First Day of School

January 20

Today was my first day of classes in Roma! I had Italian at 8:30 so I woke up at 7:30 to get ready and Rachel and I headed out at 8:00. We arrived at the Guarini campus and found our classroom. My teacher walked in a little after 8:30 and began immediately speaking in Italian. It was definitely a little overwhelming. She motioned us to move into a half circle and we began class by learning how to say our name and where we were from by throwing a ball back and forth. She continued to use Italian for most of the class. She went over the rules in English and explained that we would only be speaking in Italian throughout the course. For the purposes of explaining however, Valentina continued class in English. It was a good start though to class. My next class was in the photo lab which was located off campus. Rachel had been there before so she gave me brief directions, then as I started off to get there I decided to head back to the school and get directions from the “professionals”…not really but…you know. So I walked back in and another girl was getting directions too, so the two of us headed out together and walked down the street we were supposed to go and it didn’t look like there could possibly be a classroom there, but finally we found the number on the sheet of paper and realized that it wasn’t so hard after all. Our teacher was, needless to say, a little passionate about photography. He rambled the entire class period and I was nearly falling asleep. After class I went to a Travel Tips assembly and got some more pointers on how to get around in Europe. After that I went into the lounge where I found Kristin and we discovered the magic of the coffee machine. Yes, they have little machines that dispense coffee made with real espresso. Who else would have thought of that but the Italians? For a mere 35 euro cent you can get a plastic cup filled with cappuccino. It is my favorite Italian invention thus far! Once I had downed my liquid energy, we headed out to our International Affairs class. Our professor walked in and for some reason I just knew that I was going to like him. He began class by asking us about the election and what changes in International Affairs needed to be addressed. We talked about some interesting ideas and he introduced the course. I really enjoyed it though because he engaged us in conversation rather than lecturing to us the whole time. For my last class of the day, I headed to the Tiber campus. Before I went to class I signed up for the designer shopping trip with La Dolce Vita. I met Michael, who had been in my shuttle from the airport, and we discovered we had the same class! We headed to our classroom only to fin a sign on the door: “NS 202 15:45-17:00 Cancelled.” Strange that a class would be cancelled on the first day, but I wasn’t too heartbroken. Class from 8-5 everyday was going to be a little killer, but totally worth only having it on Tuesday and Thursday. I could make some sacrifices. Since I didn’t have class and there was about an hour and a half until the Inauguration we decided to find the bookstore and get our books. We got a map and they gave us directions for a bus to get on. We headed out and found that it was a little harder than it seems to just get on a bus and end up going in the right direction. We got on the 116 at what we thought was the right bus stop but soon discovered that it definitely was not, we ended up heading in the wrong direction and having to get on 3 different116 busses because each one we got on happened to have it’s “last stop” of the day. We ended up in a small parking garage and finally asked the driver how we get down towards the Spanish Steps. He replied that this bus would go there, so trusting his expertise we stayed on and continued to ride. We ended up passing the stop that we should have got on at and finally arrived near the Spanish steps where the bookstore was supposed to be. We wandered around asking for directions for quite some time and finally after searching for another 30 minutes we finally arrived at the Anglo American Bookstore. We each got our books. Mine were 150 Euro, not too bad, considering last semester at Bethany I spent close to 400 dollars. We started to go home, I just wanted to walk, I’d had enough of the Rome bus system. Michael, however claimed that this one bus would get us right to the school so we hopped on. Luckily, it did and we went to the Guarini campus to watch what was left of the coverage on CNN. The room was absolutely packed and we could hear that Obama had just started his address. We decided to go to a bar near school to see the rest of it, instead of standing outside the Aula Magna auditorium listening radio style. I enjoyed listening to the speech and it was good to see that we weren’t the only one listening. Although there weren’t any Italians that were too involved in it, the bar was pretty full with students who wanted to see the “new era” in American politics. I headed back home after George was flown out to Texas and Obama left the stage. It had been a long day and I was ready to get some rest.