Orientation Day

       Another gorgeous day in Rome! It is so warm I had to take my jacket off while outside for our mini tour given by our RA Jen who also happens to be a Gamma Phi Beta!!! Which is totally awesome and she is so sweet. Nora and I went on a search for a Blow Drier today, eventually we found one at a hardware store of all places!!! It ended up being a really nice little adventure after having sat in Orientation for two hours. We walked with Adrian and Anthony to Castel San Angelo and the court house. The architecture here never gets old. It is so intricate, I feel like I could study these buildings for years and it would never get boring.
     Students from both Newman College and also University of Florida are staying with us and traveling on the Discover the World Program. We actually hung out with one of the girls from Newman last night. Also, Catholic University is using one of the floors in our building as well. St. John's has done such wonderful things with this campus and I am so thankful I am a SJU student.
      The language barrier is proving to be difficult no doubt, but it helps that Adrian is fluent in Spanish. A lot of the Spanish words are similar to Italian and the locals are able to understand what we are trying to communicate. It is obvious that the Americans are not well liked by the Italians. Adrian actually picked up that an italian man said we are ridiculous while we were on a tour, even though all we were doing was listening to the tour guide.
  Last night we went out to Campo Di Fiori which is a place a lot of Americans hang out. It was so much fun and a really great first night getting acquainted to the city once again. We met some Italians that study at Columbia and knew all about Manhattan which was really interesting.
    Nora and I are sleeping in bunk beds. We were not a fan of our room at first, but have grown accustom to it. We both knocked out last night and cringed when our alarm went off at 8am.
    I hope to write some more later, but we are off to lunch now and then 2 more hours of orientation. Loving Rome so much.

XOXO Shann