Arrival and apartment

Buon giorno!

It’s the morning of my fifth day in beautiful Italia, and I couldn’t be more thrilled with the past few days. Now I understand why my friends have such a difficult time explaining their study abroad experiences. There is simply no way to put the last four days into words, so much has happened that it might be impossible. I’ll do my best.

After a less than perfect flight (crying babies, lack of sleep on the overnight flight) and two hours at an unorganized baggage claim, I met a bunch of girls going to John Cabot while waiting for the shuttle. I also met the five other girls from Northeastern. It was all a little overwhelming and exhausting, but eventually we made it to John Cabot to check in to be handed a lot of information, maps and paperwork. We were then shuttled to our new apartment. I ended up rooming with Pearl, one of the girls from NU. We were in the shuttle with a cool girl who would live downstairs in our building.

The driver took us through the city, and though it wasn’t the best part of Rome, it was still a great drive. I love Italian advertisements, they’re much simpler and lower budget than the huge ad campaigns in the U.S. The Italians don’t seem as concerned with brand names as Americans, though there are signs for McDOnald’s and Coca Cola all over.

Side note: They don’t have Diet Coke here! And if you know me, that’s a problem. I’ve been drinking Coca Cola Light, which has no calories and tastes more like Coke Zero. It’s strange, but I’ve gotten used to it and like it now.

Based on our room number, I figured out that we were on the 4^th floor. I was right, but by Italian numbering it’s actually the 5^th floor, a staggering nine flights in a stairwell without air conditioning (the case in most of Italy). We had two Italian students from JCU helping us get into our apartments, and I was the only girl who wasn’t whining to the boys about helping with luggage. After a joking conversation about the boys liking me best, one offered to bring my luggage up. He then looked at the 55 lb bag (over weight at the airport, but they didn’t make me pay!) saying, “Wow,that’s big.” My offers to carry it myself were not accepted, which was definitely for the best, I ended up helping another girl with her luggage. So this cute Italian boy in a pink polo shirt carried my bag all the way up the stairs, panting and dripping sweat in the process. I felt so bad! (Note to Steph: I couldn’t quite figure out what he said his name was, but it was the Italian version of Lawrence…no joke! He didn’t know my name until after!) Both pink polo boy and the other one who helped with our luggage kissed both cheeks of all the girls in the apartment. A little sleezy, but it made me smile after far too many hours awake.

My apartment is enormous. There are 3 bedrooms for 6 girls, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, and a dining room with a “couch” that is more like a really low bed. Pearl and I took the biggest bedroom, which I love. All of our rooms have old wooden shutters, which I think is the coolest thing. We have a huge mess of old furniture and various appliances left here by previous residents. I like it though, even though it’s not perfect. The girls downstairs have a smaller apartment, but everything is much newer and cleaner. The apartment is much better than I expected based on expectations set up by JCU before we got here, so I’ll deal with the less than perfect things for the five weeks I’m here.

In the last few days I’ve noticed that nothing in Rome is new. The city has been here too long to have anything truly new and perfect. My apartment has more character than my previous Northeastern apartments, though the steps can be killer after a long walk around the city.