Getting Our Footing

After some, scratch that, a SERIOUS amount of walking on Wednesday (which may or may not have included figuring out public transportation in the wee hours of the morning) my feet are dead.

My poor poor pinky toe on my right foot is obliterated... its a mess. Probably TMI here but already had to pop 3 nasty blisters.

SO, yesterday the roomz and I decided eff it, we are going to look like Americans and wear workout clothes and nikes today to give our feet a break... Best. decision. ever.

Lulu for the win

All 7 of us got up and out the door early to go to Campo de Fiori, the outside market. I had the most delicious peach for 80 euro cents. Amazing. We also scouted out the grocery store and got free coffee coupons from a rep that works for Bus2Alps tours all over europe. Score.

We met up with our tour guide and student group (go team red) for a walking tour of Trastevere. We met in Piazza de Santa Maria in Trastevere for a guided tour of our neighborhood that included where to eat, where the pharmacy is, how to get to the train station, blah blah blah.

We continued the walk to campus (a good 25 minutes) and toured the facilities. The CEA campus in particular is real small but all you really need. Most students decide to split time between CEA and other universities, but since I am ahead in credits, I opted out. (For example, my roommate has a class at the CEA campus 9-10, lets say, and then has to be at the John Cabot University Campus at 10:30) Aka she HAS to use public transportation, which can be a little bit iffy at times.

ANYWHO, we had a break after this and got Piadines at the shop across from school. SO GOOD. The place was kind of set up like subway, where you can pick what you want in your sandwich or wrap (piadine). Got proscuitto, mozzarella, artickoke, tomato, lettuce... Killer.

Next we had an SOS Italian Class.

After already taking two semesters of Italian at USD, I felt like I definitely had the basics down and even went so far as to explain verb structure to my fluent french speaking roommate. Ambitious. Out of all 7 of us, I am the one who can speak the most italian, which I thought never in a million years would happen.

From there, we had yet ANOTHER tour of St. John's University. Since CEA is small, we are also registered as students at St. John's and can use their facilities (student lounge, computer room, etc). 

Once we were free to go, we made the trek back to the neighborhood to do some grocery shopping. I got proscuitto, yogurt, arugula, bread, shamp and cond, toilet paper, a Milka bar (European version of hersheys bar but a million times better) and paprika pringles (my other european obsession) to share with the roommates. All of it was only 23Euros. Sweet. 

From there, we made it back to the apt and were exhausted. So much walking, so little sleep, a considerable amount of jet lag all amounted to apartment wide nap time. I tried taking a shower before hand and practically froze to death. We had NO hot water whatsoever. ugh.

After napping, we all hung out, made dinner in our place, coordinated with friends and had our water heater (and various other broken things in the apartment) fixed. 

It was time to parrrrtaaaayy... A la Kris Jenner of course. 

Because of the location and size of our apartment, we decided to invite everyone over to have a few drinks before we dropped upwards of 20 euros at the clubs/bars. Danielle and I bought a fifth of Bacardi and some Coke at the store for {ourselves} but also for the girls in our apartment. Sure enough, the entire thing was gone by 10:30. 

Zoo was an epic fail #rhinosfordays

Luckily, everyone that came over was super nice, respectful (except for drinking our alchies) and loved our apartment. We have more people in our apartment than any other in the program, and at the end of the day, even though we don't (well, didn't) have hot water, have a 1960's vintage kitchen and mismatched IKEA furniture, our location is hard to beat. If I have learned anything from watching HGTV all of these years it would be: Location, location, location. 

We seriously did luck out. We all (like 20 of us) made way for the bar/club scene together and were quickly amongst at least 200 other American students from all over the country, which was super awesome. 

The seven best roomies that anybody could have

We made way to the infamous G Bar and got wristbands for a Great Gatsby theme bar scene tonight. Totally game for that. 

Eventually, we made our way back towards our apartment (stopped for 2am pizza of course), said goodbye to everybody and finally went to sleep. 

This morning, half of the roommates have orientation at the JCU Campus so the rest of us will wait up for them and find something fun to do before ANOTHER orientation tour tonight at 5. 

So far so good!

Ciao!

Devotissimo Suo, 

M