What Is School?

Ciao Stranger,

I'm not sure if you know this, but I came to Rome for one purpose: to study in a foreign school where I can enrich/broaden my perspective as a student and acquire knowledge from a different academia.
Ha, let's be realistic now. Who goes on exchange for the education? Ciao Parties!

But since I've been in Rome for 3 weeks now, I suppose I should dedicate at least one post to my new school. LUISS is a private university in the heart of Rome with around 7000 students. It's got 3 campuses (I haven't been inside the other two since all my classes are in the main campus) and it's about a 30-45 min commute for me, so not too bad at all. Even though this is the second week of class, I'm still not sure what classes I'm taking..heh heh. It's not my fault, the class times are all jumbled and it's all very confusing! I signed up for classes at 5 AM last week with no sleep the previous night and it was done through my cellphone so really, I was asking for trouble...oops. I will figure it out, another day. Wow, look at me, learning to live life the Italian way already ;) Enough about my incompetences, back to the school. Here's a picture of the campus.

Pretty ain't it? It's completely gated with guards (who carry guns) and is across the street from the main police building so you definitely feel safe. Once you step inside the campus you can tell a world of difference: there's no litter or graffiti anywhere and everyone is dressed up. Girls carry name brand bags and guys wear dress shirts: I approve. An automatic +5 points for all the guys. Now why can't the rest of the world be like this as well? This campus only has one building, the one you see in the picture above, and it's about the size of Sauder (so decently sized but about 1/100 the size of UBC). A picture of what one of the lecture rooms looks like. It used to be a church, pretty bad ass isn't it? Yeah, I know you be jelly. Except according to Paolo, the room echoes too much so you can't ever whisper to that hot chick/dude sitting beside you. Bummer.

I don't mind the size of the school because it kind of feels like I'm back in high school. Everyone goes to their class, then at lunch we all head down to the cafeteria like a herd of cows and eat together. Food at the cafeteria is molto cheap.You get a bread/fruit/pasta/veggie/meat/drink for 3.20 euros (regularly 8 euros for locals). But so far, I've only been getting the salads because I feel as though I've been slightly deprived of my greens since I've been in Rome. It's my small attempt at trying to be healthy. Plus it's 2 Euros for a huge bowl of delicious giraffe food, so how could I say no? 

                         

Overall, I'm enjoying the school so far (even though I try to spend as few hours there as possible) and will see how things play out. I should probably figure out my timetable soon, especially since I might be missing all of next week's classes...did I mention I'm an exchange student? 

Alright, so the following is from last Thursday afternoon when I decided to go to the National Museum of Rome. It doesn't deserve its own post so I will attach it here. I missed my morning class and felt guilty so to make up for it, I decided not to waste another minute in this magical city and ran out the door. Thank you Rick Steves for touring me around Rome in my purse (best present Steven). I got to see tons of sculptures up close. The heads somehow all got their noses broken so they looked like Voldemort to me, bleh. 

                                     

Even the sphinx's nose is broken? Did someone go around ancient Rome breaking noses off sculptures as a joke? Maybe the "I got your nose" prank started in the Roman times...

                  

I think I would've loved and appreciated this place a lot more if I was an artist. This is the best preserved Roman copy of the Greek Discus Thrower. What? You don't care? How dare you, because neither do I. 

                 

Alright, you have to admit though, this is pretty mesmerizing. Look at that intricate 3-D artwork. You can see the expressions on each figure and they look like they're about to jump out of the wall and attack me. I applaud you unknown sculpture, a job well done. This is much more impressive in person.

The museum also contains the biggest coin collection in Europe. It was in the basement inside one of those intense bank doors so you know you're looking at valuable stuff. There were cabinets and cabinets filled with ancient coins dating back to when we used rocks as money and no one else was down there so I flapped my arms around and pretended I owned the place. After the museum I did what I do best in this city: wandering around aimlessly. As I was strolling along on the side walk doing some window shopping on a busy street, I turned to my right and saw this, a worn-out building that stuck out like it was misplaced there by a time machine. Of course I couldn't miss the opportunity and went inside to find out what it was. It was a church of course, what else could it have been. But all jokes aside, this is one of the reasons why I love this city so much. You will never run out of things to see and there's hidden surprises at every corner, you just have to find it yourself.