Feel Bad? Go Shopping!

I'm joking, of course. I would never recommend either shopping or eating as productive ways to handle emotional issues...despite the fact that they do indeed work, temporarily. (You know what I'm thinking, Mom: Patsy Clairmont. "That's it, I'm going shopping!")

Today I woke up and cried because I was homesick. It's the first time I've really been hit by it, although I knew it would happen eventually. I've never been this far from home in my life, and I've certainly never gone for more than a couple of weeks without seeing my family, so this whole trip is a pretty big stretch for me. Of course, being away for this long would be easier to deal with if I could have dispensed with the nightmare I had this morning about a family member dying. Hello, not a good time for that sort of dream! I feel better now, of course, but maybe that's because I went shopping. Lol!

No, seriously, I just went shopping because that's what my roommate was doing this morning. We strolled down Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, which is a pretty big street with lots of shops, going between the river and Largo di Torre Argentina, another commercial area. We found a shop that sells Birkenstock shoes...about half as expensive as in the U.S. (They're made in Germany, so it's a lot cheaper to get them in the EU rather than imported.) I tried on some, because I have heard people rave about them, but I didn't think they were that great. Granted, I have peculiar feet and therefore peculiar needs, but they just didn't seem to live up to the hype. But anyway, Claudia is excited. We found a panetteria (bakery) where I bought a little pastry called a crostalina. It looks kind of like a tart, and it had apricot filling. Mmm it was good. Then we shopped around for clothes and souvenirs. I got a tank top on sale at United Colors of Benetton, and at a souvenir shop I found a World Cup t-shirt (it says Campioni del Mondo) and an Italian flag for my room. I had been planning on getting all of those things eventually...so don't think I just ran around buying up the place to make myself feel better!

It worked, though. :)

I can't post pictures today, unfortunately, because somehow my USB cable has disappeared. It could be hiding somewhere in the apartment, but I'm afraid I might have left it at the computer lab the other day. If I did, it might be in the Lost & Found on Monday, but it's probably gone forever. There's a computer accessories store in my neighborhood, though, so I can replace it. I just probably won't be posting pics for a few days. Sorry.

I did go to Tarquinia yesterday, and it was nice. The other kids were of course complaining (rich and spoiled, most of them), but again, I enjoyed getting out of the city and seeing something new. It wasn't an incredibly exciting trip, but hello, it was free. We toured some Etruscan tombs and the Etruscan museum, both of which were interesting, but unfortunately I was dead tired from having been out late the night before, and our guide's English was difficult to decipher, so I ended up not really getting as much out of it as I was hoping. Still, I got to see lots of ancient relics, so that was cool. The pottery was just unbelievable in its intricacy, with various mythological scenes and figures, and our guide explained that they had to fire it several times, and do the decorations in several steps, and if they ever made a mistake they had to start over. I was quite impressed. Next to the Etruscan stuff, the Roman pottery of that period looks like the product of kids with Play-Doh. We also saw some of the wall paintings on the actual tombs, and that was pretty cool too.

After the whole museum thing we had lunch and went to the beach. It's only the second time in my life that I've ever seen an ocean, and Claudia argues that I still haven't seen one. The Gulf and the Mediterranean don't count in her opinion. I say that salty water as far as the eye can see is an ocean no matter what its name is on the map, but whatever. I've seen the sea. I really enjoyed wading along edge of the water and feeling the waves come in, washing the sand out from underneath my feet. I did not enjoy burning my feet on the sand and having sand in my socks and shorts all the way home, but I guess that's just part of the beach experience. Claudia and Nancy decided to go to Ostia this afternoon, which is about 30 miles away and has a beach, but I wouldn't go. Enh, one afternoon at the beach is enough for me. All that water makes me kind of nervous (I'm such a landlubber), and people-watching is kind of hazardous around there. That is to say, most of the Italians are wearing pretty much next to nothing. The women all apparently own tops to their swimsuits, but whether or not they're wearing them at any given moment is a bit of a gamble. They also usually have thongs for the bottom portion...and the men either wear Speedo type things or thongs also. It's rather disconcerting to be flashed everywhere you look! So I'll stay in the city today, thanks. :)

That's the story for now. I hope you are all doing well across the ocean. Ciao!