First night on the town was fantastic. The SLA's (kind of like RA's) took us on the bus (the 913) to downtown and then showed us the way to the Trevi Fountain. It was packed but I managed to get some nice pictures. Then we made our way to the Spanish Steps and my friend Anne - who goes to USF - and I hiked up the steps to the top. The view was magnificent. We could see all down Via di Condotti, the street lined with designers such as Prada, Gucci, Hermes, etc., and all of Rome was lit up.
Yesterday was filled with paperwork and filling out our permesso forms to stay in Rome. Afterward we had our first Italian classes. I'm suppose to be in Italian 104 (the highest Italian class offered) but the professor isn't here for 2 days so yesterday and today I was put in Italian 103. It was kind of boring and it seemed like the professor had to review a bunch of stuff from Italian 102 because people had forgot a lot of stuff. I'm finding it pretty easy to speak Italian around town but I haven't had too much experience with it yet.
After Italian, Anne and I ventured down into the neighborhood to go to the Italian equivalent of Target, UPIM, and the supermercato for food. Hiking up back that hill with all our stuff and in this god-forsaken heat and humidity was an epic trek that left us utterly exhausted. Next time we're taking the bus back up the hill. It's completely worth the 1 Euro.
After dinner in our cafeteria, Mensa, a whole bunch of us decided to take the 990 bus into the Vatican and explore there. There were about 15 of us on the bus and we got off at Piazza Cavour, a hop and a skip from Piazza St. Pietro (St. Peter's). This one girl started to address this group wanting to split up the group but the way she did it was completely bizarre. It was like she was breaking up with us and I completely expected her to say "it's not you, it's me." Whatever. I was planning to go off with Anne and my roommate Amy anyway so I'm not going to fill the hole in my heart with any Ben & Jerry's anytime soon. A group of 6 or so of us decided to go to Piazza St. Pietro and it was beautiful at night. There weren't many people and we could take our time. We then decided to go see the Piazza Del Popolo, a popular piazza located a nice walk up the Tiber. I was the navigator and completely ready with my waterproof/tearproof map. It was a lot of fun leading the way. They were sheep and I was the shepard. It probably took us twice as long to get there because someone girls were taking pictures of EVERYTHING. Even the H&M and Sephora. Really? It's not like we don't have those everywhere back home. After we (finally) got to the piazza a couple of us decided to go back to the Rome Center and we caught the 913 before it stopped running (it stops running at midnight).
Today we had another Italian lesson and a lecture on the Forum. The professor was very funny and I wish I was taking his class but, alas, I am not. We were all bused to the Colosseum and when we got out of the nicely air-conditioned bus it was like stepping into Hell. It was so flipping hot. But it's not the heat that gets you--it's the humidity. I felt like I had this thick film of grime and sweat covering me the entire time. After the Colosseum we headed towards Palentine Hill and the forum. The heat was not letting up and Amy, Anne, and I constantly had to stop and collect ourselves because of it.
Palentine Hill is the highest hill in Rome and where Agustus built the first imperial palace on the hill, a palace every subsequent emperor would reside in. On top of its ruins a Medieval structures on top of it. We also saw the Romulus Cottages, early houses of Rome dating back to the founding of Rome in 753 BC.
After Palentine Hill we went to the Forum, in Italian known as the Foro Romano and comically called the Forno Romano - The Roman Oven. The sun was beating down on us like this giant fluorescent light. My favorite things were the Arch of Septimius Severus, the Temple of Anotninus and Faustina, and the Chiesa di Santa Francesca Romana/Santa Maria Nova. What was funny about the Arch of Septimius Severus is that the writing talks about all the great deeds of Septimius Severus and his sons Caracalla and Geta; however, one line of the writing looks a little funky. This is because Caracalla murdered his brother Greta, took out the line about him, and rewrote over it extending his glory and titles. The Temple is also amazing because it has huge columns and is beautifully preserved, Antoninus's wife, Faustina, was a little, shall we say, flighty; however, when she died Antoninus proclaimed her a goddess and built her temple. No red 'A' on her chest. The Santa Maria Nova was a beautiful example of the stratification of building. It had modern on top of Medieval on top of Roman. After we walked through the Piazza Venezia where there is a HUGE monument dedicated to the unification of Italy and the piazza that holds the balcony where Mussolini proclaimed war on France and walked up the Via di Corso to a cafe listed in my guidebook called the News Cafe. It was nice and cheap and it was fun to watch the Italians watch the soccer game going on. They were very passionate about it, especially this one guy who was wearing his reflective aviators inside and screaming "Vai!! Vai!!" (Go!! Go!!) at the tv. The weather was a lot cooler and there was a nice breeze. We caught the 913 back to the Rome Center and I packed for our 3 day trip to Matera in the south. Yay for 7 hour bus rides. Going to pop some Dramamines to knock myself out. It's going to be damn hot.
I have a flikr account for my photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30005114@N07/

It's currently a little after 5 am but I've been up since 3. I completely crashed last night after dinner around 7:30ish. It's wickedly hot and humid here but my room has a fan (!) and an intense breeze. I'm going to try and take some pictures of the campus and my room and put them up pretty soon. We're going to the beach today (a nice way to recuperate jet lag) and get to hang out in the Mediterranean then I signed up for a gelato crawl around the Trevi Fountain. My first excursion into the city! Let's hope I'll be awake enough to appreciate it. Stay tuned for pictures!

I live such a hard life.

2 days. Time is going by very very slowly yet the date of departure is looming. Packing is ridiculous. I have heard horror stories about Alitalia's baggage policy so I'm trying to be really careful about packing. I'm checking a big bag and carrying on a smaller roller plus a backpack. Heaven help me if I ever went to school farther than a car drive away.

I met another girl going to Rome on my program today. We have a mutual friend at Santa Clara. Now I know a total of 2 people going on my program! Look at me, the social butterfly (you know what that means Elena).

Oh, and FINALLY I found a mini lint roller. Why are those things so hard to find??

T-minus 10 days until departure for Rome. Started listing what I need to pack but stopped because my hand started to cramp. How the flower children of the 60s got by with a duffel holding only a pair of jeans and a hemp shirt still remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of humankind today.