I made it!

Ciao from Roma! I successfully made it to my Roman apartment! These past two dyas have been the longest of my life!

My flight left New York on Tuesday at about 5:30 PM, and I arrived in Rome at about 7:45 am on Wednesday. The flight was okay, I was in and out of sleep but it just felt extremely long (which it was). My legs were killing me by the the time we landed and I couldn't wait to just walk around on my feet. I navigated the airport pretty easily because all of the signs had English translations. I got my passport stamped, waited for my luggage, and then found some other students from my school waiting to meet up with our advisor. At about 9:30 our advisors Barbara and Davide arrived at the airport. They distributed our keys to our apartments and helped us get in taxis to get to our apartment. We arrived about 30 minutes later. However, our taxi driver didn't drop us off at the exact address, so we had to do a little navigating, but eventually we found our place. Next we had to figure out how to get in to our apartment, which took about 3 girls and 12 different keys until we finally got it right. It's definitely going to take lots of practice! Here are some pictures of my apartment:

After we got to our apartment we decided to explore the area. We knew that we lived close to the Vatican so we thought we'd try to find it. We waked a couple of blocks, and we saw St. Peter's Basilica. It was so awesome to see the huge dome just a few blocks away from our apartment. Before we ventured off to the Vatican we ate some lunch at an outdoor pizza place. I got a margherita pizza and the four of us got a bottle of wine to share (because we could.) :) Then we went to the Vatican, took tons of pictures, and went inside the Basilica. The inside is so amazing. It's crazy to think about all of the detailing and hours that went into the design of the Church.

After we explored the Vatica, we went back to our apartment and finished unpacking. Later in the day we got some gelato, and nthe rest of our roommates arrived. We're all so exhausted and are going to bed soon because we have Orientation early in the morning. Arrivederci!