And so the journey begins. Our flight from JFK, scheduled to depart at 7:32pm, actually departed around an hour later. The dinner we were served was better than I expected, especially because it was accompanied by my first ever legal drink, which, according to the flight attendant, was a "white table wine". Nothing special, but it didn't seem so bad being that I was on my way to Italy, my first time leaving the country (though we have travelled frequently throughout it).
The flight landed at Fiumicino, one of Rome's two airports, at around 10:30 in the morning (4:30AM EST). As we entered the airport, hearing the language come to life in actual dialogue (rather than in a classroom) compounded my excitement for the next three and a half months.
The 23 of us Loyola students made our way to the baggage claim after getting our passports checked, and entered the terminal where we met Aurora Santoro, a Roman resident who will be guiding us for our time here. We stepped outside with our luggage (I'm making it sound a lot easier than it was) to a beautiful day, 60 degrees and sunny. As soon as we boarded the private bus that would take us to Rome, Aurora felt the need to apologize to us about the "cold weather", at which point we all looked at each other in confusion.
The ride to our school, the Catholic University of America in Rome, probably took about half an hour. We put our bags down in a classroom, taking only what we'd use for our first week, and were soon on our way to take about 3 public buses to the Termini train station, at which point I learned that Italians place little value on their personal space.
At the train station, I grabbed a panini for a quick lunch, attempting to order in Italian. We did a bit more walking to board our 2:20 train to Assisi, which would arrive just about two hours later. During this time I feel asleep once for about 20 minutes, immediately regretting it once I woke up to an extremely scenic view of small Italian towns that we passed through.
As soon as I got off the train and rolled my already too-heavy suitcase towards the station, one of its wheels fell off. At this point I was sort of dragging my suitcase on the ground, which was fun.
A little more walking had to be done before we finally arrived at the guest house in Assisi, called Oasi Sacro Cuore.
We were given a little time to regroup after our long day and the loss of 6 hours, although we were advised not to nap if we wanted to fight off the jet lag by getting a good night's sleep later.
The CUA Rome program director (Dr. Dawson) invited us to follow him into the city without stating a specific time but saying that he'd let us know before he left. Well, we weren't notified and had to catch up with the group.
We made our way through three large arches on the way into the city, which was beautiful. Little shops lined the sides of the brick streets, many of them advertising the local cuisine. (Dinner was scheduled for 8pm at the guest house so I forced myself to hold off). Many of the shops contained religious relics. The city itself was home to St. Francis, one of the few patron saints of Italy, and many of the sites and buildings tell stories of his life here. Tomorrow morning we will take a guided tour of the city and learn a bit more about his story and his impact on Assisi.
We returned to the guest house and prepared for dinner...I was more than ready. I'm guessing the 7-8 hour gap between lunch and dinner is something you get used to.
Italians eat a bit differently than us. A meal consists of bread, three courses, wine, and constant conversation. And it can last anywhere from 1-3 hours. At the conclusion of dinner, it was time for bed. I stayed up for a short time to write the first part of this, but ended up going to sleep at around 10pm.
Quote of the day:
"Buon giorno" - Italian man who checked my passport once we landed.
It sounds exponentially more pleasant than "good morning" though it means exactly the same thing.
Sounds fun!! Hope you have a great week and good luck with school
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