I made it!
Traveling was long and boring. The seats we (my 3 friends and I) had picked were all changed around and I ended up sitting in the middle. That was interesting for the 8 hour plane ride! It was really uncomfortable and got like 30 minutes of sleep. I was able to sleep a little on the ride from Amsterdam to Rome, but it was still only an hour. I was exhausted by the time we landed.
We landed in Rome around 12pm and had to wait a while to find our bags. The baggage claim we were standing at ended up breaking and we had to wait for someone to fix it! But once we got our bags and everything together (no one lost their stuff! Hurray!), it was really nerve wracking trying to get a taxi and tell him where we needed to go. It is really humbling trying to speak to someone and have them understand what you need when you know maybe 3 words of Italian. The language is pretty similar to Spanish but even then it isn’t exact. I think for a long time I will need to carry my dictionary around, especially when eating out or going to the grocery store! That was an experience!
When we finally found our apartment and got our keys, we all relaxed a little and put away our luggage. The apartment is HUGE! 3 large bedrooms (one 2 person, one 3 person and one 4 person); 3 bathrooms all with showers, sinks and toilets; a living room; and a kitchen. We then decided we would walk Jacob to find his apartment. After we walked what seemed like 4 miles trying to find his apartment, we found a little pizzeria to eat dinner. We were all exhausted and most of us hadn’t eaten for 8 hours, and even then the food was just airplane food. We all got pizza and chowed down! It will be interesting trying to keep the carbs to a minimum. It is all so good though!
The streets of Rome at first glance reminded me of some place in Mexico. It seemed that everything is really old and crumbling. But every building is old or being renovated but that’s what makes it so beautiful. The back alleys would seem scary or not safe at home are where the best places for shopping or eating are. It makes for a unique feel to the city and makes it really beautiful. There are also palm trees here! Who would have known that in Italy there are palm trees? It might be because the weather is nice and warm. Today it is 55 but extremely humid and rainy. Its supposed to rain the next 6 days.
We get internet in our apartment but all the search engines and websites (besides facebook and gmail) are in Italian. It will be interesting trying to figure that one out…
We found the grocery store! Me and Katie had an interesting time trying to find the things we needed. We had to carry everything back to our apartment so we only got a few things. But we didn’t know that you were supposed to weigh the produce and bring a ticket to the checkout place. And we didn’t know we had to place the money in this slot instead of handing them money.
There will be more pictures to come but these ones are from the courtyard out front my apartment!
More to come!
-M