All good things must come to an end.

Its 5 pm on sunday night.
Im sitting on my bed in my apartment.
The sun is setting behind the vatican, which is three blocks south of me.
I can not believe i am leaving in less then 48 hours.
How is that possible? This semester has been unreal, no words can describe the expirence of living in Italy for 5 months.
Let me try my best by recapping the last 5 months with the highlights.
I lived in a small Italian town in the country side for 3 weeks, getting the feel of real italian lifestyle. No one spoke a word of english so our italian language skills grew immensly. I climbed the highest peak in the apennins.I went to the beach in the Adriatic sea. I have travelled all through out italy; milan, sienna, florence, venice, arezzo, perguia, como, tuscany. i have ridden on a gondola in the picturesque canals of venice. I have travelled through out europe. I have been to london, paris, dublin, galway, cork, prague. i returned to the land of my namesake. See the countryside of the country that i love. I went on a pub crawl in dublin. saw the cliffs of mohr. i saw buckingham palace, big ben, parliment, the eiffel tower, the louvre, the arc d'triumph.I climned Notre Dame. I ate crepes in paris, had fish and chips in london. had irish stew with a pint of guiness in ireland. I had the time of my life in Prague, eating goulash and pilsner. I have seen the pope, met him twice, kissed his ring on the second time. Ate lunch with a cardinal. have seen the coliseo, trevi fountain, spanish steps, and roman forum more times then he can count. I have lived in an apartment with 4 other people completely on our own. I have learned a language that is completely foreign to my own. Learned my way around a foreign city. Had some of the best times with friends i will never forget. I have made some great friends in every city i have visited, sadly some of which i will never see again.
From this trip i have learned alot about myself aswell. I can survive completely on my own. The world is a my oyster. I can travel completely on my own in a foreign land with nothing but a map and a backpack. I am open to all cultures. I am not afraid to try new things, even if that means eating cow stomach, or staying out all night for the hell of it.
I have learned that this life is too short to be spent wondering 'what if'. The world is too big not to explore. There are far too many things to see and do to waste your life with insignificant issues.We all need to learn to let loose, have fun, make mistakes, do things for the hell of it, stay out all night, go church,do what makes you happiest, love more, hate less, laugh more, cry less, be happy and less sad and never ever regret a single thing. This life is short and this trip has taught me to live my life the way it was meant to be lived.

So with my bittersweet departure early tuesday morning i will grab my bags and leave on a plane. A plane destined for the people i love most in this world. I am sad to leave and happy to go home, no words can describe the feeling.

Ciao Roma, thanks for being the time of my life.

-Matteo

live it up and drink it down.

i come home in 13 days. its unreal. im going to live it up the rest of the time i am here though. tomorrow is my last day of classes. finals next week. most of them are papers so it should be ok.

HAPPY 17th DREW DREW, I HOPE ITS A BLAST. WISH I COULD BE THERE!

baci,
Matteo

the countdown has begun....

so not much has happened since i last updated. on thursday morning we went on the Scavi tour. it is a tour of the neocropolis of the vatican, it is really cool. you go under the church then under the tombs of the popes to the orginial roman road and ruins. There are a whole bunch of tombs and crypts its really neat. I actually saw St. Peters bones, which are not in the big brown box under the alter like most people think. then on friday i went to the vatican museum and the vatican gardens. The museum was awesome, it is worth more money then anyother museum in the history of the world. there were masterpieces everywhere. botticelli, da vinici, raphael, micelangelo, carrivaggio. i liked it way more then the louvre which was overpowering.
After the museum we went to the sistine chapel which is breathtaking. to think that one man painted all of that. not laying on his back on a scaffolding either, standing straight up with nothing but candle light to light the way. We also saw the famous raphael, the school of athens. which is cool to stand right in front of a masterpiece which is in every art book ever.
After the tour we went to the vatican gardens, which is very exclusive, it takes 2 months in advance to book the tickets. these are the pope private gardens . there are statues and chapels everywhere. Some interesting facts about the gardens: there is a recreation of the grotto at Lourdes because one of the popes couldnt leave the walls of vatican city so they built him a similar one so he could see it, there is a family of parrots that live there, the pope has his own train station. i kid you not, there is a train station only for the pope in his backyard. Though it has only been used twice. the second time by john paul II at the peace confrence in assissi. It was really interesting to see the popes private gardens, even though it is winter but had we gone in the summer the flowers would have been out so even better i can guess.
On friday night we went out in Trastevere, it is this really cool bohemeian area lots of artsy people selling stuff at night. street music, hippies, hobos, harmony... it was a good time.
saturday i had a lazy day. i slept until 12, didnt do anything until 2 then went on a 4 and 1/2 mile run then came home. dont think im an overachieveing because let me tell you thats the first phyical activity i have done in almost 2 months. haha.
Saturday night we went to another AS Roma soccer game. which i cant believe im saying this... was actually scarier then the first one. at this game we got flairs shot into our section by the opposing team. normally quite scary but perfectly normal at an italian soccer game. a cop got lit on fire due to a misplaced flair. there were fights and nearly a riot. they had to bring in the cops with the sheilds and helmets. It was awesome! really good time!
Today, sunday, i got up early and put on a jacket and tie and went(45 mins away) to St. Maria Maggore to go to mass for the first sunday of advent. well the reason i went all the way there was because i was hoping to catch up with Cardinal Law again. Well i went and i was early and i caught him before mass started. I he was being escorted to change into his vestments and i walked over and called out "hey cardinal law, great to see you again, how are you?" he had a bit of a dazed look on his face so all i said were three little words "john mccarthys grandson" his face lit up " oh how are you? im so glad you came, please stay for mass" we talked only for a little bit then mass started.
after mass i looked for him but im sure he had a bunch to do. I walked home and ate lunch and hungout bymyself for a bit.
i came home to realize that i forgot my keys again, shocker!, well this happens just about every other day so i just hollerd up to my roomates to let me in like usual, but no one was home. so i walked around saint peters to kill time for a bit. finally then were home when i got back.
We decided to go to Castel St. Angelo because we had yet to and we had nothing to do. it was 5 euro which was really worth it. Castel St. Angelo- for those of you who are not familiar with rome- was the mosoleum built by emperor hadrian then later converted into a fort then a castle. it is right down the road from the vatican. the popes used it as a safehouse during the middle ages if they were being attacked. there is a secret tunnel under the road that connects the two. It gave us great views of the vatican and of rome.

it wa sa good weekend, not as eventful as most but good nonetheless.
God, did you just listen to that? how jaded am i? seeing the popes private gardens, the world famous museum, soccer game, and castel st. angelo is only a slow weekend. haha. i think thats the sign of a good semester.

well i come home in about 15 days.... cant wait, even though i love rome and europe. i miss the fam and my friends at johnny c.

peace and love.

baci,
matteo

La Bohemia.

i just got back from my most recent adventure: Prague, Czech Republic.
Amazing.
Things with me are always interesting....
Before my trip even started, Wednesday night, the night before my trip things were already getting complicated. i helped my roomates with their bags, the whole group was going back to L'aquila (where we were for the first three weeks) for thanksgiving. Upon comming back to the aparment i realize that i have once forgotten my key in my room. not to worry i thought, just buzz the landlady and have her let me in. well she was out. so i got a bit worried but decided to go to the pub, have dinner, come back in an hour to have her let me in. come back in an hour. shes still not in. crap! i got let in by someone else and luckily she was home with in a few minutes.
I wake up at 5 and head off to the airport to fly to prague.
I dont know much about prague. i just thought of castles, churches and the old soviet block. people had told me it was beautiful but i didnt know what to expect.

i get off the plane and now realize that i dont know how to get to the city. no one around me speaks english either. and the czech language is unbelievably difficult. it might as well be swahili. there are like 9 consonents in a row. after surveying my dilema i decide to just follow a group of people, maybe not the smartest move... but i had no other options. well turned out it worked. to the bus to the metro. on the metro same story... where the hell do i go?? well i managed to get off at the right stop and find the hotel with no difficulty. mind you, when i got off the train it was what felt like negative 10. i thought rome was getting chilly. nothing compared to this.
So i find the hotel, which was the Four Season. the highest rated hotel in all of prague.... but more about that later.
I tell them that the people i am with will not be in til later and could i leave my bag with them. well the lady at the desk tells me they just recieved a message from Mrs. McCagh that their plane is delayed and will not be here till 7. it was 2. oh god, what am i suppose to do? so i walked around the city a bit by myself but didnt want to wander too far for fear of getting lost. long story short i eventually meet up with the McCaghs at about 9pm. We check into our amazing hotel and have dinner at the four season resturant, which one of our books said is the nicest resturant in all of Czech.
The next morning we decided to get up early and have breakfast and tour around. We saw some of the sites and shopped a bit until we met up with Adam. Adam is studying in prague and goes to fairfield so he was one of maura's friends. It was awesome to have him show us around the city like a pro. He knew what most of the stuff was and speaks Czech well. In the evening we went to a organ and volin concert in one of the many old churches. it was all bach and mozart. it was cool.
That night we met up with adam and his friends and he took us out to some fun bars and clubs.
There is a really fun nightlife in prague, much different then here in roma.
The following morning we went on a scenic boat tour of the city. it was well worth the money. Prague has a really rich history due to the various regimes and wars. the nazis, the russians, etc.

After the boat tour we walked around old town and saw some of the things that we didnt get to see the first day. Got some soviners and then we went to dinner at a brewery. it was an awesome dinner, did you know that prague is home to Pilsner and Budweiser beers? the guy from bud visited Czech and took the idea back to the states, he copied the style of beer and the name.
We went back to the hotel after dinner and had some wine and things that we got the McCaghs for having us in this amazing hotel. then i packed up my bag because i thought i had a ten oclock flight home the next morning. i double checked my itinerary just in case.... well my flight was at 8. Bummer! that means i would have to be up and out by 5. well we were in prague so i was gonna go out either way and just sleep on the plane. We decided that i would just go out all night, come back at 5 grab my bag and head off. so needless to say it was an amazing night filled with stories not fit to print here because my grandmother reads this.

Well all goes according to the plan, we leave the club at 5, come home, i grab the bag, take the metro to the bus to the airport. i get there by 5:45.
this is where the fun begins.
I'm at the airport and cant find the desk to check in for smartwings. i look up on the board of all the flights, still no roma flight. in my mind im thinking, god i must be really early.
then a thought creeps in. oh no, that cant be possible, i didnt. no way!
i double check the itinerary.... 8 am smartwings from prague.... all good...... on the 27th of november.
JESUS CHRIST! i am an idiot.
now what do i do? the mccaghs were checking out that day. im stuck in this beautiful but god forsaken country. i decide to take the bus back to the metro back to the hotel and hope for the best. well im exhausted having been up for nearly 24hours and having gone out quite hard a few hours previously.
well i get on the right bus, head back, fall asleep on the bus due to utter exhausten. well i wake up a bit later to a czech man screaming at me in a language that i dont fathom. from is anger and gestures i figure he wants me off the bus. i get up, he pushes me out onto the street.

i was in the middle of a parking lot with nothing else around. no airport, no metro.completely by myself in the middle of prague freezing my butt off at 6 in the morning, and i was a bit inebriated. a sister pat's ears would have bled if she heard the things i was cursing. boy i was fired up and had no clue what to do.
i finally get on another bus that comes by about 40 minutes later. got back to the hotel, thank god they were still there. collapsed for about an hour and told my tale to the mccaghs who couldnt believe my unfortunate luck/utter stupidity.
well i went to adams house after the mccaghs checked out with kristi and casey, who were mauras friends from spain who came to prague and stayed with us also. he was just as shocked to see me as the mccaghs were. he said not to worry that i could crash at his place for the night. we hung out all day doing nothing really because i was so miserable and tired. i still had yet to sleep. he showed me around his neighborhood and we didnt do a whole lot. we came home watched a movie then went to see the other main square in prague that i missed.
at 11 i finally went to sleep for the first time in about 40 hours. exhausted.
i was scared that i would sleep so much that i would miss my flight.... again.
but i made it and now im home to tell my crazy tale.


i missed thanksgiving at home which i was bummed about but im glad the mccaghs were here with me. Prague was amazing. Probably my favorite city ive seen so far
this was my last trip so the next plane ride i take will be back to the states.....


ciao,
matty

La mia coure é in irelanda

So Im back from my amazing trip to ireland. it is quite an adventure, so far it has been the highlight of the trip (second to shaking Il Papa's hand).
So my adventure started before i even left italy. you know the saying mother knows best? well, its completly true.... My loving mother has dubbed me The Dumbass (due to various car accidents, inicidents with alcohol in high school, and losing my license/cell phone/wallet/ car keys on more then one occasion) back to the point. in true form i am a dumbass. The night before my flight i was checking my itinterary to see what time to get to the airport. Well what i noticed was that i was flying from roma to london and london to dublin. two seperate tickets because it was cheaper that way. well to my shock and horror, i realized that i was flying into london stansted and flying out of london luton.... TWO SEPERATE AIRPORTS. so of course i freaked out, it was nearly midnight the ngiht before i was to leave. I go to the girls apartment because they had internet to solve this debocle. There is no i can make it from one airport to the other without missing my flight. Well im going to ireland if its the last thing i do. so i find another flight straight from rome to dublin and buy it. Im bitter about my stupidity but no big deal at least i will get there.
I fly to Dublin on thursday morning and meet up with Maura. they called for rain and gross weather but we got out of the airport to beautiful sunny clear skies. a good omen. I was estatic, i was finally home. Mo and I take the bus into city center Dublin and find our hostel. It was in a great location right in city center on the river, a few blocks from trinity college. We went to lunch and living up to our heritage, had our first pints in ireland... even though it was only 2pm.
We explored the city most of the afternoon and plan our weekend.

((Mom dont get angry at the following few paragraphs))
Then we decided to make a rule, every pub we pasted on our side fo the street we would stop in for a pint. this idea sounded great in the begining and not so much after about 3. We met up with melissa and had dinner then decided there is no better way to see dublin then a pub crawl. logical thinking right? so we had a pub crawl through the city of guiness. great time.

well i will skip to the next morning for obvious reasons.....

Well we got up early because we had alot to see before we left the city. So we got up and decided to tour the Guiness factory, see Saint Patricks and go back to the Trinity College to see the book of Kells.
We took the Bus to Guiness for the tour.... well, haha, we step off the bus and smell of the hops and barley that were in the air was a bit too much for Maura and Melis who happened to have a touch of the Irish Flu. They proceeded to puke on saint james gate. the irony was too much to handle and they called me an ass because i was laughing so hard that it took me a few tries to take a picture. haha it was hilarious.
We toured the factory which was really interesting and it goes back to the begining when Arthur Guiness started the company and how it grew to the phenom that it is today. After guiness factory we went to saint patricks, then went to the train station to catch a train to galway. We happened to run into some of our friends, randomly in the train station. We caught the 4 oclock train for galway and we were on our way....a side note about the train, it was like a rolling party, they said many times not to drink on the train, as soon as those wheels started churning... everyone had a drink in their hand. gotta love the irish.
We got there like 4 and half hours later. It was dark out but we were excited to be there. Our hostel was right on Eyre Square which is the center of town. We went to an amazing dinner at a hole in the wall resturant and i had traditional irish stew which was awesome. it was nice and hot, because it was freezing out. We found a pub that had like no one in it but an irish band. awesome. drinking a pint in ireland, listening to traditional irish music, in the town that is my namesake. it was amazing.
i loved galway alot more then dublin, i mean dublin is dublin but if i ever go back i will most definatly go to galway. the sense of culture and community it was so warm and welcoming to an irish american visitor.
We met up with my friend brendan, and he was friends with a whole bunch of fairfield kids studying in galway so maura knew them. It was an amazing time. the most fun i have had in all of europe so far. a funny story, in one of the pubs i was talking to some irish girls and they were convinced i was from kerry. they didnt believe that i was american, that was a real compliment to me.. to think that even the locals thinks im from ireland!
the next morning we got up and took a bus tour to the cliffs of Moehr which were the most beautiful feat of nature i have ever seen. absoutely breath taking. We toured the coast and had lunch in Doolin which is a tiny town across the water from the Aran Islands. It was real ireland, stone walls, sheep, rain. amazing.

We got back late from the tour had to rush to catch the last bus to cork. We arrived in cork late and found our hostel. Cork was very different from both dublin and galway. it reminded me of Pittsburgh, very industrial on a river. and it was way bigger then the other two cities. We went to dinner and walked around a bit but then went to bed early because we had to fly back to our respective cities in the morning. We said our fairwells at the airport and thought back on our amazing weekend. We vowed to come back to ireland in the near future.

I travelled all day by myself to get back to rome, i flew to dublin then caught another flight to roma. i had alot of time to think back on the weekend and reflect on what it means to be an irish-american. This trip was very emotional to me, i felt a bond in ireland way more then any country i have been to. there is something special about going back to a country that three generations ago my family came from. the struggle to make themselves a better life for their children. They gave everything they had for a chance things will be better. thats amazing to me.
Also i felt the need to preserve the irish culture in america. We need to remember where we have come from in order to understand where we are going. We need to keep the traditions alive, we cannot forget who we are.

heres to an amazing weekend. and an amazing event in my life....

slainte,
matthew GALWAY wooters

SLAINTE

GOD I LOVE IRELAND, ESP GALWAY!
check back with you this week.
i miss home.....



matty

London- Paris

So i am home from my crazy trip to london and paris. it was one of the best times ive had on this trip. we flew to london and arrived at midnight london time. because we didnt know where we were going we didnt get to our hostel till 4 am. we got up at 8am to start touring. we were dead. also london was 20 degress colder then rome is. freezing. bright sunshine but freezing. We saw the tower of london, tower bridge, the crown jewels, big ben and parliment (my friends found the joke old after about 2 min when i kept doing the thing from national lampoons "hey kids look, big ben..parliment") haha

we rode the london Eye which is the biggest farriswheel in the world. great views of the city at sunset. that night i met up with my friends kristin and zack who were on my crew team last year. we went out to a few pubs which is an awesome atmosphere. the next day i saw westminster abby, buckingham palace, hyde park and kensington gardens, we also saw kensington palace where princess dianna lived till her death. it was beautiful. we also went to harrods which is the biggest department store in the world. the whole time i was thinking how much my sisterin law would go nuts and how much my brother would be hating it.

side note, the pound is double the US dollar which was BRUTAL to the wallet, i spent a ton fo money just on food. a 10 dollar burger is 20 bucks.

that night i met up with my friend melissa. we went to a piano bar. it was alot of fun. we had fish and chips.

that night we didnt have a hostel because our train to paris left at 5am and we had to be there by 3 am to check in and get tickets. so we spent the night on the floor of the trainstation. not fun.

we got to paris and went to see notre dame and we climbed to the roof, we got an amazin view of all of paris. then we went to our hostel and took naps because we hadnt slept in a few days. then we went to the louvre because it was free to students on friday nights. what an expirence. i was there for 2 and half hours and didnt see a third of it. i did get to see the modonna on the rocks, mona lisa, winged vistory and that statue with no arms, the name escapes me now. the next day we climbed the eiffle tower which was a feat! nearly 700 steps. then we went to the arch di triumph. after the arch we took the metro to see the moulin rouge. we didnt go to the show because it was too expensive. then my favorite part of the trip was seeing the lightshow and the eiffle tower lit up at night. one of the best things ive seen on the trip. the others being saint peters, and david.

the next morning we got up at 5 and flew home to roma. it was an amazing trip that i will never forget.

its monday and i leave in three days for ireland.

(ooooh i forgot to say, real weird from going to an italian speaking country back to an english speaking country then to a french speaking country within a weekend. and i was the only french my group knew.... not a good sign seeing as how the last time i spoke french when i was a sophmore at prep and Guy "fraich-daddy" fraiture was my teacher... haha)

bye, avoir, and ciao

matty