Roma for the Weekend!

1 February 2011

            The days are beginning to speed up here! My classes so far are very Italian. My interpersonal comm. class has smoking breaks and it is a very long two hours even though I think it will be interesting. My Italian class is wonderful. My teacher played Motown in the background the entire class .… a little distracting but relaxing.  I can now say. “hello my name is”, “ I have a brother and a sister” and “ I live in Virginia”. As you can see I’m really making progress!! My wine appreciation class is actually really scientific! For example you can tell how long wine has been aged based on the color it has when tilted against a white surface. (The white surface is for a better view). On Tuesdays I also am taking a zumba class! Today was the first day and it was intense.  Some of the girls we met in Zumba invited us over for dinner and they made an incredibly fancy meal! Wine, pasta, soup, chips and dip, and bread! It was delicious. Tomorrow I have Italian again and International business so I’m hoping those go as well as my other classes have.

2-6 February 2011

            So I have not written for a while because I have been super busy! My international business class actually seems kind of hard. I already have a project due next class on the political ramifications of Russia’s policies on business. Yikes! Needless to say that class stressed me out a little bit.

            Since then though I have gone to Roma! We left Friday morning at 5am!  A bus picked us up at a piazza across town and took us first to Tivoli, a town an hour outside Rome. There we visited the ancient estate of a very wealthy cardinal and then toured the gardens which were breathtaking to say the least.  They spanned half a mile and were filled with fountains, flowers, and looked as whimsical as the set of Alice in Wonderland. (I will put pictures up soon!) We got lunch in Tivoli, which was a four course meal! I have never eaten so much in my entire life! Then we continued on to Rome. We checked into a nice hotel and then went to dinner, another four-course meal!! My stomach was very full!  The next day we woke up at 8 and took a walking tour of Rome. This included the coliseum, the forum, the pantheon, and many famous squares. After our tour I met up with Marissa for lunch!  She is my friend/roommate/sorority sister from tech who is studying in Rome this semester for those of you who do not know. It was lovely to see her!  After lunch and some walking around the Spanish steps with her, my friend Sydney and I had to figure out how to take the bus by ourselves back to our hotel. We thought is would be easy but the bus driver would not let us purchase a ticket on the bus. So we had to find a Tabachi shop (where they sell tickets),purchase them, find the right bus, and then find the right stop to get off at! We ended up doing it and were extremely proud of ourselves because we are both directionally challenged! After a nap that night we went out to ANOTHER four-course meal and then went to a local pub. We met a few local Romans and it was nice to practice my Italian. For only two lessons I was very proud of myself! Apparently this day I proved myself to be very competent. This morning we left Rome after an hour bus tour around the city and lunch on our own around 1:30. I just got back to Florence and have a pile of work to do for class tomorrow! Rome was incredible and it made me really excited to start to travel!