We started at the school today
(photographer rather unceremoniously here)
It is a three story building just across the Tevere. It's the Villa Caproni, and apparently some women live in the upstairs. Long story, I guess. The person that originally owned the building was in aviation, and I suppose his daughters (granddaughters) inherited. Again, some of my own research could help here... which is located, as far as the compass goes, just north of the Piazza del Popolo. Which we returned to again today! We took the steps up to the balcony that overlooks the piazza. A rather laborious walk up steep steps that slope backwards a bit. And! Since I have a bit of a head cold, it was all the more fun with the dizziness. But the view at the top was pretty spectacular. I imagine it looks better when the haze isn't encompassing the city, but still pretty special.
The center is the the obelisk, the the left are the three roads that converge on the piazza. The dome in the back left of center is the Vatican (which I still haven't visited. Expect that at some point. Carolyn went already, I haven't gone yet. She said it's pretty. She also found an ice skating rink. But apparently they don't believe in Zambonis here, because it was awfully ungroomed).
From the Piazza we wandered back to find a Tabacci (Tobacco shop) to get tickets, or biglietti for the crazy bus. Which was crazy. We went the most backwards way around Rome to finally get let off near the Torre Argentina stop. Which had, get this, a cat sanctuary!!
Torre Argentina has a lot of history. From what I've read, Caesar was stabbed at Torre Argentina, and it was the host to four Roman Temples. And now it's the home to the Roman cat sanctuary (http://www.romancats.com/index_eng.php) Check it out. I think I could have spent hours.
You can't actually go in and hang with the cats, for obvious reasons, but a few of us had a great time playing "find the cat that looks like your cat at home!" Which made Carolyn more homesick.
I like to think I'm playing this at an advantage. About half of the students, a bit more, are from Temple. Students at Temple tend to be overwhelming from Philadelphia, ie half an hour from home. I've been away from home since I started school. Not terribly far away, but still a fair distance. I think it's allowed me to adjust more easily. I say this now, on the third day. Please, don't remind me when I'm half way through and just want to go home to see my parents and cats. That would be embarrassing.
So far so good, though. I figure it'll go fast when I have points and benchmarks. Like the end of this month I think we're going to Spain. So you live until Spain. And then you have a new benchmark, and you live until that. And it's over and gone and you're flying back across the Atlantic before you know it.
I totally forgot to mention lunch! Excerpt from an e-mail to my mom:
We went to the grocery store last night, which was interesting. Kind of fun. I've been trying to work out some Italian. At the very least, I try to say grazie, and prego, par favore, ciao, stuff like that. I ordered pizza at lunch today, and you can kinda point and say what you want. They have big rectangle pies, and they start cutting it, and you say piu or meno if you want more or less. I had crustino pomodoro, which was like regular pizza with tomatoes on it. I was going to get picante pomodoro, which as those hot pepper chips on it. But I didn't. My friend Andrea got one that had zucchini and broccoli on it, and it tasted like delicious and made me envious.
That's life so far. Tomorrow is Permission to Stay procedure. So I'm gonna have a hunch and say no post tomorrow. I think these'll get less frequent, with big posts whenever I go on a trip.
<3
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