When in Rome...

I MADE IT!!!

So, there were a couple of times when I had my doubts, (like about 3 hours into our 8 hour plane ride across the Atlantic, when I was bored out of my mind and could look out the window and see absolutely nothing) but I made it!


The plane rides over were pretty uneventful. I left out of Minneapolis and made it to Chicago earlier than scheduled, which was alright because I went in entirely the wrong direction looking for my flight to DC. Did you know that Chicago’s O’Hare airport has a dinosaur? Well, I found it. I made it to the gate just in time to board the plane, despite having arrived 15 minutes early. When I got to DC, I found out that Sherri’s plane was running late, so I got to sit and worry about her for a little while, but she made it. She had to run, but she made it before we even started boarding. We also ran into another U of A student, named Jeremy, while we were waiting to board.


I ended up sitting next to an Italian guy who was traveling with his whole family. I didn’t think he spoke much English. For the entire plane ride, all I could get out of him was “Sorry” when he wanted to get up yet again, and “Thank you” when I let him get up with one more smile and a polite “Va bene” on my side. The rest of the time, he didn’t say a word to me, in Italian or any other language. Finally, after breakfast had been brought out and we’d eaten the yogurt but both rejected the banana bread, he became Mr. Chatty Tour Guide. “Oh, I am so glad that the sun came up when it did, so you can see France.” We actually got to see the sun rise over the coast of France. Pretty neat. “It’s so nice that the clouds are staying away. This way, you can see the Alps. Notice how jagged they are?” “That’s Corsica that we’re flying over now.” HUGE wind turbines on the mountain tops of Corsica, by the way. We could see them spinning from the plane. And as we flew along the Italian coast on our final descent to Rome, we could see long rows of sprinklers in some of the fields. “You see, the soil in this region, it is very difficult to grow things in. That is why they are spraying water in the fields. They grow food.”


We landed without incident and made it through passport control, the baggage claim, and customs with only minor difficulties (like trying to lock the bathroom stall doors—we just ended up piling our bags against them and hoping for the best), and we were actually feeling pretty good about ourselves. Until we tried to call the people who run our apartments. Sherri and I ran into yet another UA student, named Laura, who had been standing around in the airport for 2 hours, trying to get through to the apartment people. Only one of the two types of payphones would ring through when we dialed the number we’d been given, and then they just went straight to a scary Italian answering service that none of us could understand. Anyone we asked for help either sent us to someone else or tried to sell us something. Finally, we gave up and went outside to look for a ride to the apartments. Sherri and I knew that one of our roommates, named Audrey, had arrived the day before, so we just hoped she’d be around and be able to help us figure out what to do about getting in touch with the apartment people.


Just as we were all piling into a big black van with a couple of ladies from Connecticut, Jeremy came running up to us, saying that someone was looking for us from the apartment company. Apparently, since Sherri and I had emailed them looking for a ride before we left, they had sent someone for us without letting us know that we should expect them. We’d already gotten payment and everything figured out with our van driver, though, so we decided to stick with him and meet the apartment people at the apartment. That was the scariest ride of my life! Romans are terrifying drivers. They just kind of go until something gets in their way, at which point they honk the horn and/or slam on the brakes dramatically as people and motorcyclists weave in and out between the bigger vehicles, and they all just park wherever they feel like it. Sometimes they parallel park on the side of the street, but other times they just stop in the middle of the street or an intersection of streets and get out to go about their business. Our driver actually parked on the sidewalk to drop off the gals from Connecticut at their hotel. We did get to see the city though, and since our driver didn’t know exactly where our apartment was, we found an open-air market, a pharmacy, several restaurants, and a supermarket in the neighborhood before we even got a glimpse of our apartment.


The apartment is nice: very clean-looking with its white walls and hard-wood floors. We’ve got a red, purple, lime green and sky blue color scheme going on, which somehow works. Sherri and I are sharing a room, and the other two roommates, Audrey and Erica, are sharing the other. The other girls are all very nice. We all share a bathroom, kitchen, and living room/dining room area. We're up on the 4th floor of the building, which is actually the 5th floor, but around here, the ground floor doesn't count. There's a scary-looking half-spiral staircase, but we haven't taken that yet because there's a glass-sided elevator (pictured) that comes up in the central balcony area onto which all the apartments open. Interesting note: there are no window screens here.

Laura lives in an apartment a couple of blocks away from us, and she, Sherri, and I have all kind of latched onto each other. We went for lunch yesterday after we’d gotten into our apartments, and then we braved the supermarket. The ladies working the checkouts are in a really big hurry, and we’ve kind of had to guess at what we’re buying, but it’s not too difficult. There are pictures on most of the items. We even found what amount to boxes of Frosted Flakes and Cocoa Pops!!


So far, so good, and we’re heading out in about an hour to go find the school and then go see the Pantheon and possibly the Vatican, which aren’t too far from that.