Sigh...

Applications... I hate them.
Why must it all be so difficult and competitive? I hate writing endless and pointless essays, and bugging people for letters of recommendation.
I wish it were simple. Like...I could write:

"Hi, I'm Claudia.
Trust me on this one -I'm freakin awesome.
You'll love me."

It's not like I'd be lying either. I mean even if people have their doubts they could put all the applicants on lie detectors to see if they were telling the truth or if they were really lame ass people. And I'M not a lame ass person.

I'm an acheiver...and a survivor.

May 2006 is nearing.

Here's to my post undergrad life...

I'm so bad...

I've completely neglected this blogger for months already! Thanks to a couple of people who yelled at me for not keeping you all updated I'm going to make an honest effort to update this thing regularly since I don't use the xanga anymore...despite the fact that I intended this to be a summer blog only. But I grew accustomed to it, and it's a lot more practical than xanga. Anyway, don't expect too much.
Man, I haven't updated this since I was in Rome. I left you all hanging with the pictures, so I guess I'll share a couple of my favorite ones of my final/vacation week in Europe.


The gorgeous Cinque Terre - 5 small towns on the Northern coast of Italy.


A small beach in one of the towns.


Our final days were spent in Greece. Athens - view of Lycabettus Hill from the roof of our hotel.


The view of the Acropolis of Athens also from our hotel.
I'm sorry to say that I have no pictures from our night spent in the island of Mykonos...one of my most cherished memories of those two months and up there on my list of perfect moments in my life... and I have no evidence of it. :-(


Goodbye, Europe! We miss you!








Okay enough of this reminiscing.
Let's fast forward to 1AM October 18, 2005. Back in Los Angeles. New house, same awesome roommates. New school year, same USC...although first semester is already about halfway done. Still going at it. I'm in the process of trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life after I graduate in May. I can't believe senior year came so quickly. And I know that it will be gone in a heartbeat. But I'm taking this one step at a time. I'll keep you all posted as I make progress. Until then...

Arrivederci a Roma!

It's hard to believe, but it is my final week in Rome! This will be my last blog update in Rome as I imagine the next few days to be very hectic. It is now Tuesday and on Friday after turning this journal in, taking my last thermodynamics quiz, purchasing my last minute souvenirs, writing a final paper, and packing my life into two pieces of luggage, I am out of this beautiful city that has been my home for seven weeks. Right now, I'm feeling those inevitable mixed emotions. I have had a wonderful time here and I have learned more than I could have ever imagined. It is always difficult to leave someplace where you've developed strong bonds with other people and created lasting memories. But home is where the heart is and I am very excited to return to the ones I love. :-) So as Friday nears, I bid farewell to the many things I have grown to love and appreciate during my seven week stay in Roma: GELATO, inexpensive and delicious pizza, open air markets with fresh produce every morning, living blocks away from the Pope, my beautiful apartment on the lively Via Candia, the beauty of the city at night, its history, and of course the Italians - their culture and their passion for life and one another. I feel so fortunate for having had this opportunity and I leave here with a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.

...with that said, I say arrivederci a Roma!




This isn't to say my summer is over yet! There are still plenty of more adventures in store for the coming weeks and I will continue to update this blog as they progress. I still have a week left in Europe, so stay tuned for next week's update (hopefully if my hotel provides internet access) with pics and adventures from my vacation time in Cinque Terre and GREECE!

A visit to the outskirts of Rome

As big as Rome may seem to the passing traveller, it is surprisingly much more bigger than what most people think. There are about 20 different municipalities in Rome and the center is only one of them. Today we took a tour to the periphery of Rome with my history class to get a feel for the "real" Rome.


Parco Giovanni Palatucci
A city hall park built off of the aqueduct. It is located by the Misericordiarum church which was our next stop. On Sunday afternoons after church and on days of rest, Italian families take time to relax and spend some time at parks such as this one.


Misericordiarum Patri Dicatum
We spent a good time visiting this truly modern church. Recently inaugurated in 2003, it is already considered a historical monument. Its construction is a real masterpiece in engineering and architecture, but it still contains spiritual and liturgical aspects. Its shape is meant to represent a boat for the "boat of the Church" that ploughs the sea of the third millenium. The 3 arches are the sails that represent the Holy Trinity. The highest sail represents God's protection over the Christian community. In fact, although the church is widely covered in glass, the sunlight never enters directly into the church except for a particular moment in the afternoon.



The altar takes a nonconventional stance and situates itself to the west where the engine of the boat lies to represent the eucharist as the engine driving the boat of the church.



Silver Bvlgari liturgical objects made just for the church of the Jubilee

Next stop was the neighborhood of Corviale. It is considered to be one of the "bad" parts of town. Althought it is the Roman ghetto, it seems like nothing compared to the ghetto in Los Angeles. For the most part, it is an area where impoverished families live.


A quick picture of a large public housing building. I have never seen a building that housed so many people! The council housing authority manages this building where 5,000-7,000 people live. However, they do not maintain the property very well or invest in many improvements. This is probably due to the fact that the rent is so low (about $50 a month). Just recently, there has been talk of modernizing the area and making it a bit more livable.
Still, it is far from being anything near the dangers of the streets of South Central L.A.

On Top of the World

Another weekend, another adventure.

Kirstin and I finally lived out our long awaited trip to Paris, France. It was a short 3 night stay. Insufficient time to explore and learn, as I expected. But I figure it's better than nothing. It was more of an introduction to the amazingness of the city. It is by far my favorite city. It is absolutely beautiful, it has so much history, there is so much to see and do, the people are awesome and their language is beautiful! I can finally truly give thanks to Mr. Villeneuve for 4 years of high school French. I'm surprised I managed to retain what I learned 3 years ago...maybe because I fell in love with the language. Anyway, it was fun practicing again! And I hope to go back one day soon...

We arrived late Thursday night after another RyanAir experience. I made a friend on the plane this time. His name was Julien and he was Parisian. We spent a good deal of the trip conversing in four different languages. He also explained his anti-American sentiment to me and I agreed with his reasoning for the most part. He was of course talking about the typical American tourist who makes no attempt to allow the experience of travelling help them become a more cultured and open minded person. After that conversation, he let me listen to his French music on his CD player. No Manu Chao, but cool enough!
When we got into Paris, it was cold and almost raining. Kirstin and I had only light jackets since we've become accustomed to the heat in Italy. We walked around for a good while disoriented and looking for our hotel. We finally got there around midnight, grabbed some food at a late night sandwich shop, and got some rest for the the following day. We woke up to a gloomy morning, but we didn't let that discourage us from following through with our day plans. One of the best things about Paris is their public transportation system. It's extremely reliable and they have several lines that connect you to all parts of the city. We took advantage of it and proceeded with our day of sightseeing.


L'Ecoute
In front of Eglise Saint Estache is this giant sculptured head created by Henri de Miller.


L'Amour des Jeux
Paris is a candidate city for the 2012 Olympics. Several buildings and monuments are decorated with these signs of support.


Kirstin and I spent some time exploring the Louvre. We quickly discovered how huge of a museum it is.


We saw the statue of the Venus of Milo - a depiction of divine beauty.


Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa in all of her enigmatic splendor.


Delacroix's La Liberte Guidant Le Peuple

After viewing countless other artistic masterpieces, we took a stroll outside to the Jardin des Tuileries.


Jardin des Tuilerie adorned with sculptures and its very own ferris wheel.


Relaxing by the pond.


Despite the gloomy weather, the jardin still preserved its charm.

We strolled around the city for the rest of the day until it became night time. One of the things that people always told me about Paris was that it doesn't get dark until really late. I finally experienced this phenomena for myself, and they were right! The sun stays up well through the day and evening up until about 11pm. That's when we headed over to the Eiffel Tower to see the city at night.


This is quite possibly my favorite picture in my entire collection. Once nighttime hits, Le Tour Eiffel lights up at the top of every hour and sparkles for ten minutes. It's almost magical..


A great way to end the day..on top of the world.

We woke up early on Saturday to take advantage of our last full day in Paris. Luckily, the weather changed for the better and it was much more sunnier and warm.
Our first stop was at the Notre Dame Cathedral.


In the square in front of it was a man feeding birds. He let me have some bread, and I gave it a try. The birds actually perch on your hand to eat the bread. I loved it!


Front view of Notre Dame - a Gothic masterpiece.

Aftewards, we headed over towards the Champs-Élysées.


Avenue de Champs-Élysées with the famous Arc de Triomphe at the top. The area is decked with designer stores and five star hotels.


Where else can you find such an enormous Louis Vuitton suitcase? Of course this is normal in the Champs-Élysées.


I have never seen Kirstin with a bigger smile than this.

So here's a funny story. Kirstin and I are walking to the Louis Vuitton store just to check it out. This older Asian man approaches us as we're walking and asks us if we speak English. We say yes, and he proceeds to talk to us in a thick accent. He asks us if we can buy a Louis Vuitton wallet for him if he gives us the money. Kirstin and I are looking at each other thinking that this is some kind of scam or joke, but before we can really consider anything the man pulls out 300 euros from his pocket and shoves them into Kirstin's hands. Then he shows us the wallet that he wants us to buy him and quickly explains that he can't buy another one because he has already purchased 3 and that is the maximum they would allow him to buy. We are still really confused, but the money is already in Kirstin's hands and the man seems to have no problem with it nor will he take no for an answer. He told us that he would wait for us at that spot while we go into the store because he didn't want the attendants to see him again. Oh and I forgot to mention that we were about a block and a half away from the store! It all happened so quickly that we didn't have time to say no, so instead Kirstin and I beging walking to the store a bit worried. Not sure what we were worried about...we just found it very strange that a little man had just shoved 300 euros into a stranger's hand and let us walk away while he waited for us to return with a new wallet. Being the honest people that we are (although it would have been vey easy to outrun the old man, pocket the cash and have a very nice dinner), we went into the Louis Vuitton store and completed the transaction. When we came outside, we found the Asian man and he appreciatively took his 300 euro Louis Vuitton wallet. All I wanna know is where do these people come from and what are they thinking trusting random strangers with 300 euros?! I mean he was lucky that we're nice people and all...or maybe we're just the crazy ones. Oh well, at least we can laugh about it now.


After hours of strolling through the Champs-Élysées, we reached the Arc of Triomphe.

I don't know if it's a good idea that we were lucky enough to be in Paris in time for the soldes, but we definitely took advantage of them! July is one of two months in Paris when stores are allowed to have sales. The government mandates only two months of sales per year - one in the summer and one in the winter. Stores can't mark down prices whenever they feel like it so when they do, they do it big! Shopping in Paris was an experience in itself and I absolutely loved it.

That evening, Kirstin and I had a nice authentic French dinner. The food was delicious, especially the Creme Bruleé! The restaurant owner was very nice and friendly, and he also owned a club on the Champs-Élysées. So he arranged a taxi for us and got us into this chic club complete with glasses of champagne. It was good times!

The next day before heading back to the airport, we paid a visit to the Musee D'Orsay. They offer free entry on the first Sunday of each month, so we were lucky to be there that day. It was another huge museum were we were able to see several works by artists such as Van Vogh, Monet, and Renoir.


This was our final view of Paris taken off of the Seine River from the Musee D'Orsay.

We finally said goodbye to the most beautiful city in the world and took off back to Rome for two more weeks. Here's to another great weekend!

Tales of a traveller

So much updating to do, so little time to do it.
My stay in Rome is quickly expiring as I am already half way closer to my plane trip home. But I continue to take advantage of my time left here and try to not waste even a minute. In fact, since last week was our first free weekend of the program (by free I mean that we had no pre-planned group trips or tours) Kirstin and I planned a trip to Barcelona, Spain. It also turned out that a number of our other group members planned a trip to Barcelona on the same weekend, so we ended up hanging out as a group most of the time. I had an excellent time! For one, I could finally communicate with people thanks to the Mexican in me (which would be...a rough 100%) :-) Barcelona is located in the region of Catalunya on the south eastern coast of Spain. I learned that this region never actually wanted to be under Spanish rule and a lot of the population still considers themselves independent of Spain. They have their own language: Catalan, which seems to me a mix of French and Spanish. Fortunately, I was able to communicate with my Spanish.
The thing I noticed that was most different from Rome was the activity. I stayed in a youth hostel off of La Rambla, the most famous boulevard and center of the old medieval city center. I swear people never slept here..they partied well into the night. The street was insane. We arrived last Thursday ,June 23, and it was a holiday. There were fireworks alllll over the place...really loud, scary fireworks. The kind that blow your fingers off yet 10 year old kids run around throwing them at random people on the street and run off snickering. Bastards... I'm OK, though...no appendage loss for me. We also witnessed a street fight at 3am in the middle of a still busy La Rambla. The guys ran off bleeding after throwing bottles at each other. We saw at least three people escape from the police and run off. We saw the craziest street performers. We toured, we drank Sangria at all hours of the day, we sunbathed on the beach, we pretty much lived the life. All I gotta say is that people are alive in Barcelona. So on with the photos...


We arrived on Thursday night after 11pm. This was our first group picture minus Kirstin who was the photographer.



Next morning we met at the Christopher Colombus statue to go on a bike tour - the best freakin tour ever! I love bikes alone, but biking through Barcelona instead of walking to all of the features...double the fun!



Across the street from the Colombus statue is this building. Not exactly sure what it was. The cool thing about this building are the gargoyles that protect the building. A very characteristical feature of medieval architecture in Spain.



A very old goverment building. Spanish flag on the left, Catalunya flag on the right.



The steps where Christopher Colombus announced to Ferdinand and Isabella that he had found the new world. Located in one of the many the Medieval quarters of the town hence the brick, fortress like architecture that used to house the couple.



Palau de la Musica. A very beautiful modernistic concert hall built in 1908 by the architect Lluis Domenech y Muntaner. It is a jewel of modernistic sculptures and stained glass. Absolutely gorgeous and this is only the outside. I wish I could have gone to a concert in here.



Rome has the arch of Constantine, Paris has the Arc de Triomphe, and Barcelona has its very own Arce de Triomf. This was taken in the middle of our bike tour.



La Sagrada Familia: a huge Gothic cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. Adrian was right, it is the most unusual piece of architecture I have ever laid eyes on. Beautiful, nonetheless. Gaudi's highly influenced the face of Barcelona's architecture as his work can be seen all over the city.



As if this cathedral were not massive enough, it is being expanded to several more towers. Very colorful... It is said to be under construction for the next, oh... 20 plus years. So when I'm 40 or 50 I can return to Barcelona to visit the completed building. : )



The front facade of Gaudi's original Gothic design. He pretty much dedicated his life to this cathedral and worked on it until the day he was hit by a trolley and died.



We made our way to a beautiful park. The day was scorching hot, but the park provided plenty of cool shade to relax and take in some beautiful scenery.



Huge fountain in the park. Green water...but the fountain is still pretty.



We ended our day of touring with Kirstin, Jeff, Ben, and I hiking up to Park Guell, a seemingly magical park with amazing designs by Gaudi and a beautiful overlook of Barcelona.



Kirstin and I enjoying the view from the tiled terrace.



Our two loyal travel companions - Jeff and Ben. Such an entertaining pair they are!


Awesome houses in the park. They look like gingerbread homes to me...



Finally, the famous Gaudi fountain dragon at the main entrance of the park adorned with colored tiles.
Because of time constraints, we really didnt have much time to explore the rest of the park. Unfortunate... But what we did see was well worth the short amount of time we stayed and I will hopefully be back again to spend a day exploring. We were only in Barcelona for three days, so we were pretty pressed for time. But it was a wonderful trip and a great experience.

So now on to the second half of this dreadfully long entry. Unless you're interested in learning a little bit around Fascist Rome and the urban planning of Mussolini, read no further.

The Fascist regime, lead primarily by Mussolini, created several ambitious building projects from the 1920s to the 1940s. A lot of it still remains in Rome but it is most prominent in the Mussolini-conceived EUR district south of the center of Rome.
During the walking trip with my history class this afternoon, we saw buildings and urban spaces that best exemplify how architecture could transmit the ideology of Fascism. Many of these structures were directly inspired by imperial Roman art and architecture, but modified to be colder, more sterile, more totalitarian.


Our tour began in the Garbatella area with a visit to the oldest housing project in Rome. The low cost housing projects were built to be smaller and more simple than the typical apartment palazzos to emphasize a better and more simple family life.



This building that used to be a grocery store is now a concert hall and gathering area for young left wing political opinionists.
The center of the paintings reads: "We spit our heart out in the face of injustice day and night. We are the heros of Sancho Panza and Don Quijote."
Underneath it is a blatant anti war in Iraq message.



A church with constructivist art.



In the same square of the church is this elementary school. The four eagles on the top of the building are a symbol of the verility of the Fascist regime.

A couple blocks over in the same area was a theatre. All of the above mentioned elements were situated in the same area to form a small community with all the essentials for its citizens. It is a perfect example of Fascist urban planning.

We moved on to the EUR "Rome Univeral Exposition" district.


A slab of carved stone in a park. Its pictures glorify the activity of small village living by depicting scenery of country life. It was part of a campaign to keep people in small village communities with gender roles clearly defined.



Quadrato della Concordia with the Palazzo dei Congressi at the end of the straight street. This was the main congress headquarters. Near the roof of the Palazzo dei Congressi, there is a stone sediment sticking straight out. Its purpose is to imitate the Fascist salute.

After a long and tiring day of touring, we hop on the metro to head back to the residence. The metro was crowded as usual, so I'm standing and keeping my balance by holding onto the nearby rail. There was a group of kids sitting on the other side and they were really cute, so I smiled at them. A few minutes later I look up and the little girls have scooted over and signal for me to sit down. I thought that was so sweet of them, so I sat down to get to know them. It turns out they didn't speak Italian so my broken Italian meant nothing to them. I try again with Spanish, and they kinda understood what I was trying to say. They tell me that they speak Portugese and that they are from Brazil. They were so adorable and friendly! It was seriously the best part of my day.


Here I am with my new friends on the metro. Daniela is on my right and Jazra is the next one over. I couldn't catch the names of the two boys. But we love Brazil and we're reppin' the flag! : )