Living the Roman Life

So now for a recap of the past few days:

Lazy CrAzY Sunday

So our crazy sunday started at 10am (which was a little difficult after clubbing at Gildas) when we met downstairs in our apartment and were greeted by our program directors and some local Italian students. The activity for that morning was to go shopping at the markets with the students to get ingredients for a recipe.

They taught us how to cook tiramisu (which was sooo good) and a pasta with an egg, parmasean cheese, salt, and bacon sauce (also very good, but the multitude of raw eggs made some of us a little sick).

tiramisu

After that we decided to go to Ikea to get some stuff for our apartment (garbage cans, pillows, mirrors, candles, etc), little did we know the adventure that awaited us. 

Journey to Ikea

1. Take tram from our apartment to Largo Argentina (where we get off for school)
2. Take bus from there to the bus terminal
3. Walk from bus terminal to metro station
4. Get on metro line A. (Unless you are us, in which case you get on line b, realize your not on the right train, get off, wait for the next train to go back, and then get on line A)
5. Take that to the very last stop (which is by the airport)
6. Take a bus from there
7. Get off when you see the Ikea sign, cross a highway, and walk through a giant parking lot
8. Get lost in Ikea because you don't understand Italian and get lost on the showroom floors

It was a great experience though, being on our own, following directions, and having to communicate with the locals for help along the way. When we left Ikea at dusk we were greeted by some unusual winged friends...a swarm of BATS!!!!

Bats, not birds and this was after they dive bombed us while leaving

Yay Ikea

So we had to do the entire direction list backwards on our way home. We were exhausted and stressed form our long day and worried we weren't going to be able to make it out for the bears game. On our bus ride to the tram station, one of my roommates, Gina, spotted some of our group members walking down the street to the pub we were supposed to meet at and we made to the BEST decision ever to get off right there and bring our Ikea bags with us to the pub. 

The pub was this adorable little Irish places called Scolars, and it was a night break from all the Italian we had to deal with all day (we were able to speak English in the bar no probs). So we got some beers, ordered some food, watched a great football game and even did some karaoke

Corinne and I at the pub!!

Monday- Back to school, back to school to prove to dad I'm not a fool!

So Monday was our first day of class. We had orientation from 10-11:30 and then a break until our class started at three. So on our break some of our group members decided to roam around Rome. We walked a few minutes and crossed the Tiber and found the Vatican and wandered around St. Peter's Square.

St. Peter's Basillica behind us

On the bridge crossing the Tiber

After that, we were getting pretty hungry so we found a little pizza place and got some delicious pizza. Then we decided that we needed to have our first gelato experience of the trip and we wandered over to the Parthenon and found the best gelato place ever. So we sat on the steps of the fountain next to the Parthenon and ate our gelato while one of the boys tried to feed the pigeons his leftover cone (which Mags got a great video of) Sidenote: Pigeons are EVERYWHERE and not afraid of people

We still had an hour left so we walked to the Trevi Fountain, but we lost Maggie, Gina and Melissa on the way when they stopped to take a picture with a pink vespa (of all things). The Trevi probably one of my favorite spots in Rome so far. 

We were exhausted from our hectic weekend so we just stayed in last night but went at to dinner to an adorable restaurant in Trastevere that we found when we were wandering around

Some the girls out to dinner

Today was more class and wandering around. I think all of my classes are gonna be really interesting, I can't wait!!!