I can’t believe I’m past the halfway point here in Rome. Every day is packed to the brim with classes, museum visits, yummy food, and exploring the city.

Life here in Rome is a much different pace than back in the United States. To start, I walk so much more than I do. I love how walkable the city is and how wherever you go you run into a piece of history. Since I am learning Italian, I try to speak with the locals wherever I go. Everyone is so welcoming and happy to help me improve my speaking skills. While here, I am living in the moment so much more frequently than at home. From four-hour-long dinners to my walk to the grocery store, I feel that I have the time to truly take in each second of every day. The hardest thing for me to adjust to was that Italians typically eat dinner around 8 or 9 PM at night.

A typical day for me starts by grabbing a cappuccino and cornetto with my roommates before class. After our breakfast, we head to our two classes for the day: Modern Italy and History and Ethics of Collecting. In between the two classes, I grab a panino as lunch. If our second class is a site visit our entire class jumps on a bus to visit a museum with our professor. After classes are done for the day, our class finds a spot to get aperitivo and dinner together. Here meals are much longer and a bigger deal than back in America. We sit for hours with great food and even better company. Finally, I end the night with a gelato run ( getting my favorite combo: stracciatella and lemon) and finishing up my class readings for the next day. Though my days are packed, I love to fit in exploring the city in any free time that I may have. There is so much to see in Rome and I hope to experience as much of it as I possibly can.