Unofficially Roman

The one day I truly wished I was in the midst of cornfields in central Illinois rather than the historic ruins of Italy fell on March 4, better known as Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day. Filled with Illini pride, we dressed in green and paraded the streets of Rome skipping from Irish pub to Irish pub chanting “I-L-L—I-N-I”. The Romans were given a show as we indefinitely coined the term, American targets. Just like back in Champaign, the day ends up in a split of survival of the fittest and a game of who can last the longest. Dropping like flies, a few were back home at 8:30 p.m., some made it to around 11 p.m., but low and behold I strolled in around 3 a.m. with my fellow champions. Never doubt the K-frat. The first pub on the list was Highlanders, that provided us with an all you can drink beer deal for 10 Euros lasting an hour long. I guess the Italians don’t go for the all you can drink deals in the middle of the day, so this meant first dibs on the beer pong tables and the whole place to ourselves! There was a whole other line-up of places to hit, for example, the Trevi Fountain, Trinity College Irish Pub, the Pantheon, and then our favorite Scholars Lounge Irish Pub. However I think we were a little too amped about the day and getting good use of our all you can drink beer, that the group already split based on wants and needs after the first bar. A bunch of us just went straight to the last stop Scholars and posted up for food and more beer. It’s safe to say I am upholding and keeping intact each American stereotype oversees.

It's hard to believe that it has been almost two months of living in Rome and I have yet to have a run-in with Benedict XVI. This prompted me to attend the Pope's blessing at St. Peter's. I really wanted to buy a rosary to bring and be blessed, which then got me to thinking how those would be ideal gifts for my family and friends. I plopped down six on the counter to purchase and carried them to the Piazza looking like a super Catholic. The entire center was packed with groups of people from all over holding signs and flags. The Pope even talked to these different groups by speaking about seven different languages in the form of special shout outs. Each group cheered and clapped when he spoke the blessing in their language.

 Later in the day we decided to go to Via del Appia, which is a very pretty area on the outskirts of Rome where there are famous catacombes. When I considered my bike riding in Siena off-roading, I was surely mistaken. The rather large cobblestones with at least two-inch gaps between each were a bit difficult to manage a raggedy bike over. The only words that came out of my mouth between each grunt and groan of agony was, "I still want to have kids!" because after those rough patches, I'm not so sure it's a possibility anymore. We stopped along the way to climb a small hill where we ran into a herd of sheep. We all thought this was cool until it turned into a stampede. The "baaaaa"-ing noises that came from these animals did not even sound real. Our laughter as they started towards us turned into screams and scrambling to pedal away from these now angry animals and Sheppard. They literally came out down the road chasing after us. It was quite the spectacle.