A little taste of home

So I've been here for 3 weeks and time is flying by...it's crazy to think that our time in Rome is 1/5th over.  During the week DDV warned us that this is the time most people get home sick and that we should all hang out together and do things that remind us of home, so what's better then stuffing our faces with American food!  Don't get me wrong the food is AMAZING here.  Nunzia's and Nicky's cooking is really really great...but some of us needed a break from the ridiculous amounts of pasta we eat on a daily basis and get a little taste of home.

So myself along with 8 others went to the HARD ROCK CAFE!  There aren't many american places here, (besides McDonalds and Burger King) so when we heard there was a hard rock we were so ready to go.  We all met up at our Italian school in Piazza di Spagna and walked over together.  After anxiously waiting for half an hour, our buzzer finally went off and they were ready to seat us.  Everyone ordered burgers, except I got a salad and fries.  Within like 10 minutes, we all devoured our food.  It was fantastic to have some american food and is something we want to do a few times when were here and when we miss home.

I'm sure you will all read this and think we are so crazy for getting American food while in Italy :)

Freezing Firenze

The weekend of the 22nd, most of us took our first road trip to Florence.  After a quick 2 hour train ride, we arrived and I've never been more ready to shop in my life.  I heard about all the stores and leather in Florence and I was on a mission.  Huge down side- Florence was so cold, I could barely feel my fingers.  We all got bundled up and headed out into the cold to go shopping.  I bought myself a leather jacket and a leather purse.  The leather jacket has now become my baby, I love it.  Shopping was difficult though because walking through the markets, we got hassled a lot and people were very pushy.

After shopping we saw the major sites (the duomo, the david, etc).  Florence was beautiful and was definitely centered around the arts.  I was really excited we got to see the david- but the experience was also a little traumatizing ... we didn't know you couldn't take pictures and got screamed at when they saw the flash OPS, good thing I knew how to say sorry in Italian...  After endlessly walking through art museums, a few of us went out to dinner at this really cute trattoria.  We all shared a bottle of chianti and had a really great meal (I got bruschetta and pasta fagioli soup).  After leaving dinner we went back to the hotel and then went out at night in the FREEZING COLD.  You have to walk everywhere in Florence, it's not like Rome where you are near 5 metro stops when you turn the corner.  So walking everyone made the cold a little harder to bare.  The next morning we walked around and shopped a little more then headed back to the train station to catch our ride back.  We basically saw Florence in 24 hours, which was exhausting!

I want to go back to florence again, when it isn't so cold because it made it a little harder to enjoy.  Florence is a very small city.  While I definitely enjoyed the trip, it also made me realize that Rome is the place for me.

Ciao Roma!

Ciao!

Sorry this is 3 weeks late, but since we've been here there hasn't been much time so better late then never right???  So here is my crash course in the past 3 weeks I've been here...

So we left January 6th from Newark and arrived 8 hours later in ROMA:) After that rocky and long 8 hours, I have never been more ready to bundle up in blankets and take a nap but of course that didn't happen.  Straight from the airport, Dr. Dawson (our program director aka DDV) picked us up and we carried our suitcases to St. John's (one of our schools here).  Being one of the smallest girls here, it probably wasn't in my best interest to bring the biggest suitcases, one of which was over the 50 lb limit.  So finally after dropping off our suitcases we checked into this small hotel/ ex-monastery place.  We then toured the neighborhood all together.  With a small break in between aka nap we then left to go see some of the sites (DDV was trying to make sure we didn't sleep too much because of the jet lag) So for three hours we learned the metro and the buses, making stops at the coliseum, the spanish steps, the trevi fountain, etc. Everything was so beautiful!

Fast Forward- a few days and it was time to move in with our host families. SO NERVE RACKING.  Michele (my roommate since freshmen year) and I are living together with this super nice family.  The mom's name is Nunzia, her son's name is Niccolo (Nicky) and they have a dog, Margherita.  She also has 2 other sons (Diego and Alejandro) but they don't live in the house anymore, but we've met them at dinners before, also very nice. They are all so sweet and really try to help us out whenever we need! They speak a little english, which is definitely helpful but sometimes the language barrier is really tough.  The apartment is really nice, michele and I each have our own bedrooms and share a bathroom.  Only down side- the apartment is far from the school so the commute is an hour everyday

Fast Forward a little more- Classes started UGH.  Italian class is three hours everyday for 2 months (its like a huge crash course), which is kind of annoying but necessary.  My Italian class is seriously like the UN!!!  It consists of 5 loyola students, a man from brazil, a indian nun, a japanese girl and 2 other women from different parts of the united states.  It is very interesting and very entertaining at the same time.  We switch classes half way through and I'm definitely gonna miss it.  My other three classes meet once a week for three hours. I'm taking a class about papacy, liturgical art and architecture and roman literature. Their pretty interesting and it's nice because for most of them we get lectures for half the time, and the other half is spent visiting churches (so we're exploring the city at the same time).

Fast Forward- Our second weekend here was all about exploration!  Whipping out our huge map, Michele and I explored the neighborhood we live in.  It's a nice street with a lot of stores and bars (not the american type bars, bars here = cafes).  After exploring and of course getting lost, we went to the vatican city with the majority of the students who came here.  The vatican was amazing!  We went inside St. Peter's and DDV gave us a tour.  It's definitely an area i want to visit 100 times when I'm here!