This is absolutely unbelievable.
My lovely friend and travel companion Lauren and I left from O'Hare on the afternoon of January 12. Due to the bad weather on the east coast, we ended up changing our flight and flying through Frankfurt instead of Newark. The flight from O'Hare to Frankfurt was pretty standard; I slept a lot more than I had expected, but it wasn't anything too exciting. We flew Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Rome on a smaller plane with maybe 15 or 20 other passengers, so we could stretch out and relax a little bit more. Flying over Italy on the way into Fiumicino airport in Rome was breathtaking. The countryside looked just as beautiful as I had imagined it, with all the little towns nestled in the velvety green hills and along shining lakes. It was a pretty great introduction to the country.
Once we arrived at Fiumicino, we collected our luggage and met the John Cabot people, who led us to the hotel next door to pick up our welcome and orientation information. They gave us our apartment keys and a cloth JCU bag with snacks in it, and they took our pictures for our residence IDs....because THAT's a fantastic plan after everyone has been traveling for a billion hours. I only look slightly deranged in mine. I hope.
Next we took the JCU shuttle to our apartment building, the Gianicolo residence on Vicolo della Penitenza. It took about 30-45 minutes (everything was starting to blend together at that point...), and during the ride, we realized that everything we've ever heard about Italian drivers is true. Everyone is absolutely insane - lots of honking horns, weaving mopeds, and questionable lane changes. But we survived, and Lauren and I found our beautiful apartment. It's on the second floor (really the third floor- they just don't number the ground floor here), and we share it with one other girl. Her name is Katherine, and she's a New Yorker who attends Boston College. Thus far we've all had a ton of fun - we're all pretty laid back and have similar styles of ridiculousness. The three of us share a bedroom, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen - I really love this apartment. It has just enough space, and I like the lay-out and furnishings (mostly IKEA) a lot too.
Our building is right at the end of the street:
The hallway to our apartment (ours is on the right):
Pre-move in:
Post-move in:
My closet, Lauren's closet, Lauren's bed:
Lauren's desk, Katherine's closet, Katherine's desk, Katherine's bed:
My bed, desk, and closet:
Our hallway:
The left-hand side of the kitchen:
Our incredibly intense recycling/garbage disposal system of four different receptacles:
Living/dining room:
Bathroom:
Our in-apartment washer- we don't have a dryer:
The hallway from the other direction (the bedroom is at the end):
Looking out of our kitchen window into the courtyard:
Food on top of the fridge- note all the carbs :) :
Fridge!
After we got all of our things put away, we had a housing orientation meeting and then wandered across the Tiber river to find a grocery store. We got some groceries to start us off and then the three of us made pasta and garlic toast for dinner before heading off to bed - it had definitely been quite the day!
The next morning we went to the main orientation session for JCU and took care of a few administrative things before taking Ponte Sisto across the Tiber again and visiting Campo de' Fiori (where they have a daily open air market), Piazza Navona, and Sant'Agnese in Agone, a cathedral in Piazza Navona- unexpectedly finding a relic (which was, even more unexpectedly, St. Agnes's skull....) in a side chapel. We picked up a few more groceries on the way home, met our RA Anthony, and hosted my darling friend Carly Budzynski and her lovely cousin Lisa for dinner. They had been doing some traveling around Austria and Italy and were ending their trip in Rome.
The next day we went to the JCU welcome barbecue and ate before we went out to do some wandering. We stumbled upon the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina, where there are ruins and a feral cat colony. No big deal. But we still steered clear of the cats.
We continued south and headed toward the ruins of the Roman Forum and the Colosseum. We also passed Napoleon's palace but didn't know that at the time.
Almost to the Colosseum!
Ruins of the Forum:
The Colosseum was absolutely unreal. The ruins are pretty cool, but just standing in front of this enormous amphitheater that's been around for almost 2,000 years certainly puts things in perspective. We sat by it and just reveled in its size and general awesomeness for quite a while.
Later that evening we met up with Carly and Lisa again and ate dinner in a little restaurant on the way to the Trevi fountain. They were leaving in the morning, so it was nice to spend some time together...and we got gelato too! The fountain was especially beautiful at night:
On our walk home, Lauren and I were surprised to see the building we had been next to earlier across the street. That's when we noticed a placard that told us it was Napoleon's palace. Who knew??
Sunday morning, we went out to do some more wandering and got some wonderful pizza at this stand near Campo de' Fiori:
We went back to Piazza Navona to take some pictures, as both of our camera batteries had died the first time we were there.
This is one of the three fountains in the piazza:
....and this is Bernini's magnificent Four Rivers Fountain:
Sant'Agnese in Agone is on the west side of the piazza. It's really beautiful!
Bernini's fountain with Sant'Agnese in the background:
Next we walked over to the Pantheon. Here's the back of it:
.....and the front:
....and the hole in the ceiling!
It's really awesome. Inside we saw the tombs of a couple of Italian kings (Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I) and Raphael Sanzio, the great Renaissance artist. On the way home, we stopped for more gelato. It's just as good as you can imagine. Yum :)
Classes started the next day....so I'll end here, and next I'll post about my classes, the university in general, and my day-to-day life here in Rome. Ciao for now!
