He lead me to my building door, and I pulled out the keys from the orientation envelope that we had all been given at the airport. He had me open that first door, and when I looked inside I pleasantly surprised. There were bikes to my left, and a marble staircase (very clean) that lead upstairs. We were on the second floor (kind of the third, as there were no apartments on the initial level) and we struggled up the stairs. Thank god he took the big suitcase. I did have an embarrassing stumble, but I'm just gonna chalk that up to no sleep.
We got to the door, and I instantly marveled at how big it was. It was a lot taller than American ones, and a lot skinnier, even with it being a double door. At this point, I struggled a bit. It was the most awkward key I'd ever seen in my life, and I could not figure out how to open the door. Just as I was being to get frustrated (and Amin was making me do it with no help so that he could be sure I could do it by myself), the door opened and my roommate Sara was standing there. I had never met her before, but she also goes to PC. So I guess I won't be trying to unlock the door anytime soon...
Amin toured me around the apartment, showing me the fuse box, and the bulletin board next to the door. It had our WIFI name and password and other basic phone numbers. The first room was a single room, which Sara had moved her stuff in to. The cabinets in her room went the length of the ceiling, and the ceilings were massive. We checked out the bathroom, which was surprisingly really nice with marble floors and what seemed to be brand new appliances and everything. The ceilings again were massive, and the window ran almost the entire length of the bath wall, lighting up the room. The shower was glassed in and modern as well.
This led me out to the main hallway, and I was extremely surprised to see just how huge our apartment actually was. The ceilings, again, are unbelievably high- I love it. The windows are huge, too and light up the apartment brightly without any need for lights on during the day. The tile floors were old and pretty (and as we soon discovered, heated), and the kitchen was just massive. We have a balcony, or a terrace, as it is called in Rome, and right below us is an orange tree that we can literally pick oranges off of (I'm too scared to get yelled at in Italian, so we haven't done that yet).
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| Our little terrace (with flower boxes!) |
After he left, I checked out the three rooms off of the family room. The first one I saw was a double, with two amazing new built-in closets (floor to ceiling, with drawers), a front view of the Via Forli, our street, and a bathroom in it. This bathroom was a little smaller but just as nice, and really bright with the windows. Obviously, I took the room with the bathroom.
The other two rooms were nice, a double and a single. The double was roomy with two closets that didn't have as good storage, and the single was an oddly shaped room that had a great view of the street.
As I set about unpacking, I realized just how delirious I was. I got all my stuff organized over the next two hours so that I could be worry free about unpacking the rest of the day, when the other four girls showed up. After chatting with Sara for a little, we both took naps for about an hour when we heard commotion at the front door. The next roommate to join us was Katherine from the University of Kentucky, and she was excited to be there. She couldn't decide whether to take the other double or the single, but decided on the single eventually. After that my friend Danielle showed up, and then Alex, my roommate, arrived. We were all really excited, but then realized that we were still missing one other person. Amin told us that there were no other people to arrive that day, so we were a little confused.
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| The closets! |
I got in the shower and was pleasantly surprised, as the water pressure was really strong. Weirdly, like clockwork, the water would suddenly slowly cool for a few seconds, and then get hot again. I figured out when to expect this, and managed to time my application of shampoo/conditioner/soap at these odd intervals. Overall, not bad.
I got dressed, and it was around 4:30 when we decided to set out and explore the neighborhood. We're located in the Piazza Bologna neighborhood, mainly residential, and from what we heard, pretty safe. One thing about Rome is that there are an absurd amount of stray cats. They don't bother you, but they are not scared of people at all. The buildings surrounding us are just gorgeous, and I was surprised to discover that they really do look like the pictures from the internet. The small balconies have flower boxes, and the cheery colors of the buildings, mostly in shades of yellow, are bright and happy.
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| Via Forli |
The five of us walked down the street and passed many people that seemed to look at us curiously when they heard us speaking English. As were about the cross the street, a few cars honked and the men inside winked. I think we had 'American' written across our foreheads. The streets we were walking were lined with trees decorated in lights, and there were so many people milling about, finding dinner, and sitting at the tables stationed outside restaurants. I loved it. We decided on pizza, and stopped into a trattoria named "Stuzziko". We discussed what we wanted, and ended up deciding on various slices, including slices of margarita pizza, zucchini pizza, and potato pizza. The woman and a man (who we assume is her son), loved it. I think they genuinely were entertained that we were Americans, and gave us discounts on our slices. As we ate our pizza and discussed what to do next, I could see people discreetly looking our way. When we got up to give them our plates, Alex said to the woman, "It was delicious. We'll be back," and she had to look at her son for a translation. She was really nice and said, "Si, yes." Hopefully when we go back we'll be able to speak a little more Italian.
As continued to walk around, we perused some of the vendors on the streets selling various jewelry and clothing, and window-shopped. After circling the area (and finding an ATM), we went up another street and found a small grocery store, which we decided to explore. It was interesting, and all the pasta and cheese and bread was unbelievably fresh. We weren't planning on buying anything just yet, but then we came across a giant section of wine right by the registers.
We're not talking Barefoot here. There was dozens of kinds of white, red, and blush, and when I saw the price I thought I was reading it wrong. The bottles were priced between 1,49 euros and 2,49 euros (about 2 to 3 dollars). When people say that wine is cheaper than water in Rome, it really is true. So obviously we each bought a different bottle, and I made my first legal alcohol purchase.
As we walked up the street with our wine, we ran into some PC girls sitting at a table eating pizza. We chatted and introduced ourselves to the girls we didn't know, and they tipped us off to wear the nearest "Chinese store" was. These stores are apparently all over Rome, and house a collection of anything you could possibly need at extremely low prices. You can recognize them from the stuff out front and lack of sign above the door. As we entered, I realized the truth in the description. Anything you could possibly need was there, so we got a blow dryer and other things that we would need. The woman didn't speak any English, so she just handed our receipts to us.
We wandered back to the apartment, and when we opened the door, Anna, our sixth roommate, was waiting for us. She had just gotten in ten minutes before, so even though we were exhausted and jet-lagged, we opened some wine.
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