First Days in Rome

---

So I have been in Rome for about a day and a half now, and it is great!

The flight was good, I flew Alitalia out of Newark. I sat next to an Italian teenager who was wearing emo clothes and listening to her iPod shuffle at a really loud volume. The guy in front of me was a professional sleeper who had a really crazy sleeping mask with holsters on the side for earplugs. He reclined his seat all the way about ten minutes into the flight and left it that way the whole time. I didn't sleep at all and I listened to Patton Oswalt, SModcast, and Gnarls Barkley for most of the flight. I put the Hangover on on my iPod, and the girl next to me took her headphones out, and asked "Ze Hangover?" in a very thick accent and I said yes. She said she liked it and thought is was very funny.

Yesterday I landed at 7:15am and we took a bus from the tarmac to the airport. From there, a lot of people got on connecting flights, but I went through passport control and went to get my bag. The luggage carousel took a really long time to get moving, and we waited about 20 minutes at least to get our bags.

From there I went through customs and I didn't think that I had anything to claim, so I just went out. The cab booth was right outside the exit and there was faculty from Temple Rome waiting for us. There is a young Italian who works for Temple named Gianni and he is very personable. He showed us to the shuttle driver and the shuttle driver took us out to the van.

There were ads for Jeep on the airport, and I liked that. There's a lot of Jeep Grand Cherokees out here, probably the most of any American car. The rest are little European cars, like FIATs and others. We passed an Alfa Romeo dealership on our way to the Residence. There is a bit of countryside around Fiumicino, or the Leonardo Da Vinci airport, and then it goes to the cityscape.

The Residence is in Aurelia, a section of Rome. To get to the Temple Rome campus, we walk down this one long street which I will try to identify later. The walk is about 35 minutes or so. The drivers in Rome are nuts. There are a lot of scooters and everything on the street goes very fast. Smart cars are very popular, but so are Audis and Jeeps.

I got in the Residence around 11am. The apartment is small. There is one room with three beds, a single (which I got) and a bunk bed. There is a main living room which is pretty sizable and it has a kind of sunbed which we might end up using if the bedroom gets too crowded. The bathroom is nice, and has a bidet which I'm sure will get a lot of action. The shower is good.

So I got in the apartment, put my things down, and read some of the literature they left for us. I wanted to go get some water or something (I had been up for around 20 hours or so at this point) and I didn't want to leave until my roommates came so I stayed in the room and read for a while. Then I took a nap. I woke up then took a shower.

I went downstairs to go to Temple for this pizza party thing. There were a lot of kids getting ready to go and I went with them in this huge group. The weather was so mild and nice yesterday. You just need a jacket and nothing else.

We can see St. Peter's on our walk to campus, and we cross the Tiber River. I still can't believe I'm in Rome.

The Temple Rome building is a very nice facility that is very modern. The pizza was nice and thin, and was square, like a Sicilian pizza, but thin crust. I had a slice with peppers and a slice with ham. I talked with some people I met on the shuttle and some other people that I just ran into at the pizza party.

I walked back with two guys to the apartment who go to Temple, so we talked about our schools a lot. I got back to the apartment and there were a bunch of bags in there so I figured my roommates showed up. They were not in the apartment, however. I read for a bit, and then Dan Diamond came in the room. He had been at the Temple Rome party late. He goes to Temple, and sadly is a Phillies/Eagles fan. I am a Yankees/Giants fan, but what can you do? He knows our other roommate, Matt, who was out all day yesterday because his bags got left at Heathrow.

Some girls came over to our apartment and we drank wine and talked for a bit. I was pretty zonked because I slept 2 hours in the past 26, so I was really quiet. Honestly, the ratio of girls to guys is unfair. There's so many girls here. I'm not complaining.

Dan went out to the bar with other people, but I needed to sleep so I just went in bed. I slept so hard. I woke up when Dan started to unpack, and I met Matt when I was half-asleep.

I woke up at 8:30 this morning to shower and go to this meeting for school. I went to campus with Dan, Olivia, and Shannon, and we had these meetings. Then we had lunch at the school which was little sandwiches on these great rolls. They were all out of salami and mortadella when I had my turn so I only got ham, but the ham was amazing. The food is great here, I wish it was like that in America.

We walked back and stopped in the market. There is a lot of great stuff in there, and the place is huge. Then we went to the supermarket by our apartments and I got a bunch of food to stock up the apartment. Fresh cheese, a bunch of oranges, all good things. We stopped at a Tabaccheria to get calling cards, but they were all sold out.

I walked back with Shannon and we had to carry all these bags, but we made it back alright.

We got back in, and since then, we got the internet working on our computers (huzzah) and I am going to upload some pictures and stuff, so maybe I can spice up this entry a bit later.

Tonight, I have plans to see the Spanish Steps and some other things, so we'll see how it goes.

---

Comments

[mbc]

great blog
cool blog. so informative. will be printing it out.