Week One in Rome (GL 350)

One week.  One week is all it took to literally fall in love with Rome! We left Walsh University on Saturday, October 20th and arrived in Rome on Sunday the 21st.  It was the longest plane ride I have ever been on and let me tell you it was less than fun.  We “slept” for a little while on the plane but it was probably a collective hour and a half of rest.  Once we landed in Rome we went to baggage claim to retrieve our bags.  Once Denilo, a member of our Rome staff, grabbed almost every piece of our luggage, we ran to catch the train to immigration and customs.  Not everyone caught the train, which was nerve-wracking.  It was then that we discovered that Italian transportation waits for no one.  Once we were all back together we walked through immigration and got our passports stamped.  It was the first stamp I’d ever gotten on my passport so it was pretty cool.  We went through customs next, which went flawlessly; that surprised me a little bit.  Outside customs we waited for our drivers to come pick us up and deliver us to campus.  When they finally arrived we had to walk to the vans and then configure a TON of luggage and people into vans.  The drive to campus was beautiful!  Everything about Rome is beautiful.  When we arrived to campus we unloaded our stuff, received the keys to our dorm room and piled our luggage into the elevator and went to our rooms.  Katie (my roommate) and I live in the room right across from the balcony.  It has a beautiful view of the surrounding town and the land that the brothers own.  Once we got situated and found a home for everything in our tiny room we had to go to orientation.  Orientation was a little rough, considering we had been up for almost 36 hours, but we made it through!  After that they decided to walk us up to Castel Gandolfo, the town at the top of the hill a little ways from campus.  The hill was no joke, a 45 degree angle all the way up.  We huffed and puffed our way to the top and got to see the pope’s summer home, the beautiful lake, the church where we were invited to mass, and the world’s first mailbox!  The mass was optional and Katie and I were exhausted from travelling and the hike so we walked back down to campus, a harder feat than one would imagine.  We ate dinner as a “family” that night and discussed the next day.   

Monday was our first day of class with Professor and getting up for an 8am class after being up for so many hours was difficult.  We talked about Rome and the syllabus and got our textbooks.  After class we gathered our things and walked to the Villeta train station to catch the train into Rome.  The ride was about 45 minutes and then we arrived into the Roma Termini train station.  We met at our meeting spot and learned all about Termini from Denilo, Mike and Professor.  Once their instruction was over we were set loose to explore and find food.  Our first time ordering food in Italy was funny, exciting and scary all at the same time.  It also included a lot of pointing!  We then got to experience our first time on the metro.  It was crowded, or so we thought, and we got off at the Colosseo stop.  Literally right when you exited the metro, the Colosseum was right there, big and beautiful.  Like in our reading from The Smiles of Rome had said, it had once been the largest piece of architecture in the world.  It was massive from across the street and it was even more massive up close!  After our tour of the Colosseum we got a tour of the Roman Forum.  It was the hub of activity back in the ancient times, a place for people to meet up and have any exchange imaginable.  Whether it was for business or religion the Forum was the place to be.  Once that tour was over we had some free time and then had to find our way back to campus before dinner.  Since the Italians eat dinner so late, Danielle, Amy, Emily, Katie and I went on the metro back to Termini in search of a snack.  When we got back the Termini on the metro, we didn’t exit in the right spot and ended up outside, where we found a pizza place with really nice staff that got us the food we craved.

Tuesday we started our Italian class! We learned how to say our names, where we lived, and that we were students.  We went Campo di Fiori on bus 64 after we got off the train.  If we thought the metro was crowded the day before, we were sadly mistaken.  The bus is the main bus around Rome and it was a sardine can of people.  It also smelled because not everyone had showered that day apparently and there was no AC so we just sweated our way to the piazza.  We saw our first open air markets there and learned who to buy from and who to avoid.  After that we went on a walking tour of the Jewish ghetto which Professor and Denilo led.  It was pretty cool and we got to see a whole different part of Rome.  Once the tour was over we all went back to campus to nap, shower and do homework before dinner. 

On Wednesday we went into Albano Laziale.  It is a small town one train stop away from Viletta.  We went there to go to the police station to get our visas for our two month stay in Italy.  Since Wednesdays are our free days, we went and explored Albano for a while before heading back to campus.  Katie and I did our first loads of laundry on Wednesday and it was rather interesting figuring out which buttons did what because it was all in Italian.

Thursday was when we went and saw the Baths of Caracalla.  These were like work out arenas back in the ancient times.  They had hot baths and cold baths which were almost steam room type things.  It was pretty interesting.  Then we took the metro to Barbarini where we learned about the history and making of gelato.  After that Mike took us to a gelato place and treated us all to gelato.  I got nutella and tiramisu flavored gelato, it was so good! We explored after that and made our way, somehow to the Spanish Steps where all the expensive shops are.  We got to walk in Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and so many more it was amazing! 

Friday Amy, Emily and Katie all left for Paris early in the morning and Danielle and I went on a shopping trip to Rome.  It was so much fun and we got all kinds of cute stuff.  My favorite purchase was my Ray Ban sunglasses!  All in all my first week abroad has been jam packed and so much fun, I cannot wait to see what next week has in store. Stay tuned!

Colosseum