May 12, 2010

I am here! In Roma!

(This picture is not supposed to be here, I was going to include it later on but it is being fussy as to where I stick it, so you will in enjoy it now. :) (still getting used to blogger, hang in there with me) It is an orange tree that I talk about later in the post that is in the garden at the Santa Maria in Cappella (our apartment).

Some of the girls in the nutrition program that were on my flight. Here we are ready to depart! Thanks momma for taking the pic! :)

Wow! Where has time gone? I am already in day 3 here in Italy and tomorrow is day 4! I don't even know where to start, I have so much to say!


Well, let's start from the beginning. My flight was pretty good. Besides the yucky food, the small foot room, me hitting an Italian man in the head with my carry on duffel, changing the movie screen to German so that I couldn't watch movies, and our 3 hour delay...everything went swell! I was fortunate enough to get a seat next to a girl in my program, she is very nice and we have a lot in common. Once we FINALLY arrived at the Leonardo da Vinci airport in Rome, we needed to find the Pantheon Institute shuttle driver to take us to our apartment. We knew that we would have trouble with this because of our delay, and...we did. After we all got our passport visa stamped, we went and captured our luggage then walked up and down the airport trying to find the Pantheon Institute shuttle driver. As we walked up and down the airport, literally all heads turned...everywhere we went! One man stopped us and said, "You Americana?" "You looking for something?" but he wasn't very much help. After our arms were falling off and an hour had passed, the shuttle driver finally found us! We walked another approximate mile to the bus with luggage in hand, the shuttle driver was very nice and helpful. As we drove along admiring all of Roma's view, we listened to Fireflies and Lady gaga through the bus radio speakers. :) We drove approximately for a 1/2 hour until we arrived at the Vicolo Santa Maria in Cappella (our apartment). We checked in, got our keys and found our rooms. We are staying in an old monestary that shares half for the Pantheon Institute students and the other half is a home for the older folks (they are very sweet). We have a beautiful courtyard in the center of our building that has orange trees, grape vines, and an array of beautiful flowers. Once we were all settled in and unpacked, we went on an arrival and neighbourhood orientation. Our professor had not yet arrived so we tagged along with one of the other student groups, their TA and professor (HDFS, child development). They showed us where our classes will be held, where we were to meet for orientation the next day and some fabulous and cheap pizzarias that all of the students go to (which is where we had dinner). Sorry no picture, but it was fantastic! I was towards the end of the line and by the time I reached the counter to order, there were only two types of pizza toppings to choose from, zucchini or bacon. Obviously I chose the zucchini and it was so yummy. We cleaned the pizzaria out, he was literally left with just a few smidgens for the next customers. Let's just say that those Italian men in line after us were not too happy. After we aquainted ourselves with the city for a little bit we stopped in a local market to get our first experience of purchasing grocery items the europian way. I did well, I must say. :) After grocery shopping, we headed back to the apartment to get ready for bed because we were all very tired and we needed to get up very early the next morning for the welcome reception and orientation with Pantheon Institute staff.


Day 1 in Roma complete. I am actually going to end now and {hopefully} finish catching up tomorrow. We have been on the go with tons of homework assignments already. It is a little overwhelming right now, but I am adjusting well. I didn't post for the first couple of days because I am having charger/converter problems so I have been borrowing and my laptop keeps dieing, so I am sorry. I thought I could catch up on all of the information that I want to say, but I am getting too tired seeing that it is 1:30am here and everyone else is asleep. Also, we need to meet Professor Probart at 7:45am for our day trip to Cori, olive oil frantoio and local food tomorrow! Pretty excited. I am going to try and complete all of my homework assignments on the bus ride so that I have plenty of time in the evening to update everyone.

I hope everyone is doing well, I miss and love you all! xoxo.

Buona notte! (Good night!)

P.S. Sorry if there are lots of spelling errors, seeing that I am extremely tired and spell check is only in Italian so it tells me that everything is spelled wrong! HA!



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are awesome Sahira!

The High Family said...

Great start and can't wait to hear more! Love and miss you!