Day 2: Saturday
What a first full day in Rome. It started off as an early morning, and Mike and I got breakfast, wandered around outside the hotel a little, and checked out. When we arrived at our apartments no one was here, so we walked around the area for an hour. Although all of Europe to me is amazing, I like this neighborhood less than the one the hotel was in because there's not any of the main touristy attractions around and I haven't found a park where I can sit and read. When we came back, we checked into our rooms, and I was the first one to arrive to our room, which has three bedrooms for seven girls, and we all share a kitchen and two bathrooms.
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| My Room |
I started moving my stuff in, taking pictures of the apartment, and figuring out the internet. Soon everyone else started to arrive. Around noon they delivered a pizza, or at least what they called a pizza, despite the fact that all it was was crust and sauce. No cheese. No toppings. Needless to say it wasn't very good, but I was hungry. Around 1:30 we decided to go to the grocery store, which was an interesting experience. First, we couldn't find shopping cards, and trying to identify what was body wash was an endeavor that took at least ten minutes. Since I had to carry everything back to the apartment, I only bought shower stuff and milk, eggs, and cereal. At least I think it's milk, but I have no idea if it's skim or 2% or anything, and the eggs are brown. I will have to go back once I figure out what I need, but the landlady said tomorrow there is a huge market where we can buy almost anything, so I'm really looking forward to that. It's interesting and also frustrating how my mind automatically reverts into thinking in French here, merely because when people are speaking to me in another language it's always been French, so I automatically start responding in French. It was embarrassing when I said "oui" to the lady at the grocery store. Hopefully my mind will start to be able to process the difference soon, otherwise I'm going to be confused a lot. After we returned from the grocery store we had an apartment orientation. The apartments are really nice and there's a balcony in each room. I lied down to take a little nap and when I woke up Elli was here! We got all situated and then a group of nine of us decided to go out to eat. Of course a group of nine blatantly American Americans does not stand out at all. We found a restaurant that I liked very much, and I had tortellini with white wine, but I found the tortellini much more delicious. The waitress got a huge kick out of us trying to use Italian from our little phrase books. After dinner we found a gelato/bar where we had gelato and drinks. I got nutella gelato and a strawberry smoothie. By the time we got back to the apartments it was very much time for bed, and I'm probably going to pass out sleeping very soon. I'm looking forward to the market tomorrow, and we have the entire day free and a bus pass, so who knows where the day will take us! Arrivederci!
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| Elli and I with our Gelato |
