"Yeah, my dad said I shouldn't bother coming home if I don't make A's and B's."

So unfortunately I think that this will be the last time I post before classes start... Oh well, they shouldn't be too bad.

We had our housing and academic orientations yesterday, both went decently well. They took all the students at the meeting and broke us into groups of 30 or so, as we walked from the auditorium to the next room we were meeting in, one of the guys said "So... who else heard, "This is not a 4 month vacation you're going on."? A chorus of "Yup!"'s, "I did!"'s and "You too?"'s erupted almost instantaneously. I mentioned that I had heard it "once or twice" from my rents, which is when one of the girls said, "Yeah, my dad said I shouldn't bother coming home if I don't make A's and B's." I have classes Mon-Thurs (no classes are held on Fridays, very nice), Western Civ, Mid-Evil Roman Monuments, American 20th Century, and Italian 101.

Yesterday we went back to the market to do household type shopping, spices, cleaner, sponges, all that good stuff. We couldn't for the life of us find the salt and pepper though, so I stopped a gentleman asking "Scusi signore, dove sale e pepe?" (Where's salt and peper). I'm sure he could tell that we were American, but he was so happy to help us both find everything we could ever want, tell us how to find good deals, and what spices/flavors/wines were best with everything we could possibly want to make and how to correctly pronounce what we were searching for- great experience. A lot of you know that I spent some time a few summers back in France, living with a family my french teacher knows- I have always heard so much of the "The French hate Americans, they're so rude, etc. etc. " But I never experienced any of that, I'm sure mostly because I was with a French family and wasn't viewed as "the American tourist", but here I am most assuredly seen as an American tourist and people are so incredibly willing to help me learn to speak the language. Fantastico.

Yesterday evening two of the roommates and I went out to the Vatican with some friends, we got there as the sun was starting to set, then walked all around the area, grabbed some dinner and walked back through the square when it was dark. The beauty of Rome at night is simply incomparable. Amazing. Even during the day, it really is a beautiful city. Even on the outskirts of Trasteverte, where we are- the architecture and colors are phenomenal. It's as if Rome is blanketed by an all-day sunset. All of the buildings are hues of yellow, orange, red, and tan. Bella citta.

In my last post I mentioned how... 'lively' the driving can be in Italy- at first I was wondering if that my have only been our driver- every country has a few people who think they're Earnhardt. However after being here a few days, I can fairly say that it's not just him. They're all out of their minds. Driving in NYC/Boston/Atlanta has nothing on driving in Rome. Streetlights mean nothing to cars and even less to scooters/bikes. While crossing a street, any street, in Rome, you have the same two options that one has while driving a boat from a harbor out to the ocean in a heavy fog. You know that there are massive container ships whose path you need to cross, you have no idea what path they'll be on, nor how fast they'll be coming up on you. So you can either take it nice and easy and meticulously plot out what you think will be the safest path, or sit down, hold on tight, put the throttle down, and pray. Knowing that plotting out a path is useless due to the fact that there are no lanes for cars to follow, we usually decide to just wait for a slight break in traffic and sprint. It's worked so far!

I was sent this flash video from one of the students who's been here for 2 years already, which shows the difference between Italy and the rest of Rome. It's hysterical and it's one of the most accurate depictions you'll see. Absolutely check it out.

http://www.infonegocio.com/xeron/bruno/italy.html

Doing some more sight seeing this evening, I think- not sure yet where I'll post most of the pictures, but will get on that sooner than later.

Ciao!