The second day, we woke up super early since we had to get our AUR id's that would let us in the front gate. After we got our id's trista showed us this amazing sandwich shop right around the corner from aur. The Romans (not italians) were so nice to us in there. They gave us free samples of their crumbly parmesan cheese. I've learned that if you try and speak italian when ordering things, it makes the interaction with them a lot better. They are a lot nicer to you. After the sandwiches we had our first walking tour of rome.

We took the bus all the way until it ended which was at the Victor Emanuel statues, also known as the wedding cake. Italians don't really like it because it's so big and obnoxious, and doesn't really fit in with the rest of the architecture of rome, it's fairly new too. We had this girl tour guide who has lived in rome for 7 years and she's a professor at some university. She had a master mic and we all walked around with headphones in our ear so we could hear her.

During the tour, we walked past the temple of hercules, some really old buildings, a sign that showed us how much rome was buried after the flooding of the river, the jewish ghetto, the places that Mussolini built (you could tell she really didn't like him) and Trastevere. After we went to Piazza Navona which I remember very well from my previous trip to Rome because it's very famous and has all the street vendors selling purses, paintings, drawings, characturs (spelling?) and there are huge fountains that are pretty amazing. And thennnnnn we went to the Pantheon and even though I've been there before, it still amazes me. It's just so big, and it's in the middle of this tiny town, it's amazing how you just turn a corner and it's there! We then went to this gelato place that our tour guide said she liked a lot but I have to say that I didn't care for it much and Tom said there were a lot better places around Rome haha. But then by that time I had a headache, my teeth were aching (since I got my wisdom teeth and a cavity out right before going to rome) and my feet hurt so a couple of us went home after the tour and slept, something that I was feeling very deprived of lately :)

The next day we had to wake up pretty early again since we had the aur orientation. It was basically an overview of what we've been told by Tom thousands of times....don't go home with a stranger, keep your money in a safe place, make sure you walk home with someone at night (especially girls), be respectful to italians and their quiet hours.......it goes on for awhile. After the orientation we had about 2 hours before our first class so a couple of us decided to go to the park right down the street from AUR. The second we walked in I was in love, it's sooooo pretty. I would later find out a second entrance when I ran through the park and would discover how big it is! It was amazing, we all sat down and relaxed for awhile and then the rest of the group left to go get food and me and kyle explored a little more before getting lost and going out this random exit, but both of us happened to be directionally smart so we found our way back. I realized how handy having direction capabilities is here. We then went to this pizza place across the street from the sandwich shop and got pizza that they bring straight out of the oven, cut up, fold it in half, and give it to you like a sandiwch. I got tomato, mozzarella, and basil(i think?) it's called a margarita pizza after st. margarite that made the national colors of italy (red, white and green), of course italy's colors are after food. The picture for this blog is the pizza I got. It was amazing, and I planned to go back there. After we had our first class and tom talked a lot about our presentations we would have to do and then we went home and slept. That night we went out again as a huge group to you guessed it, the drunken ship. After that night I vowed to not go there again because it was sooooooo american.