Life as a Centrista

Since you're all reading about my life in Rome, I thought I'd give you an idea of where I'm actually living and what my day-to-day life is like. You know, so you can spend your whole day imagining what my day is like. I live in the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies, AKA the Centro. That's 'center' in Italian, for you. Here it is in all it's glory:

 Living at the Centro is unlike any school experience I've had, since we have our classes, meals, and sleepy-times all in one space. The first floor has a library with a constant temperature of about 10 degrees, a classroom, offices and a living room area in which I spend disgusting amounts of time sitting in one spot studying. Next two floors are rooms and bathrooms, and the top floor is another classroom and a little work-out area. The basement has 2 little dining rooms where we do our eating.
Since the space is not huge, and there are 36 of us, you basically see everyone all the time. At meals, in class, field trips, studying, everywhere. At this point it's nice. I'll touch on that again about half way into the semester...

My room is kind of tiny, but has a sink and a huge window, and someone else is responsible for taking the trash out, so I'm pretty satisfied. Here's what that looks like:

Again, it's tiny. If I back my chair up all the way you can't open the closet, or really walk out of the room. So I don't really spend much time in there, hence the sitting in one spot in the living room all day. Also, that way I am actually being social and seeing people.

A normal day at the Centro: Wake up around 7:30. Grumble about how early it is. Breakfast at 8:00. Mondays we have class at 9, Tuesday and Wednesday we have field trips, and Thursday and Friday I have nothing until 4:00. Lunch is at 1:00, and is usually a nice hearty soup and some other fun thing, like fried zucchini flowers (that's a thing people eat!). Afternoon classes, general nothingness, and dinner at 7:30 (which is a very long time away from 1:00), which is some amazing pasta dish that will make me hate my life whenever I eat pasta in America, then a second course of some meat dish, and every night, dessert. Pannacota, gelato, tiramisu. You know, the usual. Luckily, our field trips require a lot of fast-paced, often up-hill walking, so maybe I will not gain 20 pounds, and only gain 10.

The people here are awesome too. Everyone is a classics major, which is an unimaginable difference from my normal life. No one to make fun of my major and tell me dead languages don't count! (That is personally directed at you, [insert friend from home's name here]). I'd say 80% of my discussions with people here are about Greek, Latin, some classics joke or the reading we all had to do for class. People don't talk about science all the time! It's great!

That's all I have to say about the actual program for now. As for my life, since Saturday morning not much has happened. I had mussels for the first time (kind of by accident, but they were good!), found people to play Settlers of Catan with, built some puzzles and had amazing pizza and gelato. And now it's Monday, so I am awaiting another amazing week! Ciao!

Ciao! Mi Chiamo Ambra!

(Ambra, my new Italian name!) I've been in Rome for a week already! We've done so much in one week, I can only imagine what I'll feel like after four months. I think I'll just go through the week day by day and tell you about all of the exciting things I did, and PICTURES! Alright, let's go!
Monday! We had a short orientation to the program and then walked over the the American Academy in Rome, which also happens to be the highest point in the city! It was an amazing view, which looks slightly less amazing in pictures due to the fog. But here it is anyway:

Later that afternoon we had a tour of Monte Verde, which is our neighborhood (and also a favored area for old Italian facists, apparently...) and then had our welcome dinner (I'll get to the food later). After that, I pretty much collapsed, still recovering from jet-lag.

Suddenly, it was Tuesday! We had our first class, which was slightly overwhelming, and the rest of the day was free, so I went out with some people for our first Italian coffee-bar experience! I can never drink Starbucks again.

Next comes Wednesday! And Wednesday is the exciting day- our first field trip! We visited sights of very early Rome, like the Circus Maximus (which takes a lot of imagination), the Capitoline museum, and THE FORUM. I've seen the forum in so many pictures, and read and learned about it so many times. Being there was an amazing experience- I could not stop smiling. The entire day was so amazing that even after walking around for almost 7 hours straight and freezing nearly the whole time, I was still as happy as I was that morning.

Thurrrrrrsday! I had no class but Italian on Thursday, so it was a pretty laid-back day. I went to the supermarket and got my food for the weekend (mozzarella and prosciutto, do I need anything else?). That night to celebrate the fact that I wasn't falling asleep by 9 PM, I went out with a few people to Trastevere, the land of bars and large groups of drunk Americans. We walked around and had a few drinks, ran into 4 other groups from the Centro a few times, and headed back. My first bar experience: successful.

Annnnnd Friday! Friday I had one thing to do at 3, so from around 9 in the morning until then I sat in the same spot and read/puzzled/talked. It was quite a lazy day, which was nice after the excitement of the rest of the week. At 3 I had a latin field trip, where we saw the inscription that we will be working on for the rest of the semester- AWESOME. At night I spontaneously joined a group of people going to see Drive. After the movie (which had about 15 lines of dialogue?) we walked in circles around Trastevere for a while (walking around outside with drinks is totally acceptable here!) and then somehow made it to Campe dei Fiori, which is probably not somewhere I could find my way back to on my own... We sat at a bar/lounge thing, drank wine and discussed the lack of Centro gossip after only one week. A classy night.

Annnnd that's my week! I'll try to post more often (maybe?) in the future, so I don't have to go through an entire week in one post. Also, I obviously took a lot more pictures than the two I put here, so those will be on facebook if you want to see them. If you're not my friend on facebook, you probably shouldn't  be reading this blog anyways. Creep.

Made it to Rome and I'm Still Alive!

I'm in Rome! I'm alive! Hurray! After an incredibly boring and strangely empty flight, I landed in Rome and got to the Centro without too many shenanigans. So far I've been here for six hours and I've already managed to walk a few hours into more main-land Rome and back to the Centro without getting lost, and experience real Italian restaurant service ("Can I get more coffee, please?" "No! I busy now"). 

While walking around with a few other people, we also found a garden/park thing with statues and some ancient pillars, and this view: It's Rome!

Since I haven't slept in about 24 hours, I think I'm going to spend the rest of today unpacking and sleeping, so I can be ready to get up bright and early tomorrow for 8AM breakfast, followed by inevitable confusion, because there's no one here right now to tell us what to do. 

Pre-Departure Woes

As my last week of break begins and the day of my departure gets closer and closer, I find myself thinking only one thing: 'Oh god, oh god, oh god.'
Don't get me wrong. I'm as excited as can be to go abroad, as anyone who's heard me talk about it will know (HEY! Have you heard I'm going to ROME?). But I'm also very, very nervous. I'm going to a brand new place, I don't even slightly know the language and I don't know anyone there! (This is why I want to learn all the languages! So this doesn't happen!) What if my taxi driver doesn't know english? What if my latin class is harder than what I'm used to? Oh no, I haven't gotten notebooks yet!! Besides that, I have to pack 4 months worth of my life into one suitcase? I'm a notorious over-packer, making this one of my biggest worries...
The rational part of me can clearly see that I'm needlessly stressing myself out. I know it's all going to be fine, I know it's going to be an amazing new experience and a month from now I'll be laughing at my nervousness with my new friends. But for now, I'm kinda scared!
But as I lay in bed at night, keeping my self awake worrying about whether I'm supposed to pack shampoo or buy it there, I just need to calm down and remind myself that I have an amazing opportunity, a once in a life time experience and it will be amazing, regardless of the toiletries I choose to pack.