It's taken me longer than I thought to finally getting around to making a blog about my study abroad time in Rome. I have had a pretty busy first few weeks but I will try to post as much as I can. I am living in an apartment in the Trastevere section of Rome, where my school is. It's a really nice area with a lot of small side streets and everything has cobblestones. It's also a less touristy area so the stores and restaurants are less expensive. My apartment is actually in a pretty good location. We are only 10 minutes away from school and we're also close to the Tiber river, which is where all the main tourist attractions are. Campo di Fiori, which is an outdoor market during the day and then has a big bar/restaurant scene at night, is across the river too. The Pantheon is only about 5 minutes away and the Colosseum and the Roman Forum are about 15. We're about 20 minutes away from the Vatican too. Since everything is so close I haven't had to take the metro or bus that much which is nice.
I am taking 5 classes here: Figure Drawing, Rome Sketchbook, Ancient Art History, Italian Cinema, and a history class on Italy under Mussolini. I like all of them so far. Two of them are on-site so we get to go to museums and different sites which is amazing.
Last weekend I went on a day trip to a small town in Umbria called Orvieto. It was so beautiful. There was a big duomo in the center of the town as well as one of the oldest clock towers in Italy. Orvieto is also built on Etruscan ruins so we got a tour of the ancient underground caves that they used to store food and cook in.
The weekend before that I went to Naples and it was a lot different than I expected. It took about 3 hours to get there by bus. I thought that it would be a more small town environment but it was actually a pretty big city. It was kind of dirty though - a lot of the statues were broken and there was graffiti everywhere. There is definitely a lot more to do in Rome and seeing Naples made me appreciate where I am more.
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