It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Since Halloween and Thanksgiving aren't really celebrated in Italy (for some obvious reasons) I really haven't had that impending feeling that Christmas is coming. But recently things have been getting much merrier around here!

A few days ago a few of my friends and I ventured out towards Pizza di Spagna (the Spanish Steps) to go to Pompi: il regno del tiramisù which is the absolute best place to get tiramisù in Italy. Ask any Italian, they'll tell you the same thing. On our way we crossed Via del Corso, the main shopping street, and found it lit up with christmas lights! There was even a giant christmas tree from Mercedes-Benz with their emblem as ornaments. On the street connecting Via del Corso and Piazza di Spagna, the Via Condotti - one of the most expensive shopping streets in the world, we found it decorated with christmas light chandeliers. It was absolutely magical. Add the tiramisù and it was perfect!

It had just rained and the street beautifully reflected everything.

The next day, as a break between writing my final papers for my courses I went with my flatmate Wendy to check out the Christmas market that had sprung up in Piazza Navona. What was normally an austere piazza filled with sculpted fountains by Bernini had become a sort of carnival complete with games and a carousel. 

They also had a ton of shops selling ornaments. What was interesting was that there were a plethora of witches being sold as ornaments, on stockings, as figurine, etc. I finally learned that she is la Befana - a kindly old witch. The story goes that the magi stopped at her house on their way to see the Christ child and invited her to come with them, but she declined. When she saw the star of Bethlehem heralding the child's birth she decided to try go to him with gifts as the magi had done. Unfortunately she never found him, so now she seeks him every Christmas and ends up leaving the gifts at the homes of other children. This explains the abundance of broom ornaments that also are said to bring good luck.

Another wonderful part of the market is the ciambella - a large doughnut-like sweet that is warmed and pressed in a panini maker and covered in sugar and sometimes nutella. Wendy and I each bought one and they were fantastic! Warm and sugary carbalicious magic! 

Piazza Navona

A carousel with the horses of hell on it

Me and la Fontana dei Quattro Fiume

Sparkly things!

Brooms of la Befana

It was so adorable I almost died...

But what I am really excited about is that these decorations means christmas is getting closer and so is the arrival of my mom and sister! They're coming out to visit me and together we'll spend about a week here in Roma, the next week including Christmas in Paris, and a final week and New Year's in London. I cannot wait. It is going to be so beautiful!

I also just finished all of my papers for this semester (30 pages total!) so I decided that yesterday was a good day to relax. I ended up drinking an entire bottle of my favorite wine alone (over the course of 6 hours) and watching The Holiday and Love Actually. I may or may not have bawled my eyes out. It was just so cute and christmas-y and I have nobody... I'm not pathetic. I'm just in touch with my emotions!

Maybe I went a little gif crazy....

Birthdays, Vampires, and Doona parties (part 2)

Wow, I am such a slacker on blogging. Mea culpa! My issue is that so many things are happening, but then I think about all of the things that I'm going to have to write about and blogging becomes an arduous game of catch-up. So, I am resolving to do better with this.

    In my last post I alluded to the horrifying train ride to Bucharest from Budapest. It was awful. I had to take a decent train to the Hungarian-Romanian border that stopped at Arad, Romania and then a 'sleeper' train to Bucharest. The first train ride was manageable, but the night train left from Arad at 9pm and I was in one of those Hogwarts Express-like compartments with a bunch of really old creepy looking Romanians, none of whom spoke a word of English. 

I was completely exhausted, but also scared out of my wits. On both trains the ticket inspectors were terrifying. I felt as if I were in an old Bond movie about communist Russia with how brusquely they would ask for tickets. I was constantly worrying that I was going to be thrown off the train in the middle of nowhere and left to freeze to death at night. So needless to say, when I finally reached Bucharest I was a very relieved, albeit stressed and exhausted smelly traveller.

    I stayed at the Cozyness Downtown Hostel, which was fabulous! It is run out of an apartment in the city center, right outside of old town, by Marius, who is hilarious and so kind. I got there at about 6 am and Marius welcomed me, showed me around and then I showered and passed out. I spent that day exploring the city a bit, but the best part was when I came back to the hostel. Since it is a transformed apartment it only sleeps 12 guests. A group of us gathered in the very modern and zen family room area to just chat. I made friends with a Russian girl, Tanya, who had grown up in Siberia but now lives in Moscow, and we went on a wine run. I really clicked with Tanya. She is so amazing! She just travels all the time; she decided to up and move to Thailand for half a year and then spend some time in Indonesia just for fun. Tanya inspired me to go out and have my Eat, Pray, Love moment in Bali.
    When we got back to the Cozyness a bunch of the guests were all sitting on the floor of the family room in duvets from their beds. Tanya and I fetched our own and joined in the doona party (I was corrected by the Aussies that a duvet is called a doona). After a few hours of amazing conversation about experiences that we had had or would recommend and discussions about cultural differences Marius fired up the wii and challenged various brave souls to a match of tennis. Marius is the reigning champ of wii tennis, so most of us were shamefully thrashed. Finally, we all settled down with our wine to watch Alien 2. This was probably one of my favorite nights in Bucharest.

Welcome to the Cozyness Downtown Hostel

The zen family room

Me, looking ragged in Romania

    The next day, Halloween, Tanya and I set out on a day trip to Transylvania. We took a train to Brasov and then 2 buses to Bran. The trees in the Carpathian mountains that we traversed were so beautiful. They had all of the colors found in a New England autumn and the trees were perfectly spaced so that they were welcoming. I wanted to just run off into the forest and get a little lost. Amongst those trees one could believe in fairy tales and ghost stories. Anything was possible. But once it darkened I could see why Bram Stoker chose this location as the home of Count Dracula. During the night train ride back I could almost see Jonathan Harker peering wild eyed out the window of an onyx carriage driven by the devil himself. This place held something old and untamed.
Tanya and I ended up at Bran Castle, which is also known as Dracula's castle. Although Vlad the Impaler, Prince of Wallachia, never actually inhabited the castle, Bram Stoker was inspired by its complex construction of mismatched levels, secret passageways, and placement on the height of an outcropping in the Carpathians. Of course, I loved it. It was actually well preserved for a castle of its age; even all of the wooden stairs and flooring were intact and usable. 

Bran Castle exterior

Cross on the way up to the castle.
Guard your mortal soul!

A secret passageway!

Beautiful traditional Wallachian/Romanian daggers.

I'm pretty sure I walked into a story book.

Jack-o-lanterns at Bran Castle

Bran Castle from the interior courtyard.

Tanya and I made friends with a couple of strays by feeding them pastries.

Tanya and I decided to go out that night when we returned to Bucharest. It was Halloween after all. So we ended up in old town, which is this beautiful section of streets with buildings built in the baroque style that have all been turned into bars, restaurants, and more bars. It's actually kind of insane how many bars can be in the same area. We went into a few places, but they really weren't our scene... apparently it's not a party in Romania if someone isn't dancing on the bar. We eventually found a really cool place called the Bordello Pub that had live music (that wasn't trance or dubstep) and got some drinks and danced the night away. It was a complete girl's night and all Tanya and I wanted to do was listen to some good music. I had a complete blast!

Just a bit of old town at night.

Inside Bordello.

Romania was actually wonderful... until I had to leave. This is why economy airlines are awful. I booked an 'evening' flight for 6:20. But apparently they were on 24h time, so evening 6:20 meant 6:20 am the next day. 

I arrived at the airport at 2 in the afternoon, waited around until 4:30 pm, discovered my misfortune, had a quick cry in the ladies room, and steeled myself to wait for 12 more hours in the most uncomfortable chairs known to man. I was never so happy to finally get back to Roma. 
When I did get back I got a wonderful birthday card from my family. It's Vincent Van Gogh, which is perfect because: 1) I absolutely love the impressionist movement, 2) Van Gogh's life really resonates with me, and 3) The episode of Doctor Who called Vincent and the Doctor was the first episode that I showed my mom that eventually led to her and the rest of my family getting hooked on it! 

I got my own mini Vinny!