i have arrived!!

I finally landed in Rome this morning after an exhausting day of flying! My mom, sister, and Taylor dropped me off at SFO yesterday morning for my flight to Chicago, where I met a couple girls from my program. We stuck together for our flight to Rome, which was long and tiring since I probably got all of about 10 minutes of sleep during the eight hour flight. My back is achhhiinnggg. I also made the profound mistake of eating the on-flight food. I'm still nursing a nice stomach ache from all the preservatives packed into that chicken pasta. Yech. The one redeeming quality of the flight was the twin middle-aged air stewardesses. And yes, they were wearing identical outfits with the same haircut, jewelry, and fuschia lipstick. But enough whining.
Before we landed I managed to snap a few cool pics from my window.  

My first view of Italy!

After we met up with more people from our program and picked up our luggage from baggage claim, we caught taxis to the Residence Trastevere. We were met by some heads of the program who gave us our room assignments, keys and such. I am in a triple on the fourth floor of the building! It's actually not that bad at all. There are 8 girls in our apartment and we are still waiting for three more to arrive. Surprisingly, the apartment is actually very roomy with plenty of space for us all. 

The view from my bedroom balcony!

My closet

Our kitchen

My bed, actually super comfy

Bathroom

Our common room

After I got settled and took a shower, a group of us girls went out to grab a bite. The neighborhood of Trastevere isn't super nice, but it isn't bad either. If you look down some of the side streets, you can find traces of older parts of the city. 

None of us lasted that long in the heat, which is overwhelming. I'm sitting here writing this at my desk with the fan blowing straight in my face and I'm still covered in a sheen of sweat. As lovely as it is, I think I'm going to finish unpacking.  
Catch you cats lataaaaaaa! Boy I'm tired.