The past 2 days haven't been that exciting. Monday was my first day of class. I only had Italian at 2:00. Olivia and I walked over to the cafe right down the street from JCU and got cafe latte and sandwiches. I got a capresse sandwich and there was ham in it but I did not know that before I ordered it. I never eat ham but I guess when in Rome....eat ham? My Italian class isn't to hard. It is only an hour and 40 min Monday-Thursday. So far I can say my name is, your name is, her/his name is, our names our, their names are, how I am feeling (good, bad, not too bad, etc), ask someone how they are feeling, and how to greet people in different situations. Olivia and I took an adventure to the book store to get our books for Italian. It is downtown right beyond the Trevi Fountain. It is very cool how they have all these modern things with these ancient archeological ruins in the middle. And the residents of Rome walk by it as if it is just another cafe or shop. Olivia is like me in that she loves to read. This bookstore was very dangerous place for us to be. It is an American bookstore where John Cabot just orders its books too. We tried really hard not to spend any money but we couldn't resist. I got one book and Olivia got two. We took the tram back to our apartments, picked up Brittany, Sam and Rebecca and headed to the market. We got some chicken and salad for dinner. Olivia, Brittany and I went back to Olivia's apartment to cook dinner. We made chicken with salad and Rebecca made some tomatoes with mozzarella cheese and balsamic vinaigrette. We took their little table out onto the balcony and set it up with pillows and ate on the floor. It was so cute. We bought a bottle of wine for like one euro and 50 cents and had that with dinner. Afterwards I went back to my apartment to shower and when I went back to the other apartment we all watched Angels and Demons while snacking on nutella, cheese, and crackers. We called it an early night because we had to be up at 8am for class.
Today, Tuesday, at 830am my whole apartment and all of the other apartment met downstairs to head to class. My Tues/Thurs class is the Ancient Rome class and its 4 hours. We spent 2 hours going over the syllabus and 2 hours starting our walking tour of Rome. Each week we meet somewhere else to learn about whatever place we meet at. For example, one day we meet at the colosseum and we learn all about the colosseum and the buildings around it that day. Today we walked by the area we live in. We went to 2 of the oldest standing churches (one of them is a church in honor of Hercules) and a new archeological site, which is only open certain hours of the day because they are still working on it, that used to be a theater. What is really cool is that all of modern Rome has incorporated history into its structure. For example, there are apartments on top of the theater. Also, marble and other material from ancient Rome is used to build other buildings are is transported to another Roman site and preserved there.
It is approximately 34593508 degrees in Rome. I could've taken a bath in my own sweat. I was dying. I carried around this HUGE bottle of water and finished the whole thing. The class ended at 1 and I had Italian at 2. Olivia and I got back to John Cabot in time to get some iced cafe from the little shop down the street. I was pretty much dying in Italian. Tuesdays and Thursdays are going to be rough days for me.
After Italian Olivia, Sam and I walked over to a bookstore near our apartment to get the book we need for our Ancient Rome class. Speaking of, we are required to do an oral report and Brittany, Olivia and I signed up for the first topic so we have to be ready by Tuesday. We are going to Switzerland this weekend so it is going to be a little stressful but at least it will be done. We are going to stay in tomorrow and just get at least a good portion of it put together. I digress, this bookstore is another American bookstore and Olivia and I were like "uh-oh." We bought the book we needed and hauled ass out of there before we bought any pleasure reading books. Bookstores are dangerous places for us.
It turns out our original Interlachen trip was cancelled because not enough people signed up so when I got back Brittany and I got online and planned our own trip. We booked the hostel, tomorrow morning we are getting up early with Olivia and Rebecca to go to the train station and see what our options are. We WILL make this trip work. At 6:30 Brittany and I had a wine tasting class at JCU. It ended at about 8:30. Rebecca and Olivia met us on campus and the four of us walked around town to find a restaurant to eat at. We stopped at a cute place off a side street of a piazza. I got gnocchi (pronounced yo-ki: its like round pasta stuffed with potatoes.) With mussels and clams. It was pretty cheap. With all our meals plus a bottle of wine the whole thing was about 10 euros a person. After dinner the four of us got gelato (of course) and walked over to Campo de Fiore to meet up with the boys at a bar. Oddly enough, I ran into Jeffery Pertnoy (I don't know how to spell) and Adam Rosen's older brother (I can't remember his name). That was pretty exciting. They are in Rome doing a traveling study abroad with UMiami law school. Olivia, Rebecca, Brittany and I danced around one of the bars like idiots so once everyone started giving us weird stares we decided that was our cue to leave. We went to a hookah bar and just chilled for a while. And now I am here at 2:15am updating my blog. I got to talk to Dina and Sara tonight which was exciting, I haven't spoken to them in a while. I miss home but I LOVE Rome! I would be perfectly happy doing another semester here.
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