Playing Catch-up

Ok, it's been a while, I know. But I am finally on break (Give thanks for Thanksgiving!) and so I now have time to share what all I have been through these past few weeks. So, I am Sorry for the suspense but here is what has happened since my last post:

We went on the northern trip which I will have to explain in a completelyyyy different series of posts (I started to write it but it's getting too long and I have other things to talk about). So expect those sometime soon. (For real this time).

We started our final project of the semester (yes, mid-semester) hence why I have had basically no time as of late until now. To give you an idea of what we are doing we were asked to make changes to an area in Trastevere (a neighbourhood on the other side of the river to Rome) which had a poor urban scheme and was just generally a bad area architecture and feeling wise. (Part one was urban). That part has been finished as of two weeks ago and now we are in the process of designing a palazzo (building) from within our scheme. The palazzo is a Jewish school. We just had preliminary reviews for it and so currently I must make some changes. That's really all I want to say about my project. I've been working on it everyday in most of my free time which has been hard but still I enjoy it. So enough of that for now, no need to think of it until I get back to Rome.

O yea, did I mention that I am in Barcelona? Well I am. I left this morning and am now in a great hostel in the middle of the city. But I shall talk about Barcelona, in, of course, yet another blog post. So that I don't confuse you.

Okay, so finally, really onto what's happened and good to note.

So as many of you know, I celebrated my 20th Birthday a few weeks ago. It was great. Actually, awesome. The more I think about it, the more I am sure that it was my best birthday that I have ever celebrated. I was excited the entire week and when my bday weekend finally hit, an explosion of awesomeness just happened. On the Friday, we went to this place called DeeJay Bar in Trastevere where it was ladies night meaning for 5 euro, ladies got as many shots as we wanted from 11-midnight. We went there expecting to use that as a warm-up to a club or some other place but when we went to the basement... well, we kinda made it a club. They have a second bar section (on top of a piano) and a wide open space.. and great dancing music. So we politely stayed as the music was ooo soo inviting and danced... until 2. It was great. Basically half of my class was there, making it an arkie dance party. (Almost reminds me of another arkie party in a basement where I was with about half my class. Hmm...)
The day following (Saturday), I had my day planned out: I would go to studio after waking up, work for a few hours, go shopping for my clubbing clothes for about 2 hours then dinner with my roomies, rest, go to my fave bar--Bottecella aka Steelers bar-- and get a tequila slammer from my good man Giovanni and then finally end the night at Le Maison, a night club literally a block from Giovanni's.
Well, it didn't exactly work out that way. The first and last things just didn't work out. Work didn't work because... well, it's work. I just went shopping instead. For five hours. Oops. A bit longer than I expected. But on the plus (?) I did get to see the massive crowd of people waiting outside one of the government buildings for the Prime Minister to finallyyyy announce that he was stepping down (definite relief for the Italians). I have the newspaper too to remind me what happened on/near my bday.
The rest of my night was pretty much just plain awesome. Ate at a really good restaurant near Piazza Navona (south side) and also went to Giovanni's where I met an Australian name Robbie and had my fave drink of all: a Long Island Ice Tea. Needless to say I was extremely happy that night as I was surrounded by friends in the eternal city, in my favorite bar drinking my favorite drink. It was great. Around one, we tried to get into Le Maison, but the names on the list that we usually use did not work. Apparently they only work on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (even though it was Saturday). So we just headed back to the hotel. I was glad though, the night was still wonderful and I was extremely tired from the lack of a nap and just from all of the excitement. So off to bed I went.
My actual birthday day, I just slept, did some work and chilled. Easy Sundays :)

That Tuesday we decided to go to a soccer game. Uruguay v. Italy Friendly. It was all in all a great game. It's really exciting to be in a stadium full of soccer fans. They can be really intense. It's too bad that we missed the only goal scored in the game (first three minutes) due to a run in with Rome's ever so sketchy transportation law enforcement, the ATAC. (Attack of the ATAC). In short, stamp your bus tickets or be prepared to pay fines of 50 euro each on the spot or be a mob of arkies arguing that you have no money and that they need to give you a ticket to pay the next day. (Which they really can't do since by law, you pay on the spot or get taken to jail.)

It's not here now, but I'm going to update this with pics and vids. Just tired now. And same for the next part.

Which I will continue tomorrow.

Since I am about to pass out (it's 120am and I stressed myself out trying to sort out my Christmas schedule. Be sure to book your hotel before your flight...)

Ok. That's it for me now, talk to you tomorrow! XOXO