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The weekdays are usually filled with class, naps, eating delicious food and minimal homework. Last Tuesday consisted of all of my roommates not going to class and we literally did not leave the apartment all day… I have become pretty useless here. It is weird to not be constantly busy like I am back in the states. Luckily I only have class three days a week so I start my weekends Wednesday nights. Most weekends in Rome consist of museums, shopping, eating and baking. I do the best I can with the limited ingredient selections we have here. My cookies, tiramisu and pies are usually always a bit of an experiment. We have moved up in the world recently because we now have a…..HAND MIXER! Whooo! No more whipping whipped cream with a fork!
Last weekend my roommate Julie and I decided to be productive and go for a run in the park near my house. I apparently had some pent up energy because I have not run that well or far in a long time. The best part was getting to run by beautiful churches, gardens and villas scattered throughout the park. Sometimes I find the things I am doing to be unbelievable yet I am becoming so desensitized to them. It is sad.
I did renew my love for Rome this past Tuesday. The morning started with Julie and I waking up to pouring rain and darkness. Side note: when it rains here, Rome becomes a flooded traffic jam for most of the day. So waking up to rain did not help the fact that we were about to head across the entire city to meet our Art History class to tour some churches (what a surprise…). Each Tuesday we meet at a different piece of art or architecture in Rome and get to learn detailed history of them. The week before we all got to give presentations on the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. How cool is that?
We started out on our trek through the center of the city on two different public buses during rush hour. Sounds fun, huh? The traffic was way worse than we expected so we ended up getting to our meeting point (a street lamp) 30 minutes late. Well to no surprise the bus stop was not close to the piazza and once we got to the piazza there were about 10 street lamps, great. We didn't see our class anywhere so we started to look in EVERY church in the area. The class was nowhere to be found. We even attempted to ask the people working if they had seen a "gruppo di studenti" (group of students). Everyone's answer was "No" with a confused look on his or her face. Language barrier fail.
After snapping some pictures to prove we had tried to get to class, we gave up. Since we had traveled all the way over to the other side of town we decided to stay and explore. We grabbed a good old McDonald's cappuccino since it is the only type of coffee that we could take to go. I cannot express how excited I will be when I can get a giant coffee and walk around with it back in the states! We then ran across a bunch of clothing and shoe stores, uh oh! The morning started to take a turn up when I found a pair of boots that I had been looking at for weeks. Score! We continued to walk around the area finding new little streets that we didn't know existed. We even found an adorable little hole-in-the-wall trattoria where we got a quick panino. We also attempted to order the "toast" that was on the menu. We were really excited considering we haven't eaten toast in months. We ended up with tiny pieces of toasted bread, they were basically croutons. The plus side was that they were served with butter, a rare find in restaurants here.
We ended the morning with a quick stroll past the Coliseum and Roman Forum on our way back to the bus. Although the morning turned out completely different than we thought it would, it renewed my love for Rome. It is the completely unexpected adventures on a random weekday that I will remember forever. Days like this make me remember how lucky I am to be having this experience.
Ciao!
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