Getting there is half the fun!

Probably the best decision I made with my recent trip to Italy was to fly in earlier than the rest of the choir to conquer Rome Veni, Vidi, Vici style. Getting there was a stressful/fun/random adventure though. Our original flight plan was to take an evening flight to Rome with a layover in Amsterdam on Delta. Wrong. We checked in and found out that the flight was overbooked so only 1 of us was able to go on. Me and my other roomie were pushed to a late night Air France flight with a layover in Paris.

Not cool? Having no phones or idea of where to reunite at the Rome airport.

Cool? Delta wrote us $800 checks on the spot for screwing up.

The beautiful architecture in the CDG airport terminal.

Fast forward through an unconditioned Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, getting hit on by French airport security guys (so stereotypical but they were cute, hooray), and finding that our luggage was indeed en route to Roma Fiumicino, we found our roomie waiting in baggage claim. We were so relieved to find her! We swapped flight stories and it turned out they switched up our baggage so she picked up my traveling companion's bag and vice versa when our flight's luggage hit baggage claim.

We were in Rome and ready to go but we had no clue how we were getting into the city. Oops? We went outside to find a way to get to our hotel. Cabs=too expensive. Train=where was it? Shuttle bus for 6 Euro? Ok sure. The 3 of us and maybe 4 others boarded a bus after an intense inquisition of where the bus would drop off/would it be near our hotel etc. We were told the bus would take us to the Piramide station where we could catch the 271 bus to Castel Sant'Angelo. Wrong again, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The bus ride was going great. Sure there was some traffic but we were moving toward the city. Then it happened- our bus rear-ended a car. I could see it coming a mile away. (Italian drivers are crazy. CRAZY. They speed and swerve and tailgate...) The light just turned yellow and the driver decided to not go through the intersection. Our bus driver wanted to go. Boom! The guy's entire back window shattered onto the road. No one was hurt and the bus only suffered a small dent and busted headlight.

Bus driver (with man purse) arguing with the driver on the side of the road.

Cue the onslaught of Italian curse words and gestures. It was absolutely hilarious. We spent a half hour on the side of the road while our driver (who had a man purse btw) exchanged info with the guy he hit. We eventually made it to the Piramide station which had the sketchiest crowd of youth and homeless-looking old guys. Not good. The 271 bus that we were supposed to connect with wasn't there and even then the ticket machine was broken. Feeling somewhat defeated, we walked toward the depot building. All of a sudden, a car pulled up to us and the hot girl on our bus (she looked like a model) asked us if we needed help -- it was like divine intervention.

Her boyfriend got out of the driver seat and looked at the map. Between my limited Italian and his broken English, we figured out a game plan to get to the hotel. Piramide was a stop along the Rome Metro! He pointed us in the direction of the entrance and we hauled our luggage a few hundred yards and hopped a train to San Pietro via transfer at Termini. It was very late when we emerged from the Metro and we hoofed it a good 25 minutes to our hotel near the Castel Sant'Angelo.

v

Proscuitto pizza? Yes, please.

We celebrated our journey by dining along the Tiber and listening to 2 Canadian guys sing karaoke.

Ciao Roma!

Nobody Makes Me Bleed My Own Blood

Ciao tutti! This is the first of many blog posts from my recent trip to belisima Italia. I thought there'd be no better way to start than to recount how 5 American women took on a Roman pick-pocketer.

It was our last day in Italy and we made our final connection via Eurostar from Florence to Rome to catch the express train to Roma Fiumicino airport. Our tickets were for the second to last train out that night at 10:22 pm, so it was a bit later in the night but not so much that the platform was entirely void of people. There were 5 women that formed my travel group and never once did I feel unsafe.

As the train pulled in, I looked around to make sure I had all my bags but a guy nearby fiddling and repositioning his jacket on his arm caught my eye. My gut told me to keep tabs on him. As a few of us started boarding the train, jacket guy got closer to our group to the point where I started watching him closely since the platform wasn't that crowded. Then he shuffled close to my friend who was on the step with her bag close to the platform. Jacket on his left hand, he used it as a curtain and reached for my friend's phone inside the bag.

Instinct kicked in. I quickly grabbed his hand and started yelling "NO!" repeatedly at steady intervals. (Sidenote: As a singer, I know how to project my voice- he chose the wrong girl to not cause a commotion.) The other women in my group sort of automatically formed a circle around him and the train with their bodies and suitcases- in retrospect, it's awesome how instinct played its part in our reactions. He got out of my grip so I started swatting at him (haha). It was then that he cut me. It definitely wasn't a scrape from his fingernails, it was too precise a line for that. I'm guessing a small knife or some other sharp object he kept under the jacket.

To counter my persistent yelling, he started cussing me out and grabbing his crotch to play off the situation like I was falsely accusing him. During the verbal altercation on the platform, my friend discovered that he swiped her cell phone. At that point I didn't mess with him because it was escalating quickly so I tried to make eye contact with a platform attendant while he walked back toward our group and onto the train car.

I yelled to my friend to check his jacket since he boarded the train and she was right there between the two cars with him. Girl swung into action like nobody's business! She was all over him demanding he give back her phone. She got hold of him, took the wallet out of his pants, pulled the jacket from him and got her phone back.

We went into our car to get away from him and at that point saw the platform guy come onto the train. I assume he took care of the pick-pocketer because we were busy checking all of our belongings in the next car to ensure he didn't take anything else. Plus, the train departed later than normal. A few days earlier we missed the same express train (only one minute off the arrival time).

So although we have no official closure that the perp was caught, I am proud of how we banded together and chose fight rather than flight. It's reaffirming as a woman to know that the capability to kick @$$ is there and ready.

5 American women=power.

Live Vicariously Through Me (Again)

Hi all!

T minus 10 days until I return to my beloved Italia :) Let's be real, my countdown started 60 days out. I have a premonition that this will be another epic trip abroad. Singing the Verdi Requiem on the 150th anniversary of Italian unification and celebrating my quarter-life milestone. I can't wait!

In the meantime, here's what I'll be up to abroad.

Roma

On the 25th, my two roomies and I will peace out of the USA to get into Rome a few days earlier than the rest of the choir to do some serious sightseeing. (We have a 5 hour layover in Amsterdam which should give us some time to make mischief, too.) We'll be staying at Roma dei Papi Hotel de Charme solely based on my knowledge of having been to Rome 5 years ago. It's right near the Vatican, Castel Sant'Angelo, and across the Tiber from Piazza Navona and The Pantheon.

Angels and Demons scene at Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWzyab1v-lI

Other things on the to-do list:

Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain

Roman baths

Colosseum

Arch of Constantine

Roman Forum

etc.

Perugia, Todi, Gubbio

After a few days in Roma, we will catch a bus with our compatriots to Perugia which is at the heart of Umbria (the region of Italy right below Tuscany). Perugia will act as our base city as we tour the region singing Verdi's Requiem.

During the day, we have free time before rehearsal to rent a car, hop a train, or hike anywhere we please. These adventures are still TBA but will most likely include a trip to Spoleto to check out the music festival, Festival dei Due Mondi. (The Spoleto Festival in Charleston is the USA counterpart.)

Concert time! The amassed choir will consist of peeps from Washington, Pennsylvania, members of the National Philharmonic Chorale, and the University of Perugia. Our orchestra is from Budapest, Hugary. Good thing music transcends language :) Speaking of music, check out our uber music-themed hotel: http://www.hotelgio.it/eng/home.htm.

July 1- First performance in Todi at the Teatro Comunale (below)

July 2- Performance at the Cathedral of San Lorenzo .... Post-concert party per mi cumpleanno!!!!!!

July 3- Performance in Gubbio at the Teatro Comunale

Firenze

5 years ago I rubbed il porcino's snout, and as the legend goes, I've found myself returning to the city I love :) A small group in my choir is traveling via rail for a day trip to the inspiring city of the Renaissance. I can't put a finger on what I love about Florence. It's steeped in rich history, you could walk by a Michelangelo or Donatello and not even realize it-- art and beauty are so commonplace... The moment to moment feeling of what exactly it means to be Italian -- living, breathing, experiencing another way of life... Gaahhhh I can't wait to stop by The Oil Shoppe for Alberto's famed meatball subs :)

Ciao ciao!

Sic Semper Tyrannis

I remember it like yesterday; where I was and the jumbled reactions I had to sight of the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers on the TV before my sophomore history class began. Dumbstruck. Restless. Horrified.

I remember when we dropped the first bombs on Afghanistan in retaliation. It was late on a school night. I couldn't unglue my gaze from the sight of light exploding on the muddled green backdrop of the TV screen.

I remember when we got the bad guy.

It's incredible to think how the information landscape has transformed in a decade; from finding out via television and finding out via Twitter. The refresh button on my browser became the gateway to information overload of one of the most important events in U.S. history to date.

This is how my night went:

I was following #Caps during the game to see how my fellow fans were reacting to the overtime play.

Crushed at their loss, I refreshed the page to do a final check of my feed before I turned in for the night.

BreakingNews Breaking News

White House: The president to make statement at 10:30pm ET; subject not announced - AP

I thought that was incredibly strange and foreboding. I stuck it out to confirm that my suspicions of a bin Laden capture were spot on. Within minutes, the posts went from "subject not announced" to "issue of national security" to "Osama bin Laden."

At this point in my feed, everything is still speculation- no media outlets have confirmed.

jacksonjk Jill Jackson

by JMUswag

House Intelligence committee aide confirms that Osama Bin Laden is dead. U.S. has the body.

Within minutes, the news is confirmed.

andersoncooper Anderson Cooper

by JMUswag

Cnn reporting bin laden is dead.

My Twitter feed exploded with hundreds of new posts and retweets every minute. Friends on Twitter found out the news first, posted on their Facebook walls "Get to a TV NOW" and soon the news spread like wildfire.

Waiting for the news conference (which was delayed an hour) gave me plenty of time to sift through the heavy news and laugh at the clever posts that made light of the situation.

gregstowers Greg Stowers

by JMUswag

hopefully osama didn't make any horcuxes.... #sixmoretogo

MyNameisRazzle Razzle

by JMUswag

RT @Digeratii: BATMAN HAS NO JURISDICTION.

Scobleizer Robert Scoble

by JMUswag

Another joke going around? Donald Trump is demanding Osama's death certificate.

misconstrue Richard Melo

by JMUswag

This weekend is straight out of Shakespeare, bookended with a royal wedding and the death of a tyrant

I was tuned into CNN as the anchors tried their hardest to kill time and not speculate before the press conference. Footage of a few tourists chanting "U-S-A" in front of the White House turned into hundreds and then thousands of young people who were keyed into their social media outlets at the late hour. Generation Y owned the information sharing. Action takes only an instant these days.

Facebook Friend Statuses:

is taking an 8-block walk to join everyone singing the national anthem in front of the White House.

is headed to the White House!!!!!

After the much-anticipated speech, I couldn't sleep. New developments were flooding my computer and TV screen. My friends were downtown reveling in the excitement- I was not passing up the opportunity. The roomie and I hit the road around 12:30 pm.

Tweeting in the moment:

JMUswag JMUswag

Walking down Constitution in my PJs. People honking their horns like crazy! !!

JMUswag JMUswag

Yes We Did! Where's bin laden?! chants

JMUswag JMUswag

Have cheered the pledge of allegiance, sung the SSB and God Bless The USA.

JMUswag JMUswag

On Pennsylvania Ave cheering on the cars that are honking.#winning

JMUswag JMUswag

Guy out his car door on Constitution "Which way is the White House?" Crowd "That wayyyyyy!!"

JMUswag JMUswag

BTW So many hot young guys in the crowd tonight. Where do they go for the other 364 days/nights of the year?!

JMUswag JMUswag

@JuliaFarina and I decided to be responsible adults and come back home because we have work tomorrow. DC visit? Totally worth it!

I also fed pics to my Twitpic account which didn't upload until much later (probably due to the call volume in our vicinity). After getting home, I uploaded the pics from my DSLR onto Facebook so the people that missed out on the late night news could see first hand the epicness of the night.

Back from the White House with Julie Farina. SO EXHILARATING!

I guess that's how it's done in Generation Y's post-9/11 world.

Bike to the blossoms

Despite the over night snow, I decided to hop on my bike and ride into DC to see the cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin. The weather was in the 30's when I left my place which definitely helped keep the tourists away (Yeeeeees!). Usually there are so many people it's near impossible to really enjoy the simple beauty of the trees at the Cherry Blossom Festival.

The bike ride was 4 miles from Arlington to the Tidal Basin. Using the W&OD Trail, Custis Trail and the Mt. Vernon Trail, I pieced my way along the Potomac quite easily to my destination. On the way back, I went along the Mall and Constitution Ave, through Georgetown, went on the C&O Canal path and then back over the river via the Key Bridge. DC is super easy to bike to from Northern Virginia. Check out the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) site for great information and trail maps.

Some background on Washington, DC's famed cherry trees: In 1912, Japan sent 3,020 cherry trees to the United States as a gesture of friendship. First Lady Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador planted the first two trees on the Northern end of the Tidal Basin. Each year the National Cherry Blossom Festival is held around peak bloom which can vary from early March to early April. Predictions from the Chief Horticulturist often help determine when the festival will be held.

The Mt. Vernon Trail along the Potomac

'Low Tree Limbs Ahead'

Jefferson Memorial in the background

FDR Memorial

The Washington Monument

C&O Canal in Georgetown

Doing Philly in a Day

The other week I was contemplating a destination for a road trip since it was President's Day and I was long overdue for an adventure. My roomie (who was at home for the holiday weekend) and I started Gchatting and ultimately I wound up with an invite to Philadelphia. The last time I was in Philly was in 6th grade on a field trip to Valley Forge, Independence Hall, and Betsy Ross's house. It was time for some new perspective on the place.

I left Arlington around 7:15am after hitting up my favorite Dunkin Donuts for a cup of road trip French vanilla coffee. After plugging my roomie's address into the GPS, I decided to take I- 95 so as to keep time on my side and allow a full day for any spontaneous deviations. This proved to be a fantastic idea. I got up there in no time, though I was $11 poorer from all the tolls!

On the exit ramp, I saw a sign for Villanova. I knew Villanova University was somewhere in PA, but I had no idea it was near Philly, let alone 5 miles away from my roomie's place! It was part curiosity, part wanting to size up another CAA school, and part knowing some alums that made me reposition my car and follow the signs to the university. The place was teeming with prospective students and their parents- luckily parking wasn't an issue. I grabbed my DSLR and hit the campus!

It was nice to stretch after a few hours in the car. The first building I saw was the chapel, which was beautiful inside. I then did a long lap around the main part of campus, saw the football field (JMU's is wayyyyy better!), went into the student union, and even got mistaken for a student by a family visiting the school! Not to keep my roomie waiting too long, I jumped back in my car and hit the road.

We drove into the city and lucked out finding a reeeealllly tight parking spot. The Franklin Institute was the first stop of the day! Everyone and there mom was there because it was a holiday aka. tons of kids, strollers, and loud parents. The lines were ridiculous. Fortunately, we called ahead and the roomie had a family membership which got us a shorter line and entrance into the Leonardo DaVinci exhibit for free. The exhibit was very interesting and it explored Leonardo's folios (Codex) in depth with life-size recreations of his inventions. The thing that bugged me the most were the grammatical errors on the displays. To save my sanity, I refrained from counting the number of punctuation marks outside of quotation marks.

We went around the rest of the museum, walked through the giant heart, saw an IMAX movie, and had some chili at the cafeteria. Note: I was taken aback at how cheap the food was. I'm used to Smithsonian prices that jack up the price of food threefold. At this point it was close to 4 pm so we hopped in the car and went to the Philadelphia Art Museum to do the obligatory Rocky poses at the top of the steps. Parking was a cinch near the water, behind the building. The thing was, it was freezing cold out and walking all the way to the front of the building was not such an appealing option. So we decided to walk through the museum.

Yes, you have to pay to get into the museum, but we were well aware of the fact that if you act like you own the place and go about your business, no one will question you. We were so right. We walked right in and found a hallway that led us to an elevator which eventually led us to the main entrance. If we wanted to game the system, in theory, we could have seen all that art for free. Anyway, we went outside and took pics a la Rocky (along with all the other tourists)- it was kind of epic!

We left the museum and headed to Jim's on South St for my first real Philly cheese steak. Oh man, was it good! I got mine with whiz and onions. I loved looking around the place and seeing all the pictures and autographs of the famous people who visited. Denzel Washington's was in the corner (you know a place is good if Denzel endorses it). Since I had work the next day, I headed home after Jim's. The drive back took an hour longer because I took a non- toll route west through Lancaster County, and York, and it started snowing heavily around Baltimore. All in all, it was an easy and doable road trip only a few hours from DC!

As if I Needed Another Reason to Love Iceland

As everyone knows, I went to Iceland last June to sing and I instantly fell in love with the place. Being stateside in DC has made it challenging to find anything Icelandic, though. Google helped a bit. I found an Icelandic bar on 14th St (Cafe St. Ex) and whenever I need a Skyr fix, I go to WholeFoods. Imagine my delight when I found out that Icelandair was sponsoring Taste of Iceland in DC to celebrate their new nonstop flights from Dulles this summer! An email was instantly sent to all my choir members who went to Iceland with me for a Taste of Iceland/mini choir reunion. Iceland in DC? Done and done.

Taste of Iceland is all this weekend (check out the press release for all the details) but I decided to hit up DC Coast tonight (Thursday) because I'm going to the Capitals game at the Verizon Center tomorrow. Plus, it was great being the first group to try Chef Hakon's creation! For $48 we were served a 4 course meal from heaven. I took pics of the meal, but did so on my not-so-high-resolution Blackberry (thought it'd be slightly sketch if I whipped out my DSLR and started taking pictures).

Behold:

The Blue Lagoon

This drink made me so happy!

1. It was wispy just like the surface of the Blue Lagoon.

2. Instead of olives, there were 3 blueberries on a stick- genius!

3. It's blue and tasted really good. Definitely something I would order at a bar.

Amouse bouche of smoked arctic char

This dish came wrapped with plastic. After the server pulled away the plastic, the smoked char aroma filled the air. It was like sitting at a campfire. And of course, it was delicious.

Roasted rack of lamb, served with a rosemary-garlic lamb jus alongside root vegetables and a carrot puree

There are no words. The lamb was tender and oh so good!

Langoustine tails sprinkled with Icelandic seaweed, served over mousseline potatoes

As a general rule, I don't like seafood. However, the langoustine tails make me want to branch out and try more! And the potatoes? Absolute perfection.

Skyr served over an oat crust and with a strawberry rhubarb compote

It tasted like skyr on strawberry rhubarb pie. Who doesn't like pie?! Favorite course of the meal, hands down. Mad profs to the chef for a fantastic dining experience!