Brent Poling ’16 – Just had a wonderful first day in Rome!! So far I have been up for about 32 hours straight with the plane ride over here and being super busy the entire day. The trip from the airport to the hotel was a very interesting one to say the least. The people here are very busy and seem to get mad very easily at Americans. But once we were able to get to the hotel we took a long break before exploring some of the city.
The first day here we were able to see many small temples, a few churches, and even many ancient monuments. My favorites so far were the Column of Trajan, the Pantheon, and the Roman Forum. We spent a few hours scouring the city getting to see many of the major historical monuments from at least a close distance. I am very excited to be able to get to go see each of them up close when we go into more depth with the individual structures.
The last thing we did was got some pizza for dinner. The cuisine here is different from America, it seems to be that every meal you have has at least two courses. Also, there were many small shops scattered around the town that you could just walk up into to get coffee or gelato. It was very hard to get used to the differences of the city as a whole, but it is one of the most extraordinary experiences I have ever had.
