Bienvenuti!

I arrived to Rome on Sunday Jan. 4th. The following accounts are emails I sent to my mom before I created the Blog*. However, now that I have this blog, I will be posting here instead of sending emails so everyone can share my experiences!

*It will be in present tense so assume it is that day.

Sunday Jan. 4, 2009

I arrived to Rome safe and sound. It is so cool here! It's not what I expected, but it's not worse than what I expected either. Today was such a long day! It's 9:30pm right now while you guys are just in the middle of your day! I've only had a 1 hour nap (which means I've been up for 1 day and 1/2)...so exhausted and sooo sick...I had a fever on the plane so the flight attendant gave me asprin. It helped for a little bit but I've been pushing myself through the day and it's been really tough. My throat is killing me!!! Im going to take nyquil before I hit the bed, but if Im not better by tomorrow then I'll go to the pharmacy and get antibiotics (we dont need prescriptions for those here, thank God!). But don't worry, I'm still having a good time.

So, today we arrived and I was surprised to notice that I was probably the lightest packed out of almost everyone (one boy brought a backpack and suitcase so he beat me) but it was still hard pulling it around...luckily that was only for a short period of time lol. After getting settled into the dorm rooms, which we'll be staying in until Tuesday, we had orientation and explored the neighborhood surrounding the school. It is very beautiful. It's a Sunday so a lot of things were closed, but we bought some food at a bar (snack bar of course) and it was delicious! I got a pizza unlike any other pizza I've ever tasted (yum!).

After that I took my one hour nap until the 2nd part of orientation in which we had a walking tour of Rome. We walked for about 4 hours from one end of Rome to the other. It was so amazing, so gorgeous, so...Italy! I felt I was ready to die because of my throat, but it was great. I didn't want to take a lot of pics though, because I wanted to just absorb the environment. So many things are different. After the tour we FINALLY went to dinner around 6:30pm (which is not the typical time for Italian dinner, usually around 8:30pm, but we'd been starving). Dinner was delicious, but again, the food was really scratching my throat so I couldn't really enjoy that. However, I am glad I came...just wish I hadn't arrived arrive sick :(

Tuesday Jan. 6, 2009

OMG! The past two days have been great! So much to tell...gotta b quick tho cuz dinner starts soon. Soooo where to start? ok I'll start with yesterday...

Yesterday I got a nice 12hrs of sleep hahaha I got to wake up at 10:30am. We had a short orientation and then went walking around Rome again. This time we went to Italiaidea which is the name of the school we will be having our 3hr Italian classes, it is located near Piazza di Spagna (where the Spanish Steps are). I had to take a placement exam and basically, if I do better than the intro level of Italian, I get credits for a higher level class at Loyola. For example, I've taken up to level 104 so since I know I did well on the exam, I'll get credits at Loyola for the next level which is 201. We spent a while at Italiaidea learning about the school and stuff.

Afterwards we went to this great pizzeria which are just like a nice restaurant lol I got some antibiotics so by that time I felt a lot better. The pharmacy was AMAZING lol Don't worry, I have not overmedicated myself. The pharmacist was so helpful too, just like a doctor lol After dinner everyone went out but I still wasnt feeling completely myself so I stayed in.

Today...I went to the Epiphany (the name of the holiday) Mass, in which the pope presided in Vatican City. The mass was held in St. Peter's Basilica, which is simply stunning. In March we have an audience with the pope, in which he basically blesses everyone and their objects in the middle of the plaza (or Piaza in italian) and it's kind of like a pep rally lol.

After the mass we seperated into groups to explore the neighborhoods we'll b living in while we are here. I just arrived about an hour ago to my host family's house. It's a HUGE and GORGEOUS apartment! I have my own room and it's basically my dream bedroom lol La mia mamma italiana, Maria Pia, and her daughters, Livia (19yrs) & Agnese (16yrs) seem so lovely and I can tell we'll quickly become a family. Oh, I even have a dog named Pongo (but he's really annoying).