie the string around your finger, and then around your hand, and he won't let you go until you pay him. Ridiculous, no? So my flatmate Gilli was at the top of the Steps and saw some guy trying to scam a tourist. She's a sweetheart, so she started calling out to the tourist, telling him No! No! and ended up convincing the tourist to walk away. Afterward, two men, one of which was the scammer, the other, his friend, approached her. She had no idea what was about to happen but she braced herself. They walked by her so quickly she didn't have time to react, but one of them kicked her while the other spit straight in her face. How fucked up is that? When she made it back down the steps to us, she was in tears she was so furious. I would have been just as mad. It was so absolutely unbelievable. So that put a damper on the afternoon.
That evening, we got the opportunity to attend an opera at the historic Teatro dell'Opera, Puccini's Tosca, for free [courtesy of EAP]. My flatmates and I got all dressed up - I borrowed some clothes from everyone and looked very Italian, boots and all - I was pleased. We got there and had some trouble finding our seats on our tickets. When we finally flagged down an usher, she led us to the 3rd floor, and took out a key to unlock a door for us. We seriously thought we were going to watch the opera from a broom closet with a peephole or something. Much to our surprise and delight, the door opened to reveal our very own BOX. Yes, they got ALL 99 of us box seats to the opera. How cool is that? Random fact: Tosca actually debuted in that very same theater [which is gorgeous, by the way] in 1900. The opera was great; very entertaining. And yes, I bought an ice-cream bar during intermission [a Magnum - no jokes about the name, please. Believe me, I've made them all]. By the time we got out, the Metro stopped running and the day buses stopped running, so we made it to Termini [the central station-ish sort of place] and were running around talking to whoever could speak English, trying to figure out which bus to take home. Turns out, there really weren't any. We took a bus to get a bit closer to home, then attempted to call for a taxi, but were told the taxi company was out of taxis. Luckily, we were able to flag one down [it usually doesn't work that way], and for 2 euro per person, we made it home.
Wednesday morning, our bus to school never came. Okay well it came, but we weren't at the stop yet but we figured we would just wait for the next one, because they come every few minutes or so. Half an hour later, no bus. Turns out our specific bus line went on a strike but didn't really tell anyone. So we were late to school. After school, it was a fight to the death for spots on this Carnival trip to Pisa, Lucca, and some other place: they had 48 spots and there are 99 kids in the program. And we had to have 150euro in cash. It was stressful, but I made it, so that's exciting. That's pretty much everything interesting that happened on Wednesday.
Thursday in our Italian class we went on a trip to Campo de'Fiore, where there is a large and very expensive open-air market. It's a very touristy area. Needless to say, none of us really did our assignment and we all got food instead. In my case it was a pasta [pastry] from this famously delicious bakery, and some gelato from the best gelato place I've found so far. Hazelnut and chocolate, baby. Every time. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
That evening I was supposed to go to an aperitivo our program was putting on for us, to show us how it works [it's kind of like Happy Hour with more free food], but I didn't go because I stayed home like a good girl to study for my Italian test today.
Today, Friday, I had my Italian test, which was alright, and then had some drama trying to get money out of an ATM, got it figured out, and went to my first pub with a large group of friends and bought my first drink. I drank a pint and a half of alcoholic beverage, and for those of you that don't know me well, I don't really imbibe any real quantities of liquid, so that was pretty impressive. Needless to say, at 3pm I was well on my way to drunk. I took the bus home with some people to rest and get ready, because another group organized an independent aperitivo, but I ended up being too exhausted to get up from my nap and dress and go. I chilled out for a bit and ended up going to Mike's apartment, hanging out there with his flatmates and some friends, and then he and I went out to take some photos [he is an amazing photographer]. It was fun; I got to play around with my new camera and I think I took some cool photos [check the slideshow soon], but it was pretty cold.
I took the bus home for the first time by myself after dark and I'm still alive. I don't remember if I said this already, but I live down the street from a police station and two blocks away from a military base, so I figure my neighborhood is pretty safe.

Tomorrow we have a free day trip to Orvieto, but we have to leave at 7am, which means we have to leave our apartment at 6am, which means I need to wake up around 4.30am. Goodnight!

[Oh, check this post again and the slideshow around Sunday for pictures. I probably won't have time to do them tomorrow. xoxo]