CIAO BELLA

Arrival in Rome was a long, long journey! On Monday, May 23, 2011, my mother and I set out from Albany to Philadelphia due to my plane reservation at 6:15 PM at Philadelphia International Airport! Leaving at 8 AM, we did not end up in Philadelphia until 1 PM, ending my journey with a wonderful omelet/hash browns/fruit brunch at Haimey's, a Jewish deli only two blocks from my campus! After eating the best brunch of my life, I picked up my friend Peter and my mom dropped us off at Philadelphia International Airport, ready to begin our journey.
Walking into the Airport, our first stop was the baggage check. In all my experiences, the baggage check is the quickest stop in the airport when compared to the security stop. When we walked into the baggage line, there was a large group of young teenagers who seemed very confused. When Peter and I got into the line, we were greeted by an older man who told us that he was a teacher, originally from a suburb in Philadelphia, who decided to take his teaching degree to Poland. As per special request this year, he was allowed to take his students in Poland over to his hometown in the US where each student stayed with a different American family for two weeks. He was one of the nicest and talkative men I have ever met! We ended up talking and waiting in line for over an hour, until finally we got to the front and realized that, since we had checked-in online, we DID NOT even have to wait in that line because there was a special "speedy" check-in line. awesome. To make matters even worse, the scales were off and both of us were told that we were at least 6 pounds over, so Peter and I stood at the front of the line shoving jeans, shirts, and anything that we could possibly fit into our carry-on bags. Finally, our bags were the appropriate weight and they were successfully checked, on their way to Rome.
The security stop was another struggle, still being flustered from the initial rotating of clothes from luggage to carry-on's. As you probably already know, many of the guidelines for the security at airports is to take off shoes, sweatshirts, jewelry, etc. Well, still being preoccupied by the fact that there was no way my bag was over weight, I threw my backpack and over-stuffed purse onto two separate boxes to be scanned through the security x-ray and tried to walk through the metal detector-complete fail. The security guard yelled at me not once but three times- first for my sweatshirt, second for my shoes, and third for my watch. After successfully making it through the security check, I threw my bags down at our terminal (that was luckily right next to the security check) and began to fold my clothes in the middle of the terminal, catching the stares of all people passing by. But what did I care? I was going to Rome.
Not much happened in between the fiasco of checking-in and arriving in Rome, other than that we flew from Philadelphia to Heathrow (London) Airport and got in around 7 AM, where we sat and had tea and breakfast until our flight at 9:10 AM from Heathrow to Rome. We ended up arriving in Rome around 12:40 PM, just in time to catch our shuttle provided by AUR to our on-campus housing!
Getting in a shuttle car with an Italian driver is an experience, to say the least. Six of us packed into a van with all of our luggage and set out on our journey to different apartments located around Rome. As we drove around, the driver would nearly hit and clip every car that was near it or pedestrian that was walking across a cross-walk (apparently in Rome, cross-walks and "rights-of-way" mean nothing).
Arriving at my apartment, me and another girl, Alli, hopped out of the van and was greeted by an Italian girl, Valencia, who showed us the apartment, went through the guidelines and then introduced us to our roommates (4 of which go to Towson and know each other, and my direct roommate goes to Montana State). All of the girls are so great, we get along very well. One would expect that they would stay with the people that they know, especially since two are roommates at Towson, but that is not the case! They are all great. That day, we went to a cafe close to our apartment and all got pasta and pizza, muy deliciosa! After, we came home and napped for a few hours, then went exploring and found ruins right in the middle of a busy section of Rome. It's wild to think that Italians can wake up and on their casual walk to work or campus or wherever, they can see those thousands of year old ruins. We ended up eating dinner around 9:30 PM (very late compared to my 6 PM dinner back in the US), where we all munched on more pasta (gnocchi, fettucini, etc.) and had one of the longest dinners i've ever been at, lasting until midnight!
We all had varying orientation times, but my roommate had hers first at 9:30 AM. Feeling her waryness about going to campus by herself, I agreed to venture to campus with her and just explore until my 2 PM orientation. Boarding onto the first tram, we figured we could get by without directions- we were so wrong. We ended up attempting to ask for the bus that we needed, getting nowhere, and eventually finding two American's who helped us find where we needed to be. But, we ended up getting on the wrong bus and ending up at the Collosseum, about 30 minutes away from AUR's campus. But how could we complain?! When do you ever get lost and end up at the Colloseum? It was beautiful and one of the most interesting sites of architecture I have ever seen before. We marveled at the arches and how large the structure was in person. We probably walked a good 6 miles attempting to find our bus stop, ultimately failing and getting a taxi cab to our campus (left for campus: 8:30 AM; arrived at campus: 10:40 AM). Orientation was like any normal orientation would be, with safety precautions, guidelines, etc. After orientation we explored campus for a little and found a park directly across from it, with large fountains and caves that were freezing when we began to descend into the dark! It was so cool! We all made our way home and ended up getting lunch at a pizza place right below our apartment called "Pizza BAMMO" , where I nomm'ed on a pesto and zucchini pizza, delicious! Returning home, we all fell asleep once again, then woke up and decided that we felt like just exploring again! We traveled down a side-street near our apartment, found a large gathering area filled with people of all nationalities, many many restaurants, and just tons of fun! We ended up eating at a restaurant where we all, once again, got pasta and had 2 bottles of wine-Red and Pinot Grigio. I officially love Rome!

pre-Roman experiences...waaah

At the beginning of the school year, both myself and one of my great friends at school decided that we would travel to another country after going through the grueling MCAT study process for basically an entire school year. When the time came to make a decision on which location, Rome was an obvious conclusion with our background in the Italian language and the beautiful architecture, people and places that revolve and make the country one of the most visited tourist spots in the world.
May 21, 2011 was D-DAY, the day that all my studying would be displayed and put to use by completing the Medical College Admission Test. Many people celebrate the end of an MCAT test by partying, going out to dinner, basically anything that is unrelated to school and especially biology, chemistry or physics; I on the other hand, after spending the entire 4 hours and 45 minutes to ween through each detail of every problem, went home and literally slept almost an entire day. When I woke up on Sunday morning, I was still mentally and physically drained, making me dread fully unpacking all of my clothes from school, sorting through each item, and then deeming which items were necessary and unnecessary. After 4 hours of packing, weighing, unpacking, etc. I finally had all of my items packed and ready to go. Next stop Rome?