This weekend has been crazy busy! Saturday was Navigation 101 in this great city. Nav 101 is an orientation program that is a small group of students, led by our "skipper," and shown some important sights to Rome and how to navigate through the city. Its like an intro course on how to get a taxi, bus, and taking the metro. What I learned? Taxi's rip you off, you can easily sneak onto a bus, and metro's are the scariest place on the planet. I thought at first I wouldn't have anything to worry about because I would just avoid the trains at all costs, but then I found out I have to take them all over the place for my classes! We are going on a ton of "field trips" to different places for my Ancient Eats class, and my other class is an "on-site" class, meaning we just meet in different ancient places in Rome and talk about what we are seeing. SO... so much for that plan of avoiding public transportation :'( But whatever, it's all about the experience, right?
My roommate, Camille and I went off on our own little adventure on Sunday afternoon. It started out with us trying to find the supermarket so we could stock up on food so we could avoid eating out. Then we realized, it was 4pm and we hadn't eaten anything all day, so the search was on to find something to eat. Thus, the decision to find the McDonald's was upon us. We ended up passing the cat sanctuary, the Vittorio Emanuele Ii monument, the Spanish Steps, the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, and then finally ended up at McDonald's. Sounds crazy, but we were in dire need for food... Believe it or not, the menu was completely different. It had the regular burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, and coke products, but it also had thin chips, like thinned fries as another side option, flatbreads with pancetta and cheese, nuggets with a spinach filling, and also nuggets with this spicy rice and pea filling- which I don't like, but is very popular here. Also, they charged an arm and a leg for ketchup and mayo, and also, no ice in the drinks! Unless you ordered a large, and then they gave you maybeeee 10 pieces. But the one amazing thing about it was all the fries were those soft ones with the crunchy ends- my favorite kind! and not the all-hard ones that don't have any potato in them.
Later on that night when we finally got back from out 4 hour adventure, we found out there was the Roma/Napoli fútbol game that night and tickets were only 20 euro. We almost sprinted from our dorms to just about where we were earlier in the day, like two miles away, to buy tickets and get there before the half, and the store had closed. I was CRUSHED. I seriously almost cried walking back. But then I heard this loud crowd coming from a pub called Scholars Lounge, and Camille and I saw like ten of our friends going in. We checked it out and it just so happened that not only was the last Roma home fútbol game was on, so was the Sweden/Switzerland world hockey finals game on, and the place was packed with Italians, Swiss, Swedes, and JCU students just there trying to have fun. It was the funnest night I've had yet, because after Switzerland lost and all the angry people left, EVERYONE was singing and talking and it was great! Then they had karaoke!!!! My three friends and I got up and sang "What makes you beautiful" by One Direction- we killed it. Even though that song is ridiculous, it was insane, and that being my first time singing in front of probably 100 people, I couldn't have asked for a more memorable time. I cannot tell you how nervous I was to get up and do it, even with having my three friends up there with me, I was terrified, but I'm SO glad I did!
Finally this morning was my first day of classes. It didn't start until 11am, but I had a few appointments to take care of first. The first was a doctors appointment (that I had to pay 20 euro for!) so that I can work out here. It's Italian law that says that anyone playing a sport or exercising has to have a physical done by an Italian doctor. All it really turned out to be was a very attractive Italian man telling me that I'm alive and healthy enough for physical activity... cool. Nice waste of money. But that's the law :(
The only class I had today was my Ancient Eats class. My professor is this very awesome guy from some huge university in CA who doesn't like his last name. So we have to call him Karl. The class is just an overview of any ancient civilization or culture that existed, and what they ate, why they ate it, how it effected other cultures, how it effects the Roman culture in the past and today, and so on. I thought it was going to be more of a hands-on type class, but it's going to be a ton of reading, site seeing, and only a little of actually cooking. But hey, I'll learn a lot and all of the readings he incorporated into the class seem to be very interesting, so I'm kind-of excited. Like for instance, this Thursday, as long as I can get out early of my other class, we are going to this place called Mount Testaccio. It's apparently this "mountain" that has been made out of thrown out pottery, and after all these years of just sitting there, there is life growing and thriving in these strange conditions. I really hope my other teacher allows me to see it! (Because you can only go at certain times of the day, and at the time when my professor arranged for all of us to go, he didn't know some of us would have other classes, so I may not be able to go because it's in the middle of my other class). Well, that's about all for now. I'm so ready for bed- it's only 6pm at home right now, but this past weekend and this stressful first day of classes has caught up to me.
Molte Benedizioni,
Maura Noelle
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