A brief account of the week and my 21st

Yeah, I waited way to long to write. A whole week of stuff has gone by undocumented! SO much to tell. We shall start where I left off from last Saturday. Sunday I went to a city just outside of Rome that sits in the hills called Frescati. Beautiful place that is quite famous for its historical villas that were owned by different people of royalty as far back as the 14th Century. There was an event going on where for 10 Euros you could go to six different villas with a guided tour at each. These houses were amazing. The first one was owned by a duke, if I remember correctly, who loved the outdoors and wanted to feel like he was outside all the time. So to accomplish this he had every wall and ceiling in every room painted to look like some outdoor scene. It was amazing how detailed every room was. The best was at the end of one corridor there was a room that opened up to a terrace and inside the room was a piano and fountain. I want a fountain in my house!!
We went to the other five and then some of the guys wanted to go to Mass at one of the very old churches there. My friend Paolo who has become one of my very good friends at Villa doesn’t like going to Mass so I agreed to walk around the town with him while the other guys went. Instead of going to Mass we spent the whole hour talking about nothing but theology and our beliefs in God and all other ideas of that nature. It was a very in depth talk and I was slightly bummed when the other guys returned and we had to head back to Villa. All in all a very beautiful day with some AMAZING pictures.
The rest of the week was relatively uneventful. It was by far the fastest week I have had here and seemed to fly by before I even realized it was already Friday. I realized this week that I am now wrapped up in a tradition of having breakfast with the same guys. We all drink our coffee and eat biscotti while watching MTV and throwing food at Filippo for singing… very badly. It was a great way to start the day and it makes me feel like I actually in some non-permanent kind of way, fit in here. Thursday there was a huge party for Sandro who had just received his MS in physics. After a dinner of amazing wine, lots of different antipasti and the best mozzarella I have ever had, there was of course a loud party which was accompanied by games, music and excessive drinking. Italians really are amazing partiers (I would later find out just how good at it they are). But Friday finally came and we had our final choir rehearsal before the big performance on Saturday for the anniversary of the ordination of the Cardinal.
I had breakfast with the guys on Saturday morning and then after lunch I went to Villa Borghese for a while to read and get away from all the preparations for the celebration. I returned and got ready and then went to warm up with the choir and then we all gathered in the chapel and had Mass which of course was said by the Cardinal himself. I was amazed at how easily I kept up with what was going on. I don’t know why, but I kind of expected Mass to be slightly different here, which is completely wrong. I even recognized the scripture and all the readings and knew exactly when to stand, talk, sit, kneel. I was pleased not to feel completely lost the whole time. After Mass there were two dinners, one upstairs for the adults and then the basement was designated for the students. We ate and drank and then I was invited to go out with Antonio and Paolo to a pub near the Colosseum. Paolo ended up ditching us so it was just Antonio and I and we ended up coming back very very late. Italian night life is crazy in that district which is kind of funny since everything is surrounded by old Roman ruins. Quite ironic.
Sunday we were supposed to go to the sea but it ended up being completely over cast for the entire day. Instead we went to Palazza Barberini which is a huge house that was built and owned by Cardinal Barberini in the 15th century. HOLY CRAP THIS HOUSE IS AMAZING!! The walls were completely decked in paintings and art… as were the ceilings which I thought were equally as beautiful as the ones in San Pietro. Before heading home we decided to stop by a church that is quite famous for having an indoor cemetery. I thought this sounded quite interesting… I had no idea how interesting. You walk into this tiny room where a lady collects your small donation of whatever you can pay and then you walk down a hallway that contains the graves. It’s very dimly lit so when I first stepped into the hallway I was amazing by the amazing woodwork on the walls and ceiling. There were amazing designs of flowers, coat of arms, Papal symbols, religious symbols, crosses all carved out of wood. But oh wait… of course it couldn’t be that simple. Upon looking closer, I realized why the designs (although very beautiful and amazing) looked slightly strange. They were made out of human bones. Yes, each and every decoration, including the lamps that lit the corridor are made out of bones. Femurs, scapulas, skulls, ribs, jaws, every single bone in the human body was there and somehow, in some sick macabre sort of way, they were beautiful. Room after room was adorned in these human decorations and later I found out from Antonio that they are all the bones of nuns, monks and children. Really, really weird. It gave me chills and yet it was really cool.
Since they don’t serve us dinner on Sundays some of the guys were going out for happy hour at a restaurant near my school. I went with them and found out that happy hour in Italy is quite different from what it is in America. Apparently a lot of restaurants do this and it involves a cocktail of your choir (the place we went had over 50 different cocktails…) and then a buffet of quite amazing food… oh yeah, it was only 10 Euros. We all ate until we were stuffed and laughed until I was slightly afraid of losing my dinner and then headed out to a place called Pompi which serves nothing but desserts. However, what they are really famous for is their tiramisu which comes in either classic or strawberry. Yes, it was quite divine and only 3 Euros. One of the girls who came with us, Marika, invited me to go dancing with her and her cousin the next day for my birthday. Some of the other guys were going as well so I agreed since I obviously wanted to do something for my birthday. Oh, it was going to be such a good day.
I woke up early on Monday to go to class and was quite depressed because of course the one day it rains in Rome, would be on my birthday. I went to class which went by quickly (thank god) and went back to Villa for lunch. A couple of the guys wished me a happy birthday or “Alguri” in Italiano but not much else happened. I got to talk with my parents after lunch was nice but really did nothing but make me miss home. I was suddenly quite startled at how badly I wanted to be home for my birthday. Yes, it was quite cool to think about celebrating my birthday in Rome, but not much was going on. Nothing was really planned, I hadn’t heard much else about going dancing so I wasn’t even sure it was going to happen, the connection for Skype was being really sluggish so for the first 30 minutes of talking with my parents it was just really frustrating and I couldn’t even go out because it was raining. What the crap? This was my birthday! I was supposed to be having the best day of my life since this marked the 21st year of my life. This day is huge for Americans! But instead I was spending it inside, mostly alone, not getting to talk to the people I really wanted to be with.
I went to dinner were I got some more less than enthusiastic birthday wishes and then was informed that we were indeed going dancing. This perked my spirits a little so after dinner I went and got ready. I went to see if Antonio was coming and he told me that he was tired going to bed. A little bummed, I met up with guys and we went over to the girls place to pick up Marika. They all asked if I had a good day to which I really didn’t know how to respond. It was actually a pretty terrible day as far as birthdays go. They kept giving me shit because they said I looked sad but I just kind of brushed it off and slapped a smile of my face. At least we were going dancing. We left the girls place and then for some reason went back to the guys residence. Confused but not really caring at this point I followed them back to our place into one of the rooms that is used for events and conferences. It was completely dark, except for a candle in the middle of the room which cast a faint glow on a huge group of people. I was completely set up.
The turned on the lights and every person from both the guys and girls dorms sang happy birthday to me in Italian and then immediately started pouring as much wine as possible down my throat. I wanted to cry. It was the greatest and most amazing surprise I have ever gotten. I was so happy, confused, and overwhelmed and everyone just kept coming up to me and laughing. They were all in on it. The lack of enthusiasm that it was my birthday, all the people who claimed they didn’t even know it was my birthday, taking me over to the girls place to “pick up the girls,” everything, it was all a set up and they were all in on it. I could not have been happier or more surprised.
The party started with music and drinking and lots of slaps on my back and congratulations. They gave me a card which they had all signed and a recording of the Brahms Requiem and a recording of 9 different Verdi operas from La Scala. The whole time I could barely contain myself. This could not be real. But it was, and they had all come together to do it for me. After drinking way too much way too fast they decided (as is tradition) that it was time for a game. I was set in the center of the room next to a huge pot of sangria and had to place a “Wheel of Fortune” type game… in Italian. I had to drink a lot and I do mean A LOT of sangria, take off my shirt, and my pants, and kiss several of the girls. Oddio… By this time you can imagine that I was pretty happy… and not only in the sense of emotion. Toward the end of the night I apparently danced like crazy, professed my love to Marika several times, impersonated nearly everyone at Villa, sang the wrong words to the Star Spangled Banner (what?) and then was escorted to bed very very late at night (very drunk) and demanded that I sleep in my jeans. Why, I have no idea.
I called home and remember switching back and forth between English and Italian but I have no clue what exactly I said. I slept like a rock and woke up just in time for all the guys to start pounding on my door. Luckily for me I did not have a headache but still felt a little… loose. They laughed at my state of hang over and then I went to shower at make myself look slightly human. Lunch was quite the event as I was given a complete recount of all my doings the previous night. I apparently was quite the show and they all seem to have thoroughly enjoyed watching. I don’t think I will ever live this down. I truly believe that as far as 21st birthdays go, there has yet to be one so amazing as this. I still am amazed that it happened and that they all did it for me. I was and still am quite touched and will never, ever forget it. I could not have asked for a better birthday in Italy. It was truly one of the best days of my life, exactly as it should have been.