More Photo's of Roma

Hey kids.
Well we recieved a request or two for more pics of Rome. so here they are.







Here's a pic for my mom. this was shaped like a heart when we found it. i have no idea what plant it's from.



We went to St. Paul's Basilica in Rome and here's kev, tiffany, and kelly, they were taking a pic from the front. i got one from the back. teehee





























Here are kev and i at St. Peter's Basilica(that's in Vatican City). we balanced the camera on a post that had a slightly rounded top. i was just sure i was going to have no more camera after that. turns out kev knew what he was doing(like always, don't know why i even doubted).




This is me in front of the fountain at the bottom of the spanish steps. i'm wishing here instead of at the Trevi foutain because i'd already wished at Trevi and therefore come back to Rome. i really don't want to fall in love with an italian. thanks but no.











This is our friend Brian and us at the pantheon. Obviously we're more excited about ourselves than the ancient church.

outside the box

hi all!
this weekend we managed to have a good bit of fun. on sabbath we went to a cute little town on the coast called "vada" to enjoy the beaches and sun. unfortunately, the weather was a bit cold for swimming, but it was still fine for hanging out in the sun! it was really funny when we went to buy tickets to vada at the firenze train station, because the word "vada" is the formal word used to command someone to go. when we were asked where we were going, we told the teller "vada". he clearly didn't understand that vada was a place, and as we're all americans, he probably thought we were just trying to speak italian. after telling him "vada" 4 times, to the same question asked 4 different ways (including informally... rather rude), we told him "c'e un posto si chiama 'vada'!" (it's a place called "vada"!), he managed to print us some tickets. once arriving, we walked most of the way across town. it was a beautiful little town, much like college place, or a small california coastal town. here are some pictures of us hanging out on the beach! click on them for bigger versions.


mindy, kevin (myself)...

tess, and brian.

aside from tess' atm card getting stolen by an atm in a foreign town, the trip was quite successful. we had a great time, and decided to return when the weather's a bit warmer.

yesterday (sunday), the 10 american guys put on a party for the 20(ish) american girls, and a few others. our theme was geometric shapes. the theme was pretty controversial, and we lost the support and help of the italians who were helping in the planning, so we had to work extra hard on all the decorations and stuff. all in all, the party turned out pretty well though, with a super-sized jenga tower, funky shape costumes and american(ish) food (which we miss oh so dearly at this point).

here's the jenga tower my handses are blistered from making. i had the help of one other stout character, "stevo". we cut off the tops of all 21 boxes with normal paper-cutting scissors, or as i've so well learned in tailoring class, "forbici".

here's my costume, or lack thereof, for the festa. yes. i had pants.

here's a close up of some decorations. we also had some cool light fixtures that saved the decoration scheme. (i think you can kind of see one in the tower picture).

we miss you guys all so much!
thanks for all your emails/calls/pictures/packages... they mean a lot!

wooOOoomp.

i like that title. sue me if you'd like.

we went to rome since you all last heard. it was fun! and there are pictures too!
we found a really cool boutique with clothes that are (evidently) really just for famous people, as we realized that even common shirts were priced at 200 euros +. needless to say we continued acting interested in the clothes, and instead just took ideas away. :) we had a bit more free time than everyone else, as neither of us were dying to see the sistene chapel... again, or any of the vatican museum stuff (it generally just ends up being a lot of time on the feet). so we poked around little boutiques and cultury spots of rome. look here we are at a less cultury, more touristy spot of rome, the forum.

We also got to go see the mamortine prison, where peter and paul were kept. i'd seen that before, but had really wanted to go back, so that was perfect. ask us if you're dying for pictures of that one, it was kinda dark.
we got to see the colosseum, which was fun as well. again, while i'd already seen it, it was really neat to see again. we got to go up to the 2nd layer and see it from higher up. it's always crazy to me to think that they actually used to flood the arena and have naval battles. those romans were good with water.

another fun surprise was that we had victor brown with us for a few days.

and mindy just called me a butt face. i don't know why. she's crazy.

back to the blog (not at all associating victor brown with the afore-mentioned bad name. he's a really cool guy, and we're glad to have had him with us.)
we also put on a church service in pisa, the day after the rome trip. victor came to pisa with us for that, and enjoyed not only the service, but seeing pisa with us. we'd been there before, so we showed him around and took a few pictures with him. see?

these were some adventures. and if you want to see more or read more, email us and ask us! we're lonely collegeons.

The Times they are a Changing

Well, this is the day that all of you in america are changing your clocks. You played a great little joke on those of us at Villa Aurora. (I'm mad a Bush he made me loose sleep). When i looked at my martha stewart or got news from home i assumed we were changing time too. Apparently this year in an attempt to become more enrgy effecient the US changes time three weeks earlier than everyone else. So today i was up at 7 am instead of the usual 8 am for breakfast. bugs. well at least i didn't miss breakfast. and now i know that we don't change time until April 1. Hope you all think of me in two weeks. when i lose my hour of sleep for a second time. (lucky kevin refuses to get up this early on a sunday, so he'll probably gain an hour somehow) i feel bad for poor kevin's parents, they get to go through the time change twice! they get over here the wednesday before we in europe change time and then get to lose an hour that sunday.

What we do

this is from our winter vacation with my(mindy's) parents. My dad took us skiing/snowboarding one day when we were near the matterhorn. This is me attempting to snowboard down the mountain and kevin cheering me on and giving me tips.










This is in Zermatt after our day of snowboarding. We're tired and happy and can't wait to get to our hotel. so we can have our second meal of the day. :)



here is a photo of kevin and i, each of us doing what we do best.

Nothing

Lately i've been in a state of nothing. Yes, i'm in europe. Yes, i'm learning another language. But things have become routine. I am bored when my schedule is too empty and i'm frustrated when my schedule becomes more full. I'm taking PE with kevin this quarter. I thought i was going to die. The teacher made us run and run at first and the last time i had run at all was when i was running for senior class president, which obviously didn't prepare me for this. But i survived and we began playing calcio(soccer). First was the choosing of teams. And in true gradeschool fashion i was chosen last, hey it's ok, i'm not really a sporty person and i know it(they just happened to know it too). Kevin was chosen for my team and so i was happy at least that i wouldn't have to kick against him. They placed me on the right side of the court and gave me a few instructions. the essential thing i got was, that i should keep the ball from reaching the net and to generally stay on my side of the court(we play on a basketball court, no idea why, i guess there is less chasing of the ball that way or something). But i as i ran around i found i was able to stick with the guys that ran through my space, and when the ball came my way i was able to control it a little. It looked like this game would be ok, and in the end I really truly enjoyed myself. Everyone was very encouraging and made me feel like i was making a contribution to the team.
Tonight is the second PE class, and we're playing calcio(we'll always be playing calcio).

wish me luck!