My Romeo

This is the view from our apartment. Com orverlooks the courtyard of a 15th Century building

This Is the building Adjacent to ours . It's a chapel built in 1049.

In view of Palatine Hill across the Tiber from our apartment.

Graffiti covers all buildings in Rome .

A nearby church - St . Cecilia 's.

Roma! Finally. After three flight delays and flights from Laguardia to Chicago and then to Rome, I'm here. Not before I had to take a taxi to my residence though because there wasn't a shuttle from my program there to meet me. Romeo (pronounced Ro-may-o) and I were very close for about 45 minutes until he tried to up a fifty Euro taxi ride to 60 Euro and even offered to introduce me to his daughter. He didn't speak any English, and the only Italian I know is what I can recite from my Italian phrasebook. Phrases such as, "What's that smell?" and "I'm on the pill" and "Is breakfast included?". Romeo encouraged this play and we shared a few laughs--I even gave him my number for when he is in New York in December. He turned the meter off, and pointed out the Colliseum among other things and even gave me a mint. But then he tried to rip me off.

Anyways, I was dropped off at my residence in Trastevere (literally "across the river") and proceeded to drag my two checked bags (each weighing 40 pounds) up 4 flights of stairs (elevator out of service) only to find out that not only do I get to share a room with two (2!) roommates, they both go to Kenyon. I'm not entirely sure how Kenyon continues to mess up my preferred housing, this being the second out of three years now where I have asked specifically for differing roommate accomodations, but they sure are good at it. Our residence building is 500 years old, a newborn considering the adjacent building (as pictured above) is 961 years old and is without air conditioning although it is roomy and has three showers. I share the fourth floor with 6 girls and 4 other boys, all from Kenyon.

After unpacking, I ventured out by myself through some of the Trastevere neighborhoods finding a quiant town with some very quiet parks and its working class lovers walking hand in hand, young and old, licking their gelato before it melted onto the pavement on this 90 degree day. I captured a few snapshots on my mini expedition and was even mistaken for an Italian by a few tourists!

Later my group and I ate pizza together on our terrace with our two program directors, Professors Jennifer Clarvoe and Aliana Sargas. They instructed us to get some rest today for we'd be doing a fair amount of walking tomorrow (it's a 20 minute hike to our classes in Piazza Navona) and that's what I plan to do right about now, although if I closed my eyes and listened to the honks and horns and screeches outside I would say I had a fourth floor apartment in Manhattan rather than in Rome. Time to throw the iPod in and drown out the noise. Orientation tomorrow!