Orientation Week in Rome

Wednesday 12/14/2010

We arrived in Rome today at the Rome Fiumicino Airport. I was so thrilled to see my luggage at the baggage claim, I've heard so many horror stories about lost baggage. I was traveling with two other people from Gustavus; my good friend Tom and another girl named Michelle. We quickly found our SAI coordinator who got us and two other girls connected with a taxi to Rome. One in Rome we stopped by the SAI office to get our keys and our cell phones (which are ancient).

Our taxi driver was hysterical, he spoke broken English but we understood him well. When he asked everyone in the car whether they were Catholic and two responded that no, they were Lutheran, he said

Oh so you must be Communist. You must be either Catholic or Communist, one is garbage the other is the shit

. He seemed especially fascinated with using English swear words and half the time they did not even make sense with the context. The other thing that I noticed was Italian driving. There didn't seem to be any lanes or yeilding to eachother or pedestrians of any sort... it was quite terrifying. Cars on the street were literally parked three inches away from eachother (parellel parking nighmare) and people seemed to make up parking spots wherever they could fit their car, sideways, backwards, blocking others in etc. I noticed that a lot of the cars were dented and when I asked about it, the driver told me that people hit eachother all the time on roads and getting out of parking spots and it was considered normal. I don't think that I could ever drive here.

Although I live on the sixth floor, my apartment on Via Ippolito Nievo 12 in the Trastevere neighborhood actually turned out be very very nice. We have a Living room with a table and TV, a kitchen with a dishwasher and washing machine, two bathrooms with showers, a single room and four double rooms for eight girls. My roommate, Morgan, was there when I arrived and was very sweet. Once we were all unpacked, Tom and his girlfriend Liz and his new roommate Del (who was here last semester as well and knows his way around) decided to meet up with a friend of ours from home who happens to be on a trip here on the other side of the city. While Del thought that he had directed us onto the right train, after sitting on it for forty five minutes we realized that we were heading in the wrong direction and had to get off and grab another train in the opposite direction. When all was said and done, we finally met up with our friend Steve who took us to the Trevi fountain and we had our first pizza in Italy (delicious). Trevi fountain at night was absolutely gorgeous and we sat on the closest step eating our pizza, drinking our italian beers (the drinking age in Italy is sixteen...it's crazy) and chatting about how we felt like we were in a different world. We topped the night off at a local bar called "Scholars" which we've been told is where a lot of John Cabot students go and where they play a lot of American sporting events on TV. Walking home, my feet killed and I tried to prepare myself for the amount of walking in days to come. Del offered us what he called a "nightcap" and took us to the cute little bar right down our block for some french fries and we all walked back and went to bed after the long day.



Thursday 12/15/2010

Today was our first day of orientation. I went to our mandatory meeting (yawn) which Tom did not make it to... The walk to the Guarini campus of John Campus was about a half hour but I was proud of myself for finding it. The streets here are like cobblestone alleys, they have shops and restaurants tucked away and I have no idea how the manage to fit both cars and people on them. This city is chaos. I went to lunch at a cute little restaurant and ate the most delicious lasagne I've ever had and met up with Tom and Lizzie. Liz and I attempted to go to an electronics store that a friend of mine said she had just gotten adapters at, and it was quite the experience. I needed a hair straightener but needed to ask a worker to get it for me and upon asking about a billion people "Parla inglese?"... i found out that no one spoke Enlgish. Awesome. I ended up figuring out how to get the hair straightener but they kept telling me they didnt have adapters... not true. Morgan had gotten some there a half hour before, so frustrating. So, I still need adapters. I came back and took a nap, and then Tom went out to get us some wine and pizza from a place that we have now come to call "Chinese pizza" because it's all Chinese workers. It was incredible pizza that cost three euros and is totally my favorite pizza so far. For dinner, Del took us to his favorite lasagne restaurant where I got to eat more delicious lasagne and some awesome margherita pizza. I can't believe how cheap food is here. After dinner, we came back and got ready for our first night out on the town. We went to the infamous Campo dei Fiori, a beautiful piazza full of restaurants and bars called things like "The drunken ship" and "Sloppy Sams". I felt like every one in the entire city was there. After some difficulty we got a table in the piazza outside of Sloppy Sams and talked broken Italian to the three Italians at the table next to us who responded with broken English. I need to learn Italian, for real. We walked home and went to bed, what an awesome first night at Campo.

Friday 01/15/2010

Today we were the biggest tourists you could possibly imagine. We had the day to ourselves to Tom, Liz and I enlisted the help of Del to take us to some sites around the city. The first thing we saw was the Pantheon, absolutely spectacular (I took honestly about a hundred pictures). My favorite was walking out and seeing these two men dressed in old army costumes who were just hysterical. I quickly realized that they were only trying to get my money but I didn't seem to care because they were so nice and funny that I begged Tom and Liz to each pitch in a euro with me to get a picture with them... the pictures turned out fantastic and were totally worth it. We continued walking and it completely took me off guard when we turned a random corner in the city and oops, there's the Coliseum down the street. It's completely unreal that these ancient ruins are just randomly scattered throughout the city, its all beautiful.

In the Piazza Venezia, we saw the Vittorio Emanuele Monument. My travel book said that it is Italy's most flamboyant landmark... and that it is. It's an absolutly huge white building with pilars and these giant black statues of horses on top that you can see from all around Rome. As we continued down the road Via dei Fori Imperiali towards the Coliseum, we saw part of the Roman Forums on the right hand side and the Fori Imperiali (Imperial Forums) on the left. The ruins and excavation sites were very cool to see, just to know that two thousand years ago, decisions made in the Roman forum affected a lot of the known world. It was also cool to see the Imperial Forums, which were built because of the overcrowding of the Roman forums, because each were built by separate emperors (Caesar, Nerva, Augustus and Trajan) to outdo one another.


Finally we made it to the Coliseum, which we didn’t go inside of yet, but it was incredible to see. When we were approached by some tour guides pitching Coliseum and Forum tours, they had baby kittens with them that we got to hold and play with… what an interesting ploy to get our money. We also saw the Arch of Constantine right next to the Coliseum and took plenty of pictures before heading of to see the Spanish Steps. Along the walk, we stopped at the sweetest McDonalds that I have ever seen, it looked like a five star restaurant. I took so many pictures and it was funny because people in the McDonalds kept smiling for them. We got some gelato then across the street (I got Tiramisu flavor, an excellent choice for my first gelato ever) and went and ate it on the Spanish Steps and let our feet rest.



For dinner, we went to an excellent place down the street from our apartment called Carla Mente. We got a bunch of people together and got a giant table in the basement. The food was absolutely delicious, and surprise surprise, Liz and I got a pizza to share and each got a pasta (I got Penne Gorgonzola, yum. Sje got Pesto Gnocchi, double yum.) and drank some of the wine that the table had ordered and only had to pay five euro each… again, inexpenisive Italian dining that tastes way better than anything I’ve ever had. How am I ever going to go back to eating frozen pizzas and Kraft Macaroni?

Saturday 01/16/2010

Today we got up extremely early to do our Permit to Stay documentation stuff, pick up our school Id’s and go to another boring orientation meeting. When we left, we went back and napped for about four hours, apparently jetlag is still an issue four days in. I got up around three and ate an entire Chinese pizza (it’s still my favorite) before meeting up with Tom and Lizzie to attempt to go to “Simply”, the grocery store down the street. Simply was an adventure, let me tell you…. Nothing was in English! So we settled on some 22 cent pasta and some pesto and red sauce, some Italian Cheeto Puffs, bread, mozzerela, tomatos and some fruit. I really need to get some laundry detergent but I’m going to hold off until I can go back with Dell because I couldn’t tell what was detergent and what was fabric softener. Again, I need to learn Italian. When we came back, we looked through all of our travel books and ate what we thought was a very Italian snack (bread, olive oil, balsamic, mozzarella and tomatos) and started planning where we want to travel to this semester. Then, Dell made us an awesome meal of homemade lasagna (I have a feeling I’ll be eating a lot of lasagna here…) for dinner. We then went down to the bar down the street, which I still don’t know the name of, and got some tables and ordered some French fries. I ended up leaving early because I was exhausted… boo.

Sunday 01/17/2010

Today we got up early yet again, I’m very proud of us. There is a giant market in Tratevere (our neighborhood) every Sunday and it takes place right outside our door and goes on for miles. It is apparently the biggest market in Western Europe. We shopped around for a little bit, I really need boots because literally everyone wears them and the ones that I have kill my feet… so I’ve been walking around in my super comfortable Uggs and labeling myself as a total American (but at least I haven’t been wearing my Northface). The funniest part of the trip so far happened today when Liz and I went up to a stand and were bartering with the man for necklaces. After leaving us to look, he walked over to Tom (who was looking at belt buckles) and asked whether he was with us. When Tom replied that we were, the man said

Those are very nice girls, how many belt buckles for them?

We then met up with Tom’s roommates and we headed to the Vatican to see the Pope give an address like he does every Sunday. Del seemed to take us a really roundabout way to get there, but we got there eventually. It was absolutely unreal being in Vatican square and hearing the Pope, it was packed with people. We also saw one of the cardinals in the crowd, which I thought was very cool. After the address, we all got some pizza and ate it in Campo dei Fiori and headed back to campus to meet Liz.



We ended up deciding to climb the Janiculum Hill, a hill that was strategic in Rome’s defense against French troops in 1849. On top of the hill (and by hill I mean HILL, the stairs were obnoxious, I got a wonderful little work out) we found many fountains and monuments to soldiers, as well as many breathtakinig views over the whole city. It was a great way to spend the afternoon, and the hill led us right back to a new set of steep stairs right near our apartments. When we came back, Tom, Liz and I cooked some pasta for ourselves for dinner, which turned out well. We then headed out to a bar on the other side of the river called Abbey Theater where Del had rented out a huge room for us and his friends to watch the playoffs. It was very cool to be able to watch the game and feel a small connection to home. Classes start tomorrow so it’s early to bed for me!