Day 1

I really don't know why some people prefer the journey over the destination. My journey to Rome last night/this morning/whatever was really not very fun at all. To start, it took well over an hour to get to the airport all because of traffic (classic New York), and then Terminal 4 at JFK was ridiculously crunk. So many non-Americans kept trying to put full bottles of water and hidden laptops through security. Amateurs! Just kidding. Sort of.

Then, however, I was reunited with Katie, which was super exciting. I gave her her lovely birthday gift of a somewhat inappropriate Monopoly-themed card, a lime green fanny pack with the word "PARTY" on it, an American flag bracelet to match mine and the one I gave Anarita, and a pair of Alex & Ani compass earrings (because she's a major world traveler now like me).

The other two good things that happened were: A) Katie and I got to sit in our own little row together, and B) The selection of movies and TV shows to watch on the plane was EXCELLENT. Mad props to Delta. I was torn between such classics as Gone with the Wind, The Pianist, and even Mulan, but as soon as I saw Walk the Line, I realized it was the obvious choice. I just wish Dallas had been there to watch it with me! And then, of course, in typical Aimée fashion, I watched an episode of Frasier.

Other than that, the flight sucked. I couldn't keep down any food (got sick 3 times...one of which was post-landing), we had turbulence almost the entire time, and the two Dramamines I popped barely did anything to help me sleep.

But alas, we made it safely to Rome, and had a nice little drive to the St. John's campus. We did get ripped off by the taxi driver, but I stole his water bottles, so whatever. We also saw some pretty cool views of St. Peter's on the way in, so that was cool.

I'm pretty confident the St. John's Rome campus is just this one building with like this cool little courtyard thing, but we haven't quite figured it out yet. We did, however, walk around the neighborhood quite a bit and found a good grocery store to buy toiletries at that wasn't named on the school's suggested list of places to go in the area. We're proud of ourselves.

I've already busted out a couple Italian words in public: si, grazie, prego, and ciao. So nothing special. But still, kind of exciting in a lame way. I'm actually really hoping I'll be able to use my two semesters of KILLING IT in Latin to translate some inscriptions and stuff. I've already been fangirling over the streets named after Julius Caesar, Octavius Caesar, and Marc Antony (where campus is!) because I'm lame, so just wait until I go to the Roman Forum again.

After relaxing some in the afternoon, we went and ate the free pizza that was provided to all us students down in the campus courtyard. The pizza was all right...I'll definitely be having much better Italian pizza soon though, mark my words. I then suggested that we go on a nice evening stroll, which was easily the best decision ever. The weather was perfect, there weren't too many people out, and we got to see several of Rome's famous structures up close, including the Castel Sant'Angelo and St. Peter's Basilica. Katie got to knock out two new countries in one day!

We also began photographing our "travel mascots" with beautiful Roman scenery. My travel mascot is Gumby, and Katie's is some little Cubs player stuffed thing named Nub. (See pictures below, and excuse them if they're blurry or horrible).

Gumby wanted to get blessed by Papa Francesco.

On the way back to campus, we stopped and had some gelato--she got pistachio, and I got my classic stracciatella. I'd consider it decent gelato; we'll definitely have to hit up one of the better places soon.

All in all, it's been a good first day in Rome. But I expected nothing less! Amo Romam (<--that's Latin).