Roma Weekend!

Hi Everybody!

    This weekend we had most of our orientation welcoming stuff both on and off Duquense's campus. We learned about how to actually not look All American- what to wear, what to say, where the locals hang, and more stuff of that sort. As tiring of a weekend as it was, I had such an amazing time. Here are some of the details and encounters of my weekend:
    Saturday after our campus tour, we were welcomed into The Church of Saint Susanna as Duquense students, it is an American Catholic Community church which was the most incredible church I've ever seen, at least thus far. After church we took a bus over to Ristorante Spirito Devino, one of the best meals in Rome according to tourists and locals! The restaurant is family owned and run; the wife does all of the cooking alone and the husband and brother are waiters (but by the end seem like family). In addition to the perfecto family trio, all of the food is locally grown and organic- YUM!! After dinner we headed out to the pubs for a little fun (pubs= bars and bars=caffes). It was by far better than South Side or Oakland LOL! I met a lot of local Pennsylvanian students from Philly- it was way cool! Altogether Saturday was an exciting and eventful day!
    With hardly and sleep, we were up at and it again Sunday morning for the whole day! We ate breakfast around 9 and departed to explore Roma for the rest of the day. I felt like we saw an immense amount for just one day: Trinità dei Monte, Spanish Steps, The train station, The Colleseum, Vittorio Emanuelle II Monument, Meusems, and the Pantheon plus many more amazing places!! Our tour ending with some fabulous gelato- I had grapefruit (pompelno rosa) and it was spectacular! Since we were so thrilled with our gelato, our directors left us in the city to officially begin living in Rome by making us find our way home. Luckily I was with a good group and we had no probelmo finding the campus!
     I've realized this weekend that I already feel changed. I helped navigate ourselves around town- and sometimes I can't even get around Pittsburgh-  which was such a fulfilling moment. I also started speaking some Italian to the locals, even it is a phrase here and there it's better than nothing! This weekend has been great and hopefully my time here only gets even better! Classes start tomorrow so I'm going to rest up, but in the meantime GO STEELERS!!!!

P.s. I am trying to upload photos- with our not so great connection it gets difficult.

Ciao Ciao,

Ky xx


P.S. I am trying to upload pics on here; our connection here isn't as strong as in the states and can be tedious... Just work with me!