Week 1: Finito!

+JMJ+
Buonasera!

I have to get back into the habit of posting regularly.  Mi dispiace!  I'm sorry!  Hopefully once my life becomes more regular, my routine will as well.

Yeah right, like I will ever have a regular life.  Funny.

Well, after one week back in Roma, I know a million times more Italian than I started with and about a trillion times less than I need to know, I've made some great friends at school, I'm more tan than I ever got in Florida, and I have enjoyed beautiful Italian meals with my Italian family every night.

I'm watching my third Italian soccer game with my Italian family.  It's so fun!  I'm starting to learn the Italian players' names.  I don't even know American football players names!

This past week has been challenging, but very good.  What a cliche statement.  Meh.  However cliche, it is appropriate.  So much...where do I begin?  This is why I need to blog everyday.

How about my daily routine?  Why yes, yes there is some regularity in my life.  Thank you, school:

6:30am
Wake up.  Ok, fine, in ideal world, wake up at 6:30.  In reality, it's usually a lot closer to 7am.  I clean up my room, get dressed, brush my teeth, eat breakfast (cereal and caffe), and (if it's a closer-to-6:30 day) do morning prayer.  But not necessarily in that order.

7:30am
I'm off!  To get to school, I walk, then take a bus, then take a tram, then walk some more, through Piazza Navona, until I finally arrive at my school.  The whole trip takes between a half and hour and an hour, depending on traffic and when the bus decides to come.  Apparently traffic will be crazy tomorrow morning because it is the first day of school for elementary, middle, and high school.  I usually arrive early, so I have some time to spend walking around Piazza Navona, praying in the chapel, or, if I didn't get my coffee at breakfast, taking a caffe macchiato with my classmates in the lower level of school.

9:00am
Class begins!  This is the part where I understand very little of what is spoken, but quite a bit of what is written on the board.  So, as long as whatever the professor is talking about is the same as what she's writing on the board, I should be good, right?

11:00am
Time for a 15 minute coffee break.  Now, everybody goes down to the lower level, floor negative one.  Seriously, that's what it's called, I'll take a picture of the elevator button tomorrow.  A cluster (no lines--please, we're in Italy) forms around the two coffee machines (which produce better coffee than any American place ever, and for only 40 cents).  It's a grand time.

Disclaimer: I took this picture in the US...but you get the idea: Coffee.  Break.  Coffee break.

11:15am
Class resumes, and Erin is a much happier, alert student for the next hour and fifteen minutes after that coffee break.

12:00pm
Our professor stops class and we all stand to pray the angelus.  So. Awesome.

12:30pm
Class is over.  On Monday and Wednesday, this is the beginning of my three hour lunch break.  Other days, I am done for the day.  There's Mass everyday at the chapel at my school at 12:45pm, which is super awesome and super convenient.  Yay Jesus!  Then, some of my classmates and I walk to a close grocery store, buy cheap but delicious sandwiches and fruit, and go find some nice steps to sit on and eat lunch (pranzo).  After lunch, I try to find somewhere to make a holy hour (being in Rome, it's harder than you'd think--everything closes from around 1pm until around 5pm).  Then I head home!

Waiting for the tram to take me home today

6:00pm
By the time I get home, it's usually already 6:00pm.  Amazing.  I use the time before dinner for homework, studying, and showering.

8:00
Dinner time!  Right now, I am staying with a beautiful, generous Italian family.  They are so awesome. Seriously.  We have dinner together every night around 8pm.  Dinner is always wonderful!  I get to practice speaking Italian a little bit, but right now I mostly just listen.  By the time I've constructed a coherent sentence, the topic of conversation has changed.  Oh well; it will come!  Unfortunately tomorrow is my last day with them.  I want to be adopted!

8:45
After dinner, sometimes Paolo (the dad of family) and I read Shakespeare together...in Italian.  Or, rather, he reads to me, explains the words, I try, and he helps me.  It is so fun and so hilarious!  He, like a good Italian, is very loud and very expressive.  Needless to say, our Shakespeare sessions are always entertaining.  I spend the evening studying, blogging, listening to Italian television, and sleeping.  Which is what I need to do now.  I have to leave extra early tomorrow because of all the traffic from the first day of school apparently.

Buona notte!!!