Class Begins

Last week was our first week of regular classes.  As of right now I am enjoying them all.  I am taking Roman Architecture and Urban Design, the Renaissance (Art history), Art Conservation and Preservation, Ancient Rome: History and Myth and of course Italian.  The class schedule here is a lot different than it is at Wofford, so it is definitely going to take some getting used to.  My classes meet twice a week, once for an hour and the second for two hours.  The two hour blocks are really long, but most of those classes are for when we go on field studies so that helps.  It is also nice that I do not have class at all on Fridays!

Two of my classes have been on field studies already!  The architecture class went to the Castel Sant'Angelo and the history and myth class went to the Capitoline museum.  It is nice to be able to visit these places with the class because the teachers act as tour guides and have lots of good information to share.

This weekend we tried to do a little bit more exploring of the city and nightlife so that when our friends come to visit in the next two weeks we will know the best places to take them.  Scholars is an Irish pub that is always a happening place, but it is full of Americans.  We also found the ice bar in Rome called Ice Club (really creative name haha).  Everything inside of it is made of ice...the walls, the benches, the glasses and etc. They gave us ponchos and gloves to wear, but after about an hour we were too cold to stay in there any longer.

We also found a great pizza restaurant in our neighborhood! It is called Dar Poeta, and it is this tiny little place but people were literally lined out of the door to get in.  And once we did get in, it was so crowded that our table was only about an inch away from the tables on either side of us.  But the pizza was delicious, so I will definitely be going back there!

More Sightseeing

Since our TV only plays Italian channels and random music, we have been traveling around the city a lot.  Saturday, we decided to go to the Colosseum.  It turned out to be a great time to go because the tickets were two for the price of one this weekend in celebration of Valentine's Day.  The tickets into the Colosseum also get you into the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill.  But, by the time we finished walking through the Colosseum, they had closed the entrance into the Roman Forum, so we were not able to walk through there yet.  Here are a few pictures from the Colosseum:

A little side note....on the way home from the Colosseum a pigeon pooped right on my head!  That is something that would only happen to me.  Yuck!!!!

This morning, Sunday morning, we walked down the street to the Porta Portese Market.  It is held every sunday and is Rome's largest outdoor market.  You can pretty much buy anything there!  They have household items, clothes, jewelry, electronics and much much more.  There were so many people there that we could hardly walk down the street, but it goes on for a least a mile and a half. 

Tomorrow is the first day of regular classes, so it will be nice to finally be on a regular school schedule. 

First Week of Italian Class

This is my first week of Italian language class.  I have it everyday this week from 12:30-3, which is a long time to be in one class.  But we play games to help us learn the material, and we are given about a 10 minute break half way through.  So far we have been learning how to say greeting, introductions, key phrases to use in the grocery store, on the bus, at a restaurant and the numbers 0-20.  It doesn't seem like much, but it is more than I knew when I got here!  So I am making small steps haha.

Friday is my first quiz for the class, so I wil be doing lots of studying today and tomorrow.  After the quiz, the teacher is taking my class to get gelato (on the school of course haha).  But the only way that we can get the gelato is if we order it in Italian.

When we went out to eat the other night, I ordered the pizza carbonara.  When they brought it out to me, I realized that this type of pizza has parmisan cheese, bacon and an egg on it.  It wasn't just a little bit of a fried egg or anything like that.  It was as if they had cracked an egg over the center of the pizza, put on the other toppings and then baked the pizza for a few minutes.  The egg was still running all over the pizza....yuck!  So I slowly learning how to order things that I will actually like!  But all of the pasta and other pizzas have been yummy!

We are trying to cook in our apartment as much as we can.  One of our roommates, Marissa, is an excellent cook!  She has made some great chicken dishes for us along with pastas, potatoes and other things. 

Last night (Tuesday night) our apartment invited a few other girls to come over and then go out to eat in our neighborhood since there are lots of cute restaurants close to us.  So we ate dinner and then walked down the street to what we call "the chocolate bar".  It is also across the street from what we have learned that American students like to call "the cheap bar".  It is called "the cheap bar" because you can get a bottle of Peroni  beer for 1 euro and the giant bottle of Peroni for only 2.5 euros.  But anyway, back to the chocolate bar.  It is this tiny little hole-in-the-wall place that is a book store during the day  but chocolate bar at night.  You have to wait in a single-file line to get to the counter to order because it is so small, but it is worth it.  You order a shot of any kind of alcohol that you would like and they pour the alcohol into homemade chocolate shot glasses.  They then top it off with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.  They told us that the way to eat it is to put the whole thing in your mouth at one time, bottom first.  That is quite difficult but the whole thing tastes great! 

Well i've got to get back to studying for my quiz friday, Ciao!

Contact Information

Here is my address at school in Rome.  The school said it is easier for us to have mail sent to our school address rather than our apartment. 

Martha Walker
c/o IES Roma
Lungotevere Tor di Nona, 7
Roma, Italy 00186

and my email address is walkermg@email.wofford.edu

My email is sent directly to my phone, so that is always an easy way to get in touch with me.

We Made it to the Weekend!

For the past two days, we have been doing lots of exploring!  We found our way to the Piazza Navona, the Roman Forum, the "wedding cake", the Castle of Saint Angelo and THE VATICAN!

Neely, Ellis, Ruthie, Marissa and I ventured into the Vatican.  It is literally a 5 minute walk across the Tiber River from our school to the Vatican.  The Sistine Chapel is around the corner from the Vatican but we didnt make it into their yet.  It was absolutely beautiful!  I couldnt believe it! Here are a few pictures that I took today while we were touring:

Roman Forum

The Vatican

We are still doing orientation things at school, which takes up a lot of our time during the day, but tomorrow is the Amazing Roman Race.  So I think we will be doing a scavenger hunt across the city and get to see lopts more sights!  Ill keep you updated on our adventures!

First Two Days in Rome

We finally made it to Rome! Ellis and I sat next to each other on the plane.  Right next to us was an Italian man who was wearing a skin tight purple turtleneck with half of a bald head.  The hair that he did have was as long as mine but dripping in grease...Yuck!  He was our entertainment for the 9.5 hour flight since the volume did not work on the plane's tv. 

When we got to the airport, the IES staff members were waiting on a group of about 20 of us students.  They gave us welcome packets and put us on buses to our apartments. I know they thought we were all crazy, dumb Americans because we each had two giant suitcases, a purse and carry on bag.  When we finally got to our apartment, there was another staff member waiting outside to give us keys and show us how to work different things in the apartment.  We have a stove, oven, dishwasher, tiny frigdge/freezer, tv, table and chairs and futon in the main room.  And here is a picture of the bedroom Ellis and I share.

It is small and the decorations are just lovely haha, but we do have our own bathroom attached to our bedroom. 

Yesterday Ellis and I set out to explore our neighborhood a little bit.  We found an outdoor market right down the street where we can buy fresh fruit, vegetables and meats.  We also spent the day riding the different metro lines and buses around the parts of the city that we would need to know how to use to get to school.  It took us a few tries, but he have finally gotten the hang of it. 

The school is right on the Tiber River.  It looks across the river at the Castel S. Angelo and some other beautiful building that we do not know the name of, but it looks like it is some sort of government building.  Here is a picture of that building.

We have two roommates named Marissa and Ritika.  So far we have really enjoyed them!  They are from California and Minnesota.

Today we had to go to the school for orientation meeting from 9am until 5pm.  It was very boring, but they gave us some good information.  The school is in an old school for nuns.  It has a terrace on the 3rd floor which is also beautiful!  Here are pictures of the view from the terrace.

There will be more pictures to come. 

So far the biggest struggles that we have had has been finding a hair dryer and straigthner!  I mean we looked and looked and looked in just about every store we could think of yesterday and found nothing!  We had no idea they would be so hard to find, but we finally found a hair dryer (no straightner) today in a little department store.  phew! hahaha

Right now it is about 7:30pm and we have just gotten home.  We stopped in a grocery store and got some pasta and wine for dinner tonight. Ciao for now!