From my View

I'm sitting in a bedroom of the Ercoli, staring out of the open window at the building next door. All of the buildings here have double shutters- one set on the outside; one on the inside. Our shutters- both of them- are open. All of my books are lying open next to me, as studying has taken up most of my day so far. But I needed a break, so here I am, typing out some musings about my stay in Rome.

1. There are NO road rules. There aren't even any lanes painted on the road... which makes crossing the road quite difficult. And fun. And most of the cars here are little hatchbacks, so you don't think they can do any damage. Wrong!

2. There are over 900 churches in the city. I think we visited half of them. I NEVER want to see another church. Sure, they're beautiful in the classical sense, but it gets boring. Plus, Christianity gets more and more underminingly fake the more of them that you see. I mean, most churches here are extremely wealthy and have been decorated in gold and silver and marble statues and BLING and it's easy to see why people would have wanted to join the church in the first place! But that's just my opinion.

3. The Roman people always think they are right and will never move out of your way, regardless of your dominant position on the sidewalk.

4. Gelato is not as delicious as it's made out to be. It's good, but I prefer other ice cream.

5. Men can either be sweet and polite... or creepy. One or the other. Not both; not neither. One. And most seem to think that being creepy is amusing.

6. Everything is closed on Sundays and Mondays. If it's not closed one day, it will be the next. And stores never adhere to their hours... it's whenever the employees feel like leaving. Same with the transit system- whenever they feel like coming to work, they do. When they don't, they don't. And they don't feel bad about it.

7. The Roman way is the right way. Period.



Hopefully more to come soon! I'm taking my last final tomorrow morning, and then it's my last night in the Eternal City...