PISA!!

This past sunday my roommates and I woke up at 5 and took at 6:30 train to Pisa, Italy. When we arrived in Pisa we took a 10 minute bus ride to the Field of Miracles. This is where the tower, cathedral and duomo are located. It was a beautiful field with 3 amazing monuments in the center and vendors on the side streets.

We decided to walk up the 300 stairs to the top of the leaning tower of pisa! It was well worth it when we got to the top and could see a spectacular view of the town!

 And of course I had to do the famous tourist picture! I'm holding up the leaning tower!!

We are traveling to Milan and Verona this weekend! I will be sure to take lots of pictures! Ciao

GELATO! GELATO! GELATO!

I have been in Rome for 11 days and I can already tell that I need to control how many sweets that I eat while I am here! The gelato is absolutely amazing and there is a shop on at least every corner! I pass so many of these sweet treat shops when I am walking around the city or just going to school. It is so tempting to stop in and grab a quick treat for such a cheap price! Every shop has so many different flavors to try; its hard to decide which kind you want to have. They fill the gelato cup up to the top and you can sometimes even have them put 3 different flavors in your cup for some variety!

I survived my first week of classes

Well my week is over! I have no class on Fridays and it is the best feeling ever! I started class on Monday not really knowing what to expect. I felt like I was starting my freshman year of college all over again. New faces, new teachers and a whole new campus to get used to. My first class was called Baroque Rome; an on site art class that takes place at different monument in the city. I thought this class would be a piece of cake but to my surprise it actually involves studying and knowing the artists and sculptures. So I thought that was going to be an easy class but I was wrong. Okay, my next class was human resource management.  My professor is awesome and I think its going to be a great class. After this class was when I got worried. my operations management teacher barely speaks english. WONDERFUL. So this will be a challenge but I am determined to do well. On Tuesday I went to social marketing which only has 3 other people in the class; so I will be able to learn a lot from this class. My last class was integrated marketing. I think all of my classes will be very difficult, they will include lots of reading and presentations. All in all I am looking forward to my semester here! I hope I do well!

My first week in Roma

I embarked on my journey to Rome on January 10th. We had a late afternoon flight that would arrive in Rome in the morning of the 11th but first we had a layover in Germany. When we arrived in Germany we all received emails that we were getting moved to a new apartment because their had been some issues. So we all put smiles on our faces and accepted the change because either way we were going to have the time of our life!

We arrived in Rome in the morning and we were already jet-lagged. I was not able to sleep on the plane but I was forcing myself to stay up until it was time to sleep because I knew that going to bed now would only make it worse. We met our SAI representative and were taken to our new home. When we entered a apartment we were all a bit cultured shocked. It was dark, cold and not too homey like we were used to back in the states. They told us that they were going to move us because we were far from school and not around any other SAI students. This was a relief but we didn't know when we were moving, so we had to live out of our suitcases until then.

The next day after all of our orientation activities we arrived back at our apartment to find our landlord waiting for us. She told us that we had an hour to move out because our program was not paying them. We immediately called SAI and asked them what we were supposed to do. They decided to put us into a hotel for 2 nights until they found a place for us to live permanently. The hotel was a step up from where were, we took advantage of the hot shower and working tv. The next day we found a new home. We were moving to Via a la blaserna where 50 other SAI students were living and it was brand new! We were very excited to move but we had to wait to come back from our orientation excursion to move.

home #1

home #2 (Hotel Ripa) 

home #3

On Thursday SAI took us on a wonderful trip to see Ostica Antica (roman ruins) and to a wonderful 5 course lunch on an italian farm. They brought out 5 appetizers (pizza, cheese and honey, veggies, sausage cakes, and bread), 2 meals (homemade pasta and chicken with potatoes), dessert (apple raisin pie) and wine! We could not even eat half of the meal because we were so full! But all the food was delicious!

On friday we wanted to cook dinner in our new apartment. We were going to make chicken on the stove and put it into a nice salad. We started cooking and getting everything ready to eat when the entire oven blew out of the wall and the stove top flew up toward the ceiling. The noise was so loud that all of our neighbors came running into the hallway. We then noticed that we had started a fire, everyone grabbed their passports and computers and evacuated the building while some italians came in to put out the fire. We were able to enter back into the building and everything was okay. We later found out that we had done nothing wrong; what happened was the gas pipe had a block in it that caused it to blow up. Our week was not getting any better, so we left the apartment and went exploring. 

We were on a mission to find the Coliseum and the Trevi Fountain! And when we did our mouths dropped. It was amazing and I was finally starting to feel like in was in this wonderful city! It was night time and everything was lit up so it was even more amazing. We walked around the entire Coliseum and threw coins into the Trevi Fountain. I was amazed to think that these historical monuments were only a tram ride away from where I was living. It was breathtaking! 

That's about it for my first week! I still can't believe I am here, I'm loving every minute of it so far! My first week I was on a vacation, now classes started this week. Back to reality, I guess I'm really here to study. I'll keep everyone updated. Ciao!