Buona Notte Miei Amici,
I’m writing this as a bunch of us (roommate’s, ISA friends, and some resident student friends) are about to go out into town to celebrate a friend’s birthday. In this blog post I’ll let you know how my first few weeks have been.
Firstly, ISA orientation began the first night you arrived with a big dinner for ISA students at a local restaurant (ours was at a nice place in Trastevere) and ends on thursday of the week you arrive. The rest of ISA orientation included taking us around town to all of the monuments/tourist-filled areas so that we could get that all out of the way in the beginning of our semester. Additionally, if you’ve never used public transportation (or even if you have) navigating Rome can be a bit difficult, so letting the program take us to all the sites when we would have probably gotten lost trying to get to…was more than great.
AUR orientation, on the other hand, happened the Friday before classes started and only lasted a few hours. This consisted of more ‘Rollins-like” orientation such as drug and alcohol policies, safety, and other school related information, as well as information for US citizens being abroad (what the embassy can do for you, and what it can’t do for you).
Secondly, classes are weird to find in the buildings (even though there’s only 3 total). Make sure you write down where your classes are located, and try to find those rooms after the AUR orientation since you’ll be at school anyways! On the other hand, if you show up to school just walking around like a lost puppy, which I did, then you can just ask people because they are more than helpful and you’ll probably run into other students looking for the same classes as you!
Lastly, getting to and from school can be a hassle. The public transportation here is great, but incredibly inaccurate and almost always running late. Until, you’ve got a routine down and know your bus route than I would leave your apartment about an hour before classes begin. In my experience, the bus you need could pull up as soon as you get to the stop, or you could be waiting for 37 minutes and you could’ve just walked to school instead. Pros: its too hot to walk so amen for the metro. Cons: Could’ve walked from Rome to Florence in the time it takes to pick you up…or you could’ve blinked and the bus goes past you.
If you want to be sure how to get to school than the saturday before classes start, take the public transportation to school have lunch at the wine bar across the street (Litro), and then take a bus home. Now you know your way to school, and where to get glasses of vino between classes;)
That’s all for now and I look forward to writing more. Arrivederci miei amici!
Marc