Arrival in Rome and Orientation Week

Buongiorno (good day) from Italy. This past week I traveled to Rome and kicked off my study abroad program with lots of exploring, great food, and very little sleep.

My travel day started late on September 4, with a drive to Fargo as I was flying out fairly early the next morning. We had supper with some of my cousins who live in Fargo before heading to the hotel to get some sleep. Woke up around 4:30 the next morning to get to the airport. Got to the airport around 5:30 and checked my bag. I then said my goodbyes and went through security. Hopped on a quick flight to Minneapolis and arrived in about an hour. I found my gate that I would be flying out of and more people on the group flight started to arrive. We then flew out to JFK where we looked for food and prepared for the long flight ahead. I watched a movie on the plane and ate the provided dinner which was ravioli. After my movie I attempted and failed to get some sleep. I probably only got around two hours. We landed in Rome around 7:30 a.m. on September 6.

After arriving in Rome, we went through security and grabbed our checked bags.

We met up with Dr. Lombardo who had a bus take us to campus. Arriving on campus we met some of the staff and got our rooms (which do not have air conditioning). We went through some paperwork we had to fill out and had a light lunch on campus. We took a tour of campus and were able to unpack our bags. We headed down the hill into the neighborhood to pick up sim cards for our phones. We stopped and explored one of the grocery stores. We had pizza at Gusto Verace around 7 and took cold showers before going to bed (a common theme in the first week as the temperature is in the 90s every day).

Wednesday consisted of a walking tour of the Rome city center. We ate breakfast on campus before taking the bus to the city center. We saw the Roman Forum and stopped at multiple churches and other major sites of ancient Rome. We stopped for lunch at Polese and ate bruschetta pasta and had many tomato themed appetizers. We then continued on our Rome walking tour stopping at St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican City. We attended mass at the Vatican as a group before catching the bus to get dinner at Santa Brace at 7:30. Where we ate tar tar, a traditional Italian dish made out of raw meat.

On Thursday we had a quick breakfast before going into the classroom to go over some rules. We were showed how to use the laundry machines and were given a rundown of the campus food service. We had lunch at lo Pozzo before we went on a walking tour of the Monteverde neighborhood. We learned where restaurants are located as well as many different shops to get items we may need. Me and my roommates picked up a fan and a few other things for the room before heading back to campus. We had dinner at Gusto Verace again and learned about the Queen passing away. We walked back to campus and celebrated Mary’s birthday with drinks and snacks.

Friday morning consisted of more talks in the classroom about the academic program, time management, and traveling in Europe. We had lunch on campus before heading to the police station to register our visa paperwork. After paperwork had finished me and seven others headed into town. We caught the bus and went to the Trevi fountain. After that we walked around for a bit got some gelato and headed in the direction of the Pantheon. We turned a corner and the Pantheon suddenly appeared we walked around for a while longer before catching the bus to our dinner spot for the night, La Gianicolense.

Saturday was an early morning student life trip to the beach town of Nettuno. We learned how to use the train system and after an hour arrived in Nettuno. We stopped at the church to use the bathrooms and then headed to the beach. We had lots of fun playing in the huge waves and getting covered in sand. Some of us ate lunch from a small grocery store and got some free grapes from the shop owner. We went swimming again before heading back to Rome. After arriving at the train station, we took the bus back to campus and showered off all of the salt and sand. We ate leftovers for supper before going to bed early.

Sunday morning was spent doing laundry before meeting up with some other UMary students at the Vatican. We explored some side streets and got gelato for lunch. We slowly made our way back to campus but had to wait for the bus for over 40 minutes. We headed to the grocery store to pick up some food for a late lunch. We ate in the dinning room and spent some time relaxing before preparing for class in the morning.

Ciao, Ann