Weekend in Roma

I had my first weekend in Rome since starting school. It was a nice first experience.
One of the students in an upper level class organized a night out on the town. He’s the roommate of Hector who is in my class. John, from Toronto, informed us to meet up at Piazza di Spagna at 9pm. I also found out that Eleanor from class lives not too far from me so we made plans to meet around 7:30pm and head out for the night.
When I met up with Eleanor, she had Hector and John with her. Apparently they also live in the neighborhood. Hooray! We all headed out together. We got on the bus and ran into Yung-Ho from class, a new guy from Korea that joined mid-week. He's already been nicknamed "Tex" by John because he lived in Texas for two years. We all made our way to Piazza di Spagna together.
Once there we met up with a few other folks from my class: Myra, Thomas, and Phillip. Folks from John’s class also joined us. There were probably about 15 of us total. We headed to Campo di Fiori to find a spot to hang out. Once there we met up with even more friends of friends. A group of four archeologists who are working on a ship project out by Ostia Antica, along the coast, just outside of Rome. I spent a bit of time talking to one of them, Giles. He had a very posh British accent. He said he was from Bristol but I don’t know what that means in terms of why he had such a posh accent. He said he also worked at the British School and so I asked if he also taught English (I had passed this place on my bus ride and figured that’s what this school did). He said no they didn’t do that so then I had to poke fun and asked if they taught people how to drink tea. Apparently it’s not the first time he’d heard that joke.
Anyway, I know it’s not odd to run into archeologists in Rome but I was really starting to laugh at how I was developing a cast of characters a lot like Raiders of the Lost Arch. I already had the awkward German who stuttered when he spoke and now I had archeologists.
Anyway, we went to one other bar/club where I paid – 10 Euro for A drink. I couldn’t believe the price! That’s about $15. I drank it slowly. I was seriously in shock. Someone told me they do it instead of charging a cover price at the door.
I made my way home not too long afterwards via the night bus with the same gang I started the night with.
On Saturday I got up late and read in bed for about an hour. I made breakfast, ran some errands, and then headed out for a big walk. I had plans to head over to Trastevere where I’ll be living as of March 7th. I wanted to check out the area and see what there was to see. I really took the long way I realized after it was all said and done but I did have some items on my checklist to see. It was good to see the area and see what kind of a walk I’ll have from this apartment to a bus stop. It’s pretty simple which was good to see.
On Sunday, I did a repeat of Saturday morning and eventually headed out in the afternoon. The weather turned AWESOME this weekend. It was probably close to 70. Yippee!!! I so needed that change. I’ve been freezing cold in my core. I just needed to warm up.
I decided to head to a big park, called Villa Torlonia, not too far from me that had some interesting factoids to it. Mostly it was close by but it had also been Mussolini's suburban headquarters in the 30's, the home of the Torlonia family in 1797 and trashed by Americans during WWII when it became their command base.
It was a great park and I think I’ll visit again. It was very large with loads of plam trees, a large residence, football field, and this odd Swiss chalet.

I sat in the sun and read. The parks are also supposed to have wireless access. I attempted to gain access and my computer said I was connected but I couldn’t get online. I’ll try again another time.
I also saw lots of people running around the park, pretty much doing laps. It was inspiring and since I don’t have afternoon class anymore I’m going to attempt to get some exercise that will raise my heart rate a bit. The walking has been good but I think I need to do something more. I’ve got a pasta/donut/pastry/Bueno belly growing. (Has anyone had Bueno candy? They don’t sell them in the US and they are so good. I’ll definitely bring back a bunch.)
I ended the weekend back home, hanging out in my room reading. My neighbors got home from their weekend away sometime in the early evening. Everyone in Rome seems to race out of town each weekend. I haven’t figured out who is the cello player (or players) but I feel like it’s the dad. So, after the family got home, the dad came into, what I feel is the living room, and began playing a very somber piece (not too hard with a cello). It was really nice but somber, very deep, slow, and low. After he finished playing the song, he put on the stereo Pink Floyd’s, “Wish You Were Here” and played it really loud. When the song ended, he played it again. I think someone didn’t have as nice of a weekend as I did.