I am so good at the Boston accent. I can say it all: clam chowdah, Haavid, Bawston. It's a beautiful thing really. Actually, I'm terrible. In fact, I am pretty sure my "Boston accent" sounds more Jamaican than Bostonian. But if I went to Harvard, I think I could perfect it. And let me just say it: I love Harvard. I want to go here for law school. Of all the places I've considered for law, only Stanford holds a place in my heart like Harvard does. It's the Stanford of the East Coast, though I'm sure people here would call [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, somehow I find myself back in New York. This time, I'm here for some preliminary law school visits—as I head into my final semester of undergraduate education this fall, law school applications are all I'll be thinking about. So I thought I'd take my last spring break and go on a mini tour of the best law schools on the East Coast, starting with New York University and Columbia University. And of course, while I was here, I might as well further my education of New York City. So this is going to be a fairly short entry, but I'm [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, my trip has taken a strange turn. Without getting too much into the details, which potentially would bore you to tears, I am both relieved and incredibly sad to say that I am on my way back to the States tomorrow. Since the last entry, before the 'turn,' the plan was to go back to Rome for a day before Keith left to go back to Chicago. I would stay in Rome for another day before flying out to Barcelona and spending the next week working my way back to Rome through France. Suffice it to say that many things [View Full Entry]

---

---

Well, I have climbed Mount Vesuvius. And I won't lie, I feel pretty cool saying that. The volcano is the only volcano on mainland Europe to have erupted in the last century, and owes most of its fame for the destruction of the cities Pompeii and Herculaneum back in 79 AD. But don't worry, according to its main website: the Park is closed while Vesuvius is erupting. Like most people I assume, I have never climbed a volcano, have never looked inside a volcano, have never seen a volcano erupt. A met a girl later on who, upon telling her I [View Full Entry]

---

---

Growing up as "that dorky kid that read a lot," I had a lot of books on subjects that nowadays I watch on the Discovery Channel or as a documentary on PBS on TV. My favorite one was a book about Pompeii. I used to dream about seeing Pompeii. In fact, it's probable that Pompeii was my first desired destination of travel (well, Pompeii or Egypt—I had a book on King Tut, too). I distinctly remember seeing the picture of the Garden of the Fugitives; I was terrorized by it. Even as a 6 or 7 year old, I had great [View Full Entry]

---

---

Wow. Rome is closed on New Years Day. It has shut down pretty much all but its heavily touristy areas and souvenir shops it seems. This fact may be an indirect result of most of the city's population staying up until 4 AM and beyond to ring in 2008. I'd want to sleep all day too if I saw the first sunrise of the new year; however, I was impressed with how clean the city was the next morning. The clean up crew was working relentlessly from what must have been a formidable hour of the morning until it was back [View Full Entry]

---

---

Like I said yesterday, I'm beginning to feel more at ease here. And I say 'at ease' for lack of a better phrase because I never feel uneasy per se here... it's just an adjustment, even for a few days' time. The constant sightseeing, not knowing anyone here but Keith, being outside for long periods of time in the relative cold—it has all made me feel constantly on the go and just like an uber-tourist. I feel like all I do all day long is look at things and marvel. And I'm starting to feel like I could soon be burned [View Full Entry]

---

---

What a way to bring in the New Year. Because I really just want a place to upload my New Years fireworks photos, this entry isn't going to be much else but fireworks and talk about how amazingly crazy New Years Eve in Rome was. And all we did was go out to the streets. We didn't go to any parties, bars, restaurants, official concerts, or planned gatherings. We actually didn't really know what was going to happen. Actually, I should start by prefacing this entry with this fact: my last few New Years Eves have been fairly lame, comparatively. I'm [View Full Entry]

---

---

One of the many problems I have with traveling is finding authentic local life. I think that a lot of it is due to the limited time I spend traveling, but right now the it seems it's mostly in part due to the language barrier that makes me constantly feel like an outsider. I now have newfound respect to people back in America that can't speak English fluently. Today after visiting the Vatican, we crossed back into Italy (which is really just as simple as crossing the street, well, actually it's easier than that because crossing the street in Italy can [View Full Entry]

---

---

Ciao! I am really loving Italy. It's such an adventure everywhere we go. Especially trying to upload photos in an internet cafe. So far I haven't found one that has worked for me which is kind of disheartening, but I'll live. Today has been long, but quite wonderful. We woke up at 5:45 in order to get to the Vatican early enough without a long wait. Standing in line was something in itself. When we got off the metro at our stop, some people literally started running to the Vatican. It was 7:30, an hour and 45 minutes before it even [View Full Entry]

---

---