Settling into Roma

Rome is a New York City with century-old monuments across from grocery stores, Flying Tigers, and gelaterias. Culture shocks have been abundant, as have pasta and pizza. Everything in Rome has been a dream. A week of orientation provided more than enough time to meet the other 151 students in this program and to try at least 20 different gelato shops. Honestly, I’m loving it here. Everyone is keen on finding travel buddies, so the process of planning trips each weekend is quite a smooth ordeal. You just met someone in your political science class who wants to visit Milan for the weekend? Chill. Invite them and the other person you just met in your Italian class. Everyone is here to experience as many cultures as they can. A big push was made to encourage us all to experience Italy along with other countries, so my initial plan for the weekends is to visit different parts of Italy. First Milan, then Florence. Of course, more places will be visited throughout my weeks here; I’ve already planned the next three weeks, and so have many others.

Classes are truly an experience and a half. Each class meets twice a week. Once for an hour and another for two hours. Those two-hour classes are typically filled up by field studies which are basically field trips to different museums or monuments. I think I’m going to be visiting the Colosseum about three times because of them. Italian class is a little different. We meet three times a week, but it is truly a breath of relief to finally start learning the language.

Here is a quick introduction to my days in Rome. The first week was filled with orientation. We were taken on tours, gelato tastings, aperitivos, and a lot of presentations. Exhausting, but very helpful to adjust to the new atmosphere.