Well I'm here. Finally. It's still pretty hard to believe that this is my home for the next few months. The process of getting here was challenging enough. Between a blizzard hitting DC the night before I left that caused the power to go out, leaving me packing in the dark, to getting my passport stuck in a machine at the airport, to a woman taking my seat on the airplane, to discovering right as the plane took off that all the music on my ipod had somehow disappeared, I was starting to worry that the bad luck would follow me to Rome. So far so good, though. (knock on wood). My first two days have been wonderful and have gotten me really excited to continue exploring.
I'm living in a convent in the Aventine (one of the seven hills of Rome) where Trinity College rents space for the program's main campus. I've got a nice little single right next to a door that opens out to the terrace at the convent. It's very quaint and classic Rome--terra-cotta architecture and tropical greenery.
The convent is right near Santa Sabina, a basilica whose name I once remembered in art history based on some mnemonic involving the name Sabrina along with a series of other similar seeming churches. Turns out, it's a gorgeous building with a conglomeration of historic carvings, frescoes, mosaics and stained glass windows inside.
Just a short walk from there is "the Orange Grove," which is my favorite so far. It's a nice little park with a little fountain you can drink out of, lots of orange trees (though the oranges are reeeeally sour) and best of all a spectacular, clear view of basically the entire city of Rome. It's amazing. I think we've already been there at least three times in our 2 days here. 
For the last two days the program leaders have taken us on walking tours in the morning to help us get our bearings. That will definitely take a while as there are so many random backstreets and piazza's everywhere. Also, turns out none of my friends so far really pride themselves on their senses of direction, so it's been an adventure. Today we walked down the Via del Corso which goes past many of the most historic destinations--the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, etc. It was just meant to be a brief tour, so we hardly stopped even though there was so much to see! I was taking photos and others were trying to figure out what we were looking at, so we kept getting stuck on the wrong side of the crosswalks. Whoops. (Sidenote: crossing streets here is terrifying. Very different from Brunswick, ME). Anyway, we're definitely going back to that area to explore in more depth, hopefully at night when there aren't as many tourists.
I had my first gelato, espresso and cappuccino here today, so obviously it was a great day! We're in the process of checking out all the cafes (called bars) in the neighborhood around the convent to decide where we want to become "regulars". We figure even if we seem like tourists because we order cappuccinos after 11 am (apparently a big no-no, according to all of our guidebooks), at least if we're regulars that's a little better.
Haven't really mentioned the food, but it's been delicious so far, of course. I've already eaten more pasta than I did all last semester, but I'm not complaining. I'm really excited to go to the grocery store and the open-air market and just see all the unusual things they sell. The window displays are mouth-watering enough.
The weirdest thing so far, other than the ridiculous amount of graffiti, is how many ruins there are that aren't even identified by a sign or anything. It's as if there's too much history for anyone to really cover or care about it all. I'm really excited for my on-site art history classes to help demystify some of it at least. Tomorrow we have a walking tour of Trastevere which I loved when I went there last night, so I can't wait to see during the day. Narrow cobblestones streets and lots of little shops. And then classes start on Monday which will be a shock after such a long break from work, but at the same time, it should be nice to settle into a routine.
Anyway that's enough for now. To be continued...
Ciao!
