ROMA

Just for you Mother, I'm going to do this one with proper punctuation and capitalization (but don't get used to it).

So we're finally in Roma! Its really really cool. We live in an apartment in the Trastevere neighborhood, which is known for its minimal tourists and many bars and restaurants. I love it - cars aren't allowed by our apartment! Although that doesn't mean its quiet. Every morning at like 5 AM it literally sounds like there's a war going on outside. It's ridiculously loud. But my friend Cate gave me earplugs :)

My classes have been really interesting, with the exception of one. Mythology is AWESOME and History of the Italian Mafia.....oh my god. We get to watch like 10 movies (including The Godfather parts I, II, & III) and have GUEST SPEAKERS. I'm assuming/hoping they are ex mafia members. For our final paper we have to write about something having to do with the mafia and our major - biology and the mafia don't really correlate. So I'm doing it about organ trafficking I think (you know how I like murder!). Our teacher is really nice, and he doesn't look like he would be. I'm pretty sure he was actually in the mafia. But he told us that he'll go easy on us because "we're in Roma! we should be going to the disco all night and falling in love!"

The Class That Won't Be Named (ahem - high renaissance art) is ridiculous. I'm not even going to talk about it.

Anyways, our school is about a 15 minute walk from Trastevere, right near the piazza navona. We pass a dog park on the way, so I'm ok with it! I saw a dog last night that looked EXACTLY like Jessie, it made me really sad. But she was really cute (obviously).

It's weird walking around Rome and actually knowing my way around - and that I live here. But obviously it's really exciting.

We're about 95% sure there's a group of guys from another program staying in our building, so we're going to investigate that shortly.

Amanda and I are leaving for Oktoberfest in 2 days on Thursday - SO EXCITING! It takes about 14 hours to get there by bus, buuuuut I'm trying to not think about that. I think we're going to spend one day just exploring Munich. I can't wait!!

Anyways, I'm going to go have dinner by the colosseum :) probably pizza or pasta. They have a lot of that here.