This past week I have learned one noteworthy thing about myself. I am a terrible packer. If there are terrible packers out there, I’m sorry but I may be the worst. I have, for lack of a better term, had the shocking surprise of finding out that most of everything I need to survive is back in Chicago. I left my entire supply of contact lenses, half my clothing and yes, ladies and gents, I lost my camera somewhere in transit. The parentals back home say it’s not there, and well, it’s nowhere in my dorm room, so it’s probably thousands of miles away, in the hands of someone who doesn’t know how to properly appreciate the 1,459 pictures of my dog that I took in one sitting. But, and this may sound scripted or otherwise falsified, I am enjoying the fact that I packed very many useful things. For example, my fun-patterned socks. Yes, I brought more than twenty pairs of socks. And even though I haven’t used the letter opener yet, you never know when that might come in handy, right? So please, do send me letters, because I will be opening them in style.
But enough about my complete lack of common sense. I’ve been in Rome since August 26th and it’s been insanely busy. At first we had a few days of orientation, which felt a little like the first day of summer camp, where everyone is trying to gauge the social situation. It was basically a frenzy of jet-lagged people trying to hold coherent conversations with each other about hopes, dreams, aspirations, and surprisingly a lot about gelato. I got situated in my room, which I will be sharing with my friend Emily Marogi, a fellow Ricci scholar and blogger, and the two of us unpacked in about an hour (a truly impressive feat). We then walked around campus meeting most of our classmates. It’s a quaint, small campus that has already grown on me. But my favorite thing about this campus is the one euro cappuccino that you can buy at the café on Loyola’s property. Every morning I am there, sipping the cheapest cappuccino ever that actually tastes good, while staring at the wall in silence because, no, I am not a morning person. At night the area around the café remains open as a student lounge. A bunch of us are starting the tradition of playing card games there on Monday nights when no one wants to go to bed and everyone wants to be wearing pajamas.
Fun fact: I have gotten really lost twice already. One time I was with a group of friends and we met a French family of four that was just as lost as we were, so we joined forces and ended up all speaking some French, Spanish and English to try to understand each other. We all made it home eventually, not without stepping into some thorn bushes and completely running out of water first. But as long as you know that the general direction of campus is up a hill just keep walking uphill, and you will eventually find your way back.
Then before I knew it, classes started. I am taking Art in Rome, Writing Fiction in Rome, the Ricci seminar and an internship class. This last one may be completely novel to you. It basically places students into an internship downtown Rome, depending on what your interests are. I will be working with two cardiologists whose focus is on nuclear imaging, but honestly I haven’t started it yet, so do not ask me about it! I have no idea what I’ll be doing. In my own defense, my mentors have no idea what I’ll be doing either. My other classes seem to be super interesting too. I wanted to take another class, but I’m honestly happy I didn’t go through with that because in about a week or two I will truly begin my Ricci research, and although I feel like this entire past year I have been looking forward to this exact moment, I know there will be a lot of time spent on dealing with the fun surprises and less fun surprises that come with research. I will definitely need all the time I can get to prepare.
I added a few pictures of daily life in Rome. Photo credits go to Emily Marogi and Molly Frank (As I have yet to go buy a new camera, they were super sweet and sent me these gems).
This is my room on campus. (Sorry for the mess. I’ll have you know Emily Marogi yelled at me for posting this picture. Also she wants you to know it’s a lot cleaner now.)
This is a not-so-flattering picture of Luis Vargas, me, Molly Frank and Angelo Canta (left to right), taking the bus from the Vatican back to campus. Just kidding, we’re beautiful.
Angelo, Emily and I have all bought a pair of Birkenstocks as you can see from this picture, and which you should definitely do in Italy as they are much cheaper than in the US. But that’s not really a description of what we’re doing. We were on Isola Maggiore (Major Island), a beautiful island on Lake Trasimeno in Umbria, where ironically only 17 people live.
This stunning view of Rome can be seen from the Forum. And on the way to the Forum nothing funny really happened. On the way back from the Forum a giant pinecone almost fell on my head. It was the largest pinecone I have ever met. In this picture, Frieda Rule, Emily and I are all still blissfully unaware of what is to come.
This is Molly and me (sadly I’m blocking Frieda) walking around Rome looking for a gelateria (ice cream shop). Fun fact: right after this was taken we were able to translate a few Latin sentences that we found on an obelisk, which I am so proud of because neither one of us has taken serious Latin (Molly took it in 8th grade).
