Category: travel

Roma!

equestri vitam1 Comment

Like I promised, here is my post about my first adventure into Roma. I apologize for the delay.

A group of eight friends and I hoped on the fist train on a saturday morning to Roma from Viterbo at about seven in the morning. Of course like anyone of my age, getting up at seven on a saturday is not ideal, therefore I was incredibly sleepy and not in the peppiest of spirits about sitting on a train for two hours.

But as soon I began to enter the outskirts of Rome, everything was so beautiful I immediately woke up and was possibly more excited than everyone else. We got of the train and took the metro to “piazza del colosseo.” Literally right in front of you when you walk up the stairs exiting the metro is the colosseum. BAM right there! It was incredible.

Of course my friends and I had to stand there just in awe, taking touristy pictures, and buying postcards for half an hour. After that we proceeded to tour the colosseum from the outside. It’s rather time and money consuming to get the inside tour, so we figured to save that for another day.

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Street Art Revolution

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I have always loved art, but not so much in a gallery, while I appreciate it, what really gets me happy is street art.

Street art is one of those things that you always have to appreciate.

I’m not saying all the ugly gang tags on the side of a bridge, but when you see something that someone has taken time to do, and invested more than just money into you have to stop and think about it.

Street art is an ever growing movement.

When people see actual street art and call it graffiti, it actually isn’t correct.

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Mickey’s Halloween Time

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I had the most amazing weekend.

I went to Disneyland with my roommate and one of my best friends, Brooke Browning.

We stayed at a Hilton, and as I walked in the door, I looked down to see a text from her:

I’m gonna get you.

Turning my head, I dropped all my bags and ran into her arms when I saw her running full speed at me.

What most people don’t understand is the intensity with which CIMIans miss each other during the year.  I hadn’t seen her in 63 days, which for us, is like 63 lifetimes.

At camp, the C’s (16-17 year olds) have a  Murder Mystery Party and this year it was cowboy themed.  I wore my costume from that crew night and Brooke went as Max from Where the Wild Things Are.  

She made her costume, mind you.  She makes everyone’s costumes at camp.

Disneyland at Halloween time is so awesome.  They go all out with the decorations, the shows, the commodities.

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Rain Rain, Please Don’t Go Away

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It finally rained the other day .

After having so many hot days, I was really ready for the weather to cool down, and to let the water fall from the sky.

There was talk of rain over last weekend weekend, and in the beginning of the week, and I was skeptical that it would actually happen.

There was between a 20-40 percent chance, but with less than 50% chance, the earth still made it happen.

Thursday started off clear and I was worried that this one rainy day was going to be just a cold day, where I was looking to the sky hoping for rain.

Soon enough it began to rain a little after noon.

I was standing outside and felt a light drizzle.

I returned back indoors and just as the door shut behind me, it is as if the skies opened and the heavens rained down upon the ground.

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Promise me, Dear Lapland.

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Do you remember the promise, Lapland?

I know you do.

Covering the whole of northern Finland, Lapland is said to be the true home of Santa. No surprise then, this place really comes into its own at Christmas. Imagine cozy log cabins, crackling campfires and husky sleds and reindeer sleighs swishing through the snow. Plus, there are plenty of ways to get out into the wilderness, like snowmobiling and skiing.

And that is the place that hides at almost the northern top of the world, also the deepest corner within my heart.

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Souls from Southeast Asia – Pee Sai

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His name is Pee Sai.
He is 23-years-old.
He is my friend.

Pee Sai speaks very little English, and I speak absolutely no Burmese, but the language barrier is not detrimental towards our friendship.  I don’t need to speak his language to know that Pee Sai is hilarious, kind, and worrysome.  He does not need to speak my language to know how well we get along.

When I first met Pee Sai, I had just crossed the Burmese-Thai border after sitting between the two countries in horrendous heat for an hour.  I was sweaty, irritated, and was suffering from one of my headaches; he was shy, not speaking to anyone as we found our way to the bus that would take us throughout Burma.

I officially met Pee Sai outside of a school in the Burmese mountains.  I was asked to grab my ukulele from the bus so our group could sing a song for the schoolchildren, and Pee Sai was asked to escort me.

“Hello, I am Pee Sai, what is your name?”
“Hi, I’m Aria!”

When I tried to converse further, I realized how those few words were some of the only English words Pee Sai knew.  After we discovered this hurdle, we communicated through outrageous gestures, silly faces, and universal sounds of approval, disapproval, annoyance, and happiness.

Pee Sai would seem to be, to most of anyone, a shy but friendly face; a man who has lived a relatively easy life and recognizes that.

Pee Sai has not lived such a life.Read More »

After school expeditions

equestri vitam5 Comments

I hadn’t planned on blogging again until after my Rome experience but I must share to you all about my day today.

First, after school I walked through downtown and got delicious Gelato. A cono piccolo with menta and nutella. If you haven’t assumed already, I’ll let you know that it was freaking delicious! So to start that put me in an excellent mood for the evening. After I finished my delectable gelato my host dad picked me up to go home, or so I thought…

We were heading up to the mountains behind our neighborhood. I asked my host dad what we were doing and he explained to me that we were going to see my Nonno’s(grandpa’s) farm. We arrived to the farm and greeted Nonno.

He then took me into the bottom floor of the farm house where I found his small winery! I always knew that my family made their own wine but I never knew how or where. Turns out that they do it five minutes away from home. Nonno explained to me the whole process of the wine making which is quite simple.

First all the harvested grapes are put into a big grinder and all the mushed grapes go into a wooden barrel. When the barrel is full there is a lid that with a crank pushes all the juice out of the barrel into a bucket. All the juice that goes into the bucket is put into bottles for a long time to ferment and become wine. I tried some of the grape juice before it’s fermented into wine and it’s absolutely delicious! Naturally very sweet and refreshing.

After viewing the wine process we walked through the farm to pick grapes and tomatoes. Which are all organic without pesticides or anything of the sort. The grapes are so yummy to snack on. Read More »

Exploring Outside the Walls of Viterbo

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The past three days I spent on a school orientation trip outside of Viterbo. The fact that anywhere I go in this country is absolutely beautiful like no other is still so surreal and overwhelming to me. I don’t think we came upon any ugly place, not even while driving through the more industrial cities! Everything is just incredible no matter where you are.

All 68 students plus faculty loaded up onto our huge double decker bus Thursday morning and took off to our first stop, south of Viterbo, a city called Sermonetta.

It is a medieval city just like Viterbo but much smaller. The name Sermonetta contains “monetta” which can be translated to coin, and it is said that money was coined there. Also during the Dark Ages it was a used as a fortress for the Pope.

Steps up to the Castle of Sermonetta

Our next stop was at the Gardens of Ninfa. The Gardens are located on the ruins of the old city of Ninfa. But the city was brought to an end, by whats called the Papal civil war of the 14th century. Ninfa was brought to its original glory in the 20th century by the Italian Republic named as a Natural Monument in 2002.

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