La Fine d'Agosto

Buongiorno a tutti!

I’m sorry for not updating sooner –this first week has been pazzo!! I never knew there was this much work involved in planning, coordinating, and facilitating a study abroad program that’s only a month long… Silly me, right?

Anywho, Roma is as gorgeous as ever. The weather has actually been pretty pleasant here –not too hot. And when it is hot, there are always fountains like this one throughout the city to take a quick dip in. Well, not really. But they are certainly nice to look at!

As for living quarters, my apartment is simply fabulous. I really couldn’t have asked for a better situation. It’s right behind the Trajan Forum (which is across the street from the Roman Forum. Actually, it used to be all one before Mussolini decided to build a huge street right through the middle of it so he could march triumphantly through the city…). The apartment is quite spacious, and has been recently redone, and the furniture seems to be mainly comprised of IKEA (I’m not kidding). I live with two of the students on the program, who are lovely roommates and very fun to be around. We did have another who was supposed to live with us, but she left the program right before it began. So… we have three of us living in a five person apartment, which translates to… SPACE! (a rare commodity in Italy) We have two bedrooms -1 with 3 beds, 1 with 2-, two bathrooms (WOOHOO!), a pretty kitchen, and a very spacious living room (you can see part of the kitchen in the background).

We also have air-conditioning in most rooms, and beautiful hardwood floors… I really don’t know how we got this lucky! Frankly, I don’t think I could afford this apartment if it was in Seattle!

Here’s a pic of the street we live on (Via Baccina):


That’s pretty enough –BUT if you look the opposite direction, you get a real “behind the scenes” look at the Trajan Forum. (look closely at the end of the road -this was taken from our front door!!)


And if you look through the arch in the middle of this pic, you’ll see the end of our street!

If you’ve forgotten who Trajan is, here’s a pic of the famous “Trajan Column” he had built to commemorate the story of his great battle victory (you can see the pictoral story wrapping around the column, all the way to the top.) It’s quite impressive in person.


Well, I’d better get back to work –just wanted to update y’all!

Tomorrow, we take a short trip to Ostia Antica, then several of the students and myself will head down to Sorrento for the weekend! (limoncello… mmmmm….) If you want to see pics of where we are staying, I’ve added the link for the hotel’s website. We got a GREAT deal on this place, otherwise we’d have never been able to afford it…

Well, to tide you over till next time, here’s an image of the two basic Italian foodgroups (eaten consecutively, not concurrently... unless you're very brave or very strange):


Really, what else do you need? (besides gelato of course. But I can never stop eating that for long enough to take a picture of it… Speaking of which... Well, the gelato is calling!)

Tanti Baci,
Kiera