Well I'm finally here almost a full week since I left Austin. Mike, his parents and I drove to Chicago early Wednesday morning (which is possibly the most boring drive, except for the Wendy's truck stop that has showers in it, that was pretty legit). We spent the night in a hotel by the airport and attempted to pull an all nighter so we could fall asleep and stay asleep on the plane last night, but with the sleep number beds and major headache I had, I fell asleep at midnight. Mike was supposed to wake me up at 4, but when I woke up on my own at 3, he was passed out in the next room. So much for the King of All Nighters. I ended up getting a full night of sleep, which made me nervous for the 8 hour flight I had ahead of me. We took off at 345 pm central time, and landed at 8 am Rome time (1 am central time) Luckily I took some benadryl my mom gave me, had a glass of wine with an airplane dinner and got about 3 or 4 hours  of interrupted sleep. It took about 2 and a half hours to get everyones luggage and load up on the charter buses that were taking us to the Center. We finally were done with paper work and meetings at around 6 last night, and a couple of us went into the city by bus for dinner and to explore.

We took the bus to the last stop which drops you off in the center. I was told to get off the main streets and go down alleys and find little restaurants hidden so we could avoid the tourist places and find a real-cooked by mom and papa- meal but our group was hungry and we ended up in the epitome of a tourist restaurant. Everything on the menu had the english translation and they played John Mayer, Owl City, and other number one American hits. It felt like Olive Garden. We were also about 2 hours early for dinner, since most Italians don't eat till 8:30 or 9. The only other people that came in were American students too. Luckily the food was good, so after that little side trip we tried to see the real Rome, we wandered around and ended up on the Spanish Steps. (pictures to come) It was gorgeous to see the view of the city from the top, and we could make out the Vatican from far away. We were hassled a couple times by guys selling flowers; they would come up to the girls and press the flowers on us saying it was a gift and pressuring us till you had to take it, and then they would wait a few seconds and go after the guys demanding money. Twice we had to take the flowers, and twice we had to lay them on the floor so they would take them and stop bugging the guys.
We called it a semi early night since we had basically been up for over 24 hours and came back around 10:30.

Luckily I haven't felt jet lagged at all, and woke up relatively easy today. We did more paperwork and meetings and had a walking tour of the neighbor we live in. It's not exactly what I was expecting but its still really beautiful. It's like the city, apartments stacked and pressed up against each other, tiny cars parked anywhere they can squeeze in. And mopeds squeezed in any remaining spaces and on the sidewalk. The stores are underneath apartments and very open. It's beyond busy, but you can still see the community side of it.

Tonight we're going to go farther into the neighborhood around us and try some bars and pubs. We're leaving at 8 am to go to Assisi for two days. I'll update then and hopefully put up some pictures.
Ciao!