is the vacation over yet?

One week down and about fifteen more to go. I still can't believe I'm actually here! The first week was full of long walks and tours around the city and the whole time it felt like a short vacation -- once the week ended it would be time to go home. Actually living in Rome is such a surreal experience. Leading up to this amazing experience we were told about culture shock and how it would most likely be emotionally difficult to get used to such a different world, and when I got here I seemed fine. I still am fine, but there's little things that make me feel better about being so far way from reality. For example, even though I wasn't necessarily feeling homesick or anything, I found a comforter for my bed that looks almost exactly like the one I have at home, and it just made me feel a little bit better. That was nice.

It's also been a very different experience being with all the architecture kids just about twenty-four/seven. Back at home we all have classes together but generally have other social lives, but in Rome we're together for everything. It's actually kind of nice though -- I'm getting to know all these people I've technically known for almost three years now but really didn't know anything about them before this. 

The walks we took this week were absolutely amazing. The first one was to Palatine Hill, the Forum and the Colosseum. It was so crazy seeing the Colosseum first hand. I was in complete awe at how big it actually is -- pictures just don't do it justice, as most of the things in Rome I have discovered. The second walk was to Tiber Island and through the Jewish Ghetto. Although none of the things we saw along there are exactly textbook buildings that everyone knows about, they were very interesting. It seems like almost every time you turn there's another piazza or ruin or simply something you'll never find in the States. We also saw the Pantheon after that walk, and unfortunately it had stopped raining by the time we got there. In pictures and even from the exterior it seems like just a decent size, but once you go in it's simply breathtaking. I honestly can't comprehend how people spent so much time or had the patience to make such great monuments when the world was much less technologically dependent. The last walk was to the Piazza di Popolo and back towards the Spanish Steps. 

Once my feet and legs were about as sore as they have ever been, we finally got to have our formal welcome dinner. I was very excited for the seafood menu they had planned for us -- that is until I found out what exactly they meant by seafood. The way Italians eat seafood is very different than the way Americans eat seafood. The "salad" portion of the meal was some seafood patte, with some spinach cake looking thing, and a little seafood salad of squid and octopus and I'm not even sure what else. The second course was some kind of cheese and artichoke lasagna, which for some reason I wasn't a fan of either -- I think maybe it was because I still had the foul smell of the first dish on my mind. It also had a pasta with it -- which also had squid and octopus and whatever else in it. The third course was a tuna steak and actual salad, which was delicious, followed by a chocolate muffin with a cream on top that was absolutely delicious.

I will post again soon, but now I have to get back to some homework so I can get to bed at a decent hour. 

Ciao!