Ciao da Roma!

My apartment building :) 

Hello from Rome! These past couple days have been some of the craziest and most overwhelming of my life filled with orientations, tours, and exploring this new city. It is absolutely bella though! All my roommates are here and they're awesome! We have 6 girls living in our apartment. It's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms. And  it is actually the upgraded apartment which means we get maid service! I got lucky and somehow got put in the upgraded apartment even though I didn't pay for it. It is on a square called Piazza Regina Margherita and in the Bologna area. It is in the residental area of Rome, so all of our neighbors in our building are Italians. It is still very small and old, however. I share a room with Sarah, she's from University of Arizona. We hang out with one of our other roommates, Nicole, who is also from University of Arizona and Liza, a girl from the apartment building next to us.

Living room area

Kitchen with our miniature fridge and stove

This week has been insane. When we got here on Tuesday, I had a hard time adjusting to the time especially because I had food sickness the entire night before I left to come here. I was exhausted. But our apartment and the apartment next to us all went out for dinner and wine and had amazing pizza! Then we met up with some guys in our program that live in the apartment building on the other side of us for a couple beers before going to bed.

Nicole, Sarah and I with our cafe latte

We had orientation on Wednesday morning at 9am (eek). Our school is absolutely gorgeous. It is an old villa in a neighborhood. Our school is right by Piazza Bologna, about a 10 minute walk from our apartment at Piazza Regina Margherita. The staff is amazing, too. I will be taking 3 of my 4 classes at that campus. We got to take a break to explore the piazza, and we stopped for our first Rome cafe latte, which is only 1 euro here and so delicious!

That night we went to dinner with the guys who live in the apartment by us. We had some more delicious wine and me and Nicole split a steak, which tasted so good after only eating pizza. That night we had a bunch of people in our program over to our apartment which was a lot of fun getting to know everyone!

Dinner with Sarah, Nicole, Liza, and I

On Thursday, we had more orientation. This day we heard Andy Steves talk about how to travel on a budget in Europe and how to make the most of your experience studying abroad. It was really helpful and he knew so much! We had a lunch with our whole program after that. That afternoon we had someone from our program come to our apartment and show us how to use everything - the stove, heaters, washing machine, etc. He also took us around our piazza and showed us the basics like using the bus and trams, where the main stores are like the pharmacy and electronics store, and took us to the grocery store to show us how to get groceries in Italy. It was so helpful!

Pantheon at night

That night Andy Steves did a nighttime walking tour of some of the sights of Rome. This was FINALLY our first time out of the neighborhood we live in and into the centro historico (historical district of Rome where all the sights are). It was so exciting to finally see so many of these sights for the first time since we had been here! We started in Trastevere (a beautiful area across the river where my other school is and where a lot of the college students, both Italian and foreign, live) and did a walking tour over to the Pantheon. We saw Piazza Navona with the Fountain of Four Rivers and Campo de' Fiori, which is a really popular piazza for bars. It was so amazing to see all these places that have so much history. We ended the tour at a restaurant and had a five course meal and unlimited wine, yum! We got to try 4 different kinds.

Sarah, Nicole, Alex, Ryan, Kyle, Rez, Liza, and I at Scholars

After the tour, we went to a bar named Scholars. This is a big American hangout, and felt a lot like we were at TD's at home. It even had the Saints game on TV (who dat!). It helped my home sickness a little at first, but then we realized we should go to a club so we could experience real Italian nightlife. We went to La Maison, and it was really different.. but fun! The Italians were relentless though, which none of us were used to. After about an hour there we headed back to Scholars. That night we were told that the taxis were on strike, which we never really found out if this was true or not. It was a mess trying to get back since we didn't even know how to use the bus system. But we somehow made it back around 4:30am.

Pantheon

Dana and I at the Trevi Fountain

We had to get up again this morning and be at our other school in Trastevere at 9am, meaning we had to leave here at 8am. It was so early and that school was very confusing, but I'm only taking one class there. We went out to lunch at a small restaurant then went on a two hour walking tour of Rome. Despite this tour being two hours, we still barely saw any of Rome. We have yet to even make it to the Colosseum or the Vatican! We went by the same squares as the night tour, the Vatican, and the Trevi Fountain. I, of course, already tossed my coin in the fountain today. Also, we learned that in the Pantheon there is a hole in the ceiling that is always open. This is for the gods to come in. When it rains or snows, it does so right into the Pantheon and drains through holes in the marble floor! Also, the door is a square to be a human shape and the hole at the top is circular to be the eternal shape of the gods.

Piazza Navona

We're finally done with all of that though and have the weekend free. I (lamely) decided to stay in and cook for myself tonight so I can get some sleep. I'm so worn out and it's making me homesick, so I decided I needed the night to collect my bearings and chill out. We start classes on Monday, which I'm excited about so we can meet more new people and get on our regular schedule. I only have classes Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which is awesomeee. I'm taking Italian (last semester!), International Business, Angels Demons & Artists in Rome (an art history class), and Statistics.

Overall I'm loving it here so far, even though it is so difficult adjusting, and I cannot wait to explore the city on my own this weekend and get adjusted! :)
Ciao!