Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Ciao Amici

We're halfway through the first week of classes, and let me just say, it has been preeetty tough getting back into the routine of doing homework after feeling like I've been on vacation for the past several days. I am taking some really interesting classes though, so that makes it easier. I think my favorite is going to be my Art in Rome class. We have class on-site, meaning we get to go to all sorts of places in the city to actually view the art and listen to the professor lecture. How awesome is that?

It's art! And it's in Rome!
I got some really exciting news the other day that the research scholarship that is allowing me to be here in Rome is also paying for the JFRC study trip to Greece over fall break. The itinerary for the trip looks amazing; Delphi, Corinth, Mycene, the Mykonos, Delos... I feel like I won a game show or something: "Here's your all expenses paid trip to Greece!" Is this real life?

I've been getting better at navigating the neighborhood around campus. I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy some breakfast food since it's not served in the dining hall and bought some Italian Special K (which is actually better than its American counterpart). I also went to another local store to get a hairdryer, and another place to get a few school supplies. The stores in Italy are very small and specific to a few certain items, like electronics, housewares, etc; there's really no place like a Jewel Osco or Walmart where you can get everything at once, so it's a little tricky tracking everything down, but it's making me learn the neighborhood, and some Italian shopping terminology!

I also met for the first time with the professor in charge of the Ricci Scholars projects here in Rome and she told all of us some general logistics for getting our projects started. She has apparently picked some mentors for us outside of the Rome center whom she believes will be of help to us as we get started with our research. I'm really looking forward to getting started; I feel like this is going to keep me very busy, but I'm so motivated to put together a really great research project and actually learn what the schools are like here.

Here are some pictures from my past few days:



On the outskirts of St. Peter's Square during the scavenger hunt



Our fancy Italian dinner last Friday (the main course was lasagna, which you can't tell since we ate it all)

Dramatic ruins!

Rome at night