Catching Up

I can't believe I've been in Rome for almost a week! It feels like I've been here longer (in a good way), probably because we've been kept so busy and so much has happened. So fair warning, this post will be a novel of my first six days in Rome.

My last American meal was at Chili's in the airport with some other junior SLU PT's: Dana, Evana, Amy, and my lovely roommate Caitie. I had a big greasy burger with fries because I figured I would miss that in Rome. The flight to Dusseldorf wasn't bad at all. Caitie and I of course had some red wine with our plane dinner and fell asleep watching movies. After landing in Dusseldorf, we were headed to Rome! We got to the JFRC around two or three in the afternoon and hit the ground running by filling out paperwork right away. Talk about jet lag..I still might be feeling it a little bit. Our campus is beautiful. It's on the highest hill in Rome, Monte Mario, even though it isn't considered one of the 7 hills of Rome. It is quite a trek uphill. Our school used to be a convent, so it's very peaceful, and has paper thin walls. The neighborhood around us is very affluent and our next door neighbor is a millionaire who's on house arrest (word on the street-haha). Even here, a Roman guest speaker mentioned how fortunate we are to have closets in our room and a cafeteria, because at her local university, they don't.

After unpacking, we tagged along with some people around the neighborhood in search of our first gelato, which was worth staying awake for! I even met some APO brothers from Eastern University. There are alot of people from California here, and about half are from Loyola Chicago. There are about 12 people from SLU here.

On Thursday and Friday during the day, we had sessions about staying safe, traveling, Italian culture and Italian language refreshers. Thursday night we had an official welcome convocation in our beautiful courtyard with champagne! After this, we headed downtown for a scavenger hunt. Downtown Rome is about 20-30 minutes by bus. After taking like three pictures, my group decided we were just going to have fun with the scavenger hunt and not take it seriously. We walked from St. Peter's to the ending point at the Colosseum, which is about 7 miles (we stopped for gelato on the way). Afterwards, we joined a group of students from Loyola, Chicago for pizza near the pantheon. When we got there, the owner opened the restaurant just for us, and gave us a very big discount (he was alittle drunk). We got four pizzas and two bottles of wine for about 7 euro's a person, and he threw in 4 bottles of free dessert wine which was probably the best wine I've ever had. His name was Michael Angelo and was wearing a grand canyon shirt. He loved Americans, and gave us his card and told us to come back and visit. After this we headed to a dance party on the Tiber River. The tents were filled with all kinds of people and old American music. It was a good time. So good that we went back Friday and Saturday night :).
Before going to the river on Friday night, we had a group dinner in the neighborhood for 25 euro. It was a four course meal that lasted about four hours. We were full by the time the main course arrived but got our 25 euro's worth of wine and beer which just kept coming. We had olives, bruschetta, salami, pastrami, bread, two kinds of pasta, salad, chicken, and nutella crepes for dessert.
Saturday we went to the Roman Forum and Collosseum. I had been to both of these places before, but it was still nice to "rome" around them. That night we went for some wine with 8 other girls at a local restaurant called Cucina and Cantina. We made friends with the manager who joined us for a glass of wine and told us of some of the best places to go. We went to the river for the last night that it was open for the summer. After that we headed to a club called Mood and danced until about four, so we got back to school around five.

On Sunday, we spent a day at Macarese Beach, which is about 45 minutes away. It was rainy and chilly all day but that didn't stop me from swimming in the Mediteranean Ocean. The water was very warm and salty, but it was freezing once we got out. It would have been so much fun to be there on a nice day as the resort was absolutely beautiful, but we made the best of it. The weather has been so hot here, this was my first experience being cold in Rome. Usually at night we sleep with the windows open and in our sport's bras.

Monday was the start of classes. But not for Caitie and me :) we managed to not have classes on Monday. So we enjoyed our Labor Day by going to the grocery store and stocking up on some of the things we need and doing a little shopping in Piazza Cavona. Monday night we went with a group of people to Zodiac Hill, which is a lookout spot over all of Rome. It was incredible at night, being above the whole city and seeing all the lights.

Today was my first day of class, and so far, I think that I'm going to like them. I've also signed up to be an English tutor, so hopefully I'll get that and that'll will leave me with a little extra spending money.

Peace, Love, and Pasta,
Until again,
Kate