Christmas and More Rome

Christmas was really nice and quiet. On Christmas Eve I decided to put out one of my dad's socks (they're bigger) on the fireplace mantle. In the morning I checked to see what was in it, but I already knew the night before that I was going to get a few oranges and some boci (a chocolate candy, not the game).Later in the day, we went to our house cleaner lady's house for tea. Which I did not totally agree with, because it was Christmas and I wanted to be "home". But!!b Turns out it wasn't that bad. The lady had a dog that had a ten day old puppy, that hadn't even opened it's eyes! She also had a few birds and five turtles. We stayed for two hours and in that time period I understood about five percent of the out conversation. We had some cookies and pie thing... and I had juice instead of coffee. My mom did most of the talking and my dad a little bit. The lady kept trying to talk to me alone, while my parents were talking to her husband. We were trying to have a conversation about her turtles, but I couldn't understand, so I did what you're suppose to do: Smile and nod. After we left her house we went back home and played lots of games,like Nertz!! That is one of my favorite games now. In the first couple weeks we were here we played it every night. Anyway after a few games we watched Mrs. Doubtfire. That movie is sooo funny! Yesterday we went to Rome again! We were going to go on the day before that but my dad was sick, and still is a little bit. So anyway, we went to Compo di Fiori, and had really amazing pizza, at Forno. After that, my mom and went shopping and I bought a really cute shirt. Then we went to the Pantheon. Which was really cool. After that we went and got some gelato, mine was cookies and creme, I think. After we had gelato we headed home! And now I am planning our trip to Venice!


Oh this is really funny: I almost forgot my L.A teacher's name!

RomAmoR

Rome was incredible! On the first day it was the afternoon so we took the "Dolce vita Walk" (thanks to Rick Steves). We first walked through the stores on the street, Via del Corso. Next we went to the Spanish Steps, which is kind of just a hang out place for teenagers. After that we walked some more, again through the stores :). After that we went to the famous Trevi Fountain which was really cool. Did I mention? It was really cold the whole time! So, we went and I got a strawberry and nutella crepe! After some more, you guessed it, walking, we got back to our hotel. Our hotel was about a block and a half from the Colosseum!

The next day was a really big day. We first went to the Colosseum, with a guided audio tour from our pal, Rick Steves. Let's just say that after we left the Colosseum, I definitely wanted to back! After that we went to the Roman Forum. Which again, was an audio tour by Rick. It was really.. Interesting.. To me it kind of looked like a bunch of crumpled up bricks.. After the Forum, we headed to the place where Peter and Paul went to jail...It has a different name but it's too complicated for my brain. It was a tour of the prison, some talking rocks and a little church. To me, it was REALLY cheesy. But it was still really cool to see the prison (I would have been fine without the talking rocks though). Next, it was night time so we did the "Night Walk" and again we were helped out by our BFF, Rick Steves (honestly I think someone's getting obsessed... *cough* my dad). But before we could start the walk we got lost, thought my dad thought we we "just around the corner". Finally we started the walk. We saw a couple of fountains, in a piazza. Though in my opinion fountains in Italy are like mosaics in Israel :). We walked to another piazza near by where a little carnival thing was happening. My mom bought a little ornament witch, named Befana, she is like Santa Claus. We also went back to the Trevi Fountain just for fun. After the walk we went back to our hotel and played some card games, then went to bed.

The next day was probably my favorite day. We went to the Vatican City. AMAZING! We first went to the Vatican Museum. We saw a lot of statues and really old art stuff, even a Egyptian mummy! After wondering through the museum we headed to the end with the Sistine Chapel. It was absolutely incredible! We were guided by Rick (again). We saw the Last Judgement and the famous God and Adam. I thought it was really sad that we couldn't take any pictures, but I saw a least five people take pictures. Only four of the five got busted which made me made that someone could just get away with that. I really didn't want to leave the Sistine Chapel but the thing on our list was Saint Peter's Basilica! If you would like to know how big it is, here it is: The length is about two and a half football fields, and the height at tallest part is about one football field!!! After we listened to the audio guide for that, we headed for the train station. If you want to know the traveling experience go to my mom's page, all I will say is that is was cold, snowy, expensive, rainy, and miserable. A couple more things... I will post my pictures later... and this is really random but.. If you have ever seen the Lizzie McGuire movie, she goes to Rome, and the Trevi Fountain, and couldn't help but think of that when we went! Remember pictures later, and check my mom's blog for traveling! :)

Sheep!

Hey! Today was a really awesome day! We day tripped into Sora, a little town about 20 minutes away from where we are. Instead of doing a lot of exploring around the city, we hiked. We went up a lot of rocky stairs and it was kinda gross on the way up. Our destination was a small little church you could see from the city. The church was locked up (thankfully due to our past experiences with unknown churches). After circling the church for awhile we found a small short little path of nice, neat stairs... Guess where they led to? About half a block from where we had started up the mountain (remember.. the rocky path???) When we got back down we stopped for some pizza and window shopping. Personally I would really like to go back to Sora because I found a really cute sweater dress for 12 dollars! After that we were all pretty tired and we decided to head home.. And thank goodness we did. Coming into our driveway we saw 74 sheep! The people who own this house have a cousin who is a shepherd. He comes around every two weeks with his sheep and they come and "mow" the lawn! After all the sheep excitement we settled down and read some books :)

Oh and today we couldn't find Lea the dog so we went looking for her.. She was at her old house where she grew up.... Did I mention?? Lea is about 20 years old!

Veroli

A cat on top of the car in Veroli

Hey everyone! Today was a pretty okay day! I think it will be hard to go back to public schools considering I had trouble getting up around 9-ish today... Anyway today was our first "day trip"! We went to Veroli, which is a small, old, little village about 15 minutes away from where we are staying. My parents (notice not me) decided that we should "get lost" and just explore the town. The only thing that made the trip kind of miserable for me was the fact that I only brought a wind breaker for a coat, and I didn't bring a hat or gloves.... IT WAS WINDY! But it was fun none the less. We first went to a little museum, which I thought was really only okay, but it was pretty cool. Later we went to a little cafe, and luckily for us the lady there spoke english. I had coronette ( or a roll). The lady told of us of some places we could go. My mom decided that we should go see the church.. great idea right?? Wrong, when we peaked through the door, lo and behold! A traditional wedding was taking place. My mom decided that it would be fun to see the wedding, but for me and my dad it kinda felt like wedding crashing. My mom decided that it would be exciting to stay for a little bit, but I thought it was on the edge of rude. After a bit more wandering through the village, we stopped for lunch at a little pizzeria. I had this pizza with only bread and cheese ( I think). Afterwards we headed home for a nap and some letter writing.... And dog walking....

Samantha

Lea

Me and Blackie

Clementine

Sunrise

Hey all! ( that would be only three people) Okay well we went out lunch (lunch is the big meal of the day here). The menu they gave us was only in Italian, all I could understand was "pasta" and "pizza". So the waiter came by and I hadn't chosen what I should eat, so my mom said to get this pasta thing. None of us knew what I had gotten. So I was really nervous on what was coming ( I thought maybe a pig's head or seafood). So, I see the waiter coming out and guess what?? Clams! Sorry for all those seafood lovers.... Anyway later in the day some water people came because we had no water pressure in the house at night. They fixed the problem (maybe) and we'll have to see what's going to happen tonight. Sarah Chute: tell your mom to look at the pictures because she told me to post pictures of food :).Our new address (for now) is:

Via di Soprone

Contrada Giglio 135

03029 Giglio di Veroli

Fronsinone, Italy

Yesterday we decided that my home-schooling would be around 9 am to 11 am. But because of jet lag my dad and I woke up at 4 am and we were wide awake. So, then there was really nothing to do so I started on school work. I also went onto facebook because I figured that a lot of my friends would be online because of the time difference. Later in the day we had some dog issues... The inside dog ,Blackie, loves to escape! So we spent the better part of an hour trying to get her inside the house so we could go to town and buy food. So once we got her inside we headed out. The family has three dogs, the other two are Leah and Samantha. Both of them are outside dogs (Blackie is the inside dog and the favorite, don't ask me why though... because they're all cute ;). Anyway, Leah and Samantha pretty much go where ever they want to and they both followed us. They both have boundaries though so they don't follow us all they way. But Leah decided that she needed to follow us all the way which meant lots of getting the dog back to the side of the road quickly and also lots of flinching just in case the dog was stupid enough to stay in the middle of the road....

Fall of the day: fell out of the shower... bruise on my right knee!! fun. fun. fun.

Pictures will come later.. I'm on my dinosaur computer and I'm not sure how to put pictures on...

Packing for Italy!!! Packing is stressful especially when you're packing for three months in a small siutcase!!!!