Settling in Rome!

The first week of classes is done and it's officially the weekend! The last time I blogged was on Monday -- my Tuesday (and Thursday classes) are not too bad. My first class is Political Theory at noon. I've never been interested in taking Political Theory back at Clemson (especially because Dr. Woodard is the teacher and since I've had him for Political Parties and Elections, I've sworn never to take another course with him again) but the class fit nicely into my Support Course/minor requirements and would transfer easily. The professor is very lively and almost way too enthusiast about Plato and Aristotle; hopefully I'll surprise myself and end up enjoying them too. I get out of that class at 1:15 and then don't have another one until 2:15. An hour is not enough time to go back to the apartment so on Tuesday I was awkwardly walking around by myself trying to kill some time; I stopped and got some gelato but still was a half an hour early to my class. Luckily, today Steph and Korissa had the same problem, and we all just sat around together. It also turns out the Steph is in my 2:15 class -- International Marketing. We had no idea until she walked in on Tuesday to the same classroom as I was in! I think that I'll like that class; I wouldn't be majoring in marketing if I didn't find it interesting. Plus -- the professor is a young 30-something Italian who wears jeans to class and easily relates to the students. I'm done at 3:30 on T/TH so on Tuesday I wanted to go to the supermercato to pick up a few things so I could eat at home. I went by myself which was very overwhelming -- there was some food that I wanted to get but I realized I couldn't read the directions in Italian so I wouldn't know how to cook it! There were a few recognizable things such as Tony the Tiger (they're called Frosties over here instead of Frosted Flakes) and Barilla pasta. I didn't stock up because the supermarket doesn't have too much of a selection.

Tuesday night, Steph, Cara, Korissa, Sydney, and I, plus Cara's friend Casey from St. Norbert, decided to go out to a bar in Campo di Fiore. We were getting ready in our apartment and waiting for Casey when a fuse blew. There is a sign with directions on how to reset the fuse but we were having the hardest time figuring out where the fuse box was. The sign said it was in the "Porter's Box" -- we realized that this was the small office of the security guard at the lobby of the building. This was around ten or eleven o'clock, however, and the guard is only on duty during the day. We went down there with hopes that there would happen to be someone there but there was not. Since we decided that it couldn't be considered an emergency, we realized we would be out of power for the night. Suzy, Lauren, and the other Cara weren't going out that night so we felt bad that they would have to hang out in the dark until they went to bed, but we ended up leaving for a few hours so it wasn't that bad. Lauren and I woke up at 11:45 the next day and the lights were still off. Everyone had left for class and no one thought to go to the guard to ask him to flip the switch so Lauren and I went down there and she was able to communicate that box #11 had to be turned on. We finally regained power. BUT after she left for class and Sydney and Steph came back, the power went off again about an hour after we got it going. I went back down by myself (bad idea) and there was a different lady there with this old Italian couple talking to her. I tried to tell her what had happened but she did not speak a word of English. Finally I got it across to her that our lights were out and she pointed to the light in the office and understood what I meant so she flicked a few switches. The old couple started speaking to me in Italian -- it sounded like they were giving me a lecture of some sorts probably for our usage of electricity. I didn't want to be rude and walk away so I stood there nodding with a look of absolute confusion on my face. Also, I apparently didn't convey the number 11 fully (and I still don't know my numbers in Italian) because when I ran back up the six flights of stairs our lights were still off! Steph went down to try again and luckily she was better at communicating to them than I was! Our electricity hasn't gone off since -- if it does again, hopefully it won't be in the middle of the night when we are helpless!

Yesterday after my American Foreign Policy class, Jordan (who is in my class) and I decided to try to find the book store to buy our books. I got directions from Lauren which told us which bus to take but it seemed very confusing. The map also showed us that the store is all the way by the Spanish Steps! Luckily, there was an Italian kid and full-time JCU student in our class who mapped out a much easier walking path for us. It took us about 30-45 minutes to walk all the way over there. Oh, and I should have brought a notebook or two over here because it is virtually impossible to find any normal notebooks in this city. On the way to the book store, we found a store that we thought could carry them but all they had was weird graph paper (today, Korissa told me about a place near our house that had notebooks that were someone legitimate). Jordan and I got our books just before closing at 7:30 and walked all the way back to Trastevere with them.

Today was a normal and uneventful day of class but it's finally the weekend! A bunch of us are thinking about doing a Pub Crawl tonight. Some people are going away for the weekend -- a few boys are going to Interlaken, Switzerland to ski the Alps and some people might go to Florence. We were all planning on going to Florence but we could not find a train ticket cheap enough and we wanted to explore Rome some more. I still haven't seen the Trevi fountain or been in the Vatican! Tomorrow we're planning on going to the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel.


More later!