2012

New year, new background. Whadd'ya think? The get-computer-file-to-do-what-I-want-credit all goes to my big bro and sis-in-law who are both clever and attractive. Thank you both so much.

Since I ended last year with a list of 2011's highlights I'm posting some for 2012 as well. This was by-and-large the year I moved to Galway. Living in Ireland for 5 months was amazing and uncomparable (comparableless? incomparable? What is the word I'm looking for?) I learned a ton, made great friends, and soaked up so many wonderful memories, while soaking up an overabundance of rain water as well. The rest of the year back here in the states has been full of life and loveliness as well. Here are my 12 highlights of 2012 all haphazardly and in no particular order:

1-- Moving to Galway, everything from the plane-turned-train ride leaving BWI in January, to exploring and getting to know my darling city, to my wonderful visitors, to stepping back into Maryland humidity again in May was intense and bright with travel-details. I will always love the little city of Galway.

2-- 74 St Branden's Ave and the girls I lived with were better than I could have hoped for. Turns out moving overseas to live in a house with complete strangers you've only ever emailed a couple of times can be a perfectly fine idea, no ax-murders for me.

3-- My piccolo trip to Paris, as my first really solo trip it was unbeatable. I was thrilled to met up with Rei and her hubby on their trip from Japan. Not only did I get to see a precious friend, Paris made me feel brave.

4-- Rome, mio first amore. Possibly the only city I love more than Galway. I threw another coin into the Trevi fountain so I'll be sure to return. Then we visited friend's friends in Florence and Turin drinking in even  more great memories and the world's most delicious nutella-and-espresso drink.

5-- Dancing, One of the highlight of being home in Maryland is Mobtown Ballroom. Taking Lindy Hop lessons and going to see the incredible dancers at ILHC were high points of my summer. Now I can even do a successful swing-out without tripping over my own feet . . . most of the time.

6-- Jobs, This year I was also a productive member of society working at Starbucks, Program-Directoring at camp, interning at Manna Inc, and starting my job with Habitat for Humanity Montgomery County. Now I'm even sort-of-kinda-maybe figuring out what I want to do long-er-ish-term for work.

7-- Babies, since I was back in the States I flew out to WI for my old-college-roomie's baby's baptism. Then when I was suppose to fly home Super-Storm-Sandy hit, delaying my flight. Meaning I was able to help take the world's cutest Carpenter, Walrus, and Oyster trick-or-treating. "This!"

8-- Books/Films/Plays. This year I read and saw plenty of awesome books and films. The Fault in Our Stars is most definitely one of my new favorite books. And while I can't quite say I liked it, I'm not sure I would ever see a more emotionally intense movie than As If I Am Not Even There. Plus Cabin in the Woods, Avengers, and Cloud Atlas were kick-butt-good. And I got to see brilliant plays down in DC.

9--Русски - Fall 2012 I took Russian 101 with my lil' bro which was really fun. Did you know the Russian word for brother is brat? That is also fun. (although my little brother is totally not a brat)

10--Grown-up-ish-stuff, I have also spent a good deal of time this year getting rid of stuff I don't need, learning to cook/ feed myself and clean and budget better, and to stay sane as a semi-responsible adult.

11--T.V. Another good amount of my time was spent watching every episode of Downton Abbey, Friends, The West Wing, and How I Met Your Mother.

12-- The Boss in concert in Philly, was another bug highlight of 2012. Bruce Springsteen played for more than four hours straight and was amazing - blew my mind. The concert was incredibly fun. I hope to be just a fractious of that energetic and impressive when I'm in my 60s.

Over the course of this past year I've checked off bucket list items I didn't even have on my imaginary list: spending the night in an Italian train station, getting John Green's signature, taking a freezing-cold-April-dip in the Mediterranean, impressing an Irish lad with my tolerance for whiskey, puking off the side of a boat, finding the world's coolest tree, and watching a movie marathon at an embassy. 2012 has given me plenty of great stories. For this new year, I don't think I'm going to try any new year's resolutions, I'm just hoping to be more brave, adventurous, compassionate, and strong in 2013.

For the Love of Funny Alphabets

 This fall I'm taking Russian 101. Just for fun because I enjoy studying languages and have a slight obsession with funny alphabets. To be honest this is probably due to the fact that my real desire when-I-grow-up is to be Mara and overthrow evil-ancient-egyptian-pharaohesses by acting as a-double-spy-translator-bad-ass-chick-who-runs-around-bare-foot. Since these dreams of being an blue-eyed-ancient-egpytian-bi-lingual-secret-rebel will most likely never be a reality, I have to settle for attempting to be bi-lingual . . . or more actually jump at any chance to study a language that has a funny alphabet. Although I am miles away from fluent in anything but English, I very much enjoy my kindergarten-level-of-skill at sounding-letters-out-painfully-slow-to-attempt-to-read-words, because the fact that those foreign squiggles mean anything intelligible to me makes me happy.

Rome -> Florence

We started Thursday with a delicious Italian breakfast of cappuccino and fresh pastries (significantly different from a full Irish Breakfast), then the three of us stopped by a few last sights in Rome. Such as the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Piazza Novena, and the Spanish Steps—with daylight, and then we tried to see the bone church with the capuchin crypt, but when we found it the 11:30-3:00 lunch hour foiled those plans. But hey, you have to leave something to see next time right?

After finding a store for lunch and snack foods, we took the metro to Termini to catch our train to Florence. The board listed platforms for all the other trains departed; all except our train, of course. That’s where the adventure comes in! Our train to Florence departed from not one, two, three, four, or thirteen, but from “ES2”. I asked the nice Tren-Italia-man what that meant and he said that ES1 and ES2 are the platforms all the way down past all the other platforms, and then to the right, and all the way down past trains at the very end. We had time to calmly stamp our ticket and board the train, if our train departed from a normal platform. Instead we got to briskly-but-not-quite-full-panic-ly walk from one corner of Termini to the farthest possible point of Termini, completely with a short more-like-panic-full-run at the end which got us boarding the train at exactly 3:13 for our departure of 3:14. It’s not nearly as romantic as all those movies make it seem to hop onboard right as the train pulls away, but that could just be because there was no rain, dramatic music, or beautiful boy waving goodbye to us as we left him behind.

We very much enjoyed resting on the train and then we arrived in Florence around 7pm. Star’s friend from Grove City met us at the station to show us back to their flat, which is up so many steps it makes one appreciate the “Mt Everest of stairs” up to Star and Monique’s room in Galway. We enjoyed the sunset from the roof with a sea of red terracotta roofs all around us, quite a wonderful spot to sit. For dinner we got heaping servings of amazing Italian anti-pastas and pastas galore. It was family-style loads of food for 15 euros, including really nice house wine too, so it was very much worth it. Plus there was a quick stop for gelato on the way home, of course. Although it is always sad to leave the Eternal City, Florence is great as well. 

o

One last Old Bridge Gelato before we left town

Highest point of the smallest country

Today we spent the majority of the day at the Vatican. First we went into the Vatican Museums and saw the Sistine Chapel.  Although there is far too much to see in one day, we looped through most of the museum rooms to see an abundance of icons, paintings, sculptures, and all sorts of impressive art and artifacts. While in the courtyard for a snack we were highly entertained by a couple of Japanese boys who just hopped over the chain-fence-ring-thing in order to spin the alien-sphere-with-in-a-sphere-thingy. The Italian security guards disapproved in a "Hey don't do that, but, you know, stop whenever you want, no rush."   Even better, was the Japanese girl who sat down behind me on the bench really fast while her boyfriend snapped a picture of her with my hair. Red hair is apparently a bigger deal for Asians than it is for the Irish.

In addition to the wonderful tourists to watch, we loved all the art and especially the Basilica of St Peter's. As soon as I caught sight of the inside of the Basilica my pulse started pounding like crazy with excitement. I was just as impressed by St Peter's as I was the first time I saw it -- if not more so.


I spent a good deal of the day recalling as much as I possibly could from our amazing tours with Dr Connell and Liz, during my semester in Rome. A couple of my favorite facts are that there is actually not a single painting in the St Peter's Basilica, they're all mosaics. (In large part, because mosaics are easier upkeep and the Basilica is built to last until the end of the world.) Most of the mosaics are so incredibly detailed that it's really hard to tell they're not just painted on canvas. Once you are in the Cupola on the way up to the top of the Dome you are right-up-close-next-to some of the mosaics, which one would swear from farther away are carved and 3D.

After a full day exploring the Vatican and a short fight with numerous ticket machines at Termini, we took the bus and tram to La Fate's for dinner. Our food was yummy, but the best part for me was definitively catching the Erasmus students coming to dinner so I got to see Dr Connell and Miss. Bonifield again. That was really really wonderful, being back in Rome does make me miss my Thomas Morons a lot. Back at the flat we enjoyed more yummy food along with wine, laughter, and to top off the amazing day: tiramisu.

Ostia Antica

 After some wonderful coffee to start off the day, we took the metro to the Roman Forum and got some pizza at the little pizza-place-across-the-ruin-by-the-stairs-where-Kathleen-and-I-used-to-go, I got potato-pizza cause I have missed it. Then we took the metro to Pyrimide station and switched  lines to head out to Ostia. First we visited the ruins of Ostia Antica which is roughly the size of "downtown" Galway. We had absolutely perfect weather (and didn't even get sunburned). So there were some great photos and lots of giggles as we explored and wandered.

Then we kept going for a few more stops and got off in modern Ostia so we could see the sea. It was super chilly, but with a little convincing we all jumped into the water and found that it really wasn't that bad once you were in. Even with the gorgeous weather we were only really sharing the beach with a couple of couple who were busy making out (like they do in Rome).  We crossed some things off our bucket list at the Mediterranean Sea then headed back to the city.

All of us went out to dinner at a B . I tried the pasta dish with Ox Tail, since it is a traditional Roman dish that I had yet to try and it was really tasty. Pretty much just tasted like beef with a slightly annoying bone in the middle. It was pretty entertaining to hear the waiters singing in the other room, they'd joke and apologize to us about it when they came to the table.

After dinner Monique, Star and I walked to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain and past the Pantheon and Piazza Novena on our way home. Since Old Bridge is apparently open incredibly late for a gelateria, we had to grab a second gelato to compliment our late-night-theological-debate. It was a wonderful day and I hope my coin in the Trevi Fountain brings me back to Rome again and again.

Roma Ti Amo

I fell in love with Rome when we came to visit my brother and I knew I'd study abroad there as well. My semester in Rome was incredible. So I am thrilled to pieces to be back to visit the Eternal City. Completely worth the near-total lack of sleep. The lack of sleep was a by-product of this morning/ last night Star, Monique and I had to head to the bus /coach station around 1:30am to catch a bus to Dublin; where we caught a plane to Roma Ciampino Aeroport; where we caught a bus to Termini; where we caught the Metro to a stop right down the street from the condos where Star's-god-parents'-son-and-his-wife live. Right in the back yard of the Vatican! It's so amazing to be able to stay with them here. We found the address alright, then got some help from the nice desk girl at the Candia hotel, then Monique completely outsmarted us all by a long shoot when she realized that our calls weren't working because we were not including the plus sign. Silly European cell numbers. After we dropped off our luggage and were treated to a welcome-to-Rome-cappuccino, we set out to explore and hit some of the highlights. I can barely contain my excitement to be back in Rome again.Combining this extreme level of giddiness with the caffeine of a cappuccino made it quite hard to keep from literally running to show the girls St. Peter's.

 We walked all over the city from the Vatican to St Angelo's Castle to the Victor Emmanuel to the Colosseum to Trasevere for pizza and then Old Bridge for gelato. Then we even got an amazing dinner back at the flat as well. I'm loving soaking up being back in Rome.

I've missed good ol' Belli in Trastevere 

Real pizza!!