August 26, 2009 DAY TWO

Thank you to those of you actually reading this for being patient with me last night.

The administration here at the Due Santi campus has had all of us students running around like mad for the last two days. It feels a bit like freshman year orientation all over again. Though classes start tomorrow, we must all still attend orientation meetings in the evening for the next two days. Exhausting!!! There has not been much free time allotted us since our arrival, though I suppose that is due to the fact that they are trying to cope with the necessity to give us so much vital "Rome Survival" info. in such a short time. I feel quite brain dead at the moment, and I have class at 9:45am tomorrow morning!!!

I suppose I should begin at the beginning in order to catch you up on how my last 48 hours here have progressed. My father dropped Denise and I off at the airport on the morning of August 24th and watched as we went through customs---I tried not to tear up both then and while saying goodbye to Mom earlier at home. It wasn't easy. I hate goodbyes.

Nisi and I found the rest of the Romers who would be departing from Dallas for Newark, NJ at the gate and proceeded to sit there eating hash browns and diet coke waiting for our flight. Now I feel I must mention that I entered this Rome semester knowing only about 5 or 6 of the 110 (approximately) students I would be joining in Italy. Much meet and greet to be done!!!

At the airport we met a few people, namely one Kennith Spence, who I feel merits mention simply because he cracks me up. Outspoken (in the good way, though I am not sure if he would admit to being so), and opinionated (again in the good way), Kennith is a transfer student in his senior year at UD. He came from Oklahoma and also switched majors from Science to Politics when switching schools. Kennith has a girlfriend named Nancy who, I believe is still at OK and they have been together for years. It's adorable :) . He has been a source of much amusement in the last two days, and I am excited that he will be doing some traveling with Denise and I later on in the semester. Nisi and I also met (and sat on the plane next to) a girl named Theresa F. (can't for the life of me spell her last name), who we later found out is one of our suite-mates. She is outgoing and unfailingly sweet to everyone. I haven't spend as much time with her as I would have liked, but she is definitely awesome company.

The plane ride from Dallas to Newark was uneventful. Denise, Theresa, and I chatted and read our books most of the way there. Not much to report . I did sit in the middle of a three seated row, which I normally detest on airplanes. I didn't mind, due to the good company, though I am a window seat girl to the hilt. Thankfully, I was granted this during the long flight to the Rome Fumicino airport.

During our two hour layover in New Jersey, I bought two toothbrushes (which I had inconveniantly forgotten to pack), called Mom to make my last farewell, sniffed back a few tears, called T-mobile to freeze my service, and had lunch with Kennith and Denise. That was my last American Hamburger as well as the last time my phone touched my hand. *sniff!

I sat next to Lacy de la Garza on the following 8.5 hour trip. She is in my year and also made most endearing by her sweetness. We chatted a bit, and then tried to sleep. Two sleeping pills later, I was still AWAKE with the backache from hell. I can't sleep sitting up, it's final. I wasn't in a great state of affairs by the time we hit Rome. For one thing, I was hungry!

The food on both airplanes was abysmal. From Dallas to NJ they gave us this turkey hot dog like thing which tasted like a sponge with mustard. From NJ to Rome they fed us a dinner consisting of six penne noodles, a half dollar sized piece of chicken in desperate need of any flavor whatsoever, a hockey puck named "bread" and the most delicious brownie ever. Later they gave us three grapes, two pieces of melon, and a mini croissant for breakfast. I ate it all. Go me! My digestive system deserves the purple heart.

FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY arriving in Rome, Nisi and I had a tough job finding our bags at baggage claim. I stood there, biting my nails and praying that my bags made it. Thankfully, they had. Us, the sheep, were then loaded onto four busses and shipped to campus. The UD Rome campus is small, but lovely. We have a vinyard! I can't really describe this place for you in words...I wonder if I can upload pictures.......What I can say is that the air here tastes like the breath of life itself. It sounds corny, but there really aren't words. When you live in Italy, you can feel yourself living with every breath of fresh air that passes through your body. Corny? Yeah, I know.

Remember what I said earlier regarding the admin. here running us off our feet? It began immediately upon our arrival. We unloaded, got our room assignments, and had an hour or two to unpack before lunch was served. The rooms here are arranged in suites. When you open the door to the suite you find yourself in a small entrance hall type room with some coat racks and shelves near to the ceiling. Immediately in front of you is the bathroom. To your left is one bedroom and to your right, another. Ours was the one on the right.

The bathroom has a long mirror with two sinks and a shelf, a separate bathroom stall, and two showers each with a neon orange shower curtain. Much better than I expected!!! As I said earlier, Theresa F. is in the other room along with two other girls whose names are beyond me at the moment, which I feel sort of guilty for. They are all very sweet and bubbly girls. Denise and I are joined in our room by Amanda Poulin, also in our year at UD. Amanda is quiet, polite, smart, and (like just about every UD girl I know) uber sweet.

The bedrooms here are set up somewhat awkwardly. You enter through the door and to your left is a long desk with two rows of green shelves above it. The desk is only big enough for two at a time. The shelves, thankfully are more than big enough for the thirty something text books we are each given upon arrival. To the left is a closet with six shelves. We shoved toiletries and undergarments in there. Immediately opposite the door are the beds and more closets. These all take up the entire wall opposite the door and are.....interestingly arranged.

The left side of the wall is a set of bunk beds. Denise ALWAYS is on top, so there was really no question there. Amanda got the bottom bunk. I don't mean she won it in an arm wrestle or anything, I had just never really had a top bunk before and wanted to see what its like. This brings me to the right side of our bed-wall. This has only a top bunk sort of thing--only it is on top of three small closets. It sounds cool, but after two nights I can already say that it is a royal, Roman, pain in the ass. Picture three short closets with hangers for us each to store clothes. All good? Ok, now sitting atop these closets is my loft kind of bed. How do I GET on that bed you might ask? The greenish metal ladder is detachable and hangs from a "ladder hanger" in the middle of the "bed-wall". I have to take the ladder off the hook and attach it to the bed where it hangs in front of one of the closets each time I want to get up to bed. Whoever's closet I happen to hang it in front of is then blocked. I would just hang it in front of mine, but this isn't always a great idea. The place where the ladder is MEANT to hang from is in front of Amanda's closet. She has to move the ladder to get to her closet and I am then a bit stuck. I think I might ask her if we can switch closets, though I think she wants that one because it is closest to her bed. Hmm......dilemma. See what I mean? Ah, well, its nothing really.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, unpacking. In the middle of this mad dash to make beds, hang up clothes, organize desks, shower, etc. Denise and I discovered that our friends who had gone to Rome the previous semester had left us several boxed filled with useful things they didn't end up using towards the end of their trip (deodorant, tampons, soap, cleaning supplies, floss, extra bus tickets, notes, stc.). While I know I will be very thankful for most of these little goodies later on, for a moment there I was a little peeved to have yet more crap to unpack. PLEASE keep in mind that at this point I was hot, stinky, hungry, and sleep deprived. My attitude towards everything was........affected. I think everyone was pretty grumpy at that point, but we had a long day ahead of us. It was only about 9am in Rome. Our already long day was just beginning.

It's 1am now and I am starting to get that loopy dizzy feeling that only an intense need for sleep brings. I think it might be better if I stop now and finish up tomorrow. I promise I will try to catch you up asap. I just want to make sure I don't leave anything out.

Sleep!!!!

Ciao!
Mira