– Thursday, February 4, 2011 – Day 7 took us to an entirely new region of Israel.  Today we headed east into the West Bank and into the Judean Wilderness. So what does that really mean? Well, first things first, the Judean Wilderness is directly east of the Mount of Olives and in the West […] Read more

– Wednesday, February 3, 2011 – Another great day in Israel. We spent the majority of our time in and around the Old City of Jerusalem. We toured the Western or Wailing Wall area and the Western Wall Tunnel. This is the most sacred site in current Judiasm as it’s the only accessibly remaining sites […] Read more

– Tuesday, February 2, 2011 – So, the time to write a big blog is unfortunately just not available.  Our days are 10+ hours of touring, so when we get back to the hotel, it’s very difficult to go in-depth with details. However, I feel I should add details and descriptions so that those of […] Read more

– Monday, February 1, 2011 – Well, Day #4 of touring is complete, plus our trip to Jerusalem!  We changed hotels and towns this evening.  We enjoyed our time at the Ron Beach Hotel in Tiberias and the mornings waking up and evenings going to bed along the Sea of Galilee were priceless!  However, we’re […] Read more

– Monday, January 31, 2011 – Today’s post will be brief.  I’m going to come back and update it, I just don’t have the time yet.  I felt it was important to get the pics and videos up as soon as possible though.  I’ll give a quick rundown of where we went and a description […] Read more

– Sunday, January 30, 2011 – Greetings again from Tiberias, Israel! ***Click HERE to see the Israel Pics from this trip!*** What a day, our first day of touring is concluded and I’m exhausted. It was a wet day today as we experienced lots of on-off rain. But that didn’t stop us, we put on […] Read more

– Saturday, January 29, 2011 – Shalom! Well, we made it to Israel, what a long journey.  It was one definitely full of interesting occurrences.  Haven’t seen much yet, so obviously, I’m only going to get into the travel details! First, we met at the Pittsburgh airport at 2:45 p.m. to catch our connection to […] Read more

Vacations, you look forward to them for months…even years…and then they arrive, and are gone before you know it! This can definitely be said for my most recent vacation last week. Me and 4 good buddies from high school made our way out west for…well, not most people’s typical styled vacation. We headed to Lake […] Read more

As tends to be customary during my lunch break, I once again today checked my cell phone for any new texts or emails.  Turned out I did have an email waiting for me from the girlfriend.  Here’s what it said: Probably nothing you don’t already know and haven’t already seen/experienced, but it made me think […] Read more

Ohhh wow, talk about a blogging hiatus!  I haven’t posted in about 2 months, if you are (were) a semi-regular reader, sorry about that.  It’s been crazy these past 2 months, primarily due to starting the new job.  Changing your routine, wow, rough!  I’m a creature of habit and the commute and new times to […] Read more

[FLOWPLAYER=http://www.wjfuoco.com/movies/rome06/ForumTour.flv,480,360] In about 3 weeks or so, it’ll be the 4th anniversary of when me and 2 amici of mine from RMU left for a semester abroad in the historic Italian city of Roma!  Almost every year I do some sort of anniversary post.  Therefore, after these 4 long years, I post a few of […] Read more

For those of you that know of American University of Rome (AUR) Art History Professor Terry Kirk, I hope I’m not the bearer of bad news, but he did pass away.  I just found out today (11/3/09 – 9pm) by viewing the AUR home page.  There was also a PDF attached detailing information for a […] Read more

New Zealand Australia, a canyon, a bungee cord, and a chair.  Now use some imagination … then watch this video! [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeM6-d2xOXE[/youtube] *Small disclaimer, keep the volume on mute for young adolescent ears!  Otherwise, WOW and I know this guy […] Read more

It’s about time! When “Yahoo! Photos” ended their photo album hosting service and offered their users various sites to migrate albums to, Flickr was an option I chose. However, to even just view all my albums, I needed to purchase the Pro-Edition, which I didn’t want to do (I can still do it, but I […] Read more

The 7 Wonders of Nature voting is taking place now! Be sure to check out some of the world’s best natural wonders that have the potential to be considered the “New 7 Wonders of Nature”. Places such as Victoria Falls in Zambia & Zimbabwe, The Grand Canyon in the good ole U – S of […] Read more

Thanks to the awesome power of Google Earth, here’s the first pics of the outside of our apartment in Rome (2006…about 3 years ago now…but still awesome none the less!). Not sure why I never took pictures of the outside in the first place?? The iron and glass door in the middle was our entrance. […] Read more

Pittsburgh Against Hunger in Haiti This Saturday our church, West Hills Christian Church, conducted our 2nd Annual Pittsburgh Against Hunger in Haiti (PAHH) event. During this event, we bagged food for the hungry in Haiti, one of the world’s poorest nations. And to add insult to injury, they have been recently hit by 4 Katrina-like […] Read more

Was on Google Earth tonight and was looking around Rome, and was looking at Trastevere, where I was living when I was there. And I stumbled upon this video. It’s a nice lil piece that shows the area really well, check it out if you have second […] Read more

– 2 years ago yesterday I started on my journey to Italy! – 2 years ago today I arrived in Roma! Just to reminisce a bit, I added the map I created of our travels below […] Read more

So, a lot of things have reminded me of my time in Italy recently. One of my friend’s cousins is going to A.U.R., where I attended school in Roma. She was asking me questions regarding the school & the city & the aparments. And also a few coworkers were asking me some questions about my […] Read more

Got back late last night from Chicago. Justin & his roommates were gracious enough to house a few of us Pittsburgh folks for New Years 08. It was indeed a fun trip. If at the very least, the New Years Eve snowball fight was worth the flight up and back with Jeff and his 3 […] Read more

Back in the States, it’s Bittersweet. I’m doing pretty well since leaving Rome….that’s because I try not to think about it too much! I went through a bunch of my video’s today, I was getting sentimental! WOW, did we have fun! It’s been nice not having to do anything immediately once I got back this […] Read more

Well, if you’ve been bored and looking for something to read I apologize I haven’t written here for a while. I guess you can say we’ve been busy. We haven’t traveled since Capri and our next trip will be back home :-( We’ve been doing a lot of work for school, the norm: papers, tests, […] Read more

Well, it’s the day after Easter and it was a lovely Easter day here in Roma I would just like to say. Definetely different not being at home, but it wasn’t a big deal. I had some good friends to hang out with and lots of good food! We went to St. Peter’s Square at […] Read more

This past Friday we took a day excursion to the Island of Capri. We have two days left on our Rail Passes and not alot of cash! So we figured it would be cheaper to go to 2 places rather than one place for a few nights and have to spend the money on a […] Read more

Well, thanks to my Uncle Rocky, he got me writing a new blog! Sorry (if people actually noticed) but I haven’t written anything for about two weeks since we got back from Spring Break. However, to be honest, nothing out of the ordinary (if I can even say that while in Roma) has really been […] Read more

Okay now, definitely just got back from backpacking through Europe and I can’t believe everywhere we went and everything we’ve seen! Every penny (well Euro-cent) we spent was completely worth it…even though I’m never going to be able to buy food and afford transportation back to the States now! Jason came over for his first […] Read more

Almost 2 months in Roma now! Talk about the time flying. We just finished up with Midterm exams this week and I’m still trying to comprehend why I took them so seriously!?! I acted like they were Finals and busted my butt, I’m on a 4 month vacation, I should have been lazy, especially since […] Read more

Ok, it’s official! Venice is by far the coolest place in the world! Where in the world are the streets water, cars are gondolas and other small boats, and it’s all Italian?!?! We spent our three day weekend in Venice experiencing Carnevale! Things just seemed to happen to go our way too this weekend, it […] Read more

What a weekend! We finally busted out our European Rail passes and put them to real good use! We went to Torino for a day and then headed back south and stopped in Florence! We left Thursday night at midnight and took an all night train and got into Torino at about 8am for the […] Read more

Well, for us 4 guys here in Roma, it sure has been an interesting week since my last posting! First off…The Steelers won the Superbowl! But, I already made my comments about that on the front page! However, it was a fun night for us all. The game didn’t start till 12:30am here so needless […] Read more

Hello again! Yesterday was a pretty cool evening for us. We FINALLY went to the Trevi Fountain! We took advice from the masses and went there at night. And let’s just say it was definetely good advice! At night, with the lights reflecting off the water, the walls, statues, columns, everything, it was beautiful! If […] Read more

Well, I’ve been here for about 2 weeks now and we just wrapped up our 2nd weekend as well. I must say, I’m loving this city and country! The first few days brought us culture shock to the extreme, and each day we experience something new (duhhh) but I just love being here! I feel like I’ve been on a vacation…about a 2 week vacation and I’m going home soon. But then reality sets in again and I realize that I’m actually going to be here for about 4 months still! I think this is what really hasn’t hit me 100% yet, the fact I still have 4 more months in Italy! Something I’m really excited about that I discussed with my dad on the phone yesterday is my Italian language skills. I’ve already learned so much in just 2 short weeks. I can just imagine how much I will be able to say and use when I leave. I’m trying my best to learn everything and I’m not afraid to make mistakes with my pronunciations. I would love to come back here for leisure or business and be able to truly use this experience to my benefit!

A little bit ago I just got done with my Art of Rome class with Josh and Mikey. Now when I say get out of class, I mean left the Pantheon because our class is always held on site! Yes, each week we go to a different location in Roma and discuss the art, architecture, […] Read more

Well, our first weekend is almost wrapped up here in Roma. I’m waiting for the rest of the guys to get ready and then we’re out to go watch the Steelers play in the AFC Championship game! Yesterday we went with the ‘Burg girls to the school for a BBQ and then we headed out […] Read more

Here it goes…..I’m going to attempt to give you a quick blurb about the first 2 days here in Roma! Well, while landing, we could see the shores of Italy….and for being colorblind, I’ve heard that I’ve never seen such blue waters in my life! So pretty amazing! Anyways, we got off the plane and […] Read more

Well, Christmas is over and so far I must say, it has been a nice break away from the school work! However, the longer I get away from the school work, the closer I get to Rome! Less than 3 weeks now! Christmas was nice, I got a large Laptop Backpack for traveling in Europe […] Read more