Ciao everyone!
I feel like I have been waiting for this trip for what seems like forever, and I still cannot believe it is finally here. We arrived on Tuesday, and after some initial orientations and tours, we are finally all settled in.
This past weekend my friends and I decided to try and get ahead on a class assignment – a scavenger hunt around Rome. On Saturday morning, we all boarded a train from Albano to Rome and decided to spend the night in the city, since we had never been. Little did we know, this class assignment would be so much harder than we expected. We were in a city we had never been to, with no GPS, and little to no knowledge of the Italian language. We were really pushed out of our comfort zone and were forced to lean on many kind locals for directions. Needless to say, by the end of the day I perfected the phrase “Scusi. Dov’è il ___?”, which means “Excuse me. Where is the ___?”. Our day started off interesting when we were in search of our first stop, the Palazzo Chigi, and found ourselves lost in a park for an hour and a half having no idea where we were in regards to the city. After eventually finding our way out, we were on a roll, finding stop after stop, until we were in search of Trajan’s Market. We couldn’t find it anywhere, so we stopped to ask for directions from a tour guide. Turns out, we were standing right next to it and he sent us an hour in the wrong direction. As expected, we were upset to find that out, but every single one of us stayed positive the entire day. My group decided to do the whole scavenger hunt on foot, since using the public transportation was intimidating to us. So 7 hours, 40,000 steps, and 16 miles later, we finally finished. After one of the most exhausting days of our lives, we headed to the place we were staying for the night – a hostel right next to Vatican City. It was definitely not what we expected when we learned that we were rooming with an Argentinian guy named Gus, who ended up being very nice. On top of that, when my friend Hailey sat down on her bed it collapsed underneath her. However, we decided to laugh about it and make the best out of the entire day. All in all, the weekend was definitely a learning experience that we will all look back on with humor and fondness.
If the rest of the semester is anything like the first week was, I am confident this will be the best semester of my life. I am so excited to see what it has in store for me!
Ciao,
Megan Healy

THIS JUST IN: Megan Healy and Ali Klebous take the gold in the chariot race!!! My friend Ali and I pretended to be a chariot at one of our scavenger hunt stops: the Circus Maximus. This is where the old chariot races used to take place.