OMG I'M IN ROME!!!

Ciao from Roma! Yesterday, after a grueling hour and a half delay and an 8 and half hour flight, I arrived in Rome at around 10:30 am. After skipping customs (don't know how that happened) and being ushered onto a bus by a skinny Italian man, we arrived at our apartments. Everything is very close together, all the buildings are different colors, and there are tiny cars and motorini everywhere. The Notre Dame group was divided into apartments of 4, 5, and 6 people. I'm in an apartments meant for 7, but there are only 6 of us living here, so we have some extra room. The apartment is pretty big, especially considering I would be living in a shoebox sized dorm room if I were at ND. We have 4 bedrooms (3 doubles and a single), two bathrooms, a kitchen, and two sitting rooms. The bedroom I'm in has a door leading out to a balcony. There's not a fantastic view (I can see some trees and another apartment) but its nice to keep the door open at night since its incredibly hot (though, keeping the door open also brings in a lot of noise from the street, but I guess its kind of fun to hear some Italian men fighting at 3 in the morning). Yesterday, a group of us walked to John Cabot University and to get there, we had to walk through St. Peter's Square. It was so incredible! Once I walked into the square, I really felt like I was in Rome.
Later in the evening, we got some gelato, which was so delicious. However, I was not so successful at ordering the gelato, since I kept stumbling over the pronunciation of Italian words, causing the gelato guys to laugh at me and respond in perfect English. Oh well, I'll eventually get the hang of it. Right now, I'm practicing my Italian by watching Italian "JAG". I don't think it's helping.
Today, a few of us went to the market to stock up on groceries. The market is the coolest place ever. Everything is very colorful and fresh and it just looks so healthy. We got the biggest grapes ever and some fresh bread and eggs and all sorts of things. The meat is displayed quite grotesquely, however, as we saw some whole pigs and cow heads. One of the stand owners was trying to convince me to buy some of his produce and handed me a fig, saying "Mangia! Mangia!" It was the sweetest fig ever and so delicious, so I bought some peaches (I accidentally called them "fish" causing a bit of confusion, since the word for fish is "pesci" and the word for peaches is "pesce"). Figuring out the amounts to buy, especially for meats and cheeses, is a bit difficult, but everyone was very nice to us, though the egg man may have overcharged us.
We went to the grocery store as well, where we got basic things like cereal and salt and yogurt. I was surprised to find a lot of the brands we have in America and some of the foods even had the "Weight Watchers" label and points on them. After grocery shopping, we got a cappuccino and drank it "al bar" (standing at the bar as opposed to being charged for sitting at a table). My mom's fear was that I would never come home from Italy, and after that cappuccino, that might happen, because I cannot imagine ever drinking an American Starbucks coffee ever again. I think I could probably only drink cappuccino for the next 4 months and be perfectly happy. We did get some catcalls during our walk around Trastevere, but they were more funny than offensive. We got a lot of "Ciao baby! I love you!" which sounds hilarious in the Italian accent, as the word "baby" is over-pronounced. I think I saw Danny DeVito in the market. Well, it wasn't really him, but there was a really short, stout, older Italian guy. Time for orientation activities! Ciao!