Salvete Omnes!
At the request of you wonderful people, I am officially starting my semester in Italy blog. I'll hopefully be posting once or twice a week with updates/pictures to let everyone know what I've been up to.
For those of you who don't know, I will be in Rome from now until the end of May studying Classics at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies (ICCS) or Centro as it is colloquially known. My studies will be focused mainly on Rome's ancient past, but I am making it a personal priority to get to know both the modern Italians and their language.
At the moment I am sitting in the Philadelphia Airport on layover from Cincinnati, and through the miracle of surprisingly free Wifi have an opportunity of starting this blog up. The flight to Italy is around eight and a half hours, which once upon a time would have seemed torturous, but ever since going to Australia this past summer, I am no longer afraid of long plane flights. I am stocked up with an Apple store's worth of electronics, so I should make it fine.
Before heading over to the Centro on Sunday to get checked in and meet all my marvelous classmates, I'm spending Saturday in Rome to explore by myself. I cannot express fully how excited I am for this - wandering around strange cities with my iPod is pretty much a perfect day for me, and I haven't encountered any city I love more than Rome. By noon tomorrow, I will hopefully have made it to my hotel, having braved the Roman train and taxi service, dropped off my bags at the desk, and unleashed myself upon the city.
Speaking of time, Italy is 6 hours ahead of EST, so if it's 9 AM in Italy, it'll be 3 AM in Ohio, etc... My schedule this semester will be oriented quite a bit earlier than I'm used to in my decadent college lifestyle, but I'm up for it. How much I'll be on Skype depends on the WiFi situation, which I will update you all on when I get there.
Anyway, lovely people, this is the first of hopefully many entries on my adventures in my favorite country in the world. If you want to contact me, try e-mail at vneuman@oberlin.edu, or my Skype handle is vneuman. It's no use trying to call my cell, as it's going off service until I get back. I shall try to make myself available, and until then, talk to you all soon!
Ciao,
Tori
