Thursday was a grand day. Marco and I started the morning off with trying to commute to the site tour (the Palentine Hill) by way of mass transit. We left right behind everyone and walked to the bus stop. The bus was crowded and we scanned out bus tickets like tourists. Apparently nobody in Rome actually PAYS for mass transit. You just get a bus ticket and then ride all you want. No one enforces you to scan it. So people end up just standing by the scanner because the only way that you can be prosecuted for it is in the rare event that the police get onboard and check everyones tickets (which seems unlikely during the morning rush). Well after squeezing into the bus and crawling through the morning rush traffic we finally made it the Pyramid and hopped off to transfer to the metro. Marco (who is 6'4") and I waited on the platform for the train- we were the tallest people there (as usual). We wait and waited and waited and FINALLY the train came. And I thought New York's subway was crowded. We could barely fit on- we had to squeeze in- I was mashed next to some old man and leaning over this lady. I had to take my backpack off and hold it to my side in order to let the doors close it was that close of a call. We made it to the site 20 minutes late- it was pretty embarrassing, but luckily our professor was understanding. We didn't know any better. The the Palentine and everything was amazing. Photos soon! I went home and made lunch and walked in on the maid (thinking it was my roommates). While walking back to school to fill out some paper work I ran into Jason- a fellow intern I worked with this summer in New York. I flipped out- it's such as small world. Apparently he is here with 20 other architecture students from the Pratt Institute. Well I finally made it to school, but took a little longer than others to copy some documents. I took a bus to the Post Office which was right by the Vatican. Even though we reserved a line at the office- it still took over an hour to be seem. We had to pay almost 60E to send off our permit of stay application because we're here for 4 months. Afterwards, the Italian lady from the school who helped us send off the forms left with me to help me go back to the school. Her name was Vivianna and she walked with me and Michael to the bus stop. Along the way she explained us the history of the wall around the Vatican city. We made it to the bus stop and waited for the number 40 express bus. We hopped on board without tickets of course and rode the bus all the way to the shcool. I got out and walked to the next tram stop and rode it all the way down the Via Trastevere. I got back had dinner and headed out. I got a bottle of Rose at the 4E pizza place. All of the Rome students (all 17 of us) sat around the fountain in the Piazza by Santa Maria. It was great- we went out to the Drunken Ship and couldn't even fit in the bar it was so packed. We met some girls who were from Cornell- one of the girls had a Canon 30D, a Holga pinhole camera, and she just got a Diana for Christmas. Drool over that, camera junkies. Mike decided (since he is half Italian) that he would try and impress them with his Italian accent/ impression. It was hilarious. The girls didn't seem to amused and decided to go to bed- the bar had closed anyway. So we left and went to Scholar's Lounge- Blake and I walked and talked on the way there. The bar was dead and everyone left so we just drifted on home. I got home and ate some food and a pear. It was a good night.
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