My trip to Rome started on January 31st. I left Pittsburgh at 11 am and arrived in Philadelphia at 12:30. My friend Matt (who also is studying in Rome for the semester) and his family were nice enough to pick me up from the airport and take me out to lunch with them before our flight at 5 p.m. We went to a restaurant called Copacabana. The food and margharitas were delicious. We met up with Natalie, another friend studying in Rome for the semester and checked in our stuff to go to Rome. We had time to spare so we ended up going to a restaurant in the airport to pass the time before our flight. Our flight to Rome was entertaining. After realizing that the movie they provided us was The Mummy Returns 5 (a bit of an exaggeration) we decided that it'd be a good time to try and sleep. Natalie and I managed to sleep for a couple of hours. But since Matt was between us, he had a little more trouble. Once we woke up, we decided to play a couple of games on Uno. Our landing was a little rough but all ended well.
February 1, 2009
We arrive in Rome around 8 am, italian time. We all managed to get to Rome with all of our bags. But carrying them was another story. Packing for 4 months in 2 suitcases tends to weigh alot. We found our commute service man and he helped me with my bags. We checked into our hotel, called Hotel Lirreco. However, to get to the lobby we had to climb a big staircase with our luggage. We checked our bags into the hotel and started to explore. We kept getting lost, but everytime we got lost we managed to bump into the Trevi Fountain or the Coliseum. We went back to our hotel and took a long nap and got ready and decided to go out for a nice dinner our first night.
After dinner we decided that it was time to find a pub to watch the superbowl. Luckily we found an italian man who was interested in american football and he gave us directions to a pub called Old Station. I put on my Steelers jersey and headed out. The game didn't start til midnight in Rome but Natalie, Matt and I managed to stay and watch the whole game, even though we were exhausted. GO STEELERS!! The only sad part is that I was one of the only people in Rome who wanted to celebrate.
February 2, 2009
We got up and checked out of our hotel and headed to IES Center. IES is the program that I am studying through for the semester. Once at IES Center, which is also where we take classes, we received our housing assignments and off we went. Natalie and I are roommates and live in Monte Verde. Matt was nice enough to come in the cab with us first to our apartment and make sure we got there ok. Mai Lin, our Italian Student Companion, was waiting for us when we got there. We unpacked our suitcases and met our next door neighbor Meghan, who also is studying at IES.
Mai Lin then introduced us to our neighbors who live a couple of apartments down. As a huge group, we went exploring around Monte Verde and I had my first try of italian pizza in Rome and it is still my favorite place to get it to this day. Later that night, my Italian Student Companion (aka ISC) and our guy neighbors' ISC made us an authentic pasta dinner.
