Life as of lately.

Last night we had the Mass of the Holy Spirit. Every Catholic university starts each academic year off with a Mass of the Holy Spirit, and the Rome Center is no exception to this tradition. The mass was at this absolutely beautiful church (I can’t remember the name right now, so just trust me on it), and then everyone went out to dinner afterwards. We all paid 15 Euro for the meal, but it actually cost a lot more (Campus Ministry was nice enough to subsidize it for all of us). Anyway, the food was fantastic—probably my favorite meal yet since arriving in Italy.

I just really love the feel of the Rome Center. It’s such a great place to be. Since it’s a pretty small group of people (approx. 150 students), it really does become a very close-knit community.

Today, I actually signed up to play calcio (soccer) as part of the JFRC intramurals. It’s a big thing here at the Rome Center, and I got talked into doing it… My soccer skills are limited to say the least, so I’ll let you know how this one works out. I’m still a bit skeptical about it, but hopefully it will be fun.

And now I just got done spending way too much time with my Italian-English dictionary and Italian textbook. School has definitely begun.

I’ve now had all of my classes. Today was my first Art in Rome class and one of our rare classes not on-site. Tomorrow, however, we’re meeting at the Roman Forum/Colosseum for class. What’s that? Class on Friday? Aren’t I not supposed to have class on Fridays while in Rome?

Ah, that’s what I thought too. However, as we all unfortunately learned once arriving at the Rome Center, we do in fact have classes on some Fridays. Initially this didn’t seem like much of problem, but it has already made travel plans rather complicated.

Speaking of travel plans, I’m actually leaving to go somewhere tomorrow afternoon! I’m taking the train to Naples, then Sorrento, where I’ll be staying for the rest of the weekend. We’re planning to visit Pompeii, Mount Vesuvius, and Capri, before we come back Sunday night! It should be a busy weekend, but a lot of fun.

I’ve also made a few other travel plans and am working on getting more lined up. Next weekend, I will hopefully be going to Cinque Terre and Pisa! And I also bought my plane ticket for Fall Break. Things are starting to come together, which is very exciting.

More soon about my first real trip this weekend!

-megan