Every day here has become an adventure! Everything is new, interesting, puzzling, intriguing. The second day in Rome I slept through half the day, despite my effort to wake up early by setting three alarms on my phone. It helped wear out the jetlag and energize me for the rest of the day because at 5:00 p.m. we had our orientation at AUR. As soon as I set foot on the campus I began marveling at how picturesque it was, with colorful villas and a cozy courtyard, it didn’t even seem like a school. First we registered and got our ID’s, which officially made us AUR students. Then we were off to the orientation session where student life gave us useful information on transportation, safety, Italian living and culture. We heard lines like, “Be aware of Italian quiet hours,” and “Italians DO love their wine but they DON’T drink themselves silly.”
After the orientation AUR resident students were offering walking tours of Rome. Not wanting to waste a minute of my time, and seeing it as the perfect opportunity to get know the city, I immediately went. Who knew Rome could be so small? My first impression was that everything was so far away from everything else. It turns out that it’s all walking distance…walking distances that I wasn’t used to, but walking distance nonetheless. First, we walked from AUR to an amazing spot on the tallest hill in Rome where we could see the whole city. Then we walked down Via Garibaldi and through the narrow cobblestone streets to the oldest neighborhood in Rome, past the Tiber River, to Largo di Argentina, the remains of Pompey’s theatre. We continued to walk from there to the National Museum, a magnificent white building with a statue of Vittorio Emanuele (an Italian general part of the unification of Italy) and the tomb of the unknown soldier (which is guarded 24/7) in front of it. From there we walked past the uncovering of the original ground level of Rome and the Roman Forum. That is when we got our first glimpse of it…the Colosseum, where out walking tour ended. It was mind blowing to think that I was walking down the same streets that Caesar’s army marched through! It turned out that we were walking for over two hours and despite how much our feet hurt, we didn’t stop there. Some of us walked to the Trevi Fountain, which was packed with people, both tourists and Romans; some sitting and smoking, others eating gelato and taking pictures.
Some people complain about everything in Rome being old; yes everything in Rome is truly old but EVERYTHING, each building, street, fountain, and ruin has its own history and significance. That’s one of the things I love about this city.

Shortly after arriving to the airport, I was dropped off in front of my new apartment, along with my roommate Nicole Faretra. Waiting for us was a cute Italian boy from the housing agency that would be letting us into our apartment and showing us around. Our apartment is located on the fifth floor of a residence located on Circonvallazione Gianicolense (it’s definitely a mouthful), in the neighborhood of Rome called Monteverde Nuova. Monteverde Nuova is a very favorable area to live from what we have heard and seen, but apparently it is located so south of Rome that it never makes it onto any of the tourist maps. This made it hard for us to find our way out of our own apartment the first few times.

We couldn't wait to see our apartment so we squeezed as many people and luggage into the four person elevator as we could in order to get to the top quicker. However, to keep all of the suspense of getting to see our new apartment going, the key to the door needs to be turned a ton of times before the door is unlocked, secure but not convenient. As soon as I entered the apartment, my jaw dropped to the floor. When they said Casa Romana, I was not expecting this at all. I expected and old school, tiny apartment with plain white walls, old furniture. We got completely the opposite! Our apartment is amazing, even compared to other units. We have a double bedroom with a master bath, another double bedroom, one single bedroom, huge living room area, red kitchen, second bathroom, plenty of closet space, new cooking and eating utensils, tiled floors, and on top of that a balcony that my roommates says is bigger than her whole apartment in Philly. From the balcony we have a breath-taking view of the city. Aside from getting the lucky apartment draw Nikki and I also were lucky enough to be the first ones there and the ones to take the bedroom with the master bath.

Despite the fact that we were wiped out and jetlagged, we immediately tried to settle in, changed our clothes and took our first trip on the streets of Rome. We ordered our first pizza in half English and half Italian, we ate our first gelato, bought our first phone card from a tabacchiaio (tobacco shop), which in Italy sells everything from phone cards and bus tickets, to pastries and alcohol. We walked around and got a sense of the neighborhood and even went on our first grocery shopping trip at a supermercato called Simply. We then took a short nap, and when we woke up hours later went out to dinner with another Drexel student to celebrate our first night in Rome. Not knowing at all how to get to the center, we followed the directions of the cute Italian from the housing agency who let us into our apartment. He told us to take the 8 Trolley in the direction of Largo di Argentina, one of the many archaeological uncoverings.

Later that night, we wined and dined at a place called “Il Portofino,” where the food was great but we learned our first lesson in Rome. Lesson One: DO NOT eat the bread at restaurants even if the waiter brings it to your table without you asking for it. Unlike in the United States, bread is not complementary. It just might cost you 1.50 Euro a person for a slice of stale bread.

After a week or two of running around frantically preparing for studying abroad the big day had finally arrived and I think some of the anxiety was beginning to settle down. “So much to do and so little time” is usually how it goes and before I knew it, I was in the airport ready to take off. Studying abroad in Rome is something I had been waiting to do since I was a freshman in high school and now one of my dreams was becoming a reality.

As I stood in JFK airport waiting to check-in my luggage piled on the Smartecarte, I thought about what I had forgotten, because there’s always something. They say to pack lightly but that’s kind of difficult considering that I would be living in Rome for four months, three seasons, and on top of that, I’m a girl. We girls need to prepare for every occasion! The hardest part of preparing for my trip was by far packing. It is what caused me the most stress, yet it was the only thing I wanted to do. I laid out my suitcases on my bedroom floor a month before my departure date, hoping that if I packed sooner, I would get to Rome sooner. Needless to say, that didn’t work out too well. It only wasted time as I moved my belongings from my closets to my suitcases, to my bed to “eliminate” some of the things I planned to take with me, then back to the suitcases, only to repeat the process. Thankfully, none of my bags were over the weight limit and I was able to pass through customs without any delays.

While sitting on the plane next to my soon to be roommate, getting ready to take off, it slowly began to hit me that after a few long hours in a tiny uncomfortable seat I would be in one of the world’s most ancient, most historic, and most beautiful cities. After seven hours on the plane, a two hour layover, and another roughly two hour flight we were hovering over Italy and the pilot says over the intercom, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will shortly be landing in Rome and as we descend I want to direct your attention to the beautiful view outside of your window.” My first view of Italy was its majestic Alps; what a sight!

After landing in Rome, exhausted from not being able to sleep more than two or three half an hour naps, we had to stand and wait for our luggage thinking all of the “what if’s” it didn’t arrive on time. Luckily it did and after exchanging some US Dollars into Euros at a horrible exchange rate in the airport, we were greeted by AUR students, Dean of Student Life and faculty members who transported us to our apartments. Finally, I had landed from the biggest leap of my life, with both of my feet planted on the ground of Roman soil!