A day late blog... no web access

Today is my 6th day here in Rome. My Italian is expanding slowly considering that I have never taken any classes in the language before. Since today is Sunday, the large street market is taking place just a block away from my apartment. I really am located in the heart of the old city, but lucky to be placed in a modern apartment with a stove that works and hot water that manages to last through five girls and their showers.

Apparently here in Rome there is a problem with mold, so we have to keep our windows open whenever we are home. The only problem with this is that there are many gypsies that break in through said windows and steal all of your belongings, generally while you are sitting in another room. One of the apartments that housed American U. students has already had a break in (near the Vatican) because the girl forgot to bolt the door before going to the ATM across the street from her house. Locking the door here isn’t good enough to keep people out, so many apartments have one to three bolts per door to the place. I am lucky enough that every window here is at least 14 feet off the ground and facing an inner courtyard to the building. If someone gets in the building, good luck jumping up 14 feet without me hearing it.

We have no drying unit for clothing here in Italy, so dry Jeans are a big deal. The washing machine takes a good hour and a half to makes it way from wet, to soap, to clean. Then we have drying racks that we put outside on our small deck (just for clothing) and pray that no one manages to get up there. I have to think long and hard before I put my Jeans in the washing machine because it means they are out of use for at least 30 hours. It was raining sporadically over the last few days so I kept the Jeans inside to dry and that took a good two and a half days.

Two days ago I went to the Coliseum and the Roman Forums. It was amazing. Joe, Leslie and I arrived too late in the day to enter the buildings themselves, but watching the sun set over the old marble structures was well worth the 30 minute walk from my home. Tomorrow I plan to take my run out along the river to the forum to see what it looks like in the morning without tourists.

Now off to the market. I hope to bring home a large cutting board, some fresh basil, garlic, an assortment of herbs, and perhaps find some cute leather boots. (The way you can tell at first glance the locals from the Americans are the leather boots. Americans wear flip flops or tennis shoes, the locals wear leather boots or very nice sneakers.) Send me some emails guys, I do actually have time to respond at least once a day. I am only taking 13 credit hours worth of class and one of them is drawing. Ciao!