6:30 AM
It smells cold, the distinct scent of sterilized air. But it feels only cool. The windows in my Roman apartment room are open. It’s quieter out in the city now than it was in the evening.
I’m having trouble sleeping.
The apartment is nice. It reminds me of Puerto Rico with its European accents: high ceilings, tiled floors, windows that open in or in-and-up, a gas stove, heavy wooden doors that lack using, antique-looking keys, wardrobes, balconies, and toilets that flush by pushing a button in the wall.
The weather is beautiful. It gets only hot in midday, and then it is bearable. There’s no air conditioning, so we leave windows and doors open, and it’s just as good.
Rome is like a regular city: like Boston with its winding and one-way roads, like Chicago (outer) at some points, especially near vegetation, not at all like New York City. It’s far more comfortable than New York.
John Cabot University is in Trastevere, an area which reminds one of all the cliché images of Italy, with narrow cobblestone streets and high shuttered windows--similar to Spanish or Mexican traditional housing but distinctly Italian.
They drive only mopeds and itty-bitty cars. Otherwise, they walk or take the bus or metro.
My roommate, K., and I got lost on the way home the other day. We asked an old Italian grandmother for help. She knew a few words of English, but she was very kind. She touched our hair and asked us our names, excited, perhaps, to be speaking to Americans.
