Hi guys! For those of you that don’t know me, my names Haley. In the fall I will be a senior (seriously) at Penn State. I currently have dual majors in Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies (CAMS) and History, and I’m on the study tour of Rome with the CAMS/HIST departments. Basically what that means is that for two and a half very very short weeks, I get to run around the city of Rome looking at ancient ruins, ornate churches, and cats. Yes, cats. 

Let me just start by saying that this trip is an absolute dream come true. So much so that I still wake up in the middle of the night and have to tell myself I’m not dreaming. Sometimes I just wake up in the middle of the night because after four days, I haven’t totally adjusted to the nonsense of the 6 hour time shift. For some reason, my body just struggles with this. 

I’m from Western PA, so I flew out of Pittsburgh to my connection in Washington, D.C. And that’s where my adventure began. My flight from Pittsburgh to Washington wasn’t long. However, I was on a plane about the size of a paper plane. It was three tiny seats across and my 5’4″ self was feeling pretty claustrophobic on the way to my seat… To me, this was hilarious considering the flight I was boarding Washington. The best part about my layover? Laughing a little (or a lot) harder than I should have at the man that walked into the women’s restroom as four very confused women made faces at him. His got the whole way in before realizing that he shouldn’t be there. 

I got a lot of inconsistent advice about jet lag and what I should and shouldn’t do: sleep or not sleep what I landed in Rome. One thing remained the same: sleep on the plane. But who does that?? Needless to say, I and the girl across the isle from me (coming from Las Vegas so her jet lag had to be awful..) traveling to Italy for a separate program. Either way. We were both wide awake for the 8 hour and 20 minute overnight flight to Rome. Overall, pretty uneventful. Until I got into a cab to get to the hotel with a few people from our group.. It turns out the very Italian cab driver was a HUGE Steelers fan. So the trip to the hotel consisted for a while of him talking about his admiration for Ben Rothlisberger. No joke. 

Lesson learned on the way to hotel as I’d been awake for nearly 24 hours? Italians are insane drivers. Mostly because they seem to think that driving backwards is the way to go, all traffic markers are optional, and two lane streets are double the challenge. To them, it’s quadruple the fun.