Goodnight from Rome #HogsAbroad

Well, we are alive and well in our apartment in Trastevere. After a long day full of travel, I can barely use the energy I have left to write this blog post. But, there is so much to share.

We departed from XNA at 12:20 Arkansas time and headed for Chicago. I traveled with about 10 other University of Arkansas students, so that helped calm my nerves. Upon arrival in Chicago, we wandered around the airport to our gate and found a bite to eat (I got a Chicago style hot dog, of course). We called ourselves the K12 gang because that was the number of our gate from Chicago. So thanks K12 gang for making me less nervous about international travel.

Flight to Chicago O'Hare

We left Chicago at 4:50 Arkansas time. The flight from Chicago to Rome was 9 long gruesome hours and because of the awkward timing I wasn't able to sleep very well. I did have an open seat next to me which was nice. My monitor in front of me didn't work except for Disney channel, but I can't complain. Traveling 600 miles per hour 39,000 feet in the air was cool enough. Due to time differences, when we left Chicago at 4:50 in the afternoon Arkansas time it was 11:50 at night in Rome. This meant we arrived in Rome at 8:45 in the morning, thus losing a whole night's sleep.

In baggage claim a seemingly impossible thing took place. A man from St. Paul, MN was wearing the same wacky parrot shirt as I was (picture below). We laughed pretty hard and took a cheesy picture.

Two mighty fine looking men in their parrot shirts

 We boarded a bus and went to the center of town. After getting settled in at the apartment and getting oriented we all crashed for two hours then went to dinner with the group. We ate and ate and ate and then some. I counted 10 different dishes, distributed among appetizers, main courses, and desserts. Afterwards, we walked around and captured this picture of the dome at St. Peter's at sunset with Ponte Sisto in the foreground. It was breathtaking.

Here are two pictures of our street. We came home from our walk and found our street alive and busy with dinner guests and tourists. We are in the center of the night-life and I couldn't be more pleased.

This post should catch you up on all that has happened in the last 36 hours. Stay tuned for more. On the agenda this week is the Vatican, St. Peter's, Colosseum, Roman Forum, Hadrian's Villa, and I'm sure the occasional funny story.

Until next time,
Jacob
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Read more from Jacob at http://ablogaboutrome.blogspot.it/
For more on the U of A Rome Center: Summer Campus, check out http://studyabroad.uark.edu/romecampus