On routine things

On sunday, we went to the Roman forum, which was amazing. I'm going to make a separate post about that, since my phone is charging in the other room and it has all my pictures on it. But the forum was absolutely breathtaking. It also gave me a minor existential crisis, but that's a post for another day.

Since then I've been plugging away pretty steadily at my schoolwork. Nothing too glamorous. Lots of reading. Today I decided I wanted to go to the café next door to try some Italian hot chocolate (supposedly it's divine) but when I went there before class, it was super packed and I had really hoped for a quiet place to read. So I decided to do that another day and just took a nice leisurely walk to class.

On the way, I stopped by a Tabacchi. They're these little shops and you can find one on almost every block. Technically they're tobacco shops, but they almost function as gas station-type shops. They sell phone cards, lotto tickets, bus passes, stamps, pens, lighters, candy, and other things like that. I needed some stamps so I finally got to pick those up.

Letter writing is an expensive hobby here. Stamps are the same price as a cheap bottle of wine. So I probably won't be writing too many letters while I'm here, unfortunately.

However, cinema club has its first meeting tomorrow and I'm excited about that. I tried yoga club and it just wasn't for me so it'll be nice to have something else. Also they have a literary journal here, which I'm thinking about writing for.

Speaking of writing, my writer's block seems to have vanished entirely since I arrived here. Motivation is a cruel and fickle mistress when it comes to writing. So, naturally, when I was home with time on my hands, I couldn't write a word. But now once I'm here and busy with no time for writing, my muse returns. It's funny like that.

My nose has been really stuffy all day, however, and I wonder if it's my turn to be sick. One of my roommates was sick last week and I suppose it had to happen eventually.