5-16-06

I didn’t really know where I was going. Nor did I know what time I was supposed to be there. And for some reason, I had been appointed our group leader. We headed out from our apartment towards a great parking garage, which turned out to be half of our local grocery store. That is, the parking lot is as big as the grocery store it was meant to service. We walked past this, hoping to find the road we had come in on, Viale di Trastevere. Fortunately we did find this road, and I was able to puzzle out that if we followed it we would cross the river, and after that it would not be too far to the Sede. Unfortunately I missed the road the Sede was on, went too far, and got a little lost. Fortunately I turned down a side street next to the Banca Roma and found Mike, our group leader, standing in front of the Sede. Unfortunately Mike told us that we were late and gave us slightly bad directions to the room where orientation was to be held. He told us it was the open door on our left, after the library. In fact it was the second open door on our left after the library. I’m not real sure why Fish are so significant and applicable to study abroad, but Romalo kept coming back to them in his orientation lecture. Personally I would have said something along the lines of “you aren’t aware that you are in air until you enter water” or “you aren’t aware that you’re in an English speaking country until you enter one that is not.” After this I went to get some coffee with two of our TA’s, and was very impressed with Mike’s interest in what I had been studying. I has been afraid that I would be the sole rhetoric nerd in a group of party-hardy undergrads set lose on Rome, and Mike helped to quell my fears. I don’t remember much after orientation. My notes sort of trail off in my journal, I think I fell asleep while writing.