I love Barack Obama.

The speaking partners party was fun. I met some young Italian girls and guys. Along with some older, really strange Italian engineer who was a slight nerd but quite hilarious. Some people exchanged emails, and I think we have a date for the young Italians to show us a good time in Rome! I'm excited for that. Anyways, we got a few glasses of red and white wine which was nice, some even got a little tipsy.

We then went and watched Roman Holiday. I have finally started to enjoy older films. Plus for Haley's sake I have started to fall in love with Audrey Hepburn. She is one fine lady slash also has the tiniest waste of any woman I have ever seen. The movie was witty, cute, and I got to see all the famous sights of Rome, most of which I have already been to. Gregory Peck was following Audrey around for a good ten minutes around the Trevi Fountain where I had just been! Everything looked exactly the same, though I doubt the barber shop where Audrey got her hair cut is still there. Then they went to the Colosseum where we had also just been. And lastly they danced together under the bridge of the Sant' Angelo bridge down by the Tiber river, they even jumped in at one point! The actual building of Sant' Angelo's was in the background the entire scene. It's so cool to be able to identify such historic sights as a part of my most recent memories. After the film it was bed time, I had class early the next morning.

Tuesday was an amazing day. I only had class from 9:30-10:45. Roman History which I just found out requires hundreds and hundreds of pages of reading each week. We have a text book which is around 40 pages a week. Plus an extra 200 or so in a course packet. I am extremely overwhelmed at this specific moment so I won't go into detail about it, but I think I am going to have to take that course pass fail if that gives you a hint of how terrified I am. Plus I don't know if I have mentioned this before but the grading scale is radically different here than it is in the States. A 90-93 is a B+, which means that a 73-76 is a D. Which would typically be solid C. So I'm extremely nervous about grades this semester. I also dropped my International Politics class since I somehow forgot I had already taken that class back at Beloit. Anyways, aside from the minor panic attack, Tuesday was a phenomenal day. I relaxed and organized my life after lunch. Everyone was in class so I turned on Adele who is my current favorite artist. I can't stop listening to her album "19." Every song makes my brain wonder and calms my racing mind so I can reflect and slow the pace of my heart. Constant movement, adaptation to a new culture, and limited amounts of sleep and healthy food can really raise ones anxiety. So I took an hour or so to myself, drank some wine, laid in bed, and let Adele soothe my riveting thoughts. Around 4:30 everyone congregated to our room as usual to drink some wine quickly before heading downstairs to get good seats to watch the magic of Obama's inauguration.

After reflecting I was already feeling highly emotional, so I immediately new I would be a sob fest as I saw Obama's face on the screen. I took about 200 pictures of the screen and the crowd surrounding it. I am beginning to feel like the paparazzi. Anyways I admired the beauty of the Obama family. Barack, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha, there is beauty in their names alone. They are such an incredible, brilliant, and accomplished family. They seem so solid and I find it hard to believe it is anything far from extremely real love and solidarity between them. Obama just didn't give up, and he is now the Commander in Chief, really really the president of the United States. I have never been so proud to be an American citizen. I actually just read an article about how the structure of the Obama family is changing the horrific stereotypes of the broken black family. It essentially stated that the image of black from all perspectives is radically changing in extremely positive ways. Not only to improve the negative stereotypes people tend to have of black families, but for blacks as well to have a positive influence and see the possibilities of what an accomplished beautiful black family looks like. As well as Michelle embracing her black skin color as beauty, which can help women in understanding how beautiful their skin color truly is. I am also thrilled about Obama's orders to halt all prosecutions at Guantanamo Bay, as well as attempt to have it shut down within a year. AND suspended all of Bush's recent legislation. I am so proud.

Moving on... all of the students at the JFRC participated in clapping when the rest of the crowd at the Capital in DC would clap. We would cheer when others would cheer. It was truly incredible. I was also pleasantly surprised by Rev. Rick Warren. I was so upset with Obama's choice initially, but I was really touched by what he had to say about Obama and his plans for the future. And when the music played, we were all in tears. And when Arethra sang, we were all in tears. And when he took his vows, we were all in tears. We all giggled a bit when he messed up twice as well, even though it was Roberts fault. And lastly his speech. Tears kept streaming down my face. When I was there on November 4th I was in such shock I couldn't even comprehend the gravity of what was happening at that very moment. I was in such disbelief that this Dream had finally come true. Yet on January 20th it was so real, and I felt so connected despite my distance, and it was the final and true moment we had all been waiting for. The end to an 8 year mistake. As soon as Obama was sworn in the administration (our surrogate parents) handed out glasses of champagne to everyone. We all did a toast to our new President, Barack Hussein Obama. My eyes watered while I hugged all my friends sitting next to me. After his speech we came upstairs to get ready and head out to celebrate our new wonderful president.

We decided to go to Scholars, the most popular American bar in Rome since it was a time to celebrate and take pride in America. That will probably be the last time I go to that bar however. It was PACKED. It was karaoke night/Obama had just been inaugurated so everyone was out. Although I was too sober to fully enjoy everyone elses wasted state Nick and I ended up on stage and sang "Like a Prayer" by Madonna. (Sidenote: I wore my Obama t-shirt, and 95% of the people were thrilled about it, but when we sang, there was one girl staring and booing verbally and with hand gestures. I confronted her afterwards and asked if she had some sort of problem. And she replied, "Oh, its not that I don't like you, I just hate Obama." I chose to ignore the comment. There was no way some ignorant girl was going to ruin my eternal happiness due to this phenomenal and historical day). Anyways, my first time ever doing karaoke was in Rome, Italy. What a memory. It was actually hilarious and a lot of fun. There were a bunch of fun American songs played that we all sang along to including "I Want It That Way" and "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." I could do that more often, especially if a full bar is singing along so my voice could be slightly hidden. But I'll hold off till I get back to the states, so I can submerge myself in the ITALIAN culture. Though I am unfortunately discovering more and more how difficult it is to do so. I keep asking everyone where to go, how to meet young Italians, what neighborhoods to visit. What caffe's or pubs they suggest and everyone seems to struggle. I found out from my cute spunky Italian teacher that there is a University neighborhood called San Lorenzo which is somewhat hard to access, but where there are many Italian students. So I think I will seek that out sometime relatively soon. I am dying to immerse myself in Italian culture despite the language barrier. I gotta get out of this bubble and stop being a tourist. Though I really do feel like I have an understanding of how to get myself around essentially the entire city. Like the Lake Michigan helping with the understanding and direction of Chicago, the Tiber River really does the same.

Tuesday night ended with a delicious salami panini, the only money I spent out that night. I was proud of myself. We decided to take the bus back because it is much too expensive to take always be taking taxi's. But the 990 stops running at midnight, so we have to take the n6 which drops us off who even knows where. But we sure didn't. So we got dropped off somewhere in Monte Mario and walked around for about a half hour at 3 am. We finally flagged down some caterer, he was extremely friendly and helpful Italian man. He got out his map, even got out of his car to help us find where we were going. We finally made it back around 4 am and didn't get to bed till 4:30. This would have been fine if we didn't have plans on seeing the pope at 8 am the next morning!

We took a brief "nap" until about 7 am and before we knew it we were on our way to Vatican City. I fell asleep on the bus. It was raining and gross and we were all fairly miserable. But we had tickets and classes were cancelled so we could go to a Papal Audience therefore we forced ourselves to go. We stopped on the way to pick up some Rosaries to be blessed as well, first Rosary I have ever owned. But at least I can say its been blessed by the Pope. Lauren was in flip flops because her heels are still damaged and Nick was in fancy shoes so they were literally slipping all over the cobble stone streets. It eased our misery to see them struggle, and they were light-hearted about it as well. I really couldn't stop giggling seeing their feet slip with every step that they took. We ended up going through the wrong security and ended up in St. Peter's church was was absolutely gorgeous. We didn't get to spend much time there since we were in the wrong location and lost in Vatican City, but I am glad to say I have at least been there. The architecture and art was beyond incredible as I'm sure you all can imagine. We traveled our way through the maze of Vatican City, ended up going through security again, and finally made it into the building where we saw the Pope speak.

We were told we had to arrive by no later then 9, and the ceremony didn't start until 10:30 so I took an extremely unpleasant nap for an hour sitting up waiting for the oh so sacred Pope to speak. I woke up to everyone clapping and quickly exclaimed "Way to wake me up!" Haha, I'm telling you I was miserable. I don't really know what else to say besides the simple fact that I saw the Pope. I feel snobbish because the only thing I really admire about this man is his fluency in over 5 languages. His Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, English, and German were extremely proficient and I appreciated being in the presence of someone so highly respected in the world. I know there are many who would die to see the Pope speak so I am grateful. I am grateful I was able to have this experience, but it was unfortunately nothing as monumental for me as everything else that has been going on in the past two weeks. PLUS, he recognized every school and group that was there except the JFRC! He recognized several other study abroad programs from the United States, but somehow forgot to mention ours. Everyone cheered as their name was called and we were all ready to stand and cheer for ours but it never came. So we were highly disappointed and wondered why the Pope was angry with us. Maybe we are all secretly condemned to hell. We also thought the Pope would come around with his magic wand and bless our items, but I guess his prayer at the end was his blessing. Who knows. I am so uneducated when it comes to the Catholic church. Sorry to those I offend in this paragraph.

Once it was over all of the JFRC students hopped on the 990 and packed the bus tight. As soon as we got back, we all immediately crawled into bed and took about a 3 hour nap. This was however longer than our initial amount of sleep from 4:30 to 7. It was one of the best naps any of us had ever had. We all woke up, went for dinner, and started to plan and organize for Barcelona this weekend. We all also realized that it was probably time to start taking school seriously and we all did a couple hours of homework.

A few random facts: Nick went for a walk on Monday and got so lost that he ended up walking on the highway for over an hour and a half! This is where you get without cell phones! Despite the horror of it at the moment, I later found this to be incredibly amusing and hilarious. Just imagine a foreigner walking down the middle of the highway, completely lost, no clue where he was, in Italy! Oh, I felt so bad for him, but at the same time couldn't help but find the comical value in it. The SLA's (JFRC version of RA's) even told us to take everything with a grain of salt. The most horrific occurrences usually tend to be your best memories. I tend to agree with this. Everything is an adventure so take them as they come.

Also, since I intend on meeting Carrie in Amsterdam around May 5th to travel for the month of may, I intend on going to see a Lily Allen concert on May 7th. Its perfect timing. Most of you know how much I love that girl (Lily Allen, though I adore Carrie as well), so I have about 3 months to learn her new album. I already have the first album entirely memorized. This would be the concert of my life, of course aside from that incredible tear worthy N'Sync concert in the 3rd grade. But I just thought I would inform you how lucky and ecstatic I am about seeing her.

Lastly, I am off to Barcelona for the weekend to begin the celebrations of my 21st birthday! I will most likely be out of touch all weekend, but I will be back Sunday evening. We intend on going out Monday night as well. I was unsure where we were going to go, but I guess Lauren and Nika had been planning a surprise trip to a Pub called the "Ice Club di Roma." Within 15 minutes Suzi ruined the surprise by asking if thats where I would want to go for my Monday night excursion. No one can ever keep secrets, and I love surprises! Anyways, the intentions and idea were sweet. It is this Pub that is made of igloos. The glasses are made out of ice. They give you mittens and coats to sit inside these igloos and drink. Its supposedly a bizarre and fantastic place! I find it ironic as well because my birthdays are usually spent in the dead of winter, and its been 50s and sunny here, yet we found igloos to drink in for my 21st birthday. I'm really excited about going there as well. Its right by the Colosseum too!

Alright. Ending with a quote again from my mother which I found to be adorable and thought I should share with everyone since it is in response to this blog.

Subject: Broken Face. "I have been meaning to tell you that your ecstasy in Rome reminds me of when you were a little girl and you drove the Barbie car, and you were so happy. I thought you would smile so hard I thought your face would break!" That feeling I had to drive a Barbie car around the age of 5, that pure glee, is as close as its gonna get to my ecstatic feelings of being here in this gorgeous city of Rome. Wish me a fun weekend in Barcelona!

Ciao Bellas!
Nora Claire.