Sono qui! Sono qui! I'm here!

Yesterday (12/7) was one hectic mad dash for everything: land in Rome, rush to hotel, check in, meet people, eat eat sleep eat eat sleep in. And then today, the 8th, I got to rest up and sleep til 10 AM - almost 12 hours of sleep! I felt a lot better when I woke up. I didn't even wake up to get breakfast. That's how tired I was.

We got a crash course in Italy's transportation and how they're AWFUL drivers - believe it, I nearly got run over more than 15 times because not simply they didn't see me- they don't care and just get out of the way! They say Italian drivers get a driving law book about 12 inches thick. To them they're not laws, they're simply "guidelines".

We left the hotel and got to our apartments. First it was a quick run through of all appliances (how they work) and write out paperwork and such. We then went out for a little tour to get acquainted with the neighborhood and we asked our "tourguide" who was the one the helped us move in (turns out he's also an Italian actor who's currently doing a production of a male-version of Cinderella which is SO COOL) to go somewhere else and he brought us across Tiber River to see more places and we ended up eating at a panini/bakery combo place. I got a spinochi e mozzarella panini for 3 euros.

Here are some photos from the walking tour (taken from my phone):

When I came back I took better stock of my apartment. It's a large residential apartment and we're (as far as I know) the only students out of all the tenants. So our neighbors are probably your 101-year old Italian great-grandma or a young family. It's just me and three other girls. I am rooming with Brittany, whom I have had the pleasure talking to her a lot before the program (which actually led to a request for us to room together!).

The hallway

My bedroom and my roommate, Brittany. Our window faces the street which has an outdoor market and a playground!

The apartment is filled with everything we could possibly need from utensils to ironing board. Pots, pans and plastic containers, you name it. We even have a soccer ball - sorry, wait, football - and books and some DVDs. :) We have a gas stove so we need to buy lighters to light it up.

Dakota, Brittany and I went to eat dinner and I got a simple pasta and wine (yum). They spoke little English but we managed to understand each other. Our waiter even flirted with us (he liked my blue hair apparently) and give us his number. We decided to keep it to see how many numbers we get by the end of the semester. :) It's funny though, back at the orientation, the cultural leader lady jokingly said that Roman men are charming.

Afterwards we tried to find an open "convenience store" or a store that had appliance items like lighters, paper towels, but nothing was really open. We stopped by this store that sold specialty food and Dakota got some wine. And we got some tiny cannoli (cannoli is actually plural, so it's really cannolo) We bumped into other girls from the group and we hung out at our apartment drinking wine and getting to know each other.

Now I'm just sitting in the apartment and watching Italian news. They mentioned USA, still being caught in the "grip of cold". Unfortunately the TV doesn't come with closed captioning. So I'm just translating the news headlines. As per government rules, heating turns off automatically at 10 PM so I'm covered in my sweater and sweatpants. So cold!

And that's Day 2!

Tomorrow I'm getting my JCU ID and settling my Permesso di Soggiorno (Permit to Stay) and my accommodations for my classes with my RD, Alessio.

Buonanotte!