Advertisement
Published: November 12th 2008
Edit Blog Post
St. Peter's Square
Right in my neighborhood. When in Rome
I wake up every morning, look outside my 6th story bedroom window and see the walls of Vatican City. I walk outside down my street, walk 3 blocks, and I enter Vatican City. Being a newly confirmed Catholic, this is very cool. I can go and stroll in St. Peter’s square whenever. No big.
I love Rome! I have 5 new fabulous roommates with who I share laughs, tears, and many, many adventures. My roommates in Athens were okay, but I click much, much better with the girls I live with now.
Rome does presents a few challenges that we did not find in Athens. For instance, we do not all live within 5 minutes of each other. My apartment is about 20 minutes from all of the guys in our group, but the other nine girls in our group live way over by our school (about 40 minutes away). It is a shame, but because of classes and weekend trips we find ourselves seeing each other a lot.
Another challenge is our school in general. Our school in Athens was great; I would even venture to say it was fancy. Our school here, Dilit
Bridge
This is the closest place to go running by my apartment. People look at you like you are crazy just running on the streets. International House, is a language school, not an academic institution. Therefore, it has really short hours, computers that aren’t sophisticated enough to even let us check our email, tiny classrooms, and short wireless internet hours. Lame.
One huge challenge that we also recently found out about is the fact that we were never issued Student visas. Our school was going to get them for us, however failed to do so. We thought it wasn’t the biggest deal ever; however recent events have told us that we may have to reconsider this. One thing that really made the alarm bells ring is that some of the money our school was going to use to get our visas is now set aside for people who may get in trouble and may need to be bailed out. Hmm… Alarm bell 2 is that the director of the Roman-Greco program left the program to go home, because he had been questioned when going from country to country and did not want to risk a scholarship he had. Alarm bell 3 is that the fee for overstaying 90 days in Europe is 50 DOLLARS A DAY. By the time I leave Europe I will
street art
There are very impressive ways try to earn money. Hey, I couldn't do that. be here almost a month over that, which is thousands of dollars of fines. Also, I also found out there are some countries, such as Switzerland, that we are not going to be allowed to go to at all. Besides fines, there are much harsher punishments that could be given, such as being banned from Europe for years…So, we may have to rethink our after travel plans. I am extremely upset about this, because the Office of Education Abroad should have just made us get our own visas. Nothing is official yet, and we are supposed to be getting a letter from St. Ben’s/St. John’s soon with more information. I will keep you updated on this sticky situation.
On a lighter note, Rome is absolutely beautiful. It is a much prettier city than Athens. It feels A LOT larger than Athens, even though Athens has a larger population. I have also found that people are friendlier here. I have made friends with the people in the coffee shop next door, the pizza shop next door, and the fresh fruit stand across the street. For example, last week the coffee shop man stopped traffic with the whistle he randomly had
fountain
The name is escaping me... in his pocket so that my roomie Bridget and I could cross the street.
Classes here are more intense than in Greece. My favorite class is Italian. We have a great teacher named Luisa, who only talks in Italian to us. We have already four times the amount of Italian that we ever learned of Greek. We see her 4 hours a week , and she makes it really fun. One generalization I am going to make is that professors here are more blunt about the fact that they dislike America.
For example, here are some direct quotes from my history teacher Jan (Yawn):
“I am proud to say I am not Italian. I am even more proud to say that I am not American” That is how he introduced himself to us.
Just yesterday..”Alright you Midwesterners, now look at this building. Try and be creative, even though you are Midwesterners and never vote right.” (Talking about the fact that the Midwest generally votes conservatively)
People here are VERY liberal. They love the fact that Obama got elected. My art history teacher Paolo said that he can now go back to America once Bush gets out of office…
wedding cake
We call this the wedding cake. The Romans hate this building; they think it is super ugly. I personally agree with them... My parents are arriving in Rome today for about six days, and I cannot wait to see them and show them around where I live! We are going to hang around Rome, but take a day trip to Pompeii on Friday, with a stop in Naples for a few hours.
Xoxo Ciao
Advertisement
Tot: 0.238s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 6; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0433s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb