La Cita Eterna

We had finally arrived in Rome and the only initial reaction that I can explain is a mix of sheer amazement and awe. This was unlike anything most of us had ever seen, especially me since this was my first time to Europe. We dropped our bags off at the St. Johns University building, where Catholic University rents space. After this we went to the hotel, checked-in to our room and were free till 4 pm. The guys who I was rooming with for the night and I decided to get something to eat. I got a salami and cheese panino with a water for only 3 euro, not too bad. After we headed back to the hotel to take a nap till 4. Waking up at 4 pm was incredibly, incredibly hard but we made our way to the lobby.

As soon as we walked outside it started to downpour, of course. After a little while it turned into drizzle, but by that time our walking tour turned into our first public transportation adventure on one of the rome buses. Packing 50 students onto a bus in just a few seconds was interesting experience. We saw a good amount of the city and then began to walk again. We saw the Trevi Fountain, made our way to our Italian language school (Italiaidea) and the Spanish Sqaure. About a block from our italian school are the spanish steps, we got a little history on that and then headed for our second public transportation experiment, getting the entire group onto the metro (Rome's subway system). We took the metro from the spanish steps, learned where and how to cross over from the A line to the B line and then continued on. When we exited the metro station the first thing we saw was this.

The Coliseum.

It was amazing, we got out of the metro station and it was all that you could see. It took all of us by surprise. From there we headed up to the Roman forum and the monument to Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of Unified Italy. It has been one of the most amazing sites that I have seen so far, just the sheer size and construction is mind blowing.

Finally, we reached the restaurant where the group was going to have dinner. It was a little early by Italian standards but, it was our first authentic Italian meal. I don't remember the name of it, or where it was really, but the food was amazing. We had 3 courses, the antipasto, which consisted of italian meats and different fried italian vegetables. Then the primo, which was pasta with two different sauces and finally the dolce, which was tiramisu and of course wine. It was one of the best and freshest meals I have ever had. We walked back to the hotel and basically passed out. By that time it had felt like I had been up for two days.

With that, my first day in Rome was over...