(Edit: This post was drafted and delayed, since we had a problem with the Wi-fi in our apartment.)
This post will likely be short, since I’m super jet lagged
and exhausted.
We arrived at Rome today- me and my roommates. There’s six
of us. Three are from Central, three aren’t, but we all seem to get along just
fine. The rooms are really nice. Lots of storage space. My room has a view of
the balconies across the way, and it seems like everyone has a garden. It’s fun
to see.
So we get to Rome, get settled in at our apartment (after
being terrified of our driver) and after a few hours, we all decide to go on
this Rome walk tour thing hosted by the university.
Well, the maps are impossible to read, and the streets in
Rome aren’t like the streets in the US. The US is all squares and numbers-
Roman streets hardly ever stay in a straight line for long, so it’s hard to say
“well follow this street until here” because you’ve got to switch streets nine
times.
So we get lost. Pretty darn lost.
It’s dark out, about five? We set out early, figuring we
could find AUR by then. At some point we asked a florist if he could help us
find out road. It quickly became obvious that he spoke very little English, and
we spoke even less Italian, so we got some information from him through a
combination of pointing, pantomime, and a few key nouns.
We stayed lost and finally decided to ask for help again.
This time we asked a restaurant owner behind the counter. He didn’t speak
English very well, but an employee did, and he helped us.
We finally find the campus, after an hour-and-a-half of
walking. At that point we have a half hour left before the walk, and we’d been
planning to get some food before we got lost. So we quickly nipped down to a
nearby fast-style pizza place, and I had my first Italian pizza! It was two
squares of pizza, pressed into each other like sandwich bread and wrapped in
paper so it could be eaten on the go.
I didn’t see any familiar pizzas, so I pointed to something
that looked good and said that one, per
favore. I still don’t know what it was, but it had ham and different
cheeses and lettuce, I think? It was really delicious, whatever it was. And it
was only about €2,50
and a filling meal so I see why it does so well with the students.
We finished our pizzas and went for the walk, which was a
sightseeing/history tour through Rome. It was so bizarre, seeing this modern
stuff, and then ruins or old-style towns tucked in the back like a hidden
pocket. Or seeing modern, trendy shops right across the street from ancient
ruins. We even saw the coliseum!
And now I’m home. We wanted to get some food for breakfast
but we’re all still completely drained from the time adjustment, lack of sleep,
and walking all day. My feet are killing me.
