Ciao amici e famiglia!

Just so everyone can get an idea of what a wonderful place they have me set up in here in Italia, take a look at this post's photo...that's the view from my room's balcony as I am writing this post right now! Can you say, molto bella? Now let me get started telling you about on my first week in Roma...

I woke up Tuesday morning feeling quite under the weather after 7 hours of less than adequate sleep and got myself ready for our program's orientation at 10am. My other roommate, Lourianne, finally made it to our apartment just in time for us to walk over to the American University of Rome (where we are studying). As we walked down our street I was finally able to see where I would be living in the daylight. Along the way we stopped at a small convenient store so some people could get fruit and caffe' lattes. I must be honest here, as we were walking I did not feel as "culturally shocked" as I had originally thought I would feel. Being in Rome felt normal. I like to describe it as a version of New York or Washington D.C.--this made me feel more comfortable.

Once we made it to the AUR I was introduced to 30 new faces of people I would be experiencing this exciting journey with. Everyone seemed nice and still tired, but excited none-the-less.

We went through orientation--what to do, what not to do. what to say, what not to say. where to find this and that. who to call and that one of our program directors, Andrea', was a boy and not a girl. After that we took a short break before the class I am taking (Italian 1) started.

Italian went well. Sherrie, our professor(a) is extremely nice and understanding. She made me feel much more at ease about learning the Italian language than I did when I studied spanish last fall. The class lasted 2 hours and we then had about a 2 hour break before our next class. During that time my roommates and I ventured off to find somewhere to eat lunch. After walking past multiple snack bars and pizzerias, we finally stopped somewhere and got ourselves some slices of pizza. I got eggplant. It was good, but kind of greasy--nothing spectacular. We then attempted to find our way back to our apartment so Lourianne could shower and get settled in, but unfortunately our lack of sense of direction got us lost. We finally just went back to the AUR, waited a while at a table in the garden patio, and then went into our next class (Ancient life in Rome).

Dr. Nichols is probably the most laid back professor I've had since coming to UF--this is not a complaint! He introduced us to the class and got started on our first lesson. We learned about Roman emperors, different types of columns (corinthian, ionic and doric) and the foundation of Rome. Despite what my heavy eyes and drooping head would have told someone, I could tell I was going to enjoy this class during the next month and a half.

After class, my roommates and I [again] attempted to find our way back to our apartment, [again] got lost, but eventually found our way back. Did I mention we took 6 flights of stairs up a hill to get to class that morning? Well, we couldn't seem to find these stairs again to make it home until we later found them hiding behind some orange road construction lining-- this was frustrating, but it's all apart of the experience, right?

That afternoon/night my roommates and I went to the Simply super market down the street to get a few groceries. It was quite the experience-- trying to determine where the vanilla yogurt was (the one I got was NOT vanilla yogurt..), what type of meat looked the most similar to turkey, what block of cheese to get (they don't make slices it seems like) and how to pay for and bag your items when you check out-- They don't bag your items for you, you have to do it yourself (quickly or the people behind you get impatient), you have to purchase grocery bags if you want one (although not expensive, where are all my reusable bags when I need them?!) and I got a dirty look for trying to pay for my 23 euro worth of groceries with a 20 and 10. The cashier wanted a smaller bill, which I didn't have, but luckily Jordan spotted me. I don't even think I ate dinner that night, just some Miel Pops (Kellog's Italian version of cheerios). I caught up with my parents and Andrew, started watching an episode of The Office (l'ufficio) until I noticed the $42 spam charge on my bank statements and finally headed to bed after a hour of trying to figure out how to deal with it (sorry, daddy).

Tuesday was a crazy day to say the least. Not necessarily in a bad way, though.

Wednesday went much smoother. I got up, got ready-- did I mention my straightener doesn't work with my converter? there's been a lot of pony tails going on... luckily, though, I just bought one from the convenient store next door that is compatible with European outlets. Yay for straight hair!-- and made my way to class with my roommates and a few other girls.

Italian went well, and for my Anceint life in Rome class (culture class for future reference) we went on [a shorter version of] the Roman Holiday walk! On this walk we saw the Circus Maximus, the Theatre of the Celtz, [part of] an ancient healing spot, an ancient burial site turned church (chiesa), a church and the top of Aventine hill-- Rome has 7 (sette) hills: the Aventine, Capitoline, Paletine, Caelian, Esquiline, Quirinaline, and Viminal hill.-- This was the part of the tour I liked the most. On top of the hill you were able to see the entire city of Rome. It was beautiful! However, my most favorite part of the entire tour was the view from this key hole on a door on top of the Aventine hill. Through it you can see a walk way of trees that form almost what looks like a tunnel that a train goes through (but much more beautiful, obviously) and at the end you can see the dome (the top) of St. Peter's Basilica (the Vatican). It was the most beautiful thing I have seen in Rome thus far.

After the tour was over, a few of my program-mates I guess you could call them, went walking around downtown Rome. We got gelati-- my first authentic Italian gelato was hazelnut and a custard cream. It was delicious!-- ate dinner at this quiant restaurant down the street (via) where I had my first authentic Italian spaghetti and wine! They were both delicious, but again, nothing extraordinary-- I am going to have to keep looking for this AMAZING Italian food!-- And then we made our way to the Vatican where we saw St. Peter's Basilica. Let me tell you something...while I have not seen the basilica during the day time yet, seeing it at dusk is incredible! It's lit up beautifully, the weather is cool and the [country] is empty enough so that you're not overwhelmed by tourists. It was the perfect way to end the day.

We then made our way back to the tram station to go back to our apartments and get ready for bed. I slept happily that night. :)

The next day, Thursday, was the 4th of July! Everyone at the AUR that morning was dressed in their red, white and blue except me who wore my pink Old Navy workout top and black running shorts since I was feeling very under the weather by at that point. Class went well and after I made my way home, stopping at the Farmacia (pharmacy) next door to get some cold medicine. The pharmicist spoke enough english to understand what I needed and sold me some Vick's flu medicine.

It was a nice relaxing night in for me unlike my trip-mates (there, is that better?) who were going out to "The Drunken Ship" (an American bar downtown) to celebrate the holiday. I figured I could really use the rest for our first day trip the next day and my upcoming trip to Cinque Terre over the weekend! I will get to that later, though, since it's now 4 and I have a tour of the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill at 4:40!

Ciao for now! Parlare presto con te!

Cassidy