Francois

I finished my first French language novel!!! To celebrate it, I chose Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet theme to the background for that proposal scene required for any good book. That made me smile! The first book wasn't Camus, Proust or even Moliere, French lit is hard enough in Finnish. The book was Persuasion, by Jane Austen. I'm not apologising my choise; it would've been too hard to read totally new book, altough it would have been better not to have known every line by heart... This way I started reading English books, the first one was Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey. The second reason was the small French section of our library. Final was the subject. Damn if I gonna read a stupid book! That's why I started translating 4 years ago, and still going, Virgil's Dido and Aeneis instead of Cicero's some stupid prosal thingy. I rather read difficult but interesting than easy and boring.



I've been ill, annoying almost ill but not quite. This weekend I've been lying in bed, hopefully next week I'm alright. But it hasn't prevented of being nice weekend. Yesterday, was quite fantastic. I had dreamed in the night about 3 boys, in separate dreams of course, what were you thinking?! Knowing that it's not difficult to guess how I spent my day, especially when I had seen, by change, in the morning a programme the Cup, in which a football team gets a new coach, one Emmanuel Leconte.
Le Roi Francois 1er de France dans ma tête tout le jour et la nuit, oui!



And one thing I was thinking in a toilet today, while I was washing my hands, what were you thinking?! It came to my mind that I'm actually quite innocent, in a good way. I remembered how I jumped to my knees and grinned like a mad person, when I read the final chapter of Persuasion and thought, that I don't think my mother would have done the same. Actually, if I had been in love, broken hearted, in love, broken hearted again and again, and finally been living with a guy a few years and now having a baby, like so many at my age, I don't think I would've done that. You may be happy and smiling after a good result, but you would've seen so much that it wouldn't turn your life so much. So even if I'm unexperienced to the desperation I still have that innocence what gives me drive to find my own. I've noticed before, that when I smile, I do it to the max. My sister, usually she just smiles, you can rarely see even her teeth. I often wonder does she think things are funny, is she only pretending? My granmom or somebody once said that when I was little I was always laughing but now I'm only quiet. After that I've tried to find that side back. But anyway, if you like something I don't see the point in playing it down. My sister says she hates public showing of love, like hugging and kissing. I think the world is awful place enough without knowingly supressing happiness.

BD girl

Gianicolo e Lante

Today was my birthday. I celebrated it with no school work. I also enjoyed some mint and chocolate liqueur, and now I feel little odd. I had lunch with a friend and came home to finally organise the Rome pictures to internet for other course members to see. I also finalised the music video (yes, I make a lot of videos) of Barcelona, it's not been long, 9 months...


Tivoli

So all in all, it's been nice enough a birthday. Usually I'm really depressed, but last night I listened some songs, Take On Me and Power of Love and watched scenes from Back to the Future and Breakfust Club, and understood that maybe my birthday year wasn't so bad after all. And it's finally snow here! People are talking of -16c, I'm not believing it, because I haven't been cold. I finally can use my beautiful winter clothes, like white coat and knee high high heel boots.


Terracina

Tomorrow starts school, and I've desided to finally do some proper work. I would like to get at least Batchelor's degree before summer. But maybe I have a little too much work on my plate, well we'll see. Maybe this is the only way to get work. No way of getting a job if I have time to do it, apparently...


Pompeii

Tomorrow, spanish, french oral (if I find the courage), library to get some books to look the covers, trying to plan student union meeting (yes, I prepare to be the worst president ever, but I didn't vote for me), and grocery store would be nice enough, I'm a wee bit hungry...
And for the end, here's some Italy pictures:


Subiaco

Christmassy

Christmas blog starting...
Once more Christmas is over. Three fighting filled days with four days trying to forget the anger so that people don't blame me for ruining christmas (2 years ago 7 days of fighting, not funny at all, although I was right!). Why the fight? The same reason that all fights after I came back from Rome; the DVD player that my mom refuses to fix and doesn't let me fix either, and that bloody book researche thingy! After yelling my mother finally took the player to the shop, from where a new one will possibly come ib 2 weeks. That's quite brilliant because someone in this building has started to watch internet tv and mine works now only before 1pm. Only problem is that I'm in Turku, and I won't go home to get the player before summer. About the book, mother swore about information she had found from the archives. I wanted to make sure because, because she's really smart, she hadn't marked the archive numbers to the notes. Well, there wasn't any information, my mom can't read apparently. Luckily I was able to make a fool out of "her" by yelling in the middle of the office!



That wasn't my real reason here. The real was that I watched Skins season4. Just now I finished the last 2 episodes, and trying not to make spoilers, I was shocked. I keep repeating What the fuck, ans I don't understand. How can you end a season like that?!! What makes it worse is that now they show the 5th season with totally different cast. Cunts. Buut anyways, I've been wondering Freddie. For some reason he looks to me Indian(?!) but as the wikipedia (and surname) tells us he's Italian. Weird... One reason may be his sister, who looks Indian to me. Well actually she's partly Filipino. My race radar seems to be as rotten as my famous gay radar. A guy can go to gay parade and see Lady Gaga, and take us to the best gay club in town, and still be just a little eccentric heterosexual art historian, right?



I was a little worried about the DVD player, because I was sort of worried I would get a DVD for present. I had been raving over the 2002 Count of Monte Christo and just a week before Christmas over 3rd season of Robin Hood. Well, as it turned out, my fears didn't come true. I got a stresstoy cranate, which is awful. I pressed it once and it drome me grazy! I estimate it to have a lifespan of one week before I tear it to pieces with my teeth. Then I got decoration lamps to my window. Good because I only had three before. (Electric pollution!). But I guess I can't complain, I gave everyone underpants.

Nordic power!

Last week I accidentally found myself reading comics by Humon. Scandinavia and the world. It's quite fantastic! Quite a lot of stuff about Denmark's and Norway's relationship, about which I don't know much. But Humon's danish (I think) and so it's forgiven. Some stuff about Finland are quite weird, but of course she doesn't know so much about Finland. Nordics are not so much in contact with all neighbours.
Unfortunatelly, (for my neighbours) some stuff are spot on. At present I know nothing funnier than FennoSwede (finnish nationality with swedish mothertongue). HILARIOUS!!!
http://satwcomic.com/raising-children

That's soo how we fennofinns think of fennoswedes to be, so happy and smiling all the time! Finnish guy has always his knife with him, I guess it's ok, especially the not talking part, but please be our friend anyways!
We might think that the swedes are a bit gay (they are smiley and helpful) but this Humon joke might be some manga Yaoi thing. Do other nordics think Danemark and Norway have a homosexual relationship? I don't know, I haven't thought about it. I know few norwegians but no danish.

What was quite shocking was the hatred of Åland (finnish island with Fennoswedish inhabitants) towards Finland. Do they really hate us?!! Maybe I don't notice it because I live in finnish-swedish town which is hated by the rest of Finland.



Another new acquitance, Hetalia Axis Powers. It's a manga and anime, which I haven't seen before but really want! The little parts I know about it makes it really interesting, especially the relationship of Finland and Sweden, compared to Humon's version. In Hetalia Finland is Sweden's wife (yaoi). Who is waving the knife, I don't know, but soo want to. Finland apparently speaks alot. Of course that's a bit weird, but I'm open to possibilities!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCceFIGeNTc
I soo want that vest!!

I guess there was no sense above, but what ever, it's Christmas holiday!

Roman gelati

I visited some gelateri while visiting Rome. Here's little summary of them though I have no idea of their names.

The first one I visited, and the first gelato ever, was somewhere between Piazza del Risorgimento and the river... or near Pantheon... actually I've got no idea, except that it was on a corner of some square. The problem was that we were taken there by om´ne of the guys, and like every one who's familiar in a city, he took us through shortcuts impossible to trace. All I remember was going from Villa Giulia on a tram to Risorgimento and from there to some student restaurant and from there to gelati. And it was good, I guess stracciatella and something else.


Lante up the uppity uppity hill

The nice one was on the Viale de Trastevere. I liked it because we could buy a small (cheap) with lots of tastes, on a cup (easy to eat). I took chocolate, which was really dark, and lemon. The combination was interesting. Not my favourite but definitelly worth to remember.
Then there was the naturally flavoured gelateria near Piazza Navona. I didn't eat there because 1. my throat was in pain, and 2. it was expensive. But apparently amazing!
Then the one on the corner of Largo Argentina. I didn't eat there, because one girl got tummy ache after eating there, no one else got it though... It might have been her biiig appetite in the restaurant before.

But, in the end, the absolute favourite was the one at Vatican. The largests gelati in Rome! The taste, ok, but the boys selling it, wow! Little too tired looking though. First time I had something and something and amarillo. It was nice, except too big for me, amarillo all over my hand. But the next time, :DDDDD! I hate smiley faces, but this deserves it. I got smth and smth and stracciatella, all right except I dropped half into my bag and lap. But that was okay, because it was free! Ok, so he was not the best looking in that gelateria, and at most 18 years old, but so cute with all that blushing. I'm not the prittoest one, but perhaps my hair was the guilty party. I fought the whole summer against the want to dye my hair red, but the blonde hair surely took it's time to work with italian men...


Smiley for little girls who drink hot chocolate instead of cappuchino in the mornings

Some more ice cream talk. Gelato is amazing, but totally diffrent than Finnish ice cream. That's why It's no use comparing them. Finnish one is very good. But I must admit that when comparing "hard" ice creams, the best is Tom and Jerry's Cookie dough. Maybe it's a good thing, that it's so expensive.

My days as a classical archeologian

If the four weeks in Rome taught me one thing, it was that I'm never going to be full time researcher of classical archaeology. It's quite forbitten to tell this to people studying it, but it's ruines, ruines and again ruines, sculpture of Venus, and another, and another. After 3rd week my cup was already full, and I bet everyone knew it or sensed it with my huffing and puffing. The last but in no way least was the trip to Campania. Uuu best for the last! Oh not again, ruines. "But they are the great cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum!" "What ever." Our guide wanted to show us the icing of the trip, underground Naples! Oh good, never seen ruines before...


The cannon every (sun)day at Gianicolo at noon

Well, I grand that the wall paintings were quite beautiful, although there were paintings in the houses of Augustus and Livia in Palatinus as well...
Now you see how my head losed the plot. I just had to find something non-ancien activity! One of the best places in Rome was the Galleria Borghese, into which I almost didn't go. Good that I did.


Vesuvius roaring at Herculaneum. The smell of sulfur was true.

It's the case of friends and different friend groups, which do different things and act differently. Well, I cold like to belong to the group of grazy acting, laughing, drinking and behaving badly, but not of course criminanly. But, because people are always more wise than the person herself, othe people decide what group you belong. For me, because of my outer appearance and nature, the group has almost always been the clever quiet group, who speak about school, drink only wine and go to bed by 10pm. It's awful to be made to to what you don't want to do, and to get away from that group you need an accident, or really hard work. For me, I made it on the last week of Italy; thanks to my going to Borghese with the ring leader of the "other group". I even got to show my alcoholism level, when the boys had bought some whisky in the infamous Villa of Mysteries in Pompeii. It was night, we had drunk 4 bottles fo wine and one of very, very good Limoncello (why not, it was free!) and we didn't want to go to bed (like our head of the institute says, you can sleep in Finland). So we went to the swimming pool. We girls paddled in the water while boys smoke and sipped the whiskey. Then they offered one to the other girl (the one that talks), who was horrified and grinned. Then the offer came to me, I was more than happy to apply, and an astonishment! She didn't even grin! Well, why not? It was like water had been mixed into it, not really my cup of tea. Boys commented, well she's been in Scotland... Not actually the reason, I had whiskey there only once. Thanks to our classical philologies!


Wall paintings at Pompeii, the house of some man no doubt...

I might have done a small error of jugement with the water, for I saw Naples and got a cold. There went my farewell dinner and last italian pizza. I wanted to be brave, but perhaps I have to admit, I may have had quite a fever. But if somebody younger tells me to stay home when others go out, the hell I am! Luckily it didn't last long, I was quite alright coming home.


The non-catholic cemetery at dawn. Quite exciting hanging around the graves of artists died of tuberculosis while having a respitory illness...

Amentes illi romani

The final week in Italy: not happy at all!
I haven't written the whole time I've been here, not this blog, not reports, not essays, nothing. This really is hard work! First we go around town and its museums until 2pm, after which we, news in town, go round churches and galleries by ourselves, of course, we only have four weeks to understand the whole of Rome. Then we sit in the kitchen until it's time to go to sleep... Only thing I've found time to do is my presentations, which in truth I did already in Finland. Now, finally they are ready to print (well, not really, but I'm sick and tired of them). Onlything left is Pompeii and my final presentation on the subject I know nothing about but my audience sure does, and final exam.

Forst impressions of Rome were something like this: hot, soo hot! Coming from +5c of Finland, I really wanted to be in my bikinis (or bras in the absense of bikinis). +34c at 4pm! Gosh! But now of course it's freeking freezing, two pairs of wollen shirts and socks on. Apparently they haven't heard of triple or even double windows in here, btw Scotland has the same problem... The next remark, ok so the hostel's luggage safe is bar lounge's back behind a tree. So maybe I'll take my computer with me to town. And yes, I finally got myself a hostel, apparently I had been putting the wrong security number.

What I also found out the first day was the lack of logic with the streets. I bet there wasn't a single turn where I missed the wrong one. Well, at least I found my premier object, Borghese park, and in the search of a grocery store on my way to the hostel I found the Spanish steps (awfully slippery, marble is pretty but not very convenient, and Trevi fountains, the only fresh place in Rome. So I sat there for ages and appeared in hundreds of tourist pictures!

In spite warmings I didn't find bed bugs, meno male. And an other good thing, I was able to come to Rome on a train, altough it was the tourist overexpensive Leonardo express. On the next day it took me two hours to get to Villa Lante. First hour was a search of the right bus and the ticket mashine in Termini. Then I went into a panic when the bus went pass the Vittorio Emmanuelle monument and I left the bus at Largo Argentini, which I couldn't find in my map, altough it was there, and wen't to the nest bus and continues to the river. The change of the bus was strangely easy and, finally, I was on Gianicolo and Villa Lante. Obviously I got the northern window without the view and probably the coldest room in the whole of Rome!!!!! I need a 3rd pair of socks!!!

I'll continue maybe tomorrow my story here, now I'll return my new bought book Il Terrore Viene per Posto, aka. The Moving Finger by A. Christie. I must finnish it this week, because next, when I return, I have some catching up to do with French and Spanish. I have taken average 200 pictures per day, so in the future I'll download some of them here. Not now, for this has a shitty internet connection.