Roman Rain

Ciao!

It is a rainy day in Roma to say the least...cold, windy, and completely grey. The wind here rivals San Francisco, and dare I say what I have experienced in Chicago, as well. My umbrella was turned inside out this morning and my hair looked stunning when I walked into school. If I can help it I am not leaving campus until tonight, and my hair will remain in this messy pony I have fashioned it into.

I need wellies, and my bubble umbrella ASAP.

Speaking of scuola, this is what parts of campus look like...the big white thing is in the courtyard, and was once upon a time a lot prettier, until December when some lighting struck a tree, and well...you can guess what happened.





These photos were clearly not taken this morning, the gloom reminds me of my last days spent in northern California, though in San Francisco I can't walk by a tree, stick my hand up and instantly have breakfast. The citrus trees are one of my favourite things here, and my goal is to pick a fruit off of everyone and eat it by the end of the semester...yes, I'll have to eat grapefruit.

Due to the weather there are noticeably fewer cats wandering the streets and campus...Monte Mario is the home to about 1 million stray cats, I feel like I have fallen into Andrew Lloyd Weber's "Heavyside Layer"...Jellicle. Though some are cute, and like to follow us around, there are of course the mean ones, but really, I have never seen so many in one place.

Another fun fact for you, in Italian the alphabet is missing the letters "J, K, Y, X, and W" and in turn they have made up ways to pronounce them incase one would be asked "come si scrive?" (how do you spell?)

J= i lunga (said E lunga)
K= kappa (imagine that!)
Y= ipsilon (not Epsilon, but said with a hard e)
X= ics (imagine saying ICK with an s on the end)
W= doppia vu (and when you write a W, you literally write two letter v interlaced...vu is the way you pronounce v)

Looking forward to Firenze on friday.

Sto facendo le mi ossa