Day 17-Roma!-Sunday-2/13/11

I am here in Roma and holy cow is it crazy!!! I feel like I'm in New York city! This is completely different from my usual burbs!  I am a little overwhelmed, but I think that's because after we got off the bus it was starting to get dark and we took a taxi to our apartment which was crazy.  People are 100% correct when they say the taxi drivers here are crazy.  I looked over a Molly and said, "I could be a taxi driver." We laughed.  I don't think she understands, it was like nascar and I have a led foot so how perfect? ;) hehe Right mom and dad? Just kidding!  Anyways, we arrived at dusk so the sun quickly set and I did not even get a chance to see Rome in the day really which was disappointing :(  Oh well, at night it's still super gorgeous!  Our apartment is actually really big and spacious, except we don't really have a living room, it's in the other girls' room.  We have a little kitchen, and a nice sized bathroom.  We flipped for the bedrooms, but I'm glad we got the one we did because after we found out they have no closet space so they have to keep their stuff in the hallway, that makes up for their extra room I suppose.  I think they are still pretty fairly equal though and we have chill roomates so I think we are all alright.  Another part that bummed me out is we don't have internet so I'm thinking of looking into a wind internet key because it's going to be really difficult to write my research papers and stay in contact with people from home without the internet.  :(  Everything is just a little overwhelming and I'm not going to lie, I teared up a little bit, but I took a few deep breaths and said to myself, "Ashley, you can do this!" and now I'm ok :)  Actually, my friends came to look at my place today and apart from being in no where land, the furthest away from school, they think it's really big compared to their places.  Then again, I only had two requests, lots of girls to live with and close to school.  Neither which I received, but life is about adjusting to new experiences and learning the unknown, so I am going to be just fine.  Plus now I don't have to worry about a gym because I have a 45 minute walk to school every morning.  Rome, apart from the massive historical monuments every where you look, actually reminds me of what I picture San Francisco to look like, because there are a ton more hills than I expected and I feel like we walk up and down a lot.  It's really weird to just walk past important monuments and ancient history all the time!  It definitely helps me find my way around.    Today we got up at 8:00am because we had to be at our meeting by 10am and we had no idea where it was.  I don't understand why they do this to us!  Luckily, the bus stop is literally a block away from our apartment and we sat there for about 15 minutes until the bus came.  We road to the stop they told us to get off at and looked at our directions.  It said approximately a two minute walk from there, but it had no directions like if we should go right/left/forward/backward!  Luckily, a bunch of groups ended up in the same area and eventually we found it :)  The directors talked about all sorts of stuff like housing, school, transcripts, our food vouchers, etc. for a good two hours and finally it was lunch.  Another poorly run situation because it was buffet style.  This wouldn't have been a big deal except we have 133 kids in our program all starving trying to get food it was a jungle.  Yikes!  Eventually everyone had their share and we went on a short walk where we saw our school and where we were meeting for our welcome drink.  After that we were on our own and since we were near the Trevi Fountain I suggested we go see it :)  It was beautiful, but packed!  I am definitely going to have to go back over there during a week day when people are at work and school.   P.s. like I said before about historical buildings everywhere, on our way to the Trevi Fountain we just happened to pass the pantheon nbd. ;)  It's amazing here!  The weather was gorgeous all day too which made me really happy because we walked a long long ways.  When we finally reached home I was exhausted!  I took a nap and then our land lord came to reset our electricity since my roomies accidently blew it trying to do laundry the night before.  After that Molly and I set out to find food and wireless internet.  Unfortunately, we could not find wi-fi anywhere :(  I was pretty upset about this because our apartment did not have it and no where around us had it which isn't good for keeping in touch with everyone :(  Eventually, we decided to just find food and we found a cute restaurant that turned out to be super cheap :D! Yay!  Molly got pizza and I got salsicca con vedura which means sausage and vegetables.  It tasted like hamburger, but better and the vegetables, which I thought would be mixed veggies, ended up being spinach.  It was surprisingly really good and flavorful, but really salty which kinda stunk because I don't like salty foods.  Overall, I really liked the place and I'm sure we will be back in that general direction.  After dinner we searched for some chocolate and just as we were about to give up and go home, we found a little shop that had chocolate bars :) My day was brightening a little and I was starting to forget about the whole internet situation.  I showered when we got home and then my mom and Gerry called which made my day a million times better :)  They said they booked their flight and I will get to see them over my spring break! I can't wait!!! It was the best news ever, especially because it was such a stressful/crappy day!!  I went to bed early and feeling a lot better than when I woke up. Thanks to Mom, Gerry, and Chocolate! Hehe :D

My friends and I at the trevi foutain :)

My school in Roma!

Second floor in Italy is never really the second floor....they lie!

Easiest building to remember, once I find it I'm close to school :)

Coliseum in the background...no big deal.

Yup, this was definitely a person, it reminded me of the people on the streets of Hawaii

Notice the cute couple just sharing a romantic kiss in the corner awwww :)

I'm soooo happy I found this the first day of exploring! Now I just need to throw my coin :)

Random Chinese Parade!