Siamo Arrivati a Roma!

At least, I *think* that's how you say "We've arrived in Rome!"   Actually, one of my favorite Italian phrases is "sono arrivato" (which, if you're a man, means "I have arrived") because it sounds like it should be followed with "Mr. Roboto..."  (yes, clearly I'm a child of the 80s).  But I digress...

So, yes, we're in Rome!

The flight over was a bit long, but manageable.  We flew from MSP to Chicago, had a brief (2 hour-ish) layover, and then flew from Chicago to Rome.  Some highlights from the flight were: 1) watching the 49ers destroy the Packers during the first half of the game during our layover, 2) seeing a 60-ish year old woman on our flight sporting a rat tail (you remember, kind of like a mullet but with just one small chuck of hair- generally a style sported by 11 year old boys around 1990?), and 3) hearing- for the first time- the Lesley Gore song "That's The Way Boys Are" on the "American Jukebox" radio station on the flight (I'm so glad it's not the 1960s anymore!  As some of you may remember, the lyrics seriously say things like this:  "Well he treats me rough and acts as though he really doesn't care/ Well, I never tell him that he is so unfair/ ....'Cause that's the way boys are"  What???).

On the other hand, The low points of the flight were:  1) the fact that we had no individual seat TVs and the movie on the plane was Julia Roberts' "Mirror Mirror," 2) neither of us got much (if any) sleep, and 3) on a truly sad note, there was a medical emergency on the plane at the end of the flight and we're not sure whether the passenger made it or not.  I don't want to get all philosophical, but things like that really do make you realize how important it is to appreciate every day in life!

On a happier note, our first day in Roma (that's the Italian pronunciation) was fantastic.  It basically went like this:  The American Academy had someone pick us up from the airport, which was extremely fortunate, since taking the train with all of our luggage would have been rather difficult.  We then "checked in," had lunch, settled into our room, took a brief nap, took a passeggiata ("evening stroll") to the Vatican (about 20 minutes each way), and then had dinner.  The neighborhood, the Vatican, and food here at the Academy are all ridiculously amazing, but I'll have to save those topics for other posts.  We then managed to sleep for about 13 hours- from 10:30 PM to 11:30 AM!!  Although catching up on our sleep was great, we really need to get a clock in our room (clearly our blinds work a bit too well)!

So, I wanted to use this post to share with you a bit about our living space.  First of all, the grounds here are breathtakingly beautiful.  I've only seen little bits and pieces, but I plan to make it a priority to walk around tomorrow and explore a bit more, and will share more after I do.  Suffice it to say, though, then when we first arrived, I felt like i was living in a dream- or maybe that someone had mistaken us for royalty!

Our room

Our actual room, on the other hand, isn't all so fancy, but still quite nice.  It has tiled floors and a massively high ceiling with a large ceiling fan, which we've already put to good use (temps are probably in the 80s but it's very humid)! In addition to our bed, we have a bookshelf, a little chair, a dresser, and an armoire, which are all great and functional, but totally mis-matched pieces (for some reason I find this very funny).  However, I really like it.  It feels very homey here and we have a beautiful big window, which looks out into the courtyard, and gets good afternoon light.

looking down from our window into the courtyard

The courtyard has a beautiful fountain, which we can see if we look down from the window.  I'm not sure whether it runs year round or just in the summer, but I love the sound.  It's so soothing and runs both day and night (I think Italians enjoy running water because the drinking fountains also never turn off- they just run a constant stream of water!)

Our bathroom is tiny (standing room for one only), and you sort of have to contort yourself into an odd shape to actually get under the shower head, but I can hardly complain with how wonderful everything else is here!

In addition to our room, Tom has his own study, where he will work (as he is doing right now) and where he can keep his books and papers.  This is really nice because our room, while totally sufficient, is on the smaller side.  There is also a common kitchen area where we can make breakfast, and other common living spaces, which we've yet to fully explore.

On a final note, the people here all seem to be very nice.  We are probably some of the youngest here (I'd say the average age, excluding kids, is about 40), but the fellows range in age from probably late 20s to maybe their 60s (it's always so hard to know.  Today, for example, I met a woman who I was sure was no older than 35 and then she started talking about her kids being in day care "20 years ago...").  I was a bit worried that I'd feel excluded, since I'm not an academic myself, but everyone is in such a variety of fields that the conversation tends to center around other things.  There are still so many people we haven't met yet, though, and we really need to make some time to start studying names in the picture directory.  I haven't met my temporary best friend yet, but it's only been a day, so I'm going to give it some time...

Well, I'm off to meet with the other fellows and their families for a walking tour of our neighborhood!  We love and miss you all, but can already tell we are going to have a very, very good year here!