Slow Week

I think I've realized how life is going to unfold here: I stay around campus for a week and dont go in the city, start to feel bad about not exploring more, the next week I go out and explore everyday, start to feel exhausted and worry about spending money, then hunker down again. This was a hunker week (sounds more like chunker - poopskeyyuns).

Watched the Super Bowl Sunday night, ended at like 4:30 AM here, but I was psyched to see some football! Current list of what America does better - coffee, pizza, availability of chapstick, football, and cheapness of beer. Had class all day Monday, work and class yesterday and some good old fashioned school-aided (free beer) rowdy karaoke last night, and class and around campus all day today. I'm in Rome this weekend before being away for the next 4.

Now I even have to worry about school less. I was thinking, if I didnt get into PA at Marquette, I'd be doing a graduate PA program somewhere else, and then I would probably need to send them my transcript from here so I'd need to keep acceptable grades. Now i just need to maintain a C...wonderful!

Seeing Dave Matthews in a couple weeks, so psyched. After binging on concerts this summer, it was tough to wind down to only one last semester and now I'm dying for another one so this will be my fix until summer. Been researching music festivals for this summer recently and it just makes me itch even more for some sunshine, tunes out on the grass, disc golf, sunglasses and bandanas and sandals, and one last summer with my friends!

There are about 100 new pictures in the Rome album and an album from the broccoli festival for everyone to check out. I'm going to finish up the post with some of my favorites.

I can literally smell spring, I'm visiting Naples/Sorrento/Pompeii/Venice/Istanbul/Cairo/Jerusalem all within the next month, I'm accepted into PA, baseball season is starting soon, I live in Rome, and I have a comfortable pair of Birks, mug of coffee, and a Beatles album constantly at my disposal. Life is phenomenal, and I'm thinking I'll be living on this high for the next...3 months or so.

Trevi Fountain, absolutely magical

The big guy himself

Twin churches in Piazza Del Popolo

Town hosting Brocolli Fest - if thats not Italy then I really dont know what is

All about this right here, I'm a big fan of Broccoli Festival

I'M IN!!!

I'M ACCEPTED INTO MARQUETTE'S PA PROGRAM!!!!!!!!!! After bugging my parents incessantly for the past few days for updates, my momma emailed me today with the good news. What a relief! I had been trying not to look forward too much to how I would react, not wanting to get too excited or too nervous. I was on my computer already, I saw I had an email, saw it was from my mom titled "CONGRATULATIONS" and I flung my computer down, screamed in the study lounge, and ran laps around the school. One of the best things I've felt in my entire life. Been working towards this moment for years now, and what sweet gratification it is. The fact that the next three years of my life, and my future, are pretty much planned out now hasnt hit me yet. I'm excited to be able to stay at Marquette and in Milwaukee for a few more years where I've started to feel at home (now I just need to continue sending Marquette hate mail and demanding more money).

I cant believe I'm at this point right now. I sit outside in the courtyard at night alot and try and grasp what I'm really partaking in. I think of how far away from home I am. I think of how comfortable I feel, I think of how I've changed, I think of friends I've made, friends I've lost, and friends I've yet to make. I feel guilty at how much I've been given and stranded in a way by never being able to show how massively grateful I am - to whoever gave me my family/my adventurous spirit/enough money to experience new things/my brain and contemplative mind, to mom and dad who have worked way too hard to support/put up with me through irrational behavior and sacrificed too much for my well-being, to brothers/sisters/aunts/uncles/grandparents who constructed who I am in their own individual way and make me feel comfortable in such an isolated situation by always knowing they could do anything at all within their power for me, and to friends who have given me stories/lessons/morals/overwhelming feelings of companionship and probably understand less than anyone how much I need them and treasure our time together.

And now add to this this recent news, and I even moreso cannot grasp where I am. I guess Damon's and my quick stop in Milwaukee a few years back crossing the country proved to be pretty monumental. Where did two years go? When did I reach the point where I can seriously start thinking about where I want to work, much less even being able to consider intensely my career? CAREER?! I can't believe how much I've done in my life, how many stories my friends and I have, how many places I've seen, how many good times I've tried to take slow and how many bad times I've tried to work through. I felt this way when I got to Rome - pure guilt. I wish there was some way to show pure gratitude in its truest form, because if there was I'd be commissioning Michelangelo to start working on it right now. We talked today in aesthetics that art is expression of irrational ideas, of pure emotion, of things farthest removed from nature, and I wish I was an artist and could share these feelings of graciousness, love, and overwhelming happiness I get when I reminisce on life up to this point.

I have more to update on life here, but I'll leave this emotional, sappy post be and make a new one for that. Thanks for letting me ramble and try and express all that...

Love always,

Zach

Prayers, meditations, good acts of Karma, and animal sacrifice requests

PA letters from Marquette are in the mail. My friend who lives near campus got his, so I'm assuming mine will reach New York in a day or two, totally tweaking out right now. So I'm asking for prayers/meditations/good Karma/animal sacrifices that anyone would be willing to donate in my favor. Lets hope for the best, hopefully my next update will be a good one........

To change that note, it was an absolutely phenomenal weekend hanging around Rome. I wanted to stay here for these next couple weekends because then I'm gone for a huge chunk of them in a row. I have alot of sights left to see in Rome and I know itll be April and I'll be trying to cram everything in. So I was ready for a nice weekend of touring the city, and looking back it was just a totally random awesome weekend, dont you love that?

We have Friday classes scheduled for a couple weeks throughout the semester, and for my philosophy classes this Friday the professor canceled the class, brought us all to his friends club downtown, and we got free dinner and could buy drinks. In Italy, maybe other places too, they have this menu called "apperitivo" where you order an expensive drink, like 7 or 8 euro, but theres a buffet of small appetizer finger food type things. So I got stuffed off free awesome food, quality Thursday night.

Friday I started the Roman adventure and went to Piazza Del Popolo, one of the more famous piazzas in the city because it kicks off the main road. We then went to a cappuccin monk exhibit under a church where they had bones of thousands of monks arranged into kind of artwork. It was so creepy, like five rooms full, some full bodies, and it was such an odd thing but the idea behind it was really cool. Sadly, no pictures could be taken.

More adventuring Saturday by hitting up St Paul's Basilica, the Roman pyramid, and circus maximus. St Paul's was a ways away but its actually considered Vatican property and St Paul's is considered one of the big 4 Vatican basicilas, it was wild. The Pyramid was old with no exhibit, just an ugly slab of marble in the middle of the city, but oh well. Circus Maximus, where the Romans used to hold chariot races, was just an open field with dirt and there was no museum or anything, but it was cool to just think about what really used to take place there. After a nap, went out to a hookah bar at night with some friends for the first time in my life, and that was a great time.

Today, went to A BROCCOLI FESTIVAL. One of the SLA's (student life assistants, like RA's) posted information about it, and it was in a small town only a 45 minute train ride away. An absolute perfect experience, and I'll try and explain it in a way where you can understand how well Karma was flowing. We scarfed down lunch and had to take our coats off and sprint 15 minutes to the train station where we proceeded to get there with 15 seconds to spare. We didnt have time to get tickets, and we got caught, but I talked to the man on the train and he let us off. We get there and start trying to find the place, get lost, and stop a car in the middle of the road asking where to go. Its the Italian Red Cross, they tell us to get in the car, and they drive us to the festival because they were going anyway! It was like 2 miles, wouldve been a terrible walk. As soon as we shut the door on the car, the band at the festival starts playing Blues Brothers and we knew something was too good to be true. The town/festival was right on a gorgeous lake, and it was a totally random little festival in a little town and was completely authentic Italian. We wandered the town and coastline a bit, then got some grub and people watched. I ordered a sausage and broccoli sandwich, and the guy gives me two in addition to free wine and water. We are eating surrounded by local Italians who you know just love the time of year when broccoli festival rolls around. It was phenomenal. Never wouldve say I liked broccoli before, but I'm pretty down with broccoli now after trying so many different spreads, cheeses, meats, and types of broccoli. BROCCOLI

Winter is starting to break, and was able to take a stroll today with some coffee, sandals, and short sleeves. Fantastic.

The school is playing the Super Bowl tonight, starts at 2 in the morning over here, so I'm doing random stuff now and waiting around for that. I'm lacking in alot of details in this post and dont really feel like posting pictures, so there will be new ones in the Rome album and I'll put one up from the festival. Just a little too preoccupied with thoughts about PA right now.

Talk to you in a few days, probably whenever I get my letter

Peace