Ciao!

We woke up to a rainy day in Roma, which would seem like a bad thing, but the rain made Rome beautiful in a different way.  The orange trees and what we call "bonzai"trees seemed to sparkle and the  stucco on the buildings more vibrant and the ivy growing on them looked even more lush and turned into a rich shade of dark green.  


Right: "Bonzai" tree.  They are everywhere.  They also remind us of the lion king.  

Below: Ivy covering the Villa Ferretti

It was our first time going to our global campus, which is the Villa Ferretti.  This villa was made by the Ferretti family and they have been living there for generations.  They still actually live on the top floor!  Our director said they always see the children running through the gardens and have become quite close with the family.  I AM TAKING CLASSES IN AN ITALIAN VILLA. It is absolutely gorgeous.  I am definitely not going to mind studying and going to class... its a "little" different from Feinstein and Accino.  There is a small cafe right next to the villa (very dangerous for me) so before our crash course in Italian this morning we stopped in to get a cappuccino and a Cornetto (which is pretty much a croissant with a lemon glaze).  The lady was so cute and helpful.  She taught us exactly how to order and told us we should sprinkle a little cocoa on our Cappuccinos.  She was right; it was so yummy. We are hoping to become really good friends with her :) She also sells the most delicious looking sandwiches so we will be definitely be getting lunch there between classes.  

Mario Cacciafeste is our italian teacher and he is absolutely hilarious.  He taught us a lot of useful phrases which would have definitely been helpful last night.... especially Mi sono perso! Dove siamo? which means "I'm lost!  Where are we?" Hopefully we will never have to use it!! 

 

That afternoon, we headed over to the market and got all the ingredients for bruschetta and made our first lunch in our apartment.  We also picked up a bouquet of poppies from a flower vendor on our street. 

After lunch, our housing director, Andrea, gave us a tour of our neighborhood and showed us the best places to send mail, get our food, and how to look for things and the correct way to shop in a grocery store.  He was very impressed with how much we already knew.. We told him this was only because we have literally walked everywhere in our area when we were lost!  

We went back to our apartment and took a Roman siesta.  The Italians have a designated nap time between 1 and 4 and it is actually against the law to make loud noises during those hours.  I love that law :) 

I woke up from my nap and Christine had the Lizzie McGuire movie on so of course I had to watch it!  Every girl who goes to Rome secretly wishes she could have the same adventures as Lizzie did and say, "Sing to me Paolo".  

Then we made dinner of pesto pasta in our apartment and bread and olive oil.  After dinner we met with the a lot of our friends at the Campo di Fiori which is a really fun area with a lot of young people and especially American Students.  

Bacioni

xxxx