Day 14

Kicked off the week with my second attempt at laundry, which was, surprisingly, a total success! Really, I had no hiccups, no issues of any kind. I decided to air dry the majority of my clothes this time, and I did have to get a little creative to find spots to hang everything in my room, but I made it work.

I saw on Facebook that Bus2Alps (the tour company we went to the Amalfi Coast with) was doing another little event for the Rome study abroad community. This time: FREE GELATO. Obviously couldn't turn this down. They were giving away free gelato from 12-3 at a place about 15 minutes from campus. Our mandatory Monday Meeting, in which we're given our meal tickets for the week, was scheduled for 12:45, and then our City of Rome class starts at 1:30 on Mondays, so Katie and I decided to go have a little something to eat around 11:30 and then to head over to the gelateria.

We went to our go-to easy lunch/snack place, Vero, which is where Bus2Alps normally does free coffee/discounted sandwich events. I decided to try one of their yogurt parfaits, which was decent. It could've used some more honey, but the granola was amazing.

The gelato was even better! No surprise there. Actually, it wasn't my favorite stracciatella, but they had many other flavors that looked appealing to me, so if there's ever another free gelato event there, I'll be sure to try one of those. It was probably the most hipster gelateria on the planet, and I mean this in a good way. The flavors were all labeled with Scrabble letters, the menu was written in beautiful penmanship in chalk above a large doorway (seriously, it puts Aubrey and Mackie's craftiness to shame), and all the chairs were different shapes and sizes and colors. Super cool. I wish I had taken pictures, but the people who worked there were also super cool-looking, so I didn't want to embarrass myself by acting un-cool.

Our City of Rome class was very history-centric, which I loved. It was like taking AP World History and the World History course I took my freshman year of college all over again, except with a few new things here and there. That might sound like a negative description, but I actually love world history. At the end of class, she prepped us for our next class, on Wednesday, when we'll be watching a movie about Caravaggio. I'm intrigued--definitely looking forward to it.

Later in the evening, I got in a good Skype session with the birthday boy, Will, and the early birthday girl, Aubrey. If I didn't have so many fun things to do here, I would definitely wish I was still living with them like I did this past summer.

Katie and I decided to try the restaurant across the street from school, called Ai Villini, which allegedly takes meal tickets and wasn't open when we first got here (Europe in August problems). First of all, we were weirdly starving much earlier than we usually get hungry (I think the daytime gelato wasn't the best choice), so we tried to go just after seven. Of course, we were told they wouldn't be open until 7:30, so we went on a walk around the neighborhood for a little while.

Finally seated, and sufficiently hungry, we ordered some pasta and wine. It was probably the first time we've ever finished our food at the same time (she's a very fast eater, and I'm a very slow eater), and it was honestly probably the first time I've ever finished a bowl of spaghetti. It was THAT good, and I was THAT hungry. Katie had also been saying she wanted to try tiramisu at some point, and the menu claimed that their tiramisu is "World-reknowned" (yes, spelled like that), so we couldn't resist. And thank GOD we didn't! It was one of the best desserts I've ever had in my life, and I don't even really like the taste of coffee. It was the perfect texture, and just so satisfying. We are definitely going back.

The only problem was that they apparently only take meal tickets at lunchtime, contrary to what the meal ticket map we were given says. We couldn't be mad, though, because it was maybe one of the best meals we've had thus far.

So not a super-duper exciting day or anything, but I think we needed some chill time after that weekend.