A Birthday Wish in the Trevi Fountain!

I got into Rome at 6am on my birthday, having gotten about 6 hours of sleep in the 72 hours prior—I was tired, but at the same time rejuvenated because, well, it was my birthday and I WAS IN ROME! Seriously, could I ask for a better birthday present? I definitely think that this will be one for the books. I said goodbye to Shawn and Hayden, and left with Andrea—a girl around my age who is a good friend of the Marchetti family (my host family) who offered to take me around Rome for my birthday. Honestly, it was perfect—we just walked around the city and I got to see the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Navona Square, the Trevi Fountain and The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We are going to start spending every Friday exploring Rome—since I will be about 45 minutes away and that is her day off. She also invited me to travel with her for a few weekends while I'm here to see Florence, Venice, Pisa, Cinque Terre and some other must-sees in Italy. I also get to go to Sicily for 5 days with a group of young adults from my church here! Everything is just working out—it’s such a testimony builder, the Lord obviously has a better plan for me than I do, so I'm just going with it. Believe me, even if I spent years planning, I don't think I could have ever organized such an amazing summer. :D It's funny to think that up until the day before I got on the plane to fly to Germany I didn't even know where I would be living in Rome. Now, I've got so much figured out (yet still have a long way to go) and got to spend my birthday in Rome, eating gelato by the Pantheon! And to top it off, I made a wish in the Trevi Fountain! I figured, "I may not get to blow out candles on my birthday or have anyone sing to me, but I think making a wish in the Trevi Fountain is probably a tad bit better anyway." :)

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,
It was actually only built about 100 years ago

Colosseum, anyone?

The Pantheon! I definitely ate gelato for my birthday on the steps right
behind me in this picture :)

The Trevi Fountain! Where I made my birthday wish :)

Andrea is AMAZING—we spoke Italian and English, I should probably be more disciplined and only speak Italian, but it's hard because everyone here speaks English pretty well and they want to practice. That said, I'm learning a lot—it's so much easier to learn a language when you’re immersed compared to classroom learning for an hour a day. I'm learning a lot about life here in general as well—the metro in Italy is much cleaner than it is in France, but so much more crowded! (A prime location for pickpocketers, so I definitely have to be careful with my purse—can't be losing any Euros and I definitely can't lose my passport!). The streets here are narrow, I can’t make out any lines dividing the lanes, and it seems as if cars can turn regardless of the light (red, yellow, or green), so even if the street sign says that a pedestrian can walk, you've got to watch out. Oh, another thing, everyone here drinks bottled water and it's kind of expensive. So, I was excited to hear that there were drinking fountains outside, by drinking fountains—however—I mean these little faucets that have a constant stream of water coming out that you can fill your water bottle with. I thought it was pretty cool; I watched Andrea fill her water bottle (for free) and took a drink. It seemed pretty sanitary UNTIL I saw a man plug the bottom stream with his finger, which made the water shoot out a different hole—more like a drinking fountain. Ughh so much for sanitary...

K, looking at it again, I realize it doesn't look very sanitary,
but when you're dehydrated, I swear it looks a lot less disgusting...

After touring around Rome for the day, Andrea and I went to an LDS church building in Rome for a YSA (young single adult) or GANS (Giovani adulti non sposati = young adults that are not married..haha) activity. It was actually kind of hilarious because a few minutes after I got there, so did 12 other students from BYU who are doing a study abroad in Italy and were in Rome for a few days—I ended up knowing 3 of them! Can you say small world? I come all the way to Rome by myself and end up in the same place as 12 other BYU students on my first day, what are the odds? Ugo Perego, who helped me find my housing in Italy, taught a lesson in Italian—I probably picked up about 20% of what he was saying... Then, we had dinner (a late dinner, but that's normal here). Can I just state the obvious: the food in Italy is good! And whoever told me the portion sizes here were small, was lying. The trick is to just ask for less initially (usually someone else dips your food for you and gives it to you) because once the food is on your plate, it's pretty hard to turn down... After dinner, everyone played games. Then, all of a sudden, the lights turned off an everyone started singing, "Buon compliano a ti, Buon compliano a ti." I actually recognized the tune before the words, turned around and saw a woman walking toward me with a cake-like dish with candles on it while everyone sang happy birthday to me in Italian--they had made me a birthday cake, and it turns out I got to make a wish in the Trevi Fountain, have people sing to me and blow out candles! Life is good.

Afterwards, the other BYU students left, the locals stayed, and we played more games. Apparently people in the States play this game as well, but I've never heard of it. I don't even know what it's called now, but basically either a guy (uomo) or girl (donne) stands in the middle; the guys line up on one side and are each assigned numbers, and the girls line up on the opposite side and are assigned a letter. The person in the middle calls out a letter and a number. So for example, if a girl was standing in the middle of a circle, she could call out "8, A" The boy who was assigned number 8's goal is to kiss the girl in the middle (on the cheek), but the girl who was assigned letter A has to try to kiss boy 8 before he can kiss the girl in the middle. I may have made that more confusing than it needed to be, but it's basically just a game where you try to kiss someone, and not let someone kiss you. Haha. Benvenuto in Italia! (Welcome to Italy). And it turns out, I'm pretty awesome at the game, I was extremely good at avoiding/denying people who were trying to kiss me (haha). Years of practice, my friend. That said, I must say I think I prefer the Italian greeting/goodbye--a kiss on each cheek, over the typical American handshake. Though, most of the Italians here will shake your hand if they think you will be uncomfortable with this 'kiss.' As I was leaving the activity, a few people asked me if I was okay with the greeting/goodbye before doing it, and several people just shook my hand--which I can tell is kind of weird for them. I appreciate how comfortable everyone is trying to make me feel though, but—hey—go big or go home, right? :)

Diana—who is the girl whose house I'm staying at (but who leaves on her mission soon) told me that I "would make a great warrior." I'm not exactly sure what she meant by that (lost in translation), but I’m just going to take it as a compliment! I am so sad that she is leaving, she is absolutely wonderful! Our conversations are really interesting because I speak English and some Italian, and she is the exact opposite—speaking Italian fluently and knowing some English. So we have these (come si dice Italian/English...kind of like spanglish...italiagish?? Englia?? Something like that) conversations that are all sorts of mixed up, but it's a great way for both of us to learn. Her brother, Diego speaks English very well, so it's easier to slack with him, but I'm staying strong. I always say, "Parliamo in Italiano!" which just means, "Let's speak in Italian," but I know he wants to practice his English as well, so it looks like I'll be speaking a lot of Italiaglish during my stay :) Diana told me not to lose courage to speak in Italian when she leaves, though she did mention that she thought it was strange that I wanted to learn Italian because it is not an important language, like English, but that it was nice that I wanted to learn. Learning languages truly opens doors, so my goal is to learn Italian, than Spanish (because it's useful and similar to Italian) and keep going if I can!