L’inizio…

Wow. Where to start? So far, Italy has been amazing. The flight in was long and uncomfortable, but checking into the airport was a lot easier than I had thought it would be. The new American Airlines terminal at JFK has a self check in type process. I put my bag on the conveyor belt and walked over through security. Waited at my gate, boarded the plane, sat in the middle of the plane in the middle seat in between two people, was served a little snack bag, wine, frozen lasagna (heated up of course, a mini salad, more wine, tried to sleep, failed miserably, was served breakfast, downed a coffee, touched down in Rome, waited in the airport for about two hours for while I waited for the rest of the SUNY Purchase group to get in (I had taken a different flight in), had a double espresso with Sambuca (delicious and I needed it so that I could function, and a nocciola gelato. I must say that was the best goddamn airport food that I have ever had before in my life.I continued to wait and finally saw a “Purchase” sign and we waited for the rest of the group for another half an hour or so. My Italian professor, Marcello, seems pretty awesome. Reminds of the father/uncle type. I’ll be in his class with I think only four others (Intermediate/Advanced). I must say, at the moment, besides the girls who are just here with the professors’ families, I have the best Italian skills.At least I know enough to get around Rome and make small chit-chat and whatnot. These girls literally only know how to say “ciao.” Uffa! Finally, we all met up and loaded up our luggage onto the bus to Roma. That took about 45 minutes, not too long, but the bus was too large to fit down the street that we needed to get to so, we had to lug all of our bags down a couple streets to the hotel. We finally got settled in, and we all went on a walking tour of Roma.