Friday, September 9, 2011

Done with Orientation!!

The past 2 days (Wednesday and Thursday) we went on tours around Rome, mostly seeing Piazzas and churches. Yesterday we got to see the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps, we also saw the Colosseum in the distance. We were so hungry after that we managed to hunt down a McDonalds, which was much classier than the McDonalds in the states. Today we just finished up the packets for our permessio and are now relaxing until later on. I'm making spaghetti and meatballs for dinner! Classes start bright and early on Monday

Monday, September 5, 2011

Past 3 days

So on Saturday in the morning we met in the morning and had a little tour around the neighborhood, and we all got to go out for lunch. There were about 4 appetizers, a main course, and dessert. SO FULL. All the food was delicious. They had these fried rice/cheese ball things, another fried appetizer that apparently was fried zucchini flowers, thin bread with fresh mozzarella and prosciutto, and bruschetta. The main course was a pasta in a white sauce with pepper, and dessert was this like, vanilla flan thing with chocolate sauce. So yummy. So later on that night we were able to go on this tour with Andy Steves, who is Rick Steves' son, and it wasn't much of a tour, he showed us a few palazzos, and then he was taking everyone out to dinner. We didn't really want another giant meal so we just came back to the apartment and made dinner. We went out walking around later and went to Campo di Fiore, which was really packed but it was really full of American students. On the way back we ran into some people who were studying abroad at John Cabbot, so that was nice to talk to some other Americans.

Every Sunday there is a flea market in Trastevere, so I got up early and went with some friends to walk around there. It was your basic street fair, tents and stands with random things like underwear and cheap jewelry, bathmats, mirrors, etc. It was ungodly hot, so we didn't spend that much time there. I can back and had to take a short nap. After I got cleaned up my roommates and I went walking around Trastevere later on in the day, it had cooled down a lot and the weather was perfect. On the way to the Piazza Santa Maria we stopped and got gelato.We found a nice restaurant after walking around and I had gnocci for dinner. It was so good! On the way back we stopped and had gelato again at the same place :)

Today (Monday) was our first day of orientation at UARC. We had 2 professors meet us near our apartments and we walked to the palazzo taverna. The building is gorgeous, it's this really old palace that royalty and nobles used to live in. They explained the history of the school, the main rules, how to get there and stuff. They gave us a break at 11 until 1130, we came back and they talked to another half hour, and our lunch break was from 12-2. We found this cute little restaurant near the school and had pizza, and when we got back all the faculty intoduced themselves for about an hours and we were done for the day! I like the Italian's version of a "long day" because it's super short compared to the American's long day. The study abroad director, Amy offered to take us out to dinner, so we went to another pizza place for dinner. My pizza had this spicy salami on it and it was so good. And again, we stopped for gelato on the way back :)

Friday, September 2, 2011

Finally in Rome!

Took since 10am yesterday but I made it! It's 9:30pm here right now. We all are finally settled into our apartment! Getting here was a bit rough, I couldn't sleep at all on the plane ride, and I get a little motion sick, so that for 7 hours and then another 1 1/2 not so fun, but worth it. We had to wait in the airport in Italy for about 4 hours or so because our luggage was on a different flight from Munich to Italy, so we all camped out and slept until it got there. Since we were behind in our schedule we just got on the bus and went straight to our apartments and skipped dinner. The apartment is in this really cool old buidling with huge double doors at the entrance, and they added an elevator in but there is this big stone spiral staircase that's orginal. The building has a courtyard type of thing in the center that all the floors are around and there's hanging plants and vines everywhere. It looks like something out of a movie :) I think I'll like it here just fine.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

One more day

I still have a good bit of packing to do, but it will get done! I have all my books and supplies packed, just have to get all the clothes and such into a bag now. I don't get nervous if I don't think about it too much!

Sunday, August 28, 2011

3 more days!

I leave on the 1st! I still have a lot of packing to do, but I'm getting there. Only getting a little nervous, but mostly because I don't really like flying. I'm really excited to get to see Italy!