I have groceries!!

No pictures today, just a bit of an update.

I have groceries in the apartment! I finally don't have to eat out all the time, thank goodness!

Classes started yesterday. The first class of the day is my On-Site Roman Archaeology course. It should be interesting. It will be nice that many things that I want to see in Rome will just automatically be included in tours from that class. The bad thing is, I have to get up WAY early on the days that I plan to run so that I can be back in time to leave an hour before class starts as I have to travel to the site and the buses in Italy are extremely unreliable. And I have to get back to the University within 40 minutes for my Italian 101 class (no lunch for me!) It's about 3 hrs straight of Italian for 4 days a week. Really intensive language learning will hopefully yield positive results.

Today in my Arch class we visited the Capitoline hill and I got my first views of the Roman Forum. Spectacular.

I tried my first run in Rome today. My eventual stopping place was supposed to be the Trevi Fountain so I could take pictures of it without tons of people there. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn on Viale di Trastevere and instead of crossing the river into the City Center I made it into a part of town with big roads and no sidewalks. Not the best place for a runner!

I am taking the rest of the day easy today as I feel something in the back of my throat and I would rather not get sick while I am here.

It looks like the roomies and I will be possibly taking a trip to Venice next week. I want a gondola ride!!

highlights from bus/walking tour yesterday

Yesterday was the first chance I had to really take some pictures. I'll post just some of the highlights.

"Rome or Die"

views from the highest hill of Rome: Gianicolo

St. Peters

Trevi Fountain

The Pantheon 

Musicians in the Piazza outside the Pantheon and street performer.

I had my first experience of Italian Gelato - I got grapefruit and kiwi flavors - YUM. 

The night ended with all the roomies going to a restaurant for dinner and sharing a nice bottle of wine. At that point I split off because they were going to do a little partying and dancing in Campo Di' Fiori. I attempted to head home to sleep but only succeeded getting home about 5 minutes before they did due to taking the wrong bus and then delayed buses. But I ended up in an interesting part of Rome with lots of Ruins, I just wish I knew where it was! 

Update and a few pictures

Have arrived safely in Rome.

Yesterday the roomies and I did a bit of exploring in our area and found where a few stores are that we'll probably need in the future.

We were treated to dinner by the ISA staff which consisted of WAY too much food, culminating in this:

That of course is partially eaten piece of Tiramisu. YUM. 

Afterwards the we (the roomies) decided to do a little exploring around the restaurant area and discovered this: 

It's the Area Sacri di Largo Argentina 

What I could make out from the information poster it is basically made up of many different temples to different Gods. 

Sorry, they're not very good pictures they were taken on my phone. 

Today we have scheduled a Bus tour and Walking tour, so there will be lots of pictures to come!

Welcome!

This will be a place for all those left back here in the states to keep up with what i'm doing over in the wonderful city of Rome this summer.

I hope to post as much as possible but who knows how much time I really will have over there!

I'm still in the Pre-packing stage so there's not much to post on yet, but soon there will be!