Una Bella Città! (a beautiful city!)

Both AUR (The American University of Rome) and ISA (International Studies Abroad – and the organization that I’m in Rome through) orientations kept me pretty busy last week. After move-in day an AUR professor led us on a much-anticipated tour of the Arches of Constantine and the Coliseum, followed by the Trevi fountain and the Pantheon. Needless to say it was a long couple of days of walking across Rome in the 95-degree sunshine. Thursday evening ISA held a “welcome dinner” for all of its students at a restaurant located in the Travestere neighborhood of Rome. On the way to the restaurant they took us around on a brief bus tour of Rome, pointing out the best views (I live on the highest hill in Rome in the neighborhood Gianicolo), parks, etc. After a traditional Italian 3 hour meal consisting of 6 courses (bruschetta, pasta, risotto, meat and potatoes, salad and bread, gelato…sooo much yet SO good!), our ISA advisors gave us each a map and sent us on our way…i.e. they were making us find our own way home, a task that can be daunting in a city like Rome! So my friends and I wandered away from the restaurant deciding that we’d take a little time to enjoy exploring the area before venturing home - - but the next thing we knew it was past midnight (when the buses stop their regular routes) and our map was useless. So, we figured it couldn’t possibly be that hard to just walk home, I mean there were a few landmarks that we recognized, and off we went. Just a little pointer for large European cities: never assume anything will be easy, go smoothly, or as planned. This is one of the most important lessons I’ve learned over the course of my first week in Rome, thus making patience and humoring the situation key responses to such unpredictable situations. As my friends and I wandered around Travestere in search of the hill that’s home to our apartments, we assumed finding the highest hill in Rome would be easy - - you know, just look for the tallest point and walk towards it…nope, not so easy. In fact, sadly it took us about an hour to even figure out that we were on the opposite side of the Tiber River from where we live. After making that shocking discovery, finding a bridge to cross (which appeared to have some sort of drunken rave going on making the bridge packed full of people and a little difficult to cross efficiently), and squinting our eyes in the dark in search of the supposedly easily spotted hill - - we eventually found a map at a bus stop (who knew bus stops all had maps…?!) that indeed: 1. Pointed us in the right direction, and 2. Kindly informed us that we’d walked in an unnecessarily large loop and were actually quite close to home when we’d left the restaurant to begin with…whooops. Either way, we thoroughly enjoyed our 2.5 hour trek home (it walked off the 6 course dinner anyway) as we giggled our way into our apartments just after 2 a.m. I will say that that walk not only oriented me more as to where my apartment is in relation to the rest of the city’s sites (it’s much more orienting to walk rather than be in a taxi or on a bus), but it also made me realize that while I should be alert for petty theft and all that, to me Rome feels like a safe city at night. Me friends and I were 100% comfortable wandering the city and never really felt like we were lost, we just sort of assumed we’d find our way and in the meantime we could enjoy the beauty that is the Eternal City at night.

Orientation ended on Friday giving us freedom to spend the weekend exploring the city and getting settled with our new friends before classes started on Monday. Saturday was a pretty average day of grocery shopping, getting settled in the apartment, and sleeping in after spending Friday night cooking hand-made pizza (SO good!) at my friend’s apartment. I did spend Saturday afternoon playing some much-awaited Italian soccer with my friend Matt (who goes to John Cabot, another American school in Rome) at a local park before going to Campo di Fiori, a popular square filled with American bars, with a bunch of DU kids as well as new friends I’d met during orientation. Our night in Campo was a fun one, I was so intrigued by how Rome becomes so alive at night (partially due to it being so hot during the day…) and how that’s so encouraged by having pedestrian-friendly squares for people to sit and talk in so conveniently. Sunday some friends and me made the trek to the Roman beaches surrounding the town Ostica Antica where we indeed found masses of American kids from our school soaking up some sun (or clouds seeing as it was cloudy, but still hot) before classes began. The beaches were pretty crowded seeing as they’re just a tram stop from the city, and most wanted to charge money for umbrellas or chairs, but we had a blast! This part of the Mediterranean is very different from Greece. The water’s not as clear, but also not as still, in fact this part of Italy had some huge waves for us to enjoy – the opposite of Greece where the water hardly seemed to move. After the beach, Elsa and I ran back to our apartment to get in a quick shower before making the surprisingly short walk to my friend’s Matt and Nick’s (both go to John Cabot) apartment for Matt’s birthday dinner. We spent Matt’s dinner going to a somewhat pricey, but well known and liked by locals, restaurant in Travestere where we indulged in endless bread and bruschetta, calamari, and a bunch of different kinds of pasta, followed by a trip to the local gelato shop - - making that probably my 5th consecutive day of eating gelato in Rome…☺ So, things are going great here in Italia! I’m eating like a king (or queen?) and hoping you’ll all still love me if I return to America a little more obese than when I left…Actually I really don’t anticipate that happening at all…I walk like 10 miles a day here…half of which is uphill - - so bring on the gelato!! I’ve been SO happy to be able to instant message, email, and skype with so many of you – it makes me feel very loved and allows me to comfortably enjoy my time here without missing home too much. I’m off to AUR soccer try-outs now (wish me luck!), so I’ll let you know how that goes and will write more shortly on my first week of classes!!
Love you all!
Diana