Wednes­day, August 26^th, 2009: My flight, which was also home to around 9 other stu­dents from our pro­gram, arrived at FCO pre­cisely on sched­ule at 8:07am CEST. After going through immi­gra­tion and cus­toms, we then split into two groups: one group of five took a pri­vate taxi to the Rome Cen­ter, while another group of five, myself included, decided to take the Leonardo Express to the  Roma Ter­mini rail­way sta­tion. Mak­ing sure to val­i­date our tick­ets, we jammed 5 of us and our lug­gage into a six-person com­part­ment and had our first glimpses of ruins and the cli­mate rush­ing past us. Split­ting into two addi­tional groups, we then went via taxi to the Rome Cen­ter proper.

Ital­ian Taxi rides are basi­cally what one would expect of any taxi dri­ver. After that, we got our keys, some basic instruc­tions, and went to check out our apart­ment, which was about 2 min­utes away from the Rome Cen­ter. Over­look­ing the Campo dei Fiori, we have a fairly cen­tral loca­tion for exploring.

We spent the next few hours rest­ing and peo­ple watch­ing over the Campo. Rain, one of the peo­ple who is stay­ing in our apart­ment, decided to go and imi­tate an inter­pre­ta­tive dance mime in the square. His efforts drew quite a crowd, which was a crowd which did not exist before the imi­ta­tor showed up.

After a sorely needed nap, we then went off on a edu­ca­tional food shop­ping trip with our Ital­ian teacher before decid­ing to head off with a large group who was going to explore, of course, the ancient and ruined build­ings which told Rome’s his­tory through­out the ages. Stop­ping at an out­door restau­rant, a group which was just myself and one other guy hung out on the street which ran ele­vated across from the Col­i­seum, and we stayed there for about an hour before finally head­ing back at around 1am. When we arrived back at the apart­ment to the loud nightlife of the Campo.

Thurs­day,  August 27^th, 2009: Wak­ing up at 8am for the 10am ori­en­ta­tion and then going to Ital­ian class after that, class was three hours of what I already knew. It didn’t help mat­ters that it was roughly 160 degrees in the class­room, and that the Ital­ian teacher, who is an Italy native, apol­o­gized for the heat which she said was even warmer than she was used to.

Class was over, and it was time for another brief nap before flee­ing to the UWRC library until 5pm. This air-conditioned oasis pro­vided us with inter­net, cool air, and a place to plot our next moves!

We went gro­cery shop­ping in the after­noon. It’s pretty incred­i­ble about the qual­ity of cheeses and prod­ucts at a typ­i­cal store. The prices were gen­er­ally quite rea­son­able, and the qual­ity unmatched in the US. Din­ner was then made for us, which was a mush­room white sauce pasta which was quite amazing.

At around 10, we decided to go to Piazza Navona, which was extremely crowded with tourists. Brush­ing this minor incon­vienence aside, we stood and soaked up the scene regard­less before walk­ing along the Tiber river and the nooks and cran­nies of the Traste­vere rione (district).

After drop­ping off one of the group at her apart­ment, we wan­dered back and retired at 2am.