Budie, Budie, Budie, Budie, rockin everywhere.

Hey y'all!

So, Budapest.

First things first, the purple team had YET ANOTHER loss on Wednesday. our record is 1-6-1. And now we are to the playoffs. Needless to say, I think this week will be the last for the purple team. It was still a blast and one of the things I will miss the most about Rome.

Now to Budapest. We got in on Thursday night, and I first had to exchange my money, 59 euros, for 13,000 forints. That was cool. Soft currency= cheap stuff! We had a cab ride to our hotel because it is absolutely impossible to figure out Budapest's public transportation by looking on wikitravel. Try it. I dare you. But the cab wasn't that expensive, and it was a lady cab driver! She was funny. I asked her how to say thank you, and she giggled when I said it to her. We were in love.

Our hotel was actually an apartment with a kitchen and balcony! va bene!

On Friday we did the typical Budapest thing and went to the baths. It was an experience. After first successfully getting there on the metro, we had a lovely view of a plethora (this word is in my vocabulary solely because of Aaron) of completely naked, fat, and hairy 80 year old men. The baths were interesting. There were warm and cold ones, people making out, old people, young people. We didn't stay for long, and Dana and Alex wanted to take advantage of the cheap massages, so while they did that, Manak and I went to the swimming pool. They had a neato pool that had jets so it flung you in a circle. I know it sounds dangerous, and it was, but it was fun.

After the baths, we set out exploring Budapest. We went to a few bakeries, some shops, and finally to the Market Hall. They had a two story market with tons of vendors of all sorts of foods and knick knacks. It was cool. I bought a "secret box" and I'm pretty content with it. I also had goulash (completely different from the Minnesotan goulash that I know) and potatoes! My friends all say they don't know how I don't have diabetes because I get a baked good at every store we stop at, not to mention I eat tons of all foods. God must really love me. (In other news, I've lost 3 kgs!) Don't be jealous.

We made use of our kitchen on Friday night by stopping at the grocery store and making our own dinner. We made spaghetti with the most disgusting sauce I've ever had. Dana picked it. Thanks to Alex (who I called Xandra for most of this trip) we had good cheese bread from the bakery. It wasn't a total loss. It was a good night.

On Saturday we got up and watched some America's next top model dubbed in Hungarian. It was so funny. Then we set out to find what Xandra had been raving about the whole weekend, the Chain Bridge. Not a huge disappointment, but not spectacular. oh! I should have mentioned. For those of you who don't know, Budapest is actually two cities, Buda and Pest. Pest is more business-y and Buda is more old-world, hilly and nice. So our hotel was in Pest. And our first glimpse of Buda was from the chain bridge. Buda was by far better than pest. We took the stairs to the top of a large hill. Xandra wanted to take the elevator, but I persisted. We will all have amazingly sculpted behinds when we return.

Buda was cool. It had older buildings, and it felt more european. I liked it a lot. After Buda, we wasted some time at the market until we had to go to the train station to leave.

At the train station, we first had to FIND our train. Uffda. After finding it, we thought we were in the 2nd class part. It was nice! Too nice I guess, because we got kicked out and sent to the REAL second class part. Enter your image of scary Eastern Europe. Not THAT bad, but parts of that second class looked like a Holocaust train. A cute old Hungarian lady let me and Alex sit by her, and her daughter told us where to get off. I love them.

At the airport I heard from 3 hungarians about the Polish plain- incident. Big news there. I wasn't particularly interested at the time.

Hungary was a success. Today Dana and Anna and I went to IKEA! It was a blast. Looks exactly like Ikea twin cities. I got a hotdog and a cinnamon roll. (it took me three tries to spell that: role? roal? rowl?? Italian everywhere is getting to me).

I'm going to get the most out of Rome in these last three weeks. (less than actually!) I miss you all and I can't wait to be home. I really really really want to go to Applebees, so somebody get on that. Thanks.

Shout out to Mary L DeMaria, hottest lady ever!

Love you all

My London, London bridge

Aloha famiglia!

Two weekends ago I went to London! It was a fine trip. I got my first passport stamp!

We stayed at the Green Man Inn, on the upper west side. Leave it to Dana to pick this murder-site of a hotel. It ended up being fine, but I still peed a little when we first saw it. London was fun. The first night we went to Harrod's which is huuuuge. And waay expensive. On Saturday, we were going to go to a free tour of the city, but the english one was canceled so we ended up going to a tour given in Spanish, by our tour guide Juan Carlos ("como el rey de Espana!") He was a funny guy. We did all of the sights on saturday, as we had an early morning flight on sunday. It was fun.

On wednesday we had calcio again, and purple lost, again. I heard a rumor that the purple team is done, so I'm pretty sad about that.

On Thursday I departed for Greeeeece!!
Amazing.

First we had a 4 hour bus from Rome to the port city Ancona. After that we boarded the worst cruise ship EVER. A 14 hour ship from Italy to Greece. Oh joy. I slept on the floor and listened to bros and douchebags holler all night. Once in Greece we still had a 2 hour ferry ride to Corfu, AND another 1 hour bus ride, but after it all, it was sooo worth it.

The first day in Greece, Friday, we rented ATVs and drove up the coast! It was scary to say the least, going up narrow mountain roads, and with other Grecian traffic. We went to a small town called P-something or other. It was so cool! They had three different beaches in the one small town! On the way back to the Pink Palace (where I stayed), we stopped at a random bakery on the side of the road for some baklava and other Greek sweets. It was amazing. The owner asked me if I was related to Al Capone when he found out we were from Chicago.

Friday night was the Pink Palace Toga Partay! We wore STD-ridden togas to the resort's night club. They had fire dancing, plate smashing (one on my head!) and Ouzo drinking. It was a fun night.

On Saturday we rented Kayaks and went exploring on the Ionian sea. We ended up going to a secluded beach and laying around. On the way back I had Dana and I channel our inner Pocahontas to row faster against the waves. At one point when the Ionian was getting a bit frisky with her waves, I slapped the sea with my paddle and said "Bad girl!" This ended up screwing me over because I ended the day with a HORRIBLE sunburn, and spent saturday night and sunday recovering in bed. Oh well. I still had a blast and it was an amazing trip.

Sleeping on the floor of the cruise ship with sunburn was no treat last night, but I did it.

Always nice to be back in Rome after a long weekend away.
Budapest on Thursday!

Ciao ladies.

Deutschland, ja!

Okie dokie... where to begin.

Last week was pretty relaxed after spring break. I got my Italian midterm back and I got 100%! Nadia was thrilled to say the least. My relationship with her has grown immensely over the past week. One might say we're lovers.

In Italian film genre, we watched a wonderfully uplifting movie called General Della Rovere in which EVERYONE DIES. On wednesday we had onsight architecture class in Trastevere. It was hilarious. We were fifteen minutes late but Giovy was on the phone so it was "va bene" all around. We had to draw some fascist youth housing complex which was pretty neat. At the drawing, a girl finished hers and then asked Giovy if she could add anything to the drawing and Giovy said "start over." She only gets nicer as the weeks go by. She has also worn the same shirt three weeks in a row. OH! side note- We found out that Giovy may have a hermy daughter. One of my friends is her english tutor and "Agnese" calls herself a boy, and so does her dad, but Giovy always says "my daughter." It shall remain a mystery.

This week we also learned that Giovy doesn't speak english very well. She adds unnecessary S's on words, and leaves them off where they should be. She also speaks in the past tense about present things. ex: "I will need to done this again." We always say "no, giovy, you mean do, DO this again." I am going to offer to correct her english for an A in the class. We had our midterm for this class on thursday night where we showed off our drawings. Everyone was getting ripped apart (Dana had "something very, very wrong" going on with her drawing) but mine was "Perfect." I don't mean to brag, and I'm not going to insinuate that I'm having an affair with Giovy, but I'm pretty sure she loves me. I was the example on the perfect amount of detail. I was like, yeah. She tore apart this girl Elizabeth's drawing saying that Elizabeth free-handed it when she actually used a ruler. It was a funny class.

On friday we embarked for Frankfurt! All the flight attendants speak German to me and English to Manak and Dana. It was fun. We stayed at the Best Western (Best Veestern to the Germies) and on our first night roaming the city I saw my first crack-doing! It was pretty cool, and right after, a homeless woman giggled at us. I also ate rhubarb stuff so that was good.

The second day I woke up and Dana immediately punched me in the face. I bled all over my sheets. We then went to get haircuts! At a turkish hair place called the "golden schere." I sat down and said "spreichen sie English?" and he said no, only french, german and turkish. So, naturally, I got a nazi haircut because of the language barrier. Oy vey. I'm getting used to it now.

We also went to a sex shop! and I had apfelwein (not at the sex shop). It was a good trip. It was no Munich, but not really comparable either. Frankfurt is a nice place. Germans are funny.

On monday I had Italian again and, honestly, Nadia has the hots for me. She walked by me while I was in the lunchline, and didn't say anything, so I said "ciaoooo nadia!" and she just smiled coyly. And she always talks about me to the rest of the class, and always gets unnecessarily close to me when she talks to me in class. Today in the lunch line Dana said my name and I turned around while simultaneously screaming WHAT!?!? and Nadia was right there and she laughed and laughed at me. She said "oh kory is sooo nice person!" and I was like oh Nadia, you hottie you. And when she walked away she got REALLY close to my face and said "what!?!?" I love her.

My professora for Lit is in the states this week, so we had a sub named Dr. Janice Fine. First of all, read that name. Janice Fine. Then picture the most Jewish person you can think of. Huge schnoz, puffy puffy hair, a voice like fran drescher. But in the middle of the class she says "by the way, I'm Jewish." We're like uhh Ya think??! I love her though. She's hilarious. Dana and I call her Jannie and we look up to her.

On a sad note, the elevator that I love so much is no longer working. RIP ellie.

On a lighter note, Mensa now has cream cheese!

To sum things up, I'm going to London on friday and I found Nella in the Rome phonebook.

ciao amici

Hola, Bonjour, Ciao.

SB '10!!!

For spring break I went to Madrid and Paris, and it was a grand time.

Our flight to Madrid was at 6am so we had to leave for the airport at 3. JOY. Once we were in Madrid, we were pretty out of it and tired. Not too fun the first day. The first night we had to stay in separate hostels, but the second night we were together in Cat's (which as you can imagine was nicknamed something else by us) Hostel. Dana, Deedee and I were in a room with 9 strangers. I actually liked it, they were creeped out by the other people. The first night we had a warm welcoming by two of our roommates who decided to have sex 2 yards away from us. I got to listen to a good hour of broken english/ God knows what language dirty talk. After they finished, I finally got a few hours of sleep in.

Our normal roommates were American students on Spring Break from Philly and Penn State. Ye and Jeff. They were nice, and they reminded us of some of our friends from home. I'll miss them.

Madrid was nice. Cold and rainy most of the time there, so that was pretty annoying. I enjoyed speaking Spanish, and dunkin donuts. !!! we went there 4 times. I was so glad that there was one right by our hostel. We also dined on such authentic Spanish food such as McDonalds, BurgerKing, and Turkish Kebabs.

Paris was amaaazing. A lot nicer than I thought it would be. We had a private room in the hostel, so no worries for me about sex-ing roomies. Dana and deedee were probably still creeped out by ME, but, I've become used to this.

Today I went to hear the Pope read the Gospel! It was ok. It didn't last very long, and he was waaaay up in his window, so for all I know, it could have been Nancy Reagan up there. We also went to the catacombs.

I've got a lot of homework to do so I've gotta make this short.
Ciao homie g's.

Typical.

Alo!

Well. What a span of time it has been since my last blog! I'm not sure where to begin.

I don't think anything rather exciting happened before Munich, plus I'm not sure I remember anything, so I'll skip straight to Munich. Ahhh Munich. LOVED IT. It was honestly the best place I've ever been to. First of all I am in love with German food. Sausages, pretzels, and the desserts. Oh lawdy. We stayed at Jaeger's hostel. Quite appropriate for me if I do say so. Dana and I were in a room with 6 other random people. Four of them were American girls studying in London, Dana's bunkmate was Lisa! A swedish girl who just got an internship in Munich, and My bunkmate was Rodrigo, a spanish-german guy going on a post-college (i think? i never actually met him, i just looked at his luggage.) tour of Germany. Lisa was fun. We talked about her like we were friends with her. The only interaction I had with Rodrigo was when he awkwardly waved at me one morning. He was a nice guy. I found him on facebook, and his pictures were rather sad. It was just him alone in front of various German monuments. Oh Roddy. Maybe we'll meet again someday. We went on a free tour of Munich, and then we also went on a Beer challenge! Our Austrian guide was Claudia and I, of course, loved her. During said beer crawl, I snapped a pretty amazing photo of one of my friends making out with one of the random London girls. I posted the picture on facebook when we got back, and, well, I'm a JFRC celebrity now! The Rome Center was "abuzz" as one of my loyal fans Margie said. They all loved my picture. I mean, I have some good photog skillz (see my facebook album titled "Claudia, I can't chug this in five minutes!"). In any case, Munich was great and I can't wait to go back someday.

This week was MIDTERMS. Oy vey. But I still made time to keep the fans happy and go play Calcio last night. There were quite a few injuries, not to me, and not caused by me. I helped my team by screaming "kill him!" "pull her pony-tail!" "break his OTHER arm!" "plow that hussey down!" and various other motivational chants. I didn't score any goals, but I scored a plethora of digits. {I was wearing my purple leggings ;) }

Today I had 3 midterms! First Film, which was a little tricky. Then Italian, which I aced. My proffy Nadia and I kinda have a little thing going. I mean, I'm not gonna say anything, but, you know. Today she said I got an A+ on my midterm, and I had just handed it in! She hadn't even looked at it. It's love. After Italian, I had my last one, History. It was essay, so, blah. But I sure chugged on through it, and prevailed (I hope).

Shout out to Mary DeMaria! Love you Babe!

OH! Tonight Dana and I discovered the JFRC elevator! I will now be using it to go ANYWHERE in the building if it requires stairs. It's a two person elevator, and there is no front door, so you could potentially lose your hand, foot, or face, depending on how close to the wall you are standing. And when it arrives on your chosen floor, it screeches to a halt. It's great. If you take it to the 2nd floor it drops you off in a bathroom! I'm not sure who built this thing, but this building used to be for nuns, and they sure were hilarious.

Well, this blog was brought to you by popular demand, and I do mean DEMAND. I will be boarding a flight to Madrid in about 4 hours! Madrid and Paris for spring break. Does it bother anyone else that you can't say spring break oh-___ anymore?? I'll still say oh-ten!

In other news, I got an egg and cheese panini from Nella today, and when she gave it to me, she said mmm num yumm yum yum yum. I almost peed my pants. She wants me.

Ciao!

Mount Vesuvius has nothing on me.

What a joy this week has been so far.

I took a picture of my hottie/biotch Architecture prof. Giovanna, for your viewing pleasure. This was during class one day. I'm pretty sneaky.


After a long 4-day week of classes, my friends and I needed to get out and par-tay on Thursday night. We went to a region of Rome called Trastevere, a hipitty hoppity place filled with night clubs and magic. We went to a bar called DJ Bar, and it was 1 euro shots night! Kory + 1 euro shots of tequilla = great fun for all!!!!

The bar was EXTREMELY crowded, but we made our way through the half and half italian and american crowd to the dungeon-like basement dance floor! While ordering my 5 shots at the bar, I met an Iowegian! Imagine my surprise! After insulting her state for a few minutes and downing my shots, Dana and Tim and I danced our hearts out. First on the dance floor, then on the chairs, then on the tables! But not just any tables... IKEA tables! I was so happy to be able to tell everyone that I was dancing on $7.99 IKEA end tables!

After the night of dancing, I woke up in the morning (in my own bed!) with confetti on the floor and streamers in my underwear. Nobody knows how or why.. Nevertheless, we had fun!


Friday was a chill day after party night. Along with the confetti and streamers, I also woke up to SNOW on the ground! That's right, SNOW! For the first time in Rome since 1985 (or 1965, depending on who you ask.) We went to the soccer fields and built two amazing snow people, and had a snow-covered orange fight. Friday night we made some new friends at JFRC! Kathleen, from St. Paul. I'm always happy to meet a fellow Minnesotan.



Saturday was the day-trip to Pompei (Pompeii in English, Pompei in Italian). It was neat to see, and interesting, but after you see a bunch of ancient ruins, they all start to look the same. Ancient, and ruined. The best part of Pompei was the body casts. It was awful to see the looks on the faces on the people. There is a part of the town called "Garden of the fugitives" where there were about 10 bodies all found together, at the wall of the city. It was sad.


It was fun during the day to tell Dana that Mt. Vessy was going to erupt again (it really is!- they predict a huge eruption that will send ash and lava in a radius of 7 km around Vessy!). But much to my dismay, it didn't. Another interesting part of the city is the brothel. The local prostitutes didn't speak Latin, so the men had to point at dirty pictures on the wall so the girl would know what they wanted. The pictures are still there, thank God, unharmed by Vessy.

Sunday we went to the flea market again and I bought Purple leggings for calcio! I can't wait to sport them on Wednesday. I also got two more doughnuts. They really are the best in Rome at this little restaurant near the market.

I did laundry today! And watched old videos of Tessa that were on my computer! Hey Tessa!

Finally, a not about Mensa, the cafeteria. I can't eat pasta ever again. I honestly vom at the sight of it. Today in Mensa I got hot dogs. I was eating one, and it smelled familiar, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. Then it hit me. Beggin Strips dog treats. Oh joy. I couldn't eat the rest of my meal because my hands smelled like I just gave Tommy and Lola a treat (shout out to my neice and nephew!). I want Mexican food, Dunkin Donuts, Panera, Chipotle, Dairy Queen. I just can't take Pasta anymore.

Feel free to send me mail!
Kory Iverson
Via Massimi 114-A
Box 225
Roma, Lazio, Italia 00136

Ciao raggazi! A doppo!

I'm wearing a purple calcio shirt!

Hey yallziez!

Uffda. It's been one heck of a week and it's not even over yet!

Last weekend was spent shopping and reading. On Friday night, Manak and I ventured into the city in search of hoodies, coats, and sweatpants. We didn't find any of those. After a rough shopping excursion, we decided that instead of having Mensa (the cafeteria here at JFRC), we deserved some good old American fare. So we headed to the Perfect Bun restaurant downtown. It took a little bit to find, (good thing I have a photographic memory), but we finally made it. We were a bit early for dinner (6:30! oh no! blasphemy!) so we had to sit at the bar and order drinks before. But we both got great cheeseburgers and french fries. It was a cool place.

On Saturday we all once again headed out for some shopping. We were on the "Michigan Ave" of Rome (Via del Corso), and when we walked out of H&M, there was all of a sudden a parade down the street! Mind blowing. Italians are so random. I guess it was related to Carnivale, but anyway, it was people dressed up, and lots of horses, and confetti. Oh the confetti. They litteraly just threw it in your face. It was fun though. After shopping, we all went to a bar in Trastevere. We ended up at Mates, a pretty hip place if you ask me. I had my first Kamikaze(s). A very enjoyable drink if I do say so myself. The bar was very cool. Lots of italians, and lots of good music. We sat in this velvet booth thing with a table, and a curtain to boot! (Confession: I had accidentally typed "booty" but I changed it.) After the bar, we had to take a cab back as it was approx 2:30am. The guy tooootally screwed us over. He drove in a circle before actually going to JFRC, and then our total was 17.10 and I gave him a 20 but he only gave me 2 euro back. I wish I spoke more Italian so I could express my discontent.

Sunday. Oh Sunday. This day was great. It was sunny and warm, so I convinced Dana to come with me to read our book outside in the courtyard. It ended up that 4 other people from our class joined us, and we read the day away. We are reading a slightly (majorly) confusing and annoying book titled "The Silent Duchess" (I don't reccomend it, HUGE waste of time), so whenever one of us was confused about something, we would just ask the other what the heck was going on. Or we would tell eachother if it was actually worth it to read the next 10 pages or not.

I had my first Italian test on Monday!! I got a 50/50 even though I spelled Arrivederci wrong. I'll never forget it now though.

Tuesday! An uneventful day, I had class alllll day until 9.30 pm. In my film class we watched a 1946 movie about two boys who end up in jail together, and in the end, they get in a fight and one accidently kills the other. It was oh so uplifting. This came after last week'd movie where the dad killed himself. After the wonderful film, it was KARAOKE NIGHT!!!!!!!!! Karaoke night is one of the many activities that makes me love JFRC. 10.00 pm everyone gathered in the Cafe downstairs, and although it was called Karaoke, it ended up being more like a JFRC sing-along. There was even free beer provided by Loyola! They played such hits as "No Scrubs," Toto's "Africa," and Whitney's "I wanna dance with somebody." Along with the backstreet boys, brittney spears, and some Frank Sinatra thrown in there, it was a pretty magical evening.

Wednesday I only had one class and it was cancelled! Thank the Lord. It was my Architecture class. So instead of class, we planned the rest of our trips. All in all, we are going to: Madrid, Paris, Franfurt, London, Greece, Budapest, and Dublin. Uffda! and since it was Wednesday night, that means CALCIOOOOOOOOOO!!!! We got our t-shirts at dinner tonight, and because my high school soccer shorts already have the number 5 on them, I obviously got the number 5 on my tshirt! I am the only one with a full uniform! The Purple Nurples suffered a tough loss (2-1) but we will prevail next week. I had an assist with the Irishman! (who, by the way, was playing Irish jig music today in his room while I was showering. It was pretty great.) After the game we went to Angela's for pizza and beer. I want to play soccer this summer. High school sports really ruined it for me, but I love this.

As many of you know, I have a thing with older, or shall we say, Mature Women. Well, this gift didn't stay in the US! It came along with me to Italy. I now have a relaysh with Nella, the 70 year old woman who works with her husband Renaldo at the self titled Cafe "Renaldo's" downstairs. She always gives me the special, two nutella filled cornettos for 1 euro (a savings of 20 cents!) and the other day she brought our relationship to the next level by giving me pound cake completely free. She also asked for my name, and now she knows what I want at when I go. She looks good for 70, don't worry.

Well, that's all I really have to say for now. Time is flying here but I really do enjoy it, even if I don't enjoy Italian people all that much.

Ciao ragazzi. A doppo.