Classes Week Two= I like Roma

Today was the first day of my second week of classes. On Monday I don't have class until noon, and as such had plans for my morning. Becca and I were going to wake up early and go grocery shopping, and then I was going to call ryanair and get to the bottom of my flight booking troubles. It is Monday, and so Becca and I decided to sleep in, rather than get out of bed for something so trivial as food, typical college student decision. I actually woke up around ten o'clock and decided that dealing with airline drama in my groggy state was not a good idea. Instead I ate my breakfast, prepared for the day, and went to school early to read for my opera class. I then attended my opera class (which is awesome) where we were informed of the required opera performance dates. The first one falls on midterm week, the week that Stu will be hear to visit. My Professor told us we could bring guests, we just need to pay for the ticket, and sign them up. In addition to seeing a genuine Italian opera, Mefistophele, (that's rarely performed I might add)he is flying in on the day that my Modern Tribes of Rome class takes a tour of the Jewish Ghetto, and I'm allowed to bring him along then too. So he's getting to enjoy about a third of my class field trips with me, pretty cool. We also got our two opera CDs today, I'm pretty excited to listen to them, we'll see how my roommates feel about it, I definitely did not bring headphones. Next was Art Gallery Management, where we covered the assignment for next week for almost an hour, and we had an assignment sheet. It amazes me how many questions people can ask when the information is right in front of them. Our assignment is to follow a specific artists work in the Christies auction on Wednesday. Our professor will be there, buying work for her art gallery. I know its only the second week of class, but I'm starting to realize that this is going to be a pretty stress free semester, which is a wonderful change of dynamic. I do enjoy a slower paced life every once in a while. Class was finished at five o'clock, and I walked home, dropped off my school stuff, and went to do the grocery shopping I neglected this morning. I needed milk, bread, and sandwich meat. I just looked up this sandwich meat, mortadella, and it turns out it is a type of pork sausage with pork fat, black pepper and nutmeg. It tastes pretty good grilled with swiss cheese. I also bought a sweet spread, that seems to be half chocolate and half vanilla, and is a little thicker consistency than peanut butter, but very tasty. Once home I made myself a piece of chocolate vanilla spread on bread, and went online to find ryanair's customer service line. Turns out it costs nearly a euro a minute to talk to a representative, so I decided to give it another go online. Lo and behold I was able to sort things out. I checked my reservation for my original flight which I thought I booked four of, and it no longer existed, presumably due to the fact that I changed it last night. So I booked the rest of my flights, and my total ended up being two hundred and forty dollars, about fifty more than it probably had to be, but not a bad price for visiting Dublin, London, Glasgow, and Milan. I also did laundry tonight, I managed to fit two shirts, four pairs of underwear, and seven pairs of socks in the washer, it's pretty small. I've spent the remainder of the evening working on homework, and talking to Johnathon on msn. He's out of school early due to bad weather, and its just brisk enough for me to need my leather jacket here. I've also been battling my internet connection lately, its been pretty shady, but works well enough for me to get what I need done. Although it's annoying no end to be cut out of a conversation four or five times. But, I'm appreciative of the fact that we even have wireless internet, and all our other technological amenities; makes keeping in touch with home much easier. One of many things I'm thankful for over here in Roma.