We finally have internet!

So now that we have internet I will be able to try and update the blog a little more frequently.

To recap we left on Aug. 31 and got here the morning of Sept. 1 at about 10:30 am Rome time (+7 hours here). All of the flight were no problem except for when we got to Amsterdam.  We landed 30 min. earlier than we were supposed to but that saved us big time.  We were walking to our connection and had to go though passport control and there was a huge delay at the checkpoint.  I guess there is never a line here, and you can just walk up, get your stamp and move on.  So when I finally got to the window our plane had already started to board so we ran though the airport to our gate and got there with 20 min to spare. Needless to say I had a good case of jet lag the next couple days.  We had a couple days to just hang out and get everything situated in our apartment.  It is definitely a change of pace when you get here and have to figure out where you are, how to buy food, order food and just get around without getting hit by the insane amount of traffic that speeds by.   The first couple days we couldn’t find a grocery store so we pretty much ate at the same pizza place and I had a few cliff bars in my luggage so that held me over.  We did finally find a grocery store a couple of blocks down yesterday so now the apartment is finally starting to feel like home and we are getting more comfortable.  The colosseum is just a few blocks down and you can see it when you walk out our front door, it’s pretty amazing to have walked by it everyday a couple times. And to see all the ruins that are scattered around the city.  It is really hot here, highs of 85 so far since we have been here, but it cools down nice at night, I’ll be glad once fall get here in a few weeks.  Yesterday we started class, kind of a shock to have to get back into school mode for once, I think this semester will keep me busy with projects and will also make time go way faster than I think.  We spent yesterday walking around the city and they pointed out the different parts of the city that we can use as the influence for our projects for the semester.  I think we will get a lot of cool stuff out of this semester. 

Today I don’t have class until 2 pm so I got up on time and set out to find sir supermercado, a store that I found an add for on the ground.  I looked it up on google map and I was about 2 miles way.  I found the store by walking the long way and then found a better route back, it was worth the walk since they had oreos there…haha.  American food is expensive here, 16-20 oreos ended up being 0.99 euro.  Today after class I think we are going to try and find a place to buy a bus pass and try to get out out to the beach this weekend before we all get busy.  I took a few pictures on my phone once we got here of the colosseum, and the view from our place, I took a bunch of cool pictures with my new camera the other day so i’ll have to work on getting those up to.

I think I will upload pictures to my web gallery from now on so check that out sometime:

http://gallery.me.com/cgroten1#100015