Catching You Up!!

I have a little under an hour before my first day of classes begins, so I thought I would try to finish telling you about my first two days here. Ideally, by this evening I will be able to tell you about TODAY, and thus be completely up to date.

Last post, I left off just as all of us had finished unpacking and organizing our stuff. I swear Nisi brought an entire pharmacy with her!!! It's somewhat amusing to see her little pill bottles lined up in the closet like chess pieces.

After unpacking, we trooped into the mensa for lunch. The pasta, potatoes, meatballs, and salad all had one thing in common---OLIVE OIL!!! It was delicious, but some people aren't quite used to the amount of oil everything was cooked in. We had water, juice, and coffee to drink--the glasses in italy are half the size of those in the states and their contents can easily be drained in one gulp. We do have ice on campus, but it is the only ice available for miles. Europeans don't do ice. *upturns nose at the very idea!

Lunch was another opportunity to meet a few more of my new classmates, all virtually humming with excitement at being in Europe. I don't think most of these students have been out of the US before this. Some have never tasted wine, some have never traveled alone, and some are seasoned experts at all of the above. I won't waste precious free time going into detail about everyone just yet, I promise you shall get to know my classmates as well as I do over the next few months (hopefully, unless I do something stupid and find myself ousted from all campus society for the remainder of the semester).

After lunch, we were taken on campus tours by the four RA's. I will take a minute to note that this campus is virtually CRAWLING with authority figures. We have four RA's and two SA's (student assistants). The RA's rank higher than the SA's, who are members of the class chosen to make sure the rest of us are following the rules, observing quiet hours, etc. The RA's are college graduates responsible for making our day to day activities run smoothly and for making sure that we don't kill eachother. They would be the big bosses, I guess. Dr. Peter Hatlie is the dean of the Rome campus and my guess is that if I do anything stupid enough to lead me to his office, someone had better be at the airport the next day to pick me up.

That aside, Steve and Cindy Bird, Jon Polce, Mary Schultz (the RA's) and Anton, Hannah, Joe, and Erin (the SA's) all seem to be really neat people who don't take themselves too seriously or regard themselves as being the right hands (all 8 of them, hah!) of God. For this, I am thankful. I like them all. Dr. Hatlie seems to be a very jolly sort of person. He is also my Western Civilization prof. so I imagine I will get to know him better and have more to say after doing so. The same can be said for just about everyone here, I suppose.

The campus tours aren't worth detailing for you, I don't think. I plan on making some videos and taking plenty of pictures for you to see in the next few days. Neither is the VERY long orientation meeting that followed worth telling you about (have I mentioned that by this point I HAD NOT SLEPT YET!).
Here is, for the sake of this blog, what you DO need to know about campus:
1. for the first few days we have a curfew (12am) and we must sign in on a clipboard with the SAs.
2. there are two classrooms: Aula Magna and Aula Minore. ALL of my five classes are in either one or the other classroom.
3. i have seen no AC in any building on campus--just a lot of fans, and BOY IS IT HOT!
4. food is served in the mensa by very eccentric Italian ladies who I don't think like us very much so far.
5. we have "A days" and "B days" and our classes vary depending on which day it is. On A days I have Philosophy from 8am to 9:30am, Literary Tradition III from 9:45am to 11:15am, and finally Art and Architecture from 11:30am to 1pm.
6. the entire grade is in the same Art and Arch. class together, otherwise we are split in half. ouch!
7. beer and wine can be consumed on campus almost anywhere unless it is after 10:30pm, in which case it cannot be consumed in public places. No hard alcohol allowed.
8. clothes and shoes must be worn outside of the suites at all times.
9. No drinking alcohol out of the bottle. We must always use cups.
10. Visiting hours must be observed when visiting a member of the opposite sex. Doors cannot be completely closed in such cases.
11. ............there is more, but it escapes me at the moment.............


RANDOM FACT!
Did you know that until recently there has never been an Italian word for "privacy". I think that says something about the culture.

Following the tedious orientation meeting, there was an opening Mass and Convocation. Boring. Unnecessary to describe. This was followed by a HUGE DINNER!!! My small table of four or five people polished off two bottles of wine during this four course meal. Of course, pasta was included. Everything was delicious.

I will tell you more about dinner and the activities of the following day later this afternoon. For now, it is class time!

Ciao!
Mira