For orientation, we had a 3 day stay in Assisi, about 4 hours north of Rome. We stayed in hotels, and had activities that were "somewhat" helpful, the best of them being a tour of Assisi. It was odd to hear on the tour about two "new rooms" that had been added to a church. The "new" rooms were added in the 1700s but in relation to the centuries old church, they WERE new. Something being hundreds of years old here is nothing.
On our last day in Assisi, Tim and Dana and I took a walk up to the castle. The view was amazing, and it wasn't foggy which made for some great pictures.
Back in Rome, classes started last wednesday. My first class was an architecture class that I thought was going to be mostly writing papers, but as it turns out, it is actually a drawing class. I had to go buy sketchbooks and special pencils and pens, and compasses and rulers. I'm pretty excited about it seeing as my major would be architecture if Loyola offered it. On thursday I had 3 classes, but I accidentally skipped my first class because I went to a class that I wasn't even enrolled in. I was even pretty adamant to the prof. that I was in it, because my name wasn't on the attendance list. So when I got back to my room I checked online and it turned out I spent 3 hours in a class that I'm not in. oh well! My other classes are Italian Film Genre, Italian 101, The world of Late Antiquity (history class), and an Italian writers class. It's going to be different than my latest semester of business and math classes, but it will be a welcome change.
So this is our first real weekend in Rome, and it was a good one! We don't have classes on friday, so we spent the day planning our spring break trip to Madrid and Paris, and then we played a game of "calcio" (soccer) with some other students. I also ate about 12 clementines picked straight from the tree in the courtyard. I'm going to miss that in Minnesota. Friday night we went downtown and saw the Colosseum and went out to eat at a little restaurant. Yesterday we went to the Emperor Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, about an hour outside of Rome. It was a huge estate, and a lot of the walls are still standing. I have taken a rock from everywhere we have been, and at Hadrian's villa (or Villa Adriana), I took a piece of terracotta from one of the walls.
Last night my friends and I went to a pub, but since it was a Roma soccer game, it was full. Then we went to a nearby restaurant and I ordered Nachos with guacamole (and got made fun of by my friends) which was actually doritos and guacamole when it came. Everything in Rome is uphill so I have become pretty used to walking great distances on uphill cobblestone roads. Between the clementines and the walking, I'm not too worried about getting scurvy or getting out of shape when I'm here.
I'm joining the intramural Calcio team tomorrow. I wasn't going to at first, but I am heeding the advice of one of the full years here that "you're f*ed up if you aren't on the Calcio teams."
Anywho, I hope this wasn't boring. I'm not good at blogging, so I'll work on it.
Ciao!
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