ROMA days 24-31

Sorry it’s been a while since my last update!

Tuesday-Friday: Nothing really special happened this school week, just plain old classes and wondering the streets of Rome. The only significant thing that happened this week was the horrible thunder storms we got on Thursday. Thursday Caitlin and I have an 8 AM class with our 9:30 Italian class right after. Well when we were getting ready for class we knew that it was raining but we didn’t think it was too bad. Not true! We walked out of the building and were immediately soaked through our rain jackets. Caitlin’s umbrella didn’t even make it to the corner to cross the street. The worst part was the fact that we had to sit in our soaking wet clothes for the next 4 hours of class. It was horrible and I think that is why I now have a cold. It was not a fun morning. The weather was a complete damper on my mood for that day. There is just something about getting completely soaked that just makes a person upset.

Saturday: on Saturday we went to Tarquinia and Civervelteri. I thought this was going to be a very boring day going to tombs and just hearing what I studied in both my anthro and art history classes again but it turned out to be a lot of fun. Although we had to get a horrible wakeup call from the hotel at 6AM it was an all in all good day. We found out on the bus ride over that we were going to stop at a beach for an hour and a half in the middle of the day so we were all pretty excited about that. Well we went to Tarquinia first. It was only about an hour and a half bus ride there so that wasn’t too bad. When we got there and split up into our groups for the tour I found out that we had out amazing anthro professor for the tour! It made the tour even better just because she adds in her random “Dead sexy” quotes. It was fantastic! We went into as many of the open tombs as we could. After the tombs we got on a bus to a museum in the city center and even that wasn’t too bad which is a great improvement from our last museum we went to. After the museum we had 20 minutes to get some lunch and be back at the bus to go to the beach! We were so excited! It had warmed up a lot by the time we got there so that was another good thing about it. W=once we got there we were like kids in a candy store! We went crazy taking off our shoes, rolling up our jeans, walking the beach, getting in the water. You name it we did it. I took so many pictures with friends and of friends. It was just a blast! For sure the best part of the weekend. We were at the beach for about an hour and a half and by the time we had to leave we were not ready for the next tour. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Civervelteri. There we changed our tour leader to the art history professor so I thought it wouldn’t be as good. As it turned out that tour was pretty fun. One of girls in my group actually said that she felt like Indiana Jones when we were going in the tombs. They were gross, creepy, and cool all at the same time. We had to climb all over the place. It was a really fun trip in general. 2 of the girls in my group decided to lay down where they would have put bodies to decay and took a picture there pretending to be dead. It was hilarious! After we got back to the hotel and everyone was so exhausted from the day. I wanted to go to scholars to watch some of the ND vs USC game but that didn’t start until around 1:30 AM so that didn’t happen. We just had a relaxing night in and hung out with some friends.

Sunday: Today it was back to the world of studying. I sykped my dad in the morning (In Indiana) because the internet was really bad in our hotel and was most likely going to go out before the night cams so I wouldn’t be able to skype my mom and brothers. I ended up going with Alex to this chicken fast food place that was kind of like a KFC to get some lunch. Then we came back to do some studying before mass at 8:00 PM in our SMC chapel. After mass Caitlin and I went out for gelato then went back to the room. I had enough internet to be able to skype chat my mom but that was it. It wasn’t as good as hearing my family’s voices but it was better than nothing.

Monday and Tuesday: Today was just plain old school. Midterms are all in the next couple of weeks depending on the class so a lot of review was happening. I had a religious studies quiz/test on Tuesday and it had to be the easiest religion test I had ever taken! Tonight I’m studying for my philo midterm that is tomorrow. That is not going to be a fun test but I don’t think it is going to be too bad, mostly because im sure the professor will not want to grade them. Well that’s all for now! Maybe I’ll get better at this whole updating my blog thing!!

ciao bella!! 

ROMA days 20-23

Friday I had an Italian test. I really don’t know how it went but it’s in the past and there is nothing I can do about it now. The highlight of my Friday was spent in my room. What was I doing you may ask. Well first on Caitlin’s Itunes the song What Dreams Are Made Of from the Lizzie McGuire Movie came on and we had a mini dance party to it. Then I decided to see if I could watch it on youtube. It turns out that you can watch it in 9 minute segments. Finding this out made my life! Caitlin and I watched it and the whole time we pointed out the things that were wrong about Italy in it. It was so funny! The rest of Friday was just a religious studies class and getting ready to go to Venice on Saturday.

On Saturday Alex and I got up early to get to the train station for our 7:45 train. We got word on Friday that there were going to be some form of riots in Rome on Saturday starting at 9 at the train station and going into the afternoon so we were glad that we left way before they started. I love Venice. When we got there the first thing we decided to do was make sure we had tickets to get back to Rome. Once we had the tickets we were free to wonder where ever we wanted. We first got something to eat for lunch and yes I’m sure you guessed what we got: pizza. The pizza was easy and quick and not to mention how good it was! Every place in Italy has different pizza and it’s all so good! After we got the pizza we wondered around the islands of Venice. Every way you look there is another view of something different. It was all so beautiful! We went to a gallery, found a free museum that showed some of Vivaldi’s instruments he taught to his students, the Doge’s Palace, piazza de San Marco, and even the church Vivaldi taught students at when he was a priest. It was so much fun. We went into so many mask shops. You wouldn’t even believe how many are there! I wanted to get a mask but I got one the last time I was there and how many do you really need in your life, right? We wondered all of the islands and did not get lost once. We got our train back and when we got back to the hotel we checked out email to find emails from family asking if we were alright because of the riots. We even saw CNN news reports online about it! It was crazy. We sent word to our families that we were alright and that it was all done before we got back to Rome.

On Sunday it was a really relaxing day. We woke up and got some food, and yes we did end up caving in and got not only American food but McDonalds. It was so nice to have American food, as bad as that sounds and it was even cheaper that other food would have cost us. We went back to our room and just had some down time to put up pictures and just relax before I went to mass with some other friends. I went to mass at the same church I went to last week. After mass this week I decided to look at some of the chapels around the main part of the church. I almost died when I saw that one of the chapels had the remains of St. Catherine of Siena for hundreds of years after she died. I was named after her because that was the church my family used to go to when they lived in Illinois. When I got back after dinner I told my mom on skype and she freaked out as much as me. I ended up skyping with my family for about an hour and a half. It was great! After that I just relaxed and got ready for my school week.

Today was just a typical Monday. The only difference was that Professor Checca is here for the week with his wife! I love Checca! He saved me when I ended up missing the bus to Assisi. He sat in on 3 of my classes today and that made them even better. The only other thing that happened today was the start of this thing called God squad. It’s something that was started here by our RA Miss McHugh made for us to get together and just talk about our religion with some deacons and seminarians. There were about a dozen of us girls there and it was a lot of fun tonight. We also found out that since they are studying at the Vatican they might be able to get us a tour of both the Vatican and the crypts for either free or a reduced price. I am so excited about this! Well that’s all for tonight!

ciao bella!

ROMA days 15-19

Sorry it took me forever and a day to post some more but this week so far has been pretty boring. Everyone including Bethany is still on a high from her engagement! The word even got out to the workers at Pascucci’s. They now refer to her as fiancé. We told professors in classes and even spent 20 minutes talking about it in Italian. It’s almost surprising how some news like that can put you in such a great mood. I would only say the only downer to this week so far is seeing my family talk about my cousins wedding on facebook. My cousin is coming home from Japan to get married in less than a month and staying for thanksgiving with the rest of my family. I’m so sad that I won’t be able to be there for it! My cousin that is in Cali is even coming to the wedding and I haven’t seen him in years and not to mention met his wife and new born baby. Other than that it’s been a pretty good week. We have a Tuesday class make up day tomorrow so I have Italian at 9:30 tomorrow morning, not only Italian but an Italian test. Yuck! Not looking forward to it at all. At least I have this weekend to look forward to! Alex and I are going to Venice for the day. I love Venice and I can’t wait to go! But I’ll tell you about that after we go there! 

ciao bella!

ROMA days 13&14

Saturday: Today Alex and I went to Florence. We got up at 5:30 to get ready and get some food from Pascucci’s before we got on the 6:30 buss to the train station. We thought our train was a direct train from Rome to Florence but when we got there we found out that those were an extra 20 euros. We did not want to spend that money so we asked someone at the desk what train we should take and it turns out that we need to take the train that would go to Milan but made stops in several cities. We also found out that we had to be in the standing room only. I guess that wasn’t too bad it you think about it. We never wanted to be in standing room again so we decided to book tickets for the other trains so we would have seats so that is all settled. We also found out that when we got to the Florence station we had to take a 5 minute train that would take us to the station in the middle of the town. That was easy. We got to Florence at about noon so Alex and I decided to get something cheap to eat. We found this little fast food kind of place and go the most amazing pizza I have ever had in my life. The one slice we each got was the size of our heads. But it was so fantastic! After we got the pizza we set off to find Il Duomo. On our way we found all these adorable little shops. We went in a few and Alex even got a super cute skirt in one. When we found Il Duomo we decided that we didn’t want to wait in line to go in all day so we didn’t end up seeing inside. We then set off to find the museum that had Michelangelo’s statue David. On the way we went in all of the leather shops we could find. The best one we went in had an adorable old man in it who sold Alex a wallet for her dad. He said the one of the best things we had heard in a while. He said “For your father 25, for your boyfriend thousands.” He gave Alex a 60% discount for her wallet because it was on sale but it was also for her dad. He was hilarious. Went we made it to the museum the line was so long! Alex and I thought that we weren’t going to get in. we went to the ticket office and decided to try to reserve a time slot for us to go to the museum. I turned out that the next available time slot was in 15 minutes at 1. How could you resist something like that? It was almost like the museum wanted us to go to it. So we decided to go into a few other shops before our museum slot. We went in this little shop where this man was making leather bracelets foe 1 euro. I loved them and couldn’t resist! That’s how I got my leather from Florence, a 1 euro purple leather bracelet. I love it. The museum was really cool! I’ve seen David before but there is nothing like seeing him again. He is huge! After the museum I successfully navigated my way to the straw market from my memory of going 2 years ago. It was packed. Alex got a leather backpack and I got to take a picture just like my one 2 years ago with the pig. You rub its nose for good luck. I had to do this not only for myself but also for my parents. I might as well just make it a tradition if I ever make it back there again. After the straw market we made our way to the piazza that had the fake David statue and a lot of other replicas. It was so crowded that we really didn’t stay there for too long and decided to make our way down a side street to the less touristy part of Florence. We got some fantastic gelato. I got vanilla and tiramisu and Alex got coffee and caramel. It was so good! We made our way down the street looking at the little shops. Alex got some fantastic boots for 100 euro (way out of my price range for anything). We even found a little record shop. It was so cool. The best part was that it was playing the Beetles. Shout out to my friends back at goo old SMICK, Schmid in Cali, and Cathy in France because that is like our favorite band ever. It made me miss them so much! After that we went to Santa Croce to look at it. It was 5 euro to get in but it was totally worth it. Inside were the graves of Galileo, Michelangelo, and a ton of other well-known people. Alex was basically freaking out the whole time we were there. After we finished in the church we were just going to catch an early train back to Rome and just get dinner there but when we got to the train station we saw that were was a train leaving for Siena in 5 minutes and we decided to just go there for dinner. It was spur of the moment but so much fun! We got there, got some dinner, and got the next train back to Rome. We got back to Rome at around 11 PM and back to our hotel by like 11:30 PM. Right when I got back I wanted to talk to my brothers about this trip but none of them were online and that made me a little mad.  I just figured that they were at mass or something.

Sunday: There was only one thing that really happened today so I didn’t want to make a whole post for a few sentences. One of the girls went to Greece for the weekend to visit her boyfriend from Notre Dame who is studying abroad there and they got ENGAGED!! It might be the most exciting thing that has ever happened on the Rome program with SMC. We are all so excited for her and her fiancé! I can’t wait to meet him in 2 weeks when he comes to Rome to visit her.  Well that’s all that really happened today. Oh yeah and Congrats to the new Mrs. Sara O’Hara!! I figured out where my family was. They were at a wedding for one of our family friends daughters. I really wanted to go but maybe I can go to their other daughters or their oldest sons in the next year.

ciao bella! 

ROMA day 12

Today was just another slow day in paradise. It was a Wednesday class makeup day so I had another 8 AM philo class. After philo Alex and I headed to the train station once again so Alex could get her spot on the train to Paris saved and her seats to Zurich saved also. After that we came back to the hotel and had some down time until our tour at 2. This tour was the worst tour I had even been on ever. We walked like 3 miles to the edge of town to go to Villa Giulia. I thought it would be really cool because it was the place where popes used to live here but it was not good at all. We spent 2 hours looking at pottery from 600 BC and it was horrible. After the tour I went back to my room for some down time before dinner. It was TIziano dinner night. Those are the best! The workers who serve us our food are fantastic. They are just like family. They are just so nice to us and the food isn’t half bad either. After dinner we went back up to our room and got everything ready to get up at 5:30 the next morning to go to Florence. Alex and I are going to Florence for the day just to have some fun. I can’t wait!

ciao bella!

ROMA day 11

Today once again was a boring morning. I had another 8 AM religious studies class follower by a 9:30 Italian class. The good thing was that was the end of classes for me for the day. Caitlin and I got some lunch to go from Pascucci’s and went back to our room. I ended up watching an episode of New Girl online and then just had a lazy afternoon hanging out in our room until Alex got out of class at 2:20. Alex and I had to go to the train station to set up our train passes and get our beds reserved for our train to Paris. To do this we had to take our first bus in Rome. I was really nervous about taking the bus but it turned out not being too bad. It only took us about 20 minutes to get there. When we got to the train station we had to figure out where we had to go to set everything up with our Eurail pass. We ended up finding someone that worked in the train station that answered our questions about our passes and told us what lines to go in. We had to get in this huge line to get everything fixed. The line ended up going pretty fast though. When we got to the front we got everything fixed and paid for our beds to be reserved. We will be in a 6 person cabin with 4 other people. I’m not too afraid about being in there with 4 other people because we took the same type of train to Paris from Venice with my dance studio. Alex and I decided that we wanted to have the top bunks because who is going to climb up there to try to steal out stuff. We go the next bus back to our hotel and I went back to the room for some more down time until dinner. After dinner I just went back to my room. Like I said it’s just been a really relaxing day. I think I’m going to watch Across the Universe tonight. Hopefully it won’t make me miss my Smicks too much.

ciao bella!! 

ROMA days 9 and 10

Tuesday: Today nothing exciting really happened. I got up and had class from 9:30 until 11:30 was done with classes for the day. After Italian I went with Caitlin to find the post office because she had some post cards and a birthday card to her dad to mail. The post office here is so intimidating. We walked in and had no idea what were supposed to do. So we left after looking dumb for 20 minutes and got some lunch to go at Pascucci’s. I was going to go back to our room to get some reading I had to do for tomorrow and come back to the library to do it but when I got to the room they were cleaning it so I couldn’t go in. so I just went to the library and got on the computer for a half hour before going back to a clean room…at least we thought it was going to be clean. When I got back to the room Caitlin was already there and she had started a list of things that were not good about our “freshly cleaned” room. They didn’t dust anything, put a wad of hair in the toilet, and didn’t even sweep the floor. We were really mad about this. Sadly there was nothing we could do about it so we will just have to hope for better next week. After dinner Alex and I decided to go on a walk to see Castle St. Angelo and the Vatican at night all lit up. This walk was fabulous. It’s about a 20 minute walk to the Vatican if you walk really fast but Alex and I weren’t so I think it took a little longer. We made there and tool tons of pictures. They are both so pretty! I love going to see places both at night and during the day because they look so different. We found a cheap gelato place and got some fantastic gelato and walked back home. When we got home we had to finish our budget. Doing things like this just makes me feel sick. I didn’t know if I wanted to know how much money it would cost me for the next 10 weeks or not. But we finished. I had the worst headache from it but I’m glad we did it so I know that I can’t buy anything until after finals if I have money then. None of us were tired and we had to force ourselves to go to bed when 2 came around. When we turned off the light we couldn’t stop laughing about stupid things we were saying. Lindsey started to take quotes down on her iPod so we could laugh at them when we got up Wednesday. It was a fun night but we needed some sleep because three of us had an 8 AM class Wednesday.

Wednesday: Getting up today was horrible. We only had like 4 and a half hours of sleep by the time we got up. When we got to philo we found out that we were watching a movie so we were excited. This movie was so gross. It was probably the most disgusting movie I had ever seen. We have to finish it in class on Friday which I am not looking forward to at all. After philo Lindsey, Alex and I came back to our room and fell asleep until 12. Alex was meeting her aunt’s friend at Pascucci’s for lunch at 1:30 and I was going to go with her. We were secretly hoping that she will adopt us for the weekend and cook for us but we have no idea if she will. I had class from 2:20-5:30 after lunch and I was not looking forward to it at all. We were talking about the same things in both my anthro and art history classes and it was going to be so boring. It ended up not being as bad as I thought it would be. The 2 classes ended up going a lot faster that I thought they would and I found out that instead of having class on Friday we are going to a museum. I’m pretty excited for this. After class I went back to my room. Lindsey and Caitlin were trying to come up with a dance scene from a movie that they could do and tape to send to some of their friends. It was hilarious watching them trying to pick out what they wanted to do. They weren’t able to pick one so they didn’t do it yet but when they do I’m pretty sure it’s going to be fantastic! After dinner I came back up to the room ready to do my Italian. I actually got it done pretty quickly. The 4 of us in the room checked each other’s and I’m pretty confident with my work. After the Italian was done Alex and I tried to figure out how to book our seats/beds for our train to Paris over thanksgiving. We figured out that we couldn’t do it online and that we are going to have to go to the train station tomorrow to do it with someone that works there. I’m glad we are getting this all done now so we won’t have to worry about it when it gets closer. I ended my night with watching some Glee. Yes that’s right Alex found a way to watch American TV online. I was so excited! It really helped with my homesickness to get to watch some Glee. I can’t wait to watch some more over the next 10 weeks. We also found out that we only have 10 weeks left in Italy including this week that’s over half done now. I can’t decide if I’m sad about this or excited to be going home soon. Oh well, I guess that’s something to be thought about another day! 

ciao bella!

ROMA day 8

Today was just another Monday. I got up and had class at 11 and went to class had lunch in the Tiziano and went back to have classes until 7 that night. When I got back to my room I wasn’t feeling the greatest. It wasn’t like a sick feeling more like a sad feeling. I was starting to get that homesick feeling you would most likely get when you were away from home for about a month. I had never really been homesick in my life and I really didn’t like that feeling. But I couldn’t focus on this right now. Alex and I were going to work out a budget for all of our trips put together. Today I really didn’t have the patience for this. I wasn’t feeling like myself and I didn’t want to look through stupid books for stuff to do when we were traveling. Honestly at the moment I really didn’t even want to go anywhere because I was feeling too worried about money and about traveling with just one other person. I was already nervous about these trips and I really didn’t want to think about them tonight. But I did help Alex with budgeting everything. I think she knew that something was up but when she asked me I just said I was tired…I know classic excuse, right? It was kind of true I guess. I was a little tired today. I buried myself in the books she had and started to look up things to do in Florence, Venice, Milan, Verona, and Paris. We booked our hostel for Paris because that is the only time we will be overnight somewhere, but we didn’t actually finish getting the prices for everything because we were both very frustrated with the budget system. Alex relaxed with watching some American TV shows she bought on iTunes. I, on the other hand, did not know what to do. Alex copied some of the shows on a flash drive and gave them to me so I could watch them so I did that for a little bit. That really didn’t help out though. When I got on facebook after that I saw my brother Jonathan online so I messaged him and talked to him for a little bit. The worst part about talking to him though was him leaving saying that he was going to have dinner and that just made me miss my mom’s cooking. I think I’m going to start to make a list of what food I want when I get home. Get ready mom there is going to be a huge list coming your way by December!

Ciao bella! 

ROMA day 7

Today I got up at 8 with 2 of my other roommates. Why you may ask. Well today there was an optional trip to mass at St. Peter’s for mass. I was so excited that we were going to go to mass at St. Peter’s. Caitlin, Lindsey, and I got all ready and made it over to the class building by 9:30 to walk over with about 10 other girls to go to mass. When we got to St. Peter’s it was so packed. Mass didn’t start until 10 so we had a half hour. This was spent taking pictures from the enormous line we had to stand in before we even got close to getting in the church. This line had a set of metal detectors we had to go through before we got in another line that actually checked your clothes to make sure that they were appropriate to wear into the church. After we got through both check points it was almost a free for all to get into the church. We tried to stay together but once we got in we split up into a few smaller groups. I was with Caitlin, Lindsey, and our friend Kaitlyn. The mass wasn’t at the main alter. It was in the chapel of the chair. We were in in the standing room only and when we went to get closer there were guards that asked us where we were going. It kind of scared me. They would get in your face and say in a stern voice “where?” Obviously I didn’t understand what they were asking because I said something and walked on and they just looked at me. We got as close as we could in the standing room and listened to the mass in Latin. When we were walking over with Miss Mchugh she told us that we probably wouldn’t be able to receive communion. When the guards removed the red rope holding us in the standing room and told us we could go to receive communion I took off with Kaitlyn to get in a line. Luckily we were able to receive communion. I felt so holy. After mass we went outside. Miss McHugh also told us that the Pope does a blessing out of his window at 12 and that was only 15 minutes away so we decided to wait around for it. It was so cool to be blessed by the pope. My friends and I decided that even our clothes and jewelry were blessed. We got back to the room and made jokes about our Pope outfit and things like that. After that we just went back to the room and did some homework. We had a very relaxing Sunday. By night all 4 of us were on skype talking to our families. I think with all of us college students in the hotel we overwork the internet because it just kicked us off and we had to wait before we could get back on skype. It all turned out ok though. Well that’s all for now!

ciao bella!

ROMA day 6

Today we had our first lecture and tour. We went to the Roman Forum, Palatine Hill, and the Colosseum. These were 3 vital places in early roman times. The forum was where all of Rome used to be. It had the Senate building, the places where little shops used to be. And even 3 temples to different gods. Although it was all in ruins, you could really envision what it used to look like. The tours were led by 2 of the professors I have in class and a man who used to teach with the Rome program. For the tour of the forum and Palatine Hill I had my anthropology professor. She really made everything I would never think was interesting easy to listen about. She told stories about what people would do in the different places back in early Rome. She did a great job at keeping everyone’s attention. After the forum we went up Palatine Hill and saw where supposedly Romulus and Remus lived. We also saw the first settlements of Rome. It was really cool to see that. We also where the palace made by one of the Flavian king was and the remains of it. It was the same family who build the Colosseum. After lunch we went to the Colosseum. I love the Colosseum. It has to be one of my favorite places in Rome. It is so much bigger that it seems on postcards. Even though I had been there before I think I was as excited as everyone else to get inside. For this tour I had the professor who doesn’t teach with SMC anymore. He was really cool too. He gave us a good history of the whole place and even waited around for about 10 minutes while we took pictures to finish our tour at the place where the gladiators used to train. After the tours everyone was so hot and tired. Did I mention that Rome is going through a heat wave right now and the hottest day of the week was today? We just wanted to get back to the hotel to shower and take naps. My roommates and I just ended up picking up some food and bringing it back to the room to eat and had a relaxing night in. Alex and I went on a walk to see if we could find a bakery that she found online. This bakery made American desserts and we really wanted some cheesecake. We found it in the Jewish Ghetto and it was open! Sadly the food wasn’t that great but hey we got a good walk out of it. We ended up just hanging out in our room talking and going to sleep early because Lindsey, Caitlin, and I are going to mass tomorrow morning at St. Peter’s basilica for mass.  

caio bella!

ROMA days 4&5

Thursday: Today was a fantastic day! I was done with class by 11:35 today and had all afternoon free. I was so excited to get my stuff I just sat in my room for a few hours. I was getting worried that they weren’t going to come so I emailed my dad and asked him how long I should wait until I call the airport and make them bring my stuff over to the hotel. Just then Alex came into our room and asked me if I knew that my luggage was in the lobby. I was so excited! Alex went with me downstairs and helped me bring them upstairs and I got right down to unpacking. Surprisingly it only took me about an hour and a half to unpack and put everything away. I guess it was easier for me because everyone else had already put their stuff places so I knew where there was space for me. Unpacking was the greatest feeling of my life! I had never been so happy in my life. I was so excited that I got to shower with my own shampoo and soap and I got to put on clean clothes. It was fabulous. One of the down sides to my stuff being packed in space bags for a week and a half though was that everything was wrinkled when I took it out so I have a lot of ironing ahead of me. After dinner I went with some friends wondering around the city. We were trying to find this bakery that Alex found online that sold American desserts like cheesecake and stuff like that. We wondered and ended up finding it in the Jewish Ghetto. Sadly it was closed, but the cool thing was that there was a concert going on in some ruins that we found and watcher a little from a ways away. It was really fun. We took some pictures and had a blast talking about our days. Alex and I ended up going back to the hotel after that and having some fun with our other 2 roommates. I don’t remember if I said anything about this earlier but I bought a children’s toothbrush when we got to Rome and when Caitlin and Lindsey saw it they thought it was hilarious because it had a cat head that you put on the top when you weren’t using it. We decided to make a game in our room to hide the cat tooth brush around the bathroom but we didn’t want to put it anywhere gross until I got my toothbrush from my luggage. Well now that I have my luggage the game is on and it is going to be fantastic!

Friday: Well this 8 AM class thing is going to kill me for sure. Three days in a row with 8 AM classes is not fun. I was so tired for make-up classes today that I didn’t want to do anything during my 4 hour break before lunch at 1. I went to the library after my philo class to do my anthropology reading but when I got here the book I needed was already being used so I went back to my room where all of my roommates were sleeping and tried so hard not to fall asleep but that didn’t go over too well…I ended up falling asleep for about an hour and a half. After classes Alex and I were supposed to go and meet her aunt’s friend at a little café. She lived in Rome and Alex and I were kind of hoping that she would adopt us for the weekends and make us food sometimes. Well we went to where the directions told us the café was and we were so confused. All we could find was what looked like a museum and when we went in the museum there was some sort of wine tasting going on. We went to where the café was and awkwardly asked some ladies if they were who we were looking for but they were totally confused by what we were asking, obviously not her. So we waited around for about 15 or 20 minutes before we left. When we were walking back toward Piazza Novono we ran into a group of our friend who were going out for dinner. We decided to join them and we found this little place we decided to go to. The best part was that there was a deal on dinner for tonight. For 12 euros you got bread, a salad, a piece of bruschetta, a drink of any kind, and either a dish of pasta or a pizza. Who can deny that kind of deal? There were 10 of us at dinner and it was so much fun. I think we might have annoyed the waitress a little bit because we asked her to take some pictures of us but it was totally worth it. After dinner we wondered around Piazza Novono a little before we decided that we were going to go to Scholars tonight. We went back to the hotel to get ready and before we knew it we were walking down the street to Scholars. There was a live band there and it was a lot of fun. About 20 minutes after we got there a flood of students from our Rome program came if. It was great to just have some fun with all of the other guys and girls outside of a school atmosphere. We left at like 12:45 because we had to get up early Saturday morning for our first lecture and tour. It was a lot of fun just hanging out with a bunch of other college students from America who were also studying abroad. It was almost like a little bit of home. 

ciao bella!